Dec
1st
2017
Points of Canon: S5x04 - Bloom & Gloom · 4:07pm Dec 1st, 2017
Most of this one didn’t really happen. Notice that the other episode most of which is explicitly a story that may or may not have really happened, Where The Apple Lies, is also associated with Apple Bloom. Just sayin’.
- The major chronological markers in this episode are the CMC clubhouse, and the last appearance of cutie-mark-less Babs Seed, but no appearances of winged Twilight or the Friendship Castle. However, Apple Bloom mentions “Princess Twilight’s lessons,” requiring this to at least postdate Twilight Time
- There’s considerably more Rainbow Dash paraphernalia around the clubhouse than usual – a poster with Rainbow, a poster with her cutie mark, and a balloon animal imitating Rainbow. Did something happen?
- Babs Seed’s letter is signed with a very readable cursive “Babs Seed” and her cutie mark. If anyone’s sane and practical around here, the latter has to be a sticker.
- “But if she spends all her time cuttin’ hair, who’s gonna run the Manehattan CMCs?” Actually, whatever became of those? I don’t think we ever heard of any members other than Babs herself.
- There’s a heart pierced by an arrow drawn on that box in the corner with the stack of newspapers on it. I don’t think that was here before.
- “Can you imagine getting stuck with a cutie mark you didn’t like?” See Trouble Shoes a few episodes later.
- “What if it’s not an apple?! Will I have to move out?! Where will I live?!” I would love to know Apple Bloom’s rationale for this idea in detail, actually.
First dream
- “Looks like somepony got her cutie mark!” Apple Bloom believes one can get their cutie mark while asleep. Considering that Apple Bloom knows jack about cutie marks, I expect this is only true for cutie marks explicitly related to dreaming – every mark seen actually acquired on screen happened during or immediately after participating in some kind of activity directly relevant to the mark received.
- Whatever the actual stance on pesticides is with ponies, this cutie mark unambiguously depicts a pesticide, so Apple Bloom knows what these are. See chemical industry.
- “I know what it means! It means I can retire!” I’d sin this guy for being prescient for no reason, but this is a dream. However, the antiquated gas mask likely does exist. The rest of the pest control apparatus probably doesn’t: It seems to be specific to twittermites and a gas mask is not needed to handle them anyway.
- “Infestations? You mean like… parasprites?” “Hah, please. Anypony with a trombone can get rid of parasprites.” The most dangerous infestation Apple Bloom remembers is parasprites, rather than, say, Bats!. That said, parasprites ate their barn entirely in Swarm of the Century
- “Twittermites?” Since Apple Bloom has never heard of twittermites and this is a dream, I suspect twittermites do not actually exist. Notice that if twittermites did exist, they would be an excellent source of bioelectricity, which is they only way I can explain why does this guy have any with him. Also, they come when called. Once Apple Bloom is without the cutie mark, twittermites do not come when called at all.
- “Now that is some serious magic.” Apple Bloom immediately labels the erasure of her cutie mark as “magic.” Now, we know this is a dream, but I wonder…
- And Canterlot Friends just had to participate in this panicked escape.
- This would actually be the only time we see the Mayor Mare’s home, I think – otherwise I can see no reason why would she be there with all those scrolls, so far from the town hall – but alas, a dream, etc.
- If the shot with Apple Bloom being shocked by twittermites is to be believed, ponies have bones in their tails going as far as halfway down. Since Rarity cuts her own tail much further than that in Friendship is Magic, and this is a dream anyway, I wouldn’t put too much stock in it.
- Escaping Apples include Braeburn, who shouldn’t be here, and more minor Apples in a wagon that Big Mac is pulling.
Second dream
- “I’m just glad Princess Twilight’s lessons finally paid off!” Continuity.
- “Sounds to me like cutie marks and trouble are two peas in the same pod.” Remember that phrase.
Very few factoids in this one, onto the next.
Third dream
- At least in this dream, Apple Bloom believes that the clubhouse is visible from her bedroom window.
- “What in Equestria’s goin’ on?!” sigh
- “Oh, and you’re gonna have to change your name. I think just ‘Bloom’ has a nice ring to it, don’t you, Applejack?” This is basically the only indication that ponies can change their names upon getting a cutie mark. And it’s in a dream, wherein Apple Bloom is dreaming other things she later acknowledges as unreasonable. Just saying.
Fourth dream
- “Oh, Apple Bloom, you can’t get away from your own shadow.” Luna dismisses what’s going on as a manifestation of Apple Bloom’s own fears. Well, it doesn’t look like Apple Bloom, does it? Look closer. If you study the motions of this shadow, which follows Apple Bloom around, you can tell that it is a pony, of Apple Bloom’s general size class, but the haircut is totally different, and there’s no sign of a bow… It eventually recedes into Apple Bloom’s shadow, but that doesn’t really require it to be that shadow.
- Luna once again manifests inside the dream through an image of the moon.
- “Well, that is the same as worrying about who you are. That is all a cutie mark is.” I.e. Luna’s statement is that cutie marks are expressive in nature.
- This particular time, Luna’s dream selector interface is an endless corridor of doors. Compare to A Royal Problem, where it isn’t.
- This is also the earliest time Luna creates a joint dream, that is, brings multiple dreamers into a shared one. Notice that all three dreamers remain capable of affecting it – i.e. Scootaloo flies.
- Sweetie Belle’s judges are Vinyl, Octavia – and Rarity, who probably shouldn’t be.
