Jun
9th
2018
Points of Canon: S8x13 - The Mean Six · 6:12pm Jun 9th, 2018
I knew this one was questionable back when it was leaked. And now I have to analyze it using only one eye, because the astigmatism on the other one has finally reached levels glasses cannot compensate. Sigh.
- Chronology markers: School of Friendship is there, but none of the other in-season markers of Season 8, like Spike’s wings or Mudbriar appear. Twilight mentions that she had been planning this retreat “for weeks,” but that’s not helpful for relative positioning of this episode at all.
- Chrysalis introduces herself as a photographer from Canterlot Historical Society. Presumably, such a society actually exists, although, with the way the Mane 6 are behaving this season, you never know just how big of an idiot ball have they eaten for breakfast today. However, in our world, when writing about current or recent events of historical significance, historians would prefer to use photos from mass media, which we know ponies have, rather than commission new ones.
- Notably, Chrysalis does not disguise her aura color this time either, even while transformed it’s still the same luminescent green.
- For whatever reason – the only good reason I can think of is limits on available magical power – Starlight is not getting copied. Notably, for some reason her photo is blank, too.
“My spell can create a copy of any pony I desire! All I need is an image and a piece of the pony. Oh, and this.” Chrysalis’ spell, as well as the plan that hinges on it, is notable in many respects.
- It’s very new in her repertoire, very different from any prior examples of magic she was shown doing, and very odd: Why would a queen of the changelings want to know a spell like that at all? Were changelings available, they would be preferable for acquiring the Elements, even if they couldn’t use them themselves and had to hoof them over to the clones. It follows that Chrysalis has probably learned this spell after her last defeat in To Where and Back Again, but I wonder what sources did she use.
- It’s the first clear example of sympathetic magic in the series: This spell requires a material component sympathetically connected to the target, namely, a hair, as well as a symbolic component – an image. Chrysalis used photos, but I wonder whether a sketch would suffice, because photography definitely isn’t prehistoric, and such a spell does not sound like it would be a modern development. Actually, could one produce a clone of a deceased pony this way, even?…
- Notice that an image of the original’s cutie mark is required. Is it possible to copy a pony who has no cutie mark yet?
- Chrysalis believes that the resulting evil clones are sufficiently compatible to use the Elements, which would be motherfucking unprecedented if true, considering that they make a point to go a full 180° on their nominal virtues. The Tree’s reaction suggests it isn’t true, but we don’t know what would happen if the clones were not inverted and whether non-inverted clones are even possible. Notably, Clone Fluttershy clearly has Fluttershy’s universal translator ability, which behaves as normal, so Chrysalis’ belief isn’t exactly baseless.
- It’s interesting that some character traits are copied to the clones, some are inverted, but the memories are not copied at all – otherwise, there would be no need to look for the Elements in the first place. Clone Applejack does not even appear to be aware that Starlight exists. It’s also interesting that Applejack’s hat counts as a character trait and gets copied too.
- “Yes, I know, we have been planning this for quite some time.” Who are “we?” Does this mean Chrysalis is off her rockers entirely, or does she have an accomplice? Because at the moment she says that, the Mean Six definitely do not yet exist.
- “Why copies? Because Princess Twilight and her friends control the Elements of Harmony, the most powerful weapon in all Equestria!” At least from Chrysalis’ point of view, the Elements are a weapon, rather than anything else.
- “With the Elements under my control, I’ll build a new hive, of earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi, and I will rule as Queen once again!” Does Chrysalis know enough about the Elements to directly effect that kind of result through them, or does she hope this will work purely through the force of arms?
- The Everfree Forest looks surprisingly nice this season. Particularly the rose bushes.
“Rarity, why is Applejack carrying all your stuff?” Notable stuff:
- A fishing rod, which isn’t just depicted, but is explicitly referred to in speech. We knew ponies fish, but fishing while camping that far from home only makes sense if one plans to cook and eat the fish in place, you wouldn’t carry fish back for your pets, would you? And since it’s Applejack’s fishing rod, it follows that Applejack probably plans to eat the fish herself.
- The same strange compass with only one arrow we have seen many times before.
- A lamp. A saw. A shovel. A wooden mallet. Scissors. But no axe. An animation error (a cart full when it should be empty) results in duplicating most of these. For some reason, the shovel is meant to whack the vines out of the way. Presumably because a machete would not fit into TV-Y.
- A camouflage coat – why? – and boots. The camouflage pattern is strange: it includes orange.
