Nov
4th
2017
Points of Canon: S4x16 - It Ain’t Easy Being Breezies · 3:51pm Nov 4th, 2017
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- “As you know, the adorable fairy creatures known as Breezies are about to come through Ponyville.” Breezies are explicitly “fairy” creatures, and I wonder what exactly does the word mean for ponies.
- “I’ve never done it before, not that I won’t be totally awesome at it, because I totally will!” We can’t be entirely certain about it, but I think this implies that Breezies coming through Ponyville is a unique, or at least an extremely rare occurrence.
- But of course Minuette and Twinkleshine will attend.
- There’s a pony in a sombrero playing a very interesting pony-adapted trumpet-oid – meant to be kept on the ground with valves pressed down by hooves. Note that his mates are playing a perfectly regular guitar and violin respectively.
- Rainbow gauges wind strength and direction by licking her hoof, rather than using any manner of pegasus-specific senses.
- “What I don’t understand is why they need the Pegasi to make a breeze for them.” Mr. Cake would be awesome at Points of Canon, I don’t either. Fluttershy does not actually answer that question, she just says that a breeze activates their magic, which protects the pollen they’re carrying from being destroyed. This has nothing to do with pegasi making the breeze.
- “And they only have two days to get that pollen back before the portal to their home closes.” Breezies live in a place behind a “portal,” and the word is used to mean an obviously magical phenomenon. As far as we can tell, Breezies live in their own space.
“I went to see them gathering their pollen in western Equestria.” This happened during Three’s A Crowd. Which does imply that Breezies had to migrate through at least half the continent and that it took them considerable time to cross it, giving Fluttershy the time to go see them and return. However, here’s a pack of questions:
- Does the portal always open in the same location? If that’s the case, Ponyville would be always in the path of breezie migration, and that would imply the previous time they passed through happened even before Mrs. Cake, a Ponyville native, was born, or she wouldn’t be asking questions.
- If the location of the portal is not fixed, what happens if it opens outside the borders of Equestria?
- For that matter, did they leave their pocket space through the same portal? If they did, why didn’t they pass through Ponyville on their way to get the pollen?
- “It’s just that there’s an awful lot of sequins on your jacket.” Fluttershy says this, but it looks much more like a cape. But she would know if it was, wouldn’t she? She has “freaky knowledge of sewing.” So why is it a jacket?
- The mechanism by which Rarity’s blouse underneath the “jacket” is blinding remains mysterious, but it’s blinding even to Lyra and Twinkleshine standing nearby.
- The group of breezies observed has on the scale of 60 breezies.
- “They’re as cute as Apple Bloom on the day she was born.” Applejack saw Apple Bloom on the day she was born, and was old enough to remember the sight. Which might be contradicted by The Perfect Pear…
- The exact mechanism by which a leaf causes such problems for the breezies is unclear. It is not self-propelled, and thus, would only end up in the middle of their stream if wind carried it there, right? So why is a leaf a problem when the wind isn’t?
- “They’re too far back! We can’t connect the breeze to both sets of Breezies!” To say that phrase at all, pegasi have to have far more control over the wind than simply waving wings would ever permit.
“Mekenar stuf!” “He’s right! You must all gather as close as you possibly can!”
- Breezies are only the second example of creatures who do speak an intelligible language which is not Equish and is not mutually comprehensible with it, so far. The first one is Zecora.
- Fluttershy’s ability acts as a universal translator: her speech is comprehensible to any creature, and she can, eventually, comprehend any creature. Though we know some exceptions exist, like vampire fruit bats in Bats! – and sometimes it just outright fails like in The Best Night Ever.
- “And you speak my language too?” Fluttershy is capable of determining which language she is hearing, i.e. it’s not like she just understands everything. There have been attempts to explain her encounter with Spike in Friendship is Magic by supposing she can’t tell if her conversation partner is speaking Equish or not. Unfortunately that does not work.
- “Clearly, they’re not the brightest bunch around.” The annoyance in the breezies upon hearing this line implies that all of them can understand Equish even when Seabreeze speaks it. I suppose this is why they’re the ones going to Equestria, and not some other breezies.
