Mar
31st
2018
Points of Canon: S8x03 - The Maud Couple · 6:38pm Mar 31st, 2018
This… is technically not a very good episode. No, really.
- Chronology markers: Maud is a resident of Ponyville, so this follows Rock Solid Friendship.
However, the School of Friendship does not appear on screen, permitting to backdate this episode to before the start of Season 8.Correction, it does, for no good reason whatsoever. It has to follow A Celestial Advice, in which Starlight receives a mirror from Twilight. Most of the non-Pinkie Mane 6 only make an appearance at the party at the very end of the episode, permitting one to occupy them with something else for most of its duration. - Ponyville has a dedicated stand-up comedy bar of some kind, possibly, one of the two establishments that Discord listed in Dungeons and Discord. In any case, I’m sure we’ve never seen this building with its distinctive sign on top before. We can be sure Berry Punch is not running this one: She’s in the audience.
- Of course Lemon Hearts is here. Where else do you go to pick up stallions.
- The entire scene strongly establishes that ponies in general don’t like Maud’s brand of comedy.
- “But seriously, being an Earth pony isn’t so bad. We’ve got magic powers, too. Like walking around. And picking stuff up with our teeth.” Considering what we do know about earth pony magic, like Applejack hurtling a boulder that has to weigh on the scale of a thousand metric tons in Shadow Play, this is far more sarcastic than you’d think. Notice also that the audience contains almost exclusively earth ponies at this moment, with Lyra and Lemon Hearts being the only visible exceptions. It is particularly strange that Pinkie insists that “That’s funny, ’cause it’s true!” Because it’s not.
- For once, Lyra and Bon-Bon are sitting at the same table, they do this far less often than you would expect. Though why exactly is Pinkie sitting with them, I have no idea.
- “We can get matching stickers that says ‘Eyes on the Pies,’ then show them off at the Ponyville Sticker Convention that I could plan for tomorrow if you want.” Ponies have stickers, see chemical industry. But we kind of knew that. Notice that Pinkie applies the stickers directly to her face and takes them off immediately, so presumably, they come off the coat easily enough.
- “Even when you promised to build whipped-cream pyramids with me.” Pinkie is using a pressurized can of whipped cream to demonstrate. As far as I could determine, this particular method of producing whipped cream was invented in 1930 in our world, and it requires easy availability of pressurized inert gases.
While Pinkie is playing her one-sided hide-and-seek:
- For some bizarre reason, two ponies in a boat in what would otherwise be a mildly romantic situation – complete with a guitar, a parasol, and hats – are equipped with lifejackets, which wreck the mood entirely.
- Pinkie’s search takes her through Yakyakistan and has her lift a yak, see above regarding earth pony magic.
- Derpy gets a wanted poster for Maud glued to her side and apparently does not notice.
I’m not sure how much of this can be believed to have actually happened, frankly, seeing how even the wanted posters vanish immediately.
Starlight’s room contains:
- A sextant, which I think we’ve seen before. Ponies have those.
- Trixie’s portrait and a crossed-out equals sign, both of which we have seen on many other occasions.
- A globe. She is seen in the vicinity of globes a lot more often than Twilight.
- A basket containing cloth. Apparently, most of Starlight’s minor clothing is stored in a basket. Notice that we’ve never seen her wear the hat and the cape hanging above the basket.
- A portrait of a mare in a conical hat which, upon closer investigation, definitely does not resemble Trixie, despite very similar colors. Who’s that? It’s not Trixie’s mother, that’s for sure.
- The mirror Twilight gave Starlight in A Celestial Advice, now populated with photos: Starlight with Trixie, starlight with Pinkie, Starlight with Twilight, Starlight with Rarity, Starlight with Fluttershy. There is, for some reason, no photo with Applejack, but there is a photo of what looks like the party in Our Town at the end of To Where And Back Again.
- A hourglass. I haven’t noticed that before.
- “Where’s Maud? I’ve already tried Discord’s dimension, Granny Smith’s wax museum, and Yakyakistan! She has to be here!” So does Granny Smith actually have a wax museum or is Pinkie just goofing off?