- “Normally I wouldn’t lug so much gear, but did y’all know this is Starlight’s first time campin’?” Starlight acknowledges it is. Even if we assume she means camping as a pastime, it still appears she neither enjoys nor has much experience with outdoors, which produces a constraint on her missing years: She spent them somewhere in a civilized place. This is an important clue for the Other Sith theory: whoever the hypothetical Other Sith was, they could and did walk among ponies.
- “The location of the most powerful weapon in Equestria isn’t something made known to just anypony. I learned they were hidden somewhere in this forest.” One of the few acknowledgements in the series that outright classified information exists. I do wonder just how did Chrysalis find out what she did know, though.
- “Right. Roses. Fun.” Twilight’s face upon seeing Pinkie rolling in rose bushes clearly indicates rose bushes in Equestria do have thorns.
- “Ugh, an entire wagon and no anti-frizz?” It’s interesting that frizz was seen as fashionable as late as the 1980s in our world – or a 10-15 years ago for ponies, considering Cheerilee’s hair in Call of the Cutie – and anti-frizz products have only gained popularity afterwards.
- “Oh, no! You and your sister fell out of your nest and got separated? That’s terrible!” Fluttershy is being strange. The bird is depicted as an adult, or at least a fully developed specimen, yet cannot fly. If an adult bird can’t fly to its own nest, returning it to the nest would end with it starving in the nest, wouldn’t it? Alternatively, if it is a child with underdeveloped wings, you definitely shouldn’t mess with it and try to return it to the nest: This is normal and parents will take care of it anyway.
- “What is the Tree of Harmony?” Clone Twilight has no idea about the Tree, and later uses this intel to pressure Chrysalis, who didn’t know either. This makes it quite unlikely that Chrysalis has ever had a chance to study the Royal Pony Sisters castle in any kind of detail, while fanon often assumes she used it as a base at some point. Whether she knew anything about the particulars of Tirek’s defeat remains undefined, though.
- “They’re at a secret party up in that there tree. Run by a… squirrel named, uh, Jerome.” So how does
a squirrelClone Applejack come by the name “Jerome?” - “I hope you all freeze this winter!” Apparently, only Clone Fluttershy acknowledges winter even exists when it’s not actually going on.
- “Applejack, darling, are you all right? You look a little peaky. And where’s your wagon?” “Uh… stolen! Uh, I barely got away! Follow me, and I’ll tell ya all about it.” That would be a moment for Starlight to wonder what the hell is going on, because forest animals are typically not famous for stealing wagons. The only reason she doesn’t I can think of is that she’s tired out of her wits.
- “And then we all grew super-long manes with all kinds of colors, and your castle grew out of the ground, and everypony was like, ‘Whoa!’” This is a rare verbal acknowledgement that pony manes do indeed have all kinds of colors.
- “Can we hurry this up? We’re on a schedule here!” Wait, so how does Clone Twilight know?
- “I have the whole campsite set up and ready.” It’s interesting that everypony gets their own customized tent, but even more importantly, it’s customized tents we have previously seen – in Campfire Tales. Which would imply Twilight picking them up from everybody to set up in advance, and probably making this trip multiple times, alone. If Chrysalis actually did any recon before this mess, she would know exactly where Twilight is flying all the time.
- “Badger installation art!” Ponies have installation art, sure. Ok. I have previously commented how weird it is for ponies to have modern art at all, but ok. But how does Clone Applejack know what it is?!
“Ooh! That one’s mine!” I have no good theories what’s actually going during this fight, if only because previously the Tree has never demonstrated anywhere near this much agency. But here some things I notice:
- The Elements react when the Mean Six demonstrate their inverted virtues.
- Clone Twilight doesn’t just know how to cast a shield, – why? – but can actually overpower Chrysalis with a beam-push-of-war. That latter is not very surprising, because Chrysalis is likely starving and had just expended a lot of energy to create minions. However the Tree interprets this particular action as a demonstration of inverted virtue of Magic. I have no idea why.
- The tentacles are bloody strange.
TV-Y. You can’t show blood, knives, axes, guns, tits, but melting ponies to goo after wrapping them in tentacles is A-OK. Got it.
Chrysalis's clone spell is rather similar to the changelings' origin in her Fiendship is Magic issue. Tree + pony DNA = evil thing.
And yeah, I'm pretty sure she's gone completely around the bend.
She probably wrote up a timetable and never told anyone. Evil or no, this is Twilight.
