Points of Canon: S8x24 - Father Knows Best · 9:06am Sep 2nd, 2018
A spoiler, yet another one. I won’t be picking apart the subtitled episodes, but we’re getting close to the end of Season 8, and I am still not very impressed with it…
- Chronology markers: Spike has wings, and the episode opens with him flight training, which would imply Molt Down was a relatively recent, but not an immediately recent event. The entire episode would occupy the better part of a month, if not a whole month, and would have to overlap something else.
- “Because she’s teaching you to fly like a pony instead of a dragon.” Which is actually our first indication that flight mechanics are different between ponies and dragons, though the way feathers are blamed for the difference is a bit strange. Probably, it’s the way magic interacts with feathers more than anything else.
- “And you know how I get when I’m in the embroidery zone.” We haven’t previously caught Spike doing embroidering at all, IIRC. He’s quite skilled, something to keep in mind.
- “It’s just dragons don’t really use pillows. At all.” Not unexpected, but not a given and good to know.
- “Well, I hope you’re not expecting me to fix it.” Twilight keeps a wheelchair on the premises. Were this wheelchair acquired elsewhere, Sludge wouldn’t avoid getting medicated and bandaged, would he?
- “My friends and I will only do enough to get you back on your claws.” Twilight misses a rare opportunity to use the word “feet.”
Montage time! My guess is that the events depicted occupy at least a week, possibly two.
- Notice that Fluttershy tucks Sludge into Spike’s own bed, while just prior to that, Rarity makes a sling for him out in Canterlot’s boutique – so he had to have traveled there and then back. Climbing up several sets of stairs with this wheelchair had to have been a chore.
- Applejack still has the same bench-grinder-like cider-producing device previously seen in Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000. There’s no obvious chronology lock resulting from this, unfortunately.
- How exactly did Rainbow talk her teammates into hauling Sludge around for his flight retraining, I have no idea, but notably, two well-trained pegasi can outright lift a dragon that has to weigh at least a metric ton with no issues.
- “Coming to Ponyville wasn’t an accident. I was looking for you. Spike… I’m your father.” Well, we do find out later this is a lie, but it’s interesting that while ponies take it at face value, Pinkie is the first one to give out hints that she knows what’s going on.
“The Dragon Lord even picked her to scout for the Great Migration, and-and even though she just laid your egg, we knew she’d have to go. But finding the Migration route could take a lifetime, and you deserved a chance to know your mother. So I went looking for you, carrying your egg to places no dragon or pony has ever been. Past Mount Aris, the abandoned home of the Hippogriffs…” Now, we have no clear idea how much of this is bullshit, but:
- Great Migration is not a set route and requires scouts. – Probably a lie. If that were so, ponies would be unable to predict a migration would pass by Ponyville in Dragon Quest. If it is a lie, it’s the most dangerous one, since Smolder would have caught Sludge on it.
- Torch was the Dragon Lord at the time. – Inference based on what is shown in the flashback, so suspect because flashback, but probably true anyway.
- Hippogriffs have already abandoned Mount Aris at the time. – Fits our other estimates: Hippogriffs appear to have abandoned the surface at least prior to the current teenagers being born.
“Oh, well, have you heard of the Land of the Scale Collectors? Because that’s where your mother’s trail finally led. To a prison world of dragon hunters, where I was forced to choose between surrendering myself or surrendering your egg.” – This one has to be bullshit. But notice that Sludge says “prison world,” and the imagery shown depicts floating rocks, something otherwise never observed in Equestria. Everypony accepts this at face value. The dragon hunters themselves are rather nondescript, presented only as dark shadows in apparent armor – so we can’t even count on them having the horns we see on them – but definitely bipedal and top-heavy… Is this the Storm King’s native world, a separate reality, as I speculated previously? There’s no way Sludge has actually been there, but he could have heard rumors.
That said, “Locked up somewhere not even the Princess of Friendship has heard of” is quite ironic, because we know full well how many places Twilight has never heard of.
- “How did you know I was a boy?” “Whatever happened to Spike’s mom?” “And how did the egg make it all the way back to Equestria by itself?” For that matter, since when did you guys learn to ask the right questions and why didn’t you do it, for example, in Shadow Play?!
- “I hope you don’t mind, but I have a list of all the things I always wanted to do with my dad!” Good to know, but I do wonder when did Spike start writing it. Notably, this is a list of very pony things, from buckball to Hearth’s Warming.
Song montage time!