- “Nope, it’s just me. Reading.” Starlight’s reading table has a cute very low chair in front of it. At this kind of height, it would be easier to replace the whole thing with a solid wood block.
- “Pinkie, I don’t have a closet.” Which would explain why she keeps clothing in a basket, I suppose.
- “Oh, she probably just found a new rock formation and forgot you two were gonna hang out.” Starlight would have to have known Maud for a considerable time to say that, but that doesn’t give us much.
Ponyville has a dedicated baking supplies shop, which we also haven’t seen previously. In the shop we see…
- A cash register, either mechanical or electromechanical. Seeing no crank, I’m inclined to think it’s electromechanical. Which, on a second thought, actually implies ponies have mechanical calculators. This isn’t really unexpected, but we very rarely see any examples. It also technically counts as an example of digital technology.
- A one-strap apron, as opposed to the two-strap aprons seen in Call of the Cutie.
- A light switch on the wall. I don’t know what else could it be. Notice that the lamps are lit despite daylight, I wonder why.
- “I am currently speaking to a pony at a baking supply shop two minutes before it closes for lunch.” At least some pony shops close for lunch. Not a given.
- “Pinkie, the reason I’ve been so busy is that I have a boyfriend now.” Notice, not “coltfriend.” I wonder if the reverse is “marefriend” or “girlfriend.” Or maybe, “coltfriend” and “marefriend” are reserved for same-sex relations? They are purely fanon terms, after all…
- “Technically, we’re in ‘like.’” Is that grounds to call someone a “boyfriend,” though? Strange.
- “It was a petrified wood show, which, technically, makes it a stick show.” What exactly would a “petrified wood show” be, let alone a “rock show?”
- “Except that in the permineralization process of petrification, all organic material is replaced with silicates. I.e. rocks.” Petrification happens in this world, more or less the same way as it does here. Not a given!
- “That is stick abuse.” I wonder what would caveponies have to say about that. The ones from From The Shadows.
- An establishing shot shows Friendship Castle with the School of Friendship next to it, forcing this episode into Season 8 for no obviously good reason whatsoever.
- “Technically, due to the speleothems growing from the ceiling, this is more of a cavern than a cave. Maud taught me that.” Mudbriar does point out something that vaguely resembles speleothemes. However, this would also imply that Pinkie’s party cave is naturally formed in soluble rock, and I am wondering how the hell would that happen in this area at all, considering that most other caves nearby do not seem to have any speleothemes. At the same time, caverns are a subset of caves. Mudbriar is technically incorrect – the worst kind of incorrect!
- “I have a vision board of everything Maud loves and none of those things are on it.” In our world, the term “vision board” typically refers to a physical representation of dreams and desires in a collage of images, and is a mental technique popularized no earlier than 1960s for self-motivation, rather than describing anyone else. What Mudbriar subsequently does, however, directly mentions the concept of a “mind palace,” which, while actually an ancient memorization technique, is a term directly attributable to the “Sherlock” TV series, first aired in 2010. Seriously, people… At least we can conclude that Mudbriar believes that Maud likes camping.
- “Well, technically, I don’t care! And since I’ve been best sister friends forever with Maud my entire life, I think I’m the expert here!” Observation: This is twice in recent memory Pinkie has been totally and completely wrong about something she was very, very sure of regarding ponies very close to her, see Secrets and Pies. This suddenly makes her party planning cave much more dubious as an enterprise in general.
- “I’d rather just do something small with you, Starlight, Boulder, and Mudbriar for my birthday.” Maud pins down the line of her kite with Boulder. Mysteriously, this works while the kite remains aloft, which would imply Boulder is actually much heavier than it appears to be from size alone.
- “How could Maud like Mudbriar? Is it Opposite Day? Nothing makes sense!” That’s the third time Opposite Day is mentioned, and since Secrets and Pies seems to imply it is a stable holiday, I expect that the subsequent scene with Pinkie imagining the Mane 6 saying opposite things is something that actually happened on a prior Opposite Day.
- Pinkie still has her own room on the rock farm. Compare to Hearthbreakers.
- The practice of rock farming is still shown to consist predominantly of whacking rocks with a pickaxe while remaining aboveground.
