Points of Canon: S1x21 - Over a Barrel · 11:41am Jul 29th, 2017
Oh boy, it’s this one.
- And right off the start, we see ponies dragging a train. Seven cars, the locomotive, and just four ponies. It’s notable that the train whistle works. One of the drivers actually has a rope in his mouth connected to the whistle trigger. At the same time, there’s no smoke coming out of the smokestack. This means that the reason ponies are pulling the train is not a coal shortage, but a recent locomotive breakdown. Or an idiot scriptwriter, there’s always that.
- Four earth ponies are capable of pulling it. I’ve had to dig around, but each car of a comparable era in US weighs something like 45 metric tons, making the whole train weigh anywhere between 300 and 400 metric tons. Probably less, because they do look shorter. It’s a little surprising, but ponies don’t have to be all that strong to do it – the physics involved is a bit convoluted, and depends on variables we don’t know, but eyeballing, you’d need no more than 10 horse power from each pony to get the train moving at a decent speed. This gives us a reasonable limit for sustained performance of an earth pony: Ridiculously strong compared to a horse, capable of much higher endurance, but still within reason. I’m sure there’s a train buff somewhere in the audience who can give us a more precise calculation.
- Applejack reads bedtime stories to trees. As The Perfect Pear informs us, this is a thing for Apples in general. Notably, Rarity did not know that it is.
- Seeing as how upset Rarity is about not getting a private car, it follows that the rest of the Mane 6 got specifically invited on this trip, rather than, say, invited themselves.
- This is the rare appearance of a sleeping car. The only other one is MMMystery on the Friendship Express. Notably, this is a different type of sleeping car.
- Spike mentions that he cooked all the snacks for this trip, though I’m not sure if he used his own flame to do it or not from his words alone. He certainly uses it to finish the job now. Notably, he was “up early,” and now it’s night. Which means the train had to have taken most of a day to get to where it is now. Which makes it strange that the train hasn’t been properly fixed yet. Notably, when it arrives, it’s still only seven minutes late.
- Rainbow uses a candle. Which is one of those rare candle appearances.
- Fluttershy would like to be a tree. Which never goes anywhere.
- But hearing that is what gets Spike to get up and yell “For Pete’s sake!” So… who’s that Pete guy, again?
- Fluttershy jokes “Huffy the Magic Dragon.” For us, it’s a reference to Puff the Magic Dragon, presumably (or the earlier song of the same name), but I wonder what did Fluttershy mean.
- Rarity sleeps in her face mask this time. Wouldn’t this stain the sheets when she’s sleeping on her side like that?…
- It’s Twilight who exclaims this, but as far as I can tell, all the girls recognize buffalo by sight. They’ve seen them before, even if only in pictures.
- Buffalo bumping into the side of the train can actually tilt a car that has to weigh multiple metric tons. Notably, train drivers are more resistant to this than the cars.
- The trajectory by which Rainbow left the car to drop down in front of Little Strong Heart remains mysterious.
- Buffalo can whistle by sticking hooves into their mouths. While buffalo are even-toed and could conceivably do this on physics alone, ponies aren’t, but in Friendship is Magic #2 Twilight also does this.
- Rainbow uses the word “dragon-napping” rather than “kidnapping” to describe what happened.
- “That’s seven minutes less for you to delight in the pleasures and wonders of… A-a-a-pplelooosa!” If anything convinces me that the Appleloosa settlers are at least partially motivated by reenactment of a style and culture that is not natively theirs, but belonged to long gone pioneers of the original “West” – because Appleloosa is south of most other Equestrian towns – it’s this phrase. Tourism is clearly one of the sources of income they expect. See also “wild west dances” and “mild west dances.”
- And the first thing you see in Appleloosa after getting off the train station is a hat shop.
- “And those there are horse-drawn, horse-drawn carriages.” Ponies at least count themselves among horses.
1. Well, around here they do, so.
The scene with the local watering hole is interesting in that while salt is something horses enjoy, it does not have an intoxicating effect on them. Either ponies do get intoxicated by salt alone – which would be really odd – or brine-based liquors exist.1
- Braeburn claims that “First harvest should be any day now.” Previously he said that “we settler ponies built all this in just the past year.” This is important for chronology: This has to be the first harvest since Appleloosa was founded.
- The trees are way too tall to be just a year old, at that. Most of them had to have been imported like Bloomberg.
- “sure as hay.” I think this is the earliest use of “hay” as an euphemism.
- The legal status of buffalo in the eyes of Equestrian government was and remains nebulous, by the way. Applejack refers to the destination of the upcoming hike as “buffalo territory” later, so at least there’s an assumed “buffalo territory” out there.
- Spike says, “Seems they took me by mistake. And they feel awful about it too, poor guys. Fortunately, they totally respect dragons, so they treat me like an honored guest.” The nature of the respect offered to dragons, as well as the reasons for such respect, have never been elaborated.
- Buffalo have wooden forks and spoons, but they are not shown actually using them, they eat straight out of the bowl. They don’t offer these things to ponies either.