- Notice that Seabreeze is the only breezie wearing more clothes than a hat.
- “So, Fluttershy, you want us to get the breeze going again so these little guys can get a move on?” I expect that packing them into a box and just delivering them to the portal is not an option, because then the pollen they carry will become unusable. But if the pollen becomes unusable without the breeze, several hours camping in Fluttershy’s house rendered it unusable anyway – and if it didn’t, packing them into a box is very much an option. There’s no doubt Rainbow could have been there with a box in a far shorter time than it took them to get to the portal. Here, Mane 6, have an idiot ball, don’t drop it.
- Fluttershy’s birds are very considerate to pack into such a small nook just to give Breezies space. In fact, breezies even displaced Angel.
- “Oh, my, Twirly, you look like you need a blanket.” Individual names are the norm among breezies, Seabreeze is not the only one.
- “Oh, did you need some more water?” So why does Fluttershy have a thimble at all, and how does she normally use it?… More thimbles appear later in the episode.
- “Now, who else needed a hoof-knitted sweater?” Knitting micro-sweaters like these has to be very difficult.
- “Uh… what did he say?” “I’d… rather not say.” Breezie language has phrases Fluttershy is embarrassed to translate.
- Fluttershy moves breezies around with tailikinesis.
- Bird nests outside Fluttershy’s cottage still have eggs. I think this one nest might be abandoned, actually…
- One of the breezies plays a micro-saxophone. Notice that this is an instrument that is attributed to a specific inventor in our world – one Adolphe Sax, in 1840 – and is something breezies probably brought with them, unless any of Fluttershy’s mice can play one.
- “Has anypony seen Seabreeze?” Notice that Fluttershy addresses the breezies at this moment.
- As Seabreeze is leaving, Doctor / Time Turner and Roseluck trot by, oblivious to the drama. The Doctor is wearing anaglyph 3D glasses, previously only seen on Discord in Princess Twilight Sparkle.
- Despite their tiny size, breezies are still bigger than bees by a large margin.
- Breezie horns / feelers / whatever can provide light.
- “I demand that you go away now, or you’ll have to answer to me!” Notice this doesn’t work on flash bees in A Health of Information. Also notice that Fluttershy’s bee costume appears and disappears instantly. Did it even really exist, or was it just a visual device?
- “One tiny acorn is a threat!” Now, did Fluttershy actually see Seabreeze getting bombarded with acorns, or was it just a guess?
- And this is our Chest of Harmony Key epiphany moment. Fluttershy’s choice is distinct from all others in that she makes a choice between caring for creatures and… caring for creatures, that is, caring for what they want and for what they really need, which, in this case, is firmness. All the other choices are far less subtle than this one. Mysteriously, this motivates Seabreeze to accept friendship. The souvenir Fluttershy acquires is a flower.
“I’ve been studying an old spell book from the Castle of the Two Sisters. There’s a spell that I think could help us!”
- Polymorph spells have existed since ancient times, but are not part of the regular curriculum, otherwise Twilight would have known one from other sources.
- Twilight is capable of casting this spell on six ponies at once.
- The spell requires a species template being present to work. We can’t be sure if multiple specimens are needed to produce the template or not, but Twilight clearly uses more than one.
- The spell does not convey understanding of language of any kind, thought it does permit Fluttershy to actually speak the language directly.
- We don’t know if it’s permanent or not, but Twilight reverses it deliberately, for which a species template is not required.
- The path takes the Mane 6 and the breezies through some kind of frozen land and desert, and I have no clue whatsoever how is that possible. This is particularly odd because the portal to the breezie realm is located in a very small cave near a waterfall, in a temperate zone.
- The breezie realm has its own light source, and a breezie-scale civilization. I’m not sure just how are they building their houses, but evidently, they’re quite capable of that.
- We don’t know if breezies have the concept of marriage in the first place, but there’s little doubt Seabreeze has a child and is part of a stable couple.
- Fluttershy narrates a Friendship Journal record, which matches the printed version verbatim, but she is never shown actually writing this record, and it could conceivably happen at any later time.
“So, uh, I’ve always kinda wondered what it would be like to be a griffon.” “Not a chance.” “You sure? What about a dragon?”
