Points of Canon: Friends Forever #31 · 5:10pm Aug 20th, 2016
This was not the pony I needed, but the pony I deserved.
Yes, I’m going to continue this series until everyone unsubscribes. :)
Mentions of buffalo are very rare since their initial introduction, and this is a buffalo-centric issue, so it offers us valuable secondary canon on how buffalo culture actually works.
- Buffalo are capable of sending up shaped smoke signals. Detailed enough for Rainbow Dash to recognize her cutie mark in the smoke. I am not aware of a physical process one could use to produce that, which implies that buffalo have at least some degree of magic of their own. The buffalo are explicitly soliciting Rainbow’s help.
- The plot of this story centers around anomalous winter befalling Appleloosa. Notably, Rainbow Dash has to be told it’s anomalous, which implies that for her it probably wasn’t. It might even be that when Ponyville has a winter, Appleloosa does not. Further comments regarding spring thaw make me think the winter is primarily anomalously long for Appleloosa, and that would at least settle that Appleloosa has winter with at least occasional snow.
- Buffalo do engage in at least some agriculture themselves. This is precisely why they need the winter to stop. I’m not sure how well this sits with tipis and other trappings of a migratory culture.
- This story is explicitly set after Crusaders of the Lost Mark, since Rainbow refers to Apple Bloom’s cutie mark.
1. Notably, they praise loyalty among the qualities of the crow, but never say just how they earned it.
2. Note the sun is explicitly referred to as masculine.
3. I’m not even sure whether this should be dated to pre-classical era, that is, the time between pony colonization of the continent and Luna’s banishment, or even earlier, or much later.Chief Thunderhooves relates that “many years ago” when the buffalo first came to the Appleloosa region, it was also anomalously cold. The buffalo discovered in some way befriended1 a “rainbow crow,” a singular bird (I’m tempted to say a minor deity) which had a voice the buffalo found exceedingly pleasing, so the buffalo petitioned it to fly to the sun and petition “him” for relief.2 Which took three days and resulted in bringing back fire essentially on burning feathers. By the time the crow was back, it was forever black and could no longer sing, but the fire she brought did result in climate change with buffalo efforts. The buffalo further say that the memory of crow’s sacrifice and glory is the rainbow iridescence of the feathers of a regular black crow. This is a beautiful myth and I am yet undecided on how well it sits with the rest of historical knowledge we have.3 Mostly because the buffalo have a spring-initiation ritual that requires burning a feather from that same crow, which implies regular trips to see the crow. Just how old is she?
- Rainbow and Little Strong Heart are sent on a quest for the feather, but for some reason, this quest leads them through the Badlands and beyond the Forbidden Jungle, i.e. southeast off the edge of the map. And along the way they transition through a zone of near African fauna, together with an elephant sporting a blonde hairdo in the background. No zebras.
- Little Strong Heart does the racial stereotype thing and calls Rainbow “kemosabe.”
- The crow isn’t just where they said she would be, but still alive, perfectly sapient and talks. Along the way, Rainbow loses the baggie she’s supposed to give the crow in tribute, and the crow settles for Rainbow’s hair, but I really wonder what was in the baggie. It’s also interesting that while Little Strong Heart knows every step of the way to the crow, together with all the dangers that are likely to occur, the last leg of this journey, the climb to the tall peak the crow nests on, is impossible without flight. How did the buffalo do it historically?…
- Little Strong Heart mentions that the buffalo are aware that asking Celestia for help would be more expedient and they are aware who moves the sun, but hold on to their traditions for social reasons.
- Burning the feathers produces beautiful rainbow smoke, which makes me think that both the anomalous winter and the anti-winter effects of the feather are actually atmospheric phenomena, rather than solar positioning phenomena.
I’m not sure how well this sits with every other ancient history scrap we got, but I like it enough to think of a way to weld it to the rest.
Not read the comic yet (it's in the pile waiting).
"Buffalo are capable of sending up shaped smoke signals." - I'm not sure how much to read in to this - shaped smoke signals is a very old trope (It was in the Beano comics of my youth, and I'm sure it predates that).