- “You’re probably wondering why I came back to the family farm in the middle of the night.” It was still day when Pinkie departed Ponyville, so it took her up until the middle of the night to get there, which is strange, considering other feats of transportation she claims to have performed in this episode.
- “I’m not jealous. Who said anything about jealous?” Limestone is jealous and wants a boyfriend. Or at least a *-friend.
- “Buck up, Pinkie Pie. You look as miserable as I feel all the time.” Limestone feels miserable continuously. Reasons remain unexplained.
“I’m looking at a sparkling bright blue and white rock. See it?”
- Whether Pinkie is capable of looking into the geode with her earth pony powers (or lack thereof) or not is uncertain. It is pretty certain that Limestone can, however. If Pinkie does have this ability, she definitely does not think to use it immediately. If she ever had that skill, she’s way out of practice.
- I do not think a geode would naturally occur aboveground in this fashion, which is more evidence for rock farming involving magically growing rocks. Even if geodes do occur this way – I am no geologist, so I can’t be sure – any sustained farming effort would pick the naturally occurring ones clean within a few years.
- While Mudbriar is struggling with wrapping up what looks like a piece of petrified wood, scissors with obvious finger loops can be seen on the table next to him.
- “I brought you an olive branch to say sorry.” Olive branches are a symbol of peace in pony culture too. That said, Pinkie has probably never seen a live olive in her life.
- “Technically, this isn’t even an olive branch. It’s a Quercus, most likely Castaneifolia.” The leaves don’t look that much like the chestnut-leaved oak to me, though. Incidentally, it would not be a common tree in the New World, since it’s native to Iran and Caucasus, and I wonder just how would Pinkie come by one. Or Mudbriar is once again technically incorrect, but this time, about sticks too.
- Applejack, Rarity and Twilight have come to the party. So did Lyra and Bon-Bon, Cherilee, and a few other miscellaneous extras. Maud can be safely replaced with a cardboard cutout for this party, which does not speak well of Maud nor anyone who came to the party anyway.
- We can observe Starlight handing over the cardboard cutout to Twilight in the middle of the scene, though I can’t tell why would they want to do that.
Two questions:
- Just what exactly was Mudbriar buying in a baking supply shop, if anything?
- Did Mudbriar ever get a “Welcome to Ponyville” party? If he did, when?
P.S. Technically, this episode is missing a joke. Here’s one:
A Mathematician, a Physicist, and an astronomer were travelling north by train. They had just crossed the border into Scotland, when the Astronomer looked out of the window and saw a single black sheep in the middle of a field. “All Scottish sheep are black,” he remarked. “No, my friend,” replied the Physicist, “Some Scottish sheep are black.” At which point the Mathematician looked up from his paper and glanced out the window. After a few second’s thought he said blandly: “In Scotland, there exists at least one field, in which there exists at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black.”
There.
Mudbriar is literally a stick in the mud.
New credits. Too busy, badly timed.
Speaking of bad timing, I have to think that Maud's invocation of comedic timing was a deliberate anti-joke. On her part, not just the writer's.
Sure it does. In the scene immediately after Maud and Mud Briar get their pets to play with one another, we get a slow zoom in on Twilight's Castle. Immediately to the right is the Friendship School.
4829432
Duh, yes. Will fix in a moment…
4829440
Admittedly, given the previous episode, I expected it to be behind the castle, so on first watching this episode, its position to the right of the screen came as a surprise. Which is odd, because that's the only location where a hill/mountain is.
However, after looking at screenshots of the castle from prior episodes, I noticed something odd. There are no hills anywhere near the castle when it first appears, but as time progresses, the artists start drawing more hills. In Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks they're quite far away, but in the Season Five finale, they're right next to Twilight's Castle.
It's weird that there'd be such lack of continuity. You'd think they'd keep it the same. Why go to the effort to draw more hills, when you can reuse the same assets? It's you don't have continuity issues, plus it's easier and cheaper to keep using the same background.
4829446
Everything grows, even the hills.
As far as I remember, the biggest difference in the scenery near the castle actually accumulates during The Cutie Re-Mark. My guess is, they needed to make the place where the castle stands distinctive for that one, so that it would be obvious that it’s missing, which was, after all, a plot point.