- Why not? Well, I can guess that a species template is not readily available for a griffon, but why not a dragon? Spike is right here.
- For that matter, why does Rainbow want it?
Notice that we never actually see or hear what do the breezies use their pollen for and why is it so essential that a risky trip where they have to rely on the kindness of strangers is worth it. Exactly how does a culture of creatures, however pitiable, get dependent on a resource that requires going to another world to acquire, a world they are entirely incapable of surviving in?
Fridge logic suggests very unpleasant answers.
There's a nonfiction book called "Ferrets of Fairyland" Twilight references once.
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I did mention it, Owl’s Well That Ends Well. Now tell me… How, do you think, a breezie would fare in an encounter with a ferret?
Isn't this one pretty obvious? Gilda used to be one of her best and oldest friends, so it's no surprise that Rainbow may have wondered about what it would be like being a griffon.
She might've just seen a picture. Or she might be extrapolating.
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It would be a devastating frolic of cuddles and cuteness. Carnage everywhere.
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But getting a “no,” she immediately asks about a dragon?
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Well, dragons are cool!
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I’m pretty sure dragons are actually hot.
Oliver, you should really make a post about cosmology, given the number of extraplanar dimensions we have now seen in the show (ignoring comics for now):
I too remember having a lot of unpleasant fridge thoughts about the Breezies, and what got them to the state they are in. Surely it can't always have been like this.
For one thing, my guess is that their pollen needs to follow magical ley-lines, which move depending on the phases of the moon and stars, and are different with every migration. Pegasi breezes let them travel much faster/and more safely, but if a Pegasi actually picks them up and carries them the full-strength pegasi magic would overwhelm the pollen. It's kind of weak but it's the best way I can put together their requirements.
Twilight's transformation is like her teleportation: So useful, it begs the question of why she doesn't use it more often later. Like, all those S6/7 episodes where they are trying to befriend a non-pony species. Speaking of which, I think that thing about the Griffons might be a sign Dash is starting to miss Gilda and wishing she had a way to rekindle their friendship. Twilight might refuse to turn Rainbow into a dragon because as an adult, Rainbow might be the size of house and could quickly cause a lot of property damage.
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Probably, the issue with most of those is that they’re so one-shot. :)
1. The set of knowledge related to moving the pollen is in fact a technology, however primitive in terms of tools used.
That’s a lot of conditions for one resource. The issue with this – while introducing further conditions, we can explain the oddities, but we end up with a technology1 that cannot be discovered by trial and error.
I think the most sensible justifications would evolve from finding a suitable assumption for why do they need it, first, because then we could theorize based on the hypothetical properties of the pollen. Preferably, an assumption that doesn’t just treat it like cocaine…
Maybe, but surely they could find a place where this wouldn’t be a problem, like that dragon cave on top of a mountain…
This is such an obviously toyetic episode... for a toyline that barely existed. Looking through My Little Wiki, the only actual G4 breezie toys I can find are one “Sunset Breezie” (packaged with “Rainbow Power” alicorn Twilight) and “Sea Breezie” (packaged with Rainbow Power Fluttershy).
The scene of Twilight polymorphing her friends into breezies feels more like an advertisement than anything else in the episode—but breezie doll versions of the mane six were never made. And the normal breezies aren’t portrayed in the most flattering light. “Buy our dolls! They’re lazy freeloaders, except for their leader, who’s foul-mouthed and angry!”
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Kind of like my job. "We need this nebulously defined feature to collect surveys from users, and we need it yesterday!" So I do it. Yesterday. It is rushed through testing, rolls out. Everyone is happy.
A year later, making another feature yesterday, I find out that there was a bug: it doesn't actually work. That is, surveys do, but a bug prevents data export in the majority of cases. Nobody noticed, because they don't actually need the data.
I imagine something very similar happened.
Presumably, breezies need a breeze to travel safely, but a) cannot make one by themselves, and b) their mission is too time-critical to allow them the luxury of waiting for the wind to pick up or die down to the speed they need it to be. If there's a preexisting, suitable breeze, then great. If, as is likelier, there's no wind or there's wind but it's too strong for them to fly in, they need someone to manage the weather for them.