- Even migratory and presumably monetarily poor buffalo have no problem getting their hooves on gemstones to feed Spike. Notably, it’s turquoise, which, I think, never appears anywhere else.
- According to Chief Thunderhooves, buffalo have been stampeding along this trail for at least seven generations, including current. You’d think somepony would know about that.
- It’s interesting that Fluttershy chooses to tackle-hug Pinkie, rather than Rainbow, upon meeting them. She very rarely does anything of the sort for any reason.
- As far as I can see, the piano Spike plays this time is not mechanized.
- “Both our diets, I should mention / Are completely vegetarian” Pinkie’s forgetting eggs, of course. Ovo-lacto-vegetarian, at best.
- Twilight’s scream “Why won’t anybody be rational and reasonable?!” is one of the rare uses of “anybody” instead of “anypony.” I hope she meant to include the buffalo in this line…
- Once again this hoof-adapted implement for cutting fruit turns up.
- Appleloosa has an official flag: A green apple tree on a red field. Or whatever are the appropriate heraldic terms to describe it…
- Buffalo are using a pedal-powered device to sharpen their horns. They, at least, don’t plan to fight with food.
- The word Silverstar uses to order the throwing of pies is not “pie” bur rather, “fire.”
- When clearing the path for a stampede, the ponies chop the trees down, rather than try to replant them.
- The ending of this episode is one of the notable instances of Pinkie breaking the fourth wall.
Speaking of pies, you already know my interpretation if you read Aporia:
“Actually, the reason that one ended with pie is my fault,” I said, adopting a proud grin. This was my awesomest idea ever! Pinkie helped on the delivery method, but the basic idea was still mine.
Mary looked at me curiously. “Do tell. I know the general course of the events, but I never understood why exactly pies were the weapon of choice.”
I flew up and circled around the slowly walking Mary. “You see, chief Thunderhooves had this problem. Time for the yearly stampede, lots of young, hotheaded buffalo in the tribe, all out to teach the settlers a lesson for taking the land over and doing something useful with it, oh the horror, yadda, yadda. He didn’t really mind the apple orchard, as long as he got a path to stampede through, but being seen negotiating would be ‘losing muzzle.’ Stupid, I know, but that’s buffalo for you. He also didn’t want to let the hotheads rush the town and be shot at. Grapeshot is a horrible thing. Taking a hostage was his idea to set up negotiations without being seen as suing for peace.”
“Doesn’t seem to have worked,” Mary commented.
“It did, just not the way everypony expected,” I grinned, “Buffalo never fight those they shared food with, and they never eat with their enemies. Pretty strict about it. When I noticed that, I knew we had to get the entire tribe to eat apples somehow. Pinkie suggested an actual food fight. We just needed to get the town to play along. While she was singing, Thunderhooves and Silverstar had a private talk. That was the biggest and most awesome prank we ever played!”
“So that entire battle was…” Mary stared at me with raised eyebrows. “A prank?”
“Mass pie in the face, hel-lo-o!” I said, landing in front of her. “Which saved the buffalo from getting shot at, and saved the settlers from getting stuck in a real feud. When Twilight finally realized what happened, she kept giggling all the way back home. She was actually the last to get it. Not kidding.”
After all, battle pies would look really ridiculous when the Royal Guard is armed with actual spears, wouldn’t they? The rest is an artifact of how the story was told.
Chronologically, there’s an interesting discontinuity here: You would normally want to replant a tree in spring, well before any harvests are possible, at least without taking earth pony magic into account. But according to Braeburn, a full year or less has passed since the town was founded, so the first harvest has to be the first harvest ever. At the same time, multiple harvests per year are required to explain what the hell Applejack is doing for the entire year. It’s difficult to conclusively date this episode because of this mess. Most chronology theories do put it in the first autumn of the series, though.
There is the firsuit in "Hurricane Fluttershy."
On the one hand, I like your explanation for the pies. On the other, I really like the idea of earth pony magic weaponizing food. It certainly explains how a confectioner could make for an effective anti-monster agent.
4616740
Funny thing is, I have an answer to that too.
4616743
Huh. And here I thought she excelled at keeping things under wraps.
I really do need to read Aporia.
4616744
This interpretation is based on the idea that while Bon-Bon actually does work for a clandestine government organization, since secondary canon agrees, the monologue she dumps on Lyra in Slice of Life is mostly bullshit she had to make up on the spot to cover for something we never got to see in detail. Because as it is, it doesn’t make much sense.
Keeping things under wraps works well too, of course.
It's probably more accurate to say that the legal status of legal statuses is unclear. We don't know for certain if ponies have the concepts of borders, territories, federal government or citizenship, and without that common ground it's dangerous to try and apply present day Western measures to their interaction with other races.
About the only clue we have relating to their idea of boundaries is the occasional reference to products as "foreign" or "imported". Far from conclusive.
Common sense?
I second what 4616740 said. Your explanation is better than anything I could come up with.
