Points of Canon: S5x25-26 - The Cutie Re-Mark · 8:44pm Jun 17th, 2016
I planned to continue writing today, but I can’t seem to get in the mood, and there’s no more pony because hiatus.
But then it occurred to me, that if I ever plan to produce a complete consistent chronology of the primary canon, which is a pie in the sky proposition, but still something I’d rather do, I need to compile a points of canon set of notes for every episode, eventually. (and then bubble sort them) Might as well start right now and go in backwards order whenever I get some time to devote to that.
So, retrospective time!
1. Did someone just decide the name contained implied racism or did something fundamentally change in how the showrunners perceive magic? I wonder… There are no non-unicorns among the lecture attendees later on.
Twilight gives a speech at “Celestia’s School of Magic,” not, as you might expect, the “School for Gifted Unicorns.” There is little reason to believe these are different schools, but I think that’s the episode when it was first referred by this name. The Cutie Mark Chronicles calls it “School for Gifted Unicorns” exactly once and this name is never used again on screen, Twilight uses just “magic school” later on. It’s interesting that Twilight is the only pony to use both names in full, The Crystaling has ponies refer to “Celestia’s magic school” exclusively instead. In Micro-series #8, and in My Little Pony #40 it is called “School for Gifted Unicorns.”1 The whole discontinuity is particularly surprising because My Little Pony #40 shows the exterior of the said school, and it’s definitely the same building as shown on screen, down to the decorative patterns on the roof – I think the comic actually uses the Flash asset itself.
2. In a human world, these would be a 1950s technology, though for reasons of cost, rather than any particular invention – magic lantern in general is very old tech.
Slide projectors exist, not that this would be surprising, since movies were shown previously. The slides used are pretty big, at that. Notice that no automatic slide changer of any kind is employed.2 And this projector isn’t provided by the school, later on, Spike hauls it back home. Without putting the lens cover back on.
- Spike’s spurious slide is a beach photo. Which has interesting connotations – a beach must exist, Spike must have visited it, with someone who would take a photo of him alone. Beaches are mentioned in speech a few times on screen, but the only time a beach of the kind depicted, with palm trees and coconuts – clearly a sea, rather than, say, a lake, which does turn up – ever shows up is in My Little Pony #13. Where Spike doesn’t get to relax much, since he’s busy fawning over Rarity instead.
- As Twilight and Spike embark on their time-hopping adventure, Pinkie comes in with a cake, but noticing nobody’s home she immediately bites half of it off. While Pinkie could party for any number of reasons, for example, the successful completion of Twilight’s lecture probably warrants a moderate one, I can’t quite see why would she decide to immediately destroy the cake if nobody was home.
- Spike actually carried a pair of binoculars with him ever since the beginning of the episode, I wonder why. Beside the script calling for them, I mean.
3. Guess she doesn’t like this book either.
Twilight declares that only Star Swirl ever accomplished time travel, “and even his spell just came back a week,” which means she is either entirely unaware of the time spells mentioned in the Journal or simply forgot about them.3
- While the landing strip is non-permeable, clouds immediately outside it are simple clouds, and Spike immediately falls through when stepping off it. Which makes it clear that pegasi are capable of making clouds support regular objects, as evident from most subsequent pegasi-centric episodes.
4. That’s got to be racist.
It’s interesting that while Twilight notices Fluttershy falling off the cloud and even tries to rush after her, pegasi do not seem to care at all, and neither they did in The Cutie Mark Chronicles.4
- One of the pegasi racers collides with a column set on a cloud and passes through halfway, which knocks him out. Which implies that at least some permanent structures in the pegasi habitat actually are made of cloud, though probably not all.
- The spell Starlight uses on Rainbow Dash is not simple telekinesis, it is accompanied by a beam, which regular levitation does not require.
- Rarity, who failed to get her cutie mark, is shown next to the rock that got blasted apart in the primary timeline. Which clearly separates whatever phenomenon dragged her at least a kilometer away from home, possibly more, from the cutie mark generating phenomenon… I wonder what exactly it was, considering this sort of thing never seems to have happened to anypony else.
- Enough has been said about the actual time travel mechanics in this episode being at least somewhat inconsistent. But Starlight’s “You are about to find out” said to Twilight as she is getting sucked into the vortex implies she is aware of the intricacies from the start.
- In the Sombra’s War timeline, Applejack’s wearing camouflage, and so is Big Mac. Notice that nopony else is, not even the regular troops shown later. But regular troops shown later are a flashback to when the war started, which likely means that camouflage was adopted later in the war.
- It’s interesting that Rarity had to have left for Manehattan earlier than whatever events that depopulated Ponyville (draft?) occurred, but the Boutique is in a better condition than most other houses. In fact, the imagery seems to suggest Ponyville is not just depopulated, but was affected by the tail end of a weapon of mass destruction of some kind – it is not entirely clear whether the Map brought Twilight back to the same time, but if it did, the war with Sombra could not have been going on for more than a year, which is not really enough time for a straw roof to get into that condition.