Speaking of, given that Clone Fluttershy can translate for animals, it follows that Clone Twilight is a magical prodigy, explaining the shield. As for the inverted virtue question, I think it's a matter of this being especially unfriendly magic.
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Also, "magic" as used in the context of the Elements seems to connote charisma, leadership, inspiration (both in the sense of being inspired and inspiring others), and an ineffable jais ne se quois. Considering that Mean Twilight was constantly going on about having to put up with the other Mean Six because she needed them as pawns, she rather failed on all counts.
Chrysalis has undergone severe Villain Decay, sure to piss off the fans who thought she was a tactical genius who was only defeated before through dei ex machina she couldn’t have foreseen—and vindicate the fans who thought she was a cruel idiot from day one.
Hunter’s camouflage. The orange is so you’re visible to other hunters and don’t accidentally get shot.
Support for my theory that the Tree (via the Cutie Map) partially wiped Starlight’s mind when she used it as a component in her time-travel spell?
In any case, considering the Tree was planted by Starswirl “You can’t negotiate with evil, and you especially can’t negotiate with a former ally that you suspect is evil on the flimsiest of evidence” The Bearded himself... well, maybe we all should have expected a response like that from the Tree.
I could swear I have seen/read this premise of cloning the ponies from hair somewhere before!
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Do people remember that all her accomplishments also pretty much a Deus Ex Machina? We never see how exactly she pull shit like "kidnap all the princess and stuff".
She starts a fight with Celestia which she did not expect to win. She is an idiot from day one :).
Kind of a fun episode, but also kind of a dumb episode.
I think she said they'd all been teaching for weeks, so at least a few weeks after school has started. Could well be in that 9 month period that Fluttershy's been winning awards for.
As Borg pointed out in his review, this spell is actually pretty similar to the comic origin of the changlings. Pony body parts, evil magic (I mean, I'm assuming so since it comes from Chryssy) and a tree. Perhaps Chrysalis was originally researching how to parthogenetically create a new hive the way she was created, and this is the spell she ended up with?
It appears that Chrysalis doesn't actually know that much about the Elements, since she doesn't even know what they are or what the Tree of Harmony is.
The clones do appear to hold all the magic of their originals. I do wonder why they are inverted though. It seems like that would be even harder to do than regular clones.
Which tells us that Fluttershy's animal talk is a magical ability and not a learned skill, among other things.
She's talking to the trees, and I think it is indeed meant to imply she's been isolated and driven nearly mad by it.
Again, seems like Chryssi doesn't know much about them. Smart on her for looking for the one weapon that could deal with Discord though. Interesting that at no point does she say anything about getting revenge on Thorax or her old hive.
I mean, she could plan on feeding it to the Pegasi or something, but I'll admit that's a stretch. Heck, Applejack probably doesn't buy store-brand dog food for Winona, she's got to be used to dealing with meat in the past.
Yup! I don't have a ID for the other Sith, but what if she was spending her time in Kludgetown? Civilized, indoors, and any town that sells unicorn horns and harvests dragon hearts has got to have some dark magic tomes lying around.
I think what Chrysalis knows is pretty much what the common pony on the street knows. That the Mane 6 wield the EoH is on a stained glass window in the palace, it's publicly available knowledge. Ponies saw them returning from the Everfree forest in the S1 Premier with the Princesses and the Elements around their necks. Presumably after the S4 Premier ponies in Ponyville saw the Mane 6 head into the forest with their Elements and emerge without them.
One of those human pony differences. If animals need ponies to help with their hibernation, it makes sense that ponies would be trusted with their young.
Also, I think this is the first time we've seen ordinary non-monster wildlife in the Everfree.
Gerome is the name of the Griffon who buys pigs from Sweet Apple Acres to ship to Griffonstone?
This just made me realize something: Do they serve meat in the Friendship School Cafeteria for Gallus and possibly Smolder? If so, does Applejack provide the meat from her pigs or her fishing?
Twilight could probably teleport straight to the spot with those supplies and set up the campgrounds in a minute or two. The walking there is a friendship activity.
The logical guess is that clones have the general knowledge of their counterparts, but not their specific memories. Applejack probably got dragged to a few art institutes as a child in Manehatten.
I think the Tree of Harmony is just feeding on anyone within range who fails its test. A good question would be: Why wasn't Chrysalis also absorbed?
4879600 Yup. The original tree at least, is here to wipe out threats to harmony, not befriend them. I think of it as more an artifact of order than anything else.