- “Princess Luna!” I think this is actually another chronology marker – the way Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo recognize her so readily and are happy to see her, requires Sleepless in Ponyville and For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils to have happened already. It would not necessarily even be redundant.
Not a dream
- Applejack shows off her hoofial dexterity skills by tossing pancakes onto the pile from two different pans, one after another. This is actually pretty dangerous, oil burns hurt.
- Apple Bloom does not use utensils – she picks up a pancake with her hooves to eat it.
Some analysis
This is a difficult episode to get any worldbuilding out of, because it’s a dream, and most things derived from it being a dream we already knew. Statements describing the nature of cutie marks are relatively vague, and a single episode is not a good way to discuss the general theories of what cutie marks are, anyway.
But here is something: I really can’t shake the idea that the Other Sith (RTAC #14) and this mysterious shadow are connected in some way. Very indirectly, probably, but random synchronicity like that is very rare in canon.
- Luna claims it’s Apple Bloom’s own shadow, but the silhouette does not match.
- “Sounds to me like cutie marks and trouble are two peas in the same pod” is a very equalist thing to say, while the likelihood of Apple Bloom being aware of equalist ideology at all is very low.
- The end result of the whole dream is Apple Bloom being happy about not having a cutie mark.
Apple Bloom’s own analysis is that this is triggered by Babs’ letter, but would that even be enough to get all three fillies to have a solid looping dream like that?
So either Luna lie and connected to this "Other Sith" or "Other Sith" able to affect Dream World better that Luna who cant see his machinations? Bot variants are kinda... don't know... Strange? Unbelievable?
4739394
Yes, but there’s a third one: Luna is telling Apple Bloom that because this will protect her from the machinations of whatever dream entity that actually tried to eat all three Crusaders. If you don’t believe it’s real, being a dream, it can’t hurt you.
4739412
But isn't Tantabus able to function just fine even though no one beside M6 and Luna knew that he/she/it real?
4739412 What 4739417 said. Maybe Luna didn't want to scare Apple Bloom?
(But I think it's more likely there isn't any Other Sith involved here. Maybe it's one of the Nightmare Forces, if anything?)
4739417
Hm. If the Other Sith was active largely, or even primarily, in the dream realm, that could help explain why we haven't seen more of them, and could also mean that people working with them could meet with and learn from them anywhere, just by falling asleep.
...Hm. And if they're already in the mind, they might have an easier time accessing and removing/modifying memories of contact with them, explaining why Reformed!Starlight hasn't said "By the way, I was learning a bunch of powerful dark magic from a shadow in my dreams". Alternatively, she may have done that, to Luna, who has been pursuing the Other Sith herself.
This episode is mostly useless, but maybe not entirely, we can treat at least some of the stuff as drawing from Apple Bloom's general knowledge.
So for example, I think it's pretty likely that the Cutie Mark Crusaders, during Twilight Time or otherwise, researched cutie marks as much as they could. I think that if Apple Bloom believes that having a life-changing epiphany while dreaming leads to getting a cutie mark is possible, than it might well be. It explains how ponies with more abstract cutie marks might get them, if as kids they dreamed about what they clearly wanted to do with life. Pony dreams are far more lucid than human dreams are, even when Princess Luna is not around. It may well be the cutie mark magic activator does not require actual hands-on experience.
And yeah, I do think that name-change is pretty important, even if it is in a dream. Of course it's unreasonable that they would actually force Apple Bloom to change her name, but her fears that her cutie mark will require a name change seem as rooted in fact as the fear that a bad cutie mark will condemn someone to a career they don't like (see Trouble Shoes) or that getting her cutie mark will lead to Apple Bloom not getting to hang out with her friends as much later, which is exactly what happened in Season 6.
I'm also starting to agree on balance, that the shadow was the Other Sith, and not just Apple Bloom's subconscious. Given what we now know of from the S7 Finale, mysterious shadows are a lot more likely to be foreign entities. Remember how the "Darkness" spoke to Stygian and offered him power? And the Apples used to live in Hollow Shades? And of course, this mysterious shadow offers similar magic to Apple Bloom to what someone must have offered to Starlight once...
I think we can put the mysterious "Darkness" up on the board as a new suspect for the Other Sith. It has powers similar to Starlights, and if it can appear in dreams it can certainly have tutored Starlight anywhere and anytime.
4739820
I kind of had it there from the start. :)
It’s interesting how Starlight seems to avoid bumping into the CMC almost religiously. I don’t think they’ve ever interacted, even when this would otherwise enhance an episode – like with Marks and Recreation.
4739942
Well I had Starswirl at the top, and obviously he's out.
The one real obstacle for the "Darkness" being the Other Sith is, is it an independent force from the Shadow portion of the Pony of Shadows wrapped around Stygian? Because that being was trapped between time, and I don't think it could reach out to others in dreams. If it's the animated consciousness of the entire plane though, I doubt a tiny piece of it wrapped around a pony being caught in Limbo would make much difference. It's a bit like Dormammu and Doctor Strange.
4739989
If Legends tell us just how did Stygian get in contact with it, I guess we’ll have the answer. But speaking of shadows…
I’ve been looking for an original sin…
4739999
I prefer Meatloaf's version, but this one is pretty good too.
Wait, what about The Perfect Pear? Didn't Chiffon Swirl become Cup Cake after getting her cutie mark? Am I just remembering that episode wrong?
4744064
There is not enough information to conclude whether she changed her name upon getting a mark or upon marriage in that episode.