- Rainbow Dash’s helmet has obvious Wonderbolt insignia on it, and so do the helmets of all the pegasi in the squad shown. Let’s also not forget her prosthetic wing, which permits her to remain a very capable flier. There is a notable absence of firearms in the scene shown, for obvious reasons, but I imagine it is best explained as happening relatively early in the war, and possibly, by being a surprise battle. This interpretation, however, excludes Rainbow’s wing from being a wartime technology, and implies ponies are capable of building those in the primary timeline as well.
- Upon return to the Rainboom, Starlight encases Twilight and Spike in a crystal. It’s notable that unlike Spike sans crystal, it doesn’t fall through the cloud immediately. The rules it appears to obey are pretty odd…
- Starlight obviously has a cloudwalking spell cast on herself in addition to just flying by telekinesis with impunity.
- In the Changeling timeline, the Map is not positioned next to the lake with waterfall that the castle stands next to both in the prime timeline and in the Sombra’s War timeline. If something had caused the Everfree to grow out and cover Ponyville in the space of 10-15 years, Fluttershy and Pinkie probably would not be present, which means that the Map sometimes maintains the same geospatial coordinates and sometimes doesn’t. Smart little thing.
- Zecora’s green paint is used as a changeling detection method, rather than for camouflage. Since Zecora would actually have access to less resources without the pony civilization, rather than more, it implies that it’s possible to produce this paint in the primary timeline as well. Zecora’s “The meaning is far worse, I see, for it is we who should not be” also means that she is aware of the paint’s properties permitting it to detect extemporary objects. Not to mention she’s aware of the possibility of her timeline not being prime and the notion that there is a prime timeline!
- Chrysalis is posing as Applejack in this instance. Which makes it impossible for the changeling transformation to be illusory, since otherwise the size and mass disparity would make her instantly obvious even to Twilight. This is further confirmed when a tiny pegasus child detransforms into a full-size changeling.
- In the Nightmare timeline, the Map reappears in Everfree again, but this time it’s next to the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters / Castle of the Two Sisters – on the side of the ravine opposite it, in fact.
- The restored castle matches its photo in the Journal, with the facade being an almost perfect copy, but behind it, it has taller and more obvious towers. One other notable addition is a telescope building up on a hill.
- Rarity says she believes Twilight to be a tourist, and implies a tourist would normally be permitted to view the castle, which paints a rather odd picture of Nightmare Moon’s rule.
5. It’s interesting that Nightmare Moon herself doesn’t have a brush like that, and her wings are perfectly normal too…
6. Which is why she’s the one showing the most initiative, I presume…The numerous bat-winged ponies in Nightmare Moon’s guard all have slightly different colors and come in at least two sizes. While Rainbow Dash’s hair is cut short and hidden beneath the helmet, her tail has the same color as on every other guard, and so do her bat wings. By the time this episode rolled in, we have already seen Fluttershy adopt bat wings as part of a Nigthmare Night costume in Scare Master. The only interpretation window that permits thestrals to exist as a separate pony race is a little tuft of hair on the end of the ears of every guard except Rainbow Dash, but some sort of more permanent magical transformation is still possible.5 Notice that Fluttershy’s Nightmare Night costume also has those as part of ear attachments, which means that it’s not unlikely Rainbow Dash is just out of uniform.6
7. Could it be that she actually established a permanent solar eclipse over a relatively small area, and left the rest of Equestria entirely to their own devices? It’s possible to do that and still maintain a day/night cycle across most of the world, by moving the sun and moon synchronously on a regular trajectory, maintaining a relatively narrow band of permanent eclipse, it would screw the agriculture, but not destroy plant life entirely. Since it appears to me that Luna was never that interested in other ponies, (See RTAC #10) it may well be that Nightmare Moon isn’t either, and her position on the matter was just ditching the Equestria Accords and maintaining her own toy kingdom.
It has been said numerous times, but – the mechanics by which Nightmare Moon avoided a complete catastrophe for over a year are never even touched upon. It’s also interesting that she chose to restore the castle in Everfree rather than rule from Canterlot.7
- Notably, the moon still has a “mare in the moon,” when in the rest of the series it definitely does not, the shot is very obvious. I.e. Celestia is imprisoned in the moon, not in the sun.
- Nightmare Moon wishes to ensure that the Elements of Harmony are never found. She has to be in their possession already, and it’s not clear how time travel would improve the situation any further. Which implies that she actually doesn’t have them – probably, because someone made off with them. Since Celestia is imprisoned, it can’t have been her. Moreover, Nightmare Moon was capable of banishing Celestia to the moon without the use of the Elements…
- Twilight teleports Spike separately from the chains that bind him, which implies it’s possible to use teleportation for a lot of neat tricks. Later on, Starlight repeats the feat, teleporting the backpack off Spike.
- It remains entirely unclear which particular threat could have caused the Wasteland timeline. But it’s perfectly possible that the Map, which is not limited by position of the castle, as shown above, just chose to drop them into the Badlands this time around… The map still contains geographical features in this timeline, but most of them are less pronounced, and notably, the skull marking Arimaspi territory never shows up.
