Jul
7th
2016
Points of Canon: S5x23 - The Hooffelds and McColts · 10:23am Jul 7th, 2016
Brain malfunctioned while writing. Time for another retrospective.
- A large number of Fluttershy’s animals can read, sufficient to form a “Furry Friends Book Club.”
- “Wuthering Hooves” is a book. While I’m sure that the scriptwriter(s) did not actually bother to consider the existence of a pony equivalent of “Wuthering Heights,” and only meant to provide an example of a boring classic, should they be in any way similar, this would imply a rather particular environment existed in Equestria some 100-200 years ago. You know, “The action is laid in hell, – only it seems places and people have English names there.” Since Fluttershy sets the topic of the meeting as “Let’s discuss the theme of nature as it applies to Hoofcliff’s love,” it implies at leas the character names will match. As A Hearth’s Warming Tail demonstrates, pony equivalents of human stories are typically gentler, but who knows…
- Book club attendees include a goat and a pig. While previously, we saw non-talking but obviously reasonably sapient goats in Iron Will’s crew, pigs reading is new, even though the pig is holding the book upside down.
- Fluttershy feels better going on a Cutie Map mission with a friend. But so far, there were no on-screen precedents of a solo cutie map mission, so there would be very little reason to expect one…
- Twilight has clearly developed some sort of mathematical syntax for solving friendship problems by this point.
- This is one of the rare cases where Twilight uses the balloon for transport. You know, I’m still wondering who actually owns the thing.
- It remains unclear what the Hooffelds are actually using to propel their pumpkins out of the cannon.
- Both Hooffelds and McColts belong to very rare families who use a repeated name component. I have previously mentioned that this appears to be a sign of a conservative family, and both of these seem to confirm it.
- Almost all of the locals appear to be wearing clothes, which implies it gets pretty cold out there.
- A family of mice lives in a pumpkin. Last I checked mice don’t usually do that…
- It’s interesting that Hooffelds appear not to notice that Twilight is an alicorn princess at all, but McColts do.
- Big Daddy McColt shouts so loud that he topples a (very badly built) building a few hundred meters away. Obviously an application of Earth Pony magic, that.
- Big Daddy McColt reports importing food, which means they’re in contact with some other pony settlement somewhere. Which makes it rather odd that they still don’t know about the fourth alicorn princess.
- Twilight knows a voice amplification spell. Since this sort of thing seems both exceedingly useful and simple, it is probably a common spell she learned a long time ago.
- Getting a princess involved in a food fight settles there are probably no lese majeste laws in Equestria, if only because neither side seems worried to have broken them.
- Big Daddy McColt is hardcore enough to hammer nails into wood with his bare hooves. It’s interesting that Big Mac typically uses a hammer.
- While Hooffields use a wooden cannon to launch their projectiles, McColts have a set of metal cannons which they don’t seem to actually use until Ma Hooffield actually approaches the walls.
- Twilight has a mass paralysis spell, and that one is probably something only a few regular unicorns can do, seeing as how she is having problems keeping everyone frozen. Twilight’s line “It’s a lot harder to freeze an army of ponies than just six of them!” implies she used it before in Fluttershy’s presence, but I wonder who the six were.
- Fluttershy’s story dates the original settlement of the valley and the start of the feud to at least four generations ago, since neither the principal actors of this story are around, and either family includes three apparent generations. It’s a wonder neither of the families escalated to actual weapons throughout this feud. It’s also a wonder where the requisite spouses came from and how they took to the feud… Something tells me this isn’t the first time the feud flared up and was eventually settled peacefully.
- Twilight says “We’ve all been called by the map, now,” implies that this marks the moment when all of the Mane 6 received at least one mission from the Cutie Map. It does not exactly settle that all the Map missions happened on screen, as Fluttershy’s statement early in the episode suggests there could be some solo missions, but limits the possible positions of this mission in the timeline.
- Twilight mentions quantum physics. Ponies know quantum physics!
Lots of interesting unexpected implications in this one.
To be fair, it's Fluttershy, one of the most anxious members of the Mane Six, easily capable of thinking up horrible situations on a minimal factual basis. With something as poorly understood as the Cutie Map, I could definitely see the idea of solo missions keeping her up at night.
Twilight's referencing "Castle-Mania," where she used the same spell to calm her friends down. However, there is a bit of a flub there; she only paralyzed four ponies, since Pinkie was still at the organ.
And yeah, the quantum physics line was quite surprising.
4074700
Point taken, though it's more about whether a particular story needs a lost solo Map mission or not.
Unless there is a lost adventure inbetween where she used it on six victims. :)
Intriguing as always and the quantum physics line I recall being very intrigued by.
How you can have Manehatten, with telephones and modern suspension bridges, in the same country as this settlement and the Hayseed Swamps baffles me. It definitely supports the idea that Celestia and the central government are very "hands off," since I suspect Equestria has a GINI coefficient higher than Brazil.
I wonder if Manehatten, Fillydelphia and Baltimare have ever considered seceeding from the rest of Equestria. Assuming the latter two cities are at the same level of development as Manehatten, they must represent 80% of the wealth and 90% of the industrial capacity, but they are dictated to by this archaic little mountain town, because that happens to be where the mare who raises the sun lives.
4076618
I suspect the reason is simple: Fillydelphia's infestation incident actually required Celestia's involvement to solve. Industrial capacity and wealth aren't everything. :)
4076962 That's a fair point, I had forgotten about that. And I like I said earlier, it doesn't seem like Canterlot imposes much in the way of a strong central government anyway.
Or, Fluttershy likes to play with her animals, like a girl having tea with her dog. No proof the animals could read IIRC.
4086736
Well, I have my doubts about the pig, but others, I think it's more likely they could, because later on, Fluttershy addresses the animals in the valley with "How do you feel about book clubs?" Assuming they can understand pony speech at all, and with the way Rainbow Dash addresses every prospective pet in May the Best Pet Win, we have to assume they do, it would look very silly to completely unfamiliar animals if Fluttershy asked them about something they could not possibly participate in.
But yes, it's iffy as hell.
There are numerous sizes of books available. Every animal has a book available.
As Fluttershy is the only known animal caretaker of Ponyville[no "animals care for themselves" here] As the animals are generally hers, she must have quite some money to buy enough books, in different print sizes for all of them to have a book club.Fluttershy's fears do not require precedent, only reasonably-close variants that might be extrapolated to: lethally-threatening monsters have come upon her unexpectedly [the Hydra in Froggy-Bottom Bog seems like the best pick here].
Differing numbers of cutie marks had been seen as possible for a call; I don't remember any three-mark shots, but two and six do, so it's reasonable to guess that there might be a one-mark journey possible.
4074700 's "minimal factual basis"
Stealthy, subtle Cinderella reference?
…you mean, the bit where they flare up and settle down quickly thanks to the animals squabbling at them?