I've had a theory about this for a long time. This model of train is never seen again; it seems to have been phased out in favor of the "Friendship Express" model. And why not, since it was so prone to breakdowns?
They're for measuring out portions, I suppose?
4617034
Consider the dragons seen in Dragon Quest.
Then compare to this exchange:
Or this:
Doesn’t exactly sound like the common-sensible “Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.” – this sounds like they really do see dragons as friendly.
4617064
Quite possible, actually.
How exactly do you measure out portions with a fork, though?
4617073
Isn't that normal for salads? One large fork and one large spoon are what you use when you have no tongs.
4617094
Never seen people do it like that, though I suppose it’s not impossible.
4617101
Strange... must be a regional thing.
4617111
I've seen that. The fork is to provide more grip than you'd get with a pair if spoons.
A bunch of great points. I think ten horsepower as the upper limit of sustained earth pony strength (ignoring exceptionally magical earth ponies like Maud Pie and perhaps Big Mac) makes a lot of sense. I would use the scene of earth ponies wrestling buffalo as a similar measure. We see large numbers of earth ponies wrestling buffalo in the background of the battle. They seem to be winning and losing against the buffalo at an equal rate, despite their much smaller size. I would argue that if we assume the buffalo have no magic strength, than the average strength of an earth pony (an athletic settler earth pony at least) is equal to that of a buffalo.
The idea about apple pies as a way to shame the buffalo warriors into treating the ponies as creatures they had broke bread with is clever. It also sets up the demonstration to all the buffalo that apple pie is delicious, a potent reason to compromise with the ponies.
I'm surprised you had no thoughts on Pinkie doing a burlesque dance.
Given we know earth pony magic can accelerate harvests but that didn't happen here, perhaps most of the trees were small saplings, if not outright seeds, and the earth ponies have had to use all their magic fast-growing the trees, and after a year they are ready for their first harvest.
4617066
Totally agree. The buffalo seemed downright eager to befriend an honored dragon. Also turquoise is historically common in the southwest and used in many native american jewelry, which is probably why the writers picked it.
I know which way the smart money is betting.
The train is capable of making steam, or the whistle wouldn't work. If the engine isn't working, why bother making steam?
As for all the agricultural idiocy... none of the episodes have ever shown the least amount of knowledge about how farming or ranching actually works. The only way any of it makes sense is if earth ponies can influence crops the way pegasi influence weather. Regional deficiencies can be explained by lack of specialists.
4617518
Ponies dance. That a special mode of dress is involved in a stage performance… We know nothing about what it means to them.
4617548
Only a little steam pressure is required for the whistle to work. But keeping the whistle working is important, especially if the train is broken but moving anyway: There is only one track. Two trains going in opposing directions can only pass each other where parallel tracks are laid. It is vital that trains know where the trains moving in the opposite direction are in advance.
4617655
We know that it's apparently an acquired taste.
4617655
Ah! Good point!
4617518
Oh, he did. But they were private thoughts.
Earth pony magic prevents them from getting knocked off their hooves?
4617518
And wasn’t the original “wingboner” meme inspired by Rainbow Dash’s reaction to that dance?
4617548
4617655
The Doylist explanation I’ve heard for the stallions pulling the steam engine, is that it was an ugly compromise between incompatible design ideas. They wanted a train because this was a Western pastiche. Yet Faust didn’t want ponies to have access to coal or steam engines; that was too technologically advanced for her vision of Equestria. But, when the artists tried to design a train as just a bunch of rail cars pulled by stallions, they though it looked too weird and barely recognizable. So they literally just stuck the engine back on for appearance’s sake.
And then in season 2, either Faust relented or the rest of the team just agreed to disregard her original idea, and suddenly the ponies got working train engines.
4619892
Well, there’s certainly nothing else.
If this is true, they’ve got no imagination at all. I can give you several ways to design a train “engine” that contains actual ponies used as motive force, which would be immediately recognizable as a train, be funny, be reasonably plausible, and satisfy Faust’s condition.
She spent most of season 2 in “divorce” proceedings, as far as I can tell, slowly distancing herself from things. After season 2, she was completely gone.
4619910
An engine powered by stallions running in oversized hamster wheels?
4619923
That’s just one possibility.
I could go on, though most other options would be variations on one of those four basic ideas – in-wheel, on-wheel, push and mechanical transfer. :)
Instead they chose the fifth basic idea, pull, which is exactly the one that makes it impossible to make a likeness of a train engine.
4619892
As I understand it, it was just a dumb visual joke indicated by Polsky in the script. Nothing deeper than that.
4619910 4619892 4617548 To come back to this after a couple months... My favorite Watsonian explanation for the train being pulled by ponies is that steam-powered trains are a recent invention. For some reason - like the lack of coaling infrastructure? - they aren't running yet on this route, but a couple months later, they are on the more urbanized and popular Canterlot route.
Maybe the engine's stuck on there because it's going to be refueled a little down the line; maybe it's just for advertising "Hey, this railroad uses the latest technology
elsewhere!"