I still don’t get why didn’t Starlight attempt to make friends with ponies who already had their cutie marks, instead. And one story I would really like to see is the story how Starlight got her own cutie mark, which gives her the only known cutie mark affective spell beside Star Swirl’s mess.
Very interesting points. Especially the stuff I didn't notice on first viewing ^^;
Man, so many good points, I may come back later to this post. Just one of the top of my head: When Rarity says that line about tourists, to me at least it seemed she was being sarcastic, like she didn't really believe tourists would every actually come to the castle.
Another good point of canon we got: It's been argued before that Celestia and Luna are at least roughly equivalent to Discord in power, and they used the Elements of Harmony only to give them an edge. The Discord timeline rather firmly kills that idea. We see both Luna and Celestia still have their horns, but at this point have completely given up the concept of fighting Discord. It does suggest he is another order of magnitude above them in power level.
Going to have to correct you on one point: Rarity didn't break the enormous geode open. The rainboom's shockwave did.
Also, it's interesting—and rather distressing—to note that the Map erodes with every new timeline. The chairs crumble away, the table seems to become lower, the details of the map grow less distinct... It's possible that it was running out of power to do whatever it was doing.
4029358
Notice she didn't try to chase them off or call the guards though.
Well, it was always obvious he's more powerful, but I don't think it invalidates any of my Discord research.
4029363
I never said otherwise. (EDIT: Correction, I did. Sorry. Anyway, that's beside the point.) My point is that something brought Rarity to the geode anyway even though neither the rainboom nor the shockwave happened.
Yes, I kind of missed that. It would probably explain switching from reappearing where the castle was to jumping closer and closer to the origin, i.e. the position of the Tree.
My guess on Rarity's cutie mark would be that it's another example of the inter-timeline phenomena Zecora pointed out. The cutie mark effect brought her to the rock because that's when she would've gotten her cutie mark in the prime timeline, or perhaps because that's just before Starlight (who came from a different timeline and so couldn't be predicted by the cutie mark magic) intervened and kept her from getting it.
Interesting question about the name of Celestia's school. Perhaps the "School for Gifted Unicorns" is one sub-school in "Celestia's School of Magic"? Or maybe, like you suggest, they changed the name - maybe when Luna returned and opened her own School of Magic?
4029462
The easiest way out of this particular difficulty is saying they changed the name sometime recently, but the "why" then becomes a difficulty by itself. There is no canonical indication that Luna opened her own school, and while this is an interesting possibility, it's something you can bet they're going to joss one day.
No idea, to be honest. :)
4029477 Oh yes. I wouldn't say Luna opened a school unless it was a necessary part of whatever story I was writing at the time. I actually like the sub-school idea myself: "Celestia's School for Magic has several colleges: most prominently, the School for Gifted Unicorns, the School for Gifted Earth Ponies, and the School for Gifted Pegusi. There's also the School for Gifted Alicorns, but it's only ever had two students. The School for Gifted Dragons only exists on paper..."
4029383 There's a popular theory that the cutie mark comes around not just when a foal's talent manifests, but when they have some kind of epiphany about what their special talent is. At least for Applejack and Pinkie Pie, seeing the Rainboom triggered that epiphany. Rarity's magical special talent, the gem-finding spell, is clearly working. But perhaps without the epiphany the cutie mark can't actually manifest?
Since we know the girls seemed to end up with the same cutie marks no matter what, presumably Rarity just had a few more uncontrollable magic surges for a few more weeks and months and then finally realized her talent, but at that point she was no longer tied into the special destiny of being an Element Bearer.
4033308
Because there's no automatic slide changer, for example. :)
But in this particular case, the idea of Spike taking a photo of himself without having anyone who would do it for him screams of Twilight being far more neglectful of him than she is typically seen to be. Imagining he did talk someone into taking it for him is much easier.
Zecora's already got at least one timeline-scanning potion. With her being familiar with myths not of her nation being a brevet of her mystical knowledge…
Ponies loving her night, and loving her castle, would seem just fine with her initially stated motives. If they cannot see it, how can they love it? Seems self-consistent to me with her vainglory.
Quite.
4029363
It's Marty's photograph fading out, alternately, its ontological security eroding as Twilight fails at/ despairs of re-staging the proper Rainboom-associated Element-Bearer friendship and all that ensues.
“[Celestia's] School for Gifted Unicorns” losing primacy strikes me more as an issue of X-Men fading out of the public eye.
Random thought: In the so-called Flim & Flam Timeline, the brothers are the ones operating the heavy machinery. How many Evil Overlords or Evil CEO’s operate heavy machinery themselves? I think Flim and Flam are just workers in whatever corrupt corporation has taken over Equestria. High enough that they get to claim this particular machine as their own and slap their portraits on the side, but still not in any sort of management position. Which raises the question of who the CEO is.
4629931
Gladmane, probably.