Also, it’s quite likely that assets that are suitable for one kind of shot the storyboard specifies are not suitable for another shot, and someone went overboard with the storyboard at some point, forcing them to make new hills. Repeatedly.
“Girlfriend” was used in the song from “Hearts and Hooves Day”.
Oddly enough, it’s a pretty good match for Quercus castaneifolia x cerris (that is, a hybrid between the chestnut-leaved oak and the turkey oak).
Some sort of paleontology exhibit, maybe?
4829466
I don’t think these are usually referred to as “shows”, though, as the word typically implies an activity rather than a static exhibit.
I might be wrong.
4829446
MLP these days has a standing anti-continuity policy. If there is an opportunity to cause a contradiction, it must be taken.
4829500
Wouldn't that itself be continuity, though?
4829486
As it happens, in Arizona we have the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show ( http://www.tgms.org/show/ ) which uses that kind of a name, and features lots of rocks and fossils. Maud would eat it up.
Probably very much the way characters in cars make a point of putting on seatbelts, or cyclists don helmets even when it doesn't seem to fit the scene. In many states, life jackets are required for kids in boats, and while the ponies are grown ups, the intended audience are not.
This has been mentioned before, but rock shows are actually a popular way for rock collectors to meet and exchange/sell specimens. I got my first amber-colored topaz crystal there, as well as some other stuff. They're usually attended by anywhere from a hundred (more typical) to a thousand (larger, more advertised ones) people, and offer everything from precious gems to rock hunting tools to books on the subject.
4829687
Virtually every collector community will have an analogue "show." For example, model train shows.
I stopped watching the Big Bang theory in the first place because I got tired of this guy.
Sounds like it's an earth-pony exclusive club. Lyra is only there because she's dating an earth pony, and Lemon Hearts want some of that earth pony You Know.
Perhaps Starlight's mother?
So you're saying Applejack is in the background?
Probably goofing off, though I could see Granny inheriting the deed to some Apple family wax museum far away.
This is actually really important, as it means the world is at least a few million years old.
The mind palace seemed really weird and was never referenced again. Is it supposed to imply that Mudbriar is autistic?
I assumed it was because she needs to get laid. Why hasn't she just gone to the choosing stone then? Oooh, maybe she did and it told her she has no match. Would also explain the depression.
I think those ponies are aware its a cut out and are doing this to please Pinkie/get a free party out of it.
Anyone else think the floating cardboard cutout was an homage to Heir of Rick's video?
Eh, annoying Sheldon expie is annoying. Pinkie is always annoying in Maud episodes, the only good part was seeing more of the other two Pie sisters.
4829858
I doubt anything is racially exclusive in Ponyville, with the possible exception of certain flying-based activities. But it might be that one or another activity is more or less popular depending on race, like, say, staying up late.
If so, Trixie resembles Starlight’s mother rather a lot.
She did win “Best Background Pony” for many years running, didn’t she?
Check the Wikipedia article I linked. It’s not autistic to use your spatial and visual imagination to prop up memory, and the idea has been known all the way back in ancient Rome. Using the words “mind palace” to refer to it is quite weird, though.
Quite plausible. <insert clopfic> in one, two, three….
Of course they are. Which is precisely why this doesn’t speak well of them: They only care about Maud’s birthday as long as they get a free party out of it, interacting with Maud is neither necessary for them nor desired.
I suspect that was rather the point.
4829981
You mean, screwing up the world outside the margins for a cheap joke is the whole point?
Well, I suppose so.
4829453
That makes sense, I guess.
It looked more like regular oak leaves to me...
It seems distinctly possible Pinkie told everyone this would happen ahead of time, and no one bothered to question it. Because Pinkie.
Is this the first evidence that ponies use Binomial nomenclature? And are Quercus and Castaneifolia words from Old Ponish?
4830344
No, it’s not. The first evidence is “Pinkius Piecus” from Feeling Pinkie Keen.
It’s a safe bet they’re words from Ponylatin instead, which turns up many times across the series, and is first named in A Flurry of Emotions.