"which implies regular trips to see the crow. Just how old is she?" - Perhaps it's a family business now...
4160898
The shaped smoke signal is pretty explicit at that, because Rainbow, upon being told of the nature of the problem (farming) starts describing Apple family cutie marks.
This does raise the question of how Appleoosa deals with the local weather. And how the buffalo react to the settlers wrapping up winter sans feather burning.
4160940
Considering the very low pegasus population of Appleloosa (zero known) it's a difficult question. Do they get weather service in these parts at all? That's the first we even heard they have winter...
Lots of questions here. What exactly could Celestia really do for the Buffalo? We see Appleloosa proper and it looks like normal desert, so if she tries to dip the sun on the valley she would fry a lot of other areas.
The part about the rituals was weird, because who questions them in a world where they actually work?
Also the line where Rainbow Dash says Celestia "isn't a harvest spirit" is interesting, because they're obviously using "spirit" as a substitute for "god," and Discord has been described as a spirit.
I was sure the crowd would be transformed into a Phoenix.
I actually hypothesized that the Buffalo channel their innate magic via stampeding, which is why their sacred stampeding grounds are, in fact, so gosh darn important. This is also why the Appleoosans planted their trees there without realizing. The Buffalo magic is actually somewhat close to an Earth Pony's, and their stampeding grounds are incredibly fertile. Buffalo agriculture might be somewhat cyclical, having small plots at various stopping points in a large loop, possibly with solitary caretakers while most of the herd moves on.
Nothing stops a stampede once it gets going. Nothing. Not even gravity.
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Perform the equivalent of changing the axial tilt for a week, which would cause a short spell of cooler weather in other areas but melt the snow in Appleloosa area. You don't really need to dip the sun closer for this to work.
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Well, the comic does seem to agree with you, because stampeding is also involved in the whole warming the land thing.
Pretty sure that no. Unless a solo buffalo can stampede. It's a solitary quest. :)
4162648
Ah, didn't catch that. I am...not very caught up with the comics at all actually. Must have missed the solitary part in the blog too. Kind neat that the comic seems to agree with the stampede thing though.
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Well, to be fair, I didn't elaborate much on the solitary part -- but "Friends Forever" series normally has stories that center on two characters, that's it's shtick. And this time the two are Rainbow Dash and Little Strong Heart, and they are going on a quest which is, if it were any more of a myth, would be the province of a solitary hero.
4162648
See that's the thing, I can guarantee you anywhere on the planet there are at least 20 different localized areas suffering inclement weather at any given time (at least outside Equestria), given normal weather patterns as well as apparently weather-based offensive magic (Windigos, the rings of Scorcherro, etc.) If Celestia helps out the Buffalo, now the Zebra lose their crops on a different continent because of that freak cold front, as well as everyone else who doesn't have Pegasi to compensate for things. And that's setting aside the fact that it is probably general knowledge that Celestia controls the sun from Canterlot, and when there are weird deviations it means some powerful monster has usurped her. Before Pegasi couriers could reach every capital, how many armies would be headed to Canterlot to fight a newly-fallen Nightmare Moon or Discord?
If you think about how complex the political and economic ramifications for altering the normal rotation of the sun would be, I suspect Celestia is likely to treat altering the sun's normal orbit the way we would treat firing nuclear missiles.
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Why, did you think, I concluded that the opposite side of the globe has to be relatively, if not completely inhospitable? Because the sun doesn't rise in the East every time. :) See also the stuff Twilight pulls in Twilight's Kingdom... I suspect there's pretty much nobody left around to fire the "missiles" at by now. :)
4164542 Hmmmm... that is a point I hadn't really considered. Looking at the expanded map of Equestria, there is room for almost every country and race we've ever seen, especially if the Zebra live in the undiscovered west. I'd still like to learn the location of the Minotaur nation and Maretonia, but they could be right off the edges of the map and still leaved a blackened wasteland on the backside of the planet. And that would mean Equestria proper covers like 60% of all habitable land, which in turn means most weather is directly or indirectly controlled.....
Mmmmaybe Celestia could do it in a practical sense, though I still suspect she would only do it in exceptional circumstances.