I actually avoided spoilers, SOMEHOW, and when I saw that green aura and then Chrysalis I was so excited! This setup had so much potential, I thought maybe it'd turn out to be the beginning of a two-parter! Making Chrysalis and her minions incredibly incompetent, and the Mane Seven so dumb they don't realize anything happened, was pretty much the only way you could mess up this idea. Sigh.
Could be an accomplice we'll see later in the season or in the finale, but could just be the royal we. Chrysalis is the only queen, after all.
Alternatively, they have a secret base somewhere, perhaps with magical servants or spells for just magiccing up food and such.
I interpreted this to imply that some new threat was in the forest, and the Mane Seven are just so used to fighting bad guys by now that a new one showing up isn't weird.
She's clearly the smartest of the clones. Maybe she figured her original would have the same trait? Or maybe, having the same trait, she said it out of habit.
Twilight might've teleported the stuff into place. Why not just teleport her friends there, though... Seems she forgets she can teleport most of the time, anyway...
"She spent them somewhere in a civilized place. This is an important clue for the Other Sith theory: whoever the hypothetical Other Sith was, they could and did walk among ponies."
Hm, well, I'm not sure "in a civilized placed" automatically equals "not out of place among ponies". I mean, a two-Celestias-tall flaming skeletal undead pony warlock could still have a very nicely appointed guest suite with all the modern conveniences in his doom fortress.
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"Alternatively, they have a secret base somewhere, perhaps with magical servants or spells for just magiccing up food and such."
Right.
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"I think the Tree of Harmony is just feeding on anyone within range who fails its test. A good question would be: Why wasn't Chrysalis also absorbed?"
Well, two possibilities come to mind from what I remember:
1: It didn't register her as having attempted the test.
and/or
2: She was standing too far away.
“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
—Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon
“I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you cannot put downe [...]”
—H.P. Lovecraft, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
“Then Bioy Casares recalled that one of the monarchs of the changelings had declared that photographs and magical clones are abominable, because they increase the number of Starlight Glimmers.”
—Jorge Luis Borges, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Yes, I’m certain I got that last quote right.
So somehow (through collectively holding a massive idiot ball) the real Mane 6 never worked out what was going on, right? Which means, despite the smiles and reconciliations at the end, they're each harbouring little grudges: "You abandoned me in the forest!", "You called my retreat no fun!", "You said your cart had been stolen!" "You didn't even recognise me!"
We're going to have to assume that they sort this out off-screen, unless it's addressed in a coming episode, because otherwise their friendships are all poisoned.
If she did visit RPS Castle prior to the Canterlot invasion, or shortly after it, then the Elements of Harmony hadn't yet been returned to the tree. She might conceivably have seen the weird crystal tree, but not connected the dots to "of Harmony".
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I think the way she is clearly presented as outright insane this time takes care of that best.
I.e. when being out in the wild, getting shot is a concern for ponies? Good to know.
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Upon further reflection, I definitely do not believe Chrysalis is the original author of this spell. The logic is like this:
It follows that Chrysalis chanced on a spell to make an evil twin of your enemy, which is something ponies might have developed for character assassination purposes, and seized the opportunity.
I wonder where, though.
Definitely.
There’s no reason to bother if they will just die off in a few years.
That, actually, is a very good idea. And fits well with the punk aesthetic that teenage Starlight was known to have. I do think she would have arrived there by airship, though…
Turns up in secondary canon all the time.
I want to say “because she did not attempt to claim an Element herself,” but actually, neither did the clones. It seems more like the Tree recognized the clones as the previously accepted wielders, verified that they are going directly against the virtues they must espouse, and… executed them for it.
Which is one of the bigger reasons why I consider this episode problematic in the first place: What the hell, Tree?
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Indeed, but my concern would still be meeting this guy and/or reaching his fortress: If that involves camping, Starlight very likely did not do that.
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"Indeed, but my concern would still be meeting this guy and/or reaching his fortress: If that involves camping, Starlight very likely did not do that."
Hm, true. Increased probability that either the Other Sith, if not based in a settled area directly, has an organization she was able to find or specifically tried to recruit her?
Why is "the plan does not require her" not a good reason?
The way Chrysalis talks about them and her lack of knowledge of their position (even the old position in the castle) suggests she quite likely does not know about the virtues or does not know they are anything but Celestia's propaganda exalting her chosen ones. Given that it has long been a common fandom idea that the Elements are locked in to current users at least as long as they live and/or being able to use a particular Element is an arbitrary inborn trait, I find it completely reasonable to assume her beliefs about the requirements of using them are somewhere along these lines.
Additionally, she clearly did not know the clones' personality would turn out quite like it did, though admittedly she also did not call the whole thing off as soon as she realized she's surrounded by assholes. At any rate, she definitely isn't well familiar with the effects and either this it the first test, or previous tests were only cursory checks.
As an aside, Chrysalis might have actually not noticed the clones are different. Aside from probably not being very familiar with the originals, I think she is afflicted simply with the same the inability to distinguish between someone and their evil copy based on the latter's asshole behavior that everyone else is also plagued by whenever she is nearby. Now that I think of it, inflicting this might be an ability of hers that she doesn't control.
I think she's referring to a schedule that she herself created.
Don't you know clones aren't people (or even animals) and their lives are worthless? How else could Twilight have slaughtered dozens of Pinkies?
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Far too dangerous, ponies are prized slaves in Kludgetown, not a good place for a filly to grow up, however evil.
I don't think the show ever actually suggested that griffons or dragons are any more carnivorous than ponies.
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It's quite possible that she's not the author, but I'm not sure your reasons guarantee it.
I would guess its a weakness of the spell or cloning process that it doesn't have a control function built in. Certainly the original author of the spell would also be pretty evil, they'd want such a useful feature too. Perhaps whoever wrote it planned to use regular old mind control magic, available off the shelf, on any created clones, but Chrysalis used up basically all her magic to make the 6 in the first place.
The problem with that is, if they were non-inverted clones of Chrysalis, they would have turned on her even faster, because they'd be a band of noble heroes. That might have made for an even better episode, as a amnesiac Mane 6 get told by a bluffing Chrysalis they need to use the Elements of Harmony for vague purposes, and would probably play out a lot like the Star Trek TNG episode Conundrum
. But without direct mind control, for one reason or another the Mane 6 were going to turn on Chrysalis. She's used to bossing around minions she personally laid, after all.
Invertue!
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It just now occurs to me, but maybe the clones’ death wasn’t intentional. Perhaps the intended function is that, if the Tree judges somepony unworthy, then it drains them of magic—to make them harmless, and to preemptively stop them from trying to take the Elements by force. For a normal pony or other creature, having their magic drained in this way wouldn’t be fatal.
But the mean six aren’t normal ponies. They’re hunks of wood, given the shape of ponies via magic and animated by that same magic. So the loss of that magic was fatal to them.
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Hm, aye. Sounds plausible, at least.
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Precisely my point.
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Because leaving Starlight out of the previous plan entirely was exactly what caused it to fail? She could at least collect a hair and a photo right there and then, no need to use them immediately…
She did capture them at some point, though…
That would certainly be an interesting story if true.
…So it’s ok to draw fetish scenes as long as they happen to clones?
…unless she has a wealthy and powerful patron everyone’s afraid of.
Technically, it never did detail what, if anything, griffons eat when you’re not looking, and the times they do eat, it’s primarily pastries and sweets. However, it’s the Aragorn’s Pants problem: Nowhere in the Lord of the Rings trilogy Aragorn’s lower body wear is described. Therefore, he never wore pants, and you can’t prove otherwise.
Imagining a creature that is “part lion, part eagle, all awesome” and still a herbivore stretches my suspension of disbelief far too much.
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Amen. That would be so much better…
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That is at least marginally better, though still very sketchy…
-DannyJ, upon reaching the ending of this episode.
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As male drones, aren't Thorax and Pharynx technically clones?
And brings up the question of who Applejack is selling those pigs to.
It would be, except what happens at the end of the episode? It would be ten times worse to see the tree murder good copies of the Mane 6 than bad copies. I think the refusal to let the clones stick around is probably what doomed the writing of this episode. It's a shame they didn't let the bad clones survive to be more existential villainy threats. The villain roster is looking pretty thin these days.
Very sketchy indeed. The Map can spot a failing restaurant in Canterlot or an estranged parent in Sires Hollow and predict the optimal individual to solve the problem, but the tree can't tell that the 6 beings in front of it will die if it drains their magic?
Do we think the Map/Crystal Castle and the Tree of Harmony are two entities, or one?
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Good copies presumably wouldn’t fail the Tree’s test and trigger the spell that killed them.
Chrysalis' plan boils down to controlling the Elements and using them as weapons. To do this, she needs copies of their bearers. Starlight does not have an Element of her own. Therefore, there is no reason for Chrysalis to bother making a copy of her too.