- “All these fancy robes, toss in a pile” So why exactly does Spike own this entire rack of bathrobes? I am not sure we’ve ever seen him wear one.
- “You can’t move like this with so much stuff to weigh you down / A dragon always keeps it lean” … what, really? Oh wait, no, not really: “Just grab it all and give to me / After that, then you’ll be free.” But that should have tipped Spike off: Greed is something he would have to be well aware of, Smolder even mentioned greed growth recently, in Molt Down.
- Spike is cleaning his teeth, a towel wrapped around his waist. The logic of this towel escapes me, but I guess at least he knows where his towel is.
- Starlight gets ejected with her entire bathtub, but catches herself in the air. We knew she can do that, but notice she’s using a cap for her hair, an artifact which I don’t think came up before.
- “Mi castle es su castle.” So where did Sludge happen upon the saying clearly attributable to the nearly invisible Spanish-like pony minority?…
- “And that’s why I thought we could use the Map to—” I would actually love to hear what did Twilight have to say, because an potential uses for the Map could be very important. Blame Sludge.
- “Dragons like to sprawl when they get their claws done.” Sludge blows the dust off his claws and the tail spike, indicating that it’s probably rigid keratin too, even though it’s the same color as the spines, known not to be rigid from prior episodes. Well, we know Spike digs with his from A Dog and Pony Show…
- “Now I finally have a chance to see how I’m supposed to be.” Compare to Dragon Quest, which Spike previously dismissed, even though it said basically the same.
- “Uh, dragons are rude and rebellious, but they aren’t lazy lumps who take advantage of their kids.” I expect Smolder’s opinion is representative, or at least, more representative than Sludge’s.
This isn’t particularly far-reaching in terms of worldbuilding, because Sludge doesn’t even have to know anything about Spike in advance to come up with his plan: He spent a significant time recuperating in the castle, which would offer numerous opportunities to find out everything he needed to know to cook it up. That means that his crashing in Ponyville right in front of Smolder and Spike was indeed an accident, but that could have happened for any number of reasons.
The origins of the lie about the “Land of the Scale Collectors” are a lot more interesting.
Donald Duck logic?
4930009
Are you even allowed to put “Donald Duck” and “logic” in the same sentence?
She probably told them it would be an unusual weight training exercise. Wonderbolt training has been seen as both masochistic and silly before.
Two points of note here:
I assume you mean the same material as horns, nails and claws, ie keratin, not bone.
One important point of my own:
Twilight does not, at this point, know where Spike's egg came from. She's had ample opportunity to ask Celestia, so the only possibilities are:
I already mentioned this in the Discord chat, but it bears asking again here:
Given how greedy Sludge is in this episode, and how greedy we can assume he otherwise is naturally, how on Earth has he not undergone greed growth? His size makes no sense.
4930026
Smolder made it sound like something only immature dragons were vulnerable to, for some reason.
4930052
Then why is Torch so huge?
4930019
Oops. Yes.
I’m pretty certain it’s the first of the two by now. Remember my Blueblood and his legend of a dragon prince?
4930054
Because once the molting is done, growth continues uninterrupted according to age? Really, we still know very little about dragons…
The ponies were sadly credulous of the con-dragon's claims. They deal with con-ponies all the time! Admittedly, all the signs are there that this occurred before "Friendship University", but that was hardly the first time they've run into Flim and Flam.
Isn't Applejack supposed to be good at detecting lies? Or has that been definitively jossed as pure fanon?
Also, do people think that this guy was trying for a slip-and-fall or crash for cash scam setup? He's all over in scars, despite being a big ol' ball of lard. Like he's done this a hundred times.
4930107
She never ever demonstrates any special ability of that nature in canon, and I keep wondering why this particular fanon even exists.
He might, at that – even if the plan to capitalize on Spike was an improvisation born while he was convalescing, a reason to crash in the middle of town in a fireball is still missing…
It's a bit interesting that the show creators have been deliberately coy for years about Twilight and Spike's exact relationship and how they see each other. Only now seeming to settle on Mother and Son. A big portion of the fandom will be happy with that an equally big portion will probably be upset.
4930157
Actually, nothing got settled on at all – other episodes lean just as heavily towards a brother-sister dynamic instead. They are still as coy about it as they have always been.
So Storm King been around and kicking ass for at least ten years?
4930321
Been around, yes. Kicking ass, not sure – I do suspect him of invading from another world, so he might be kicking ass elsewhere.
4930520
I don't know if we can believe Sludge but by his word Mountain Ares sacked even before Spike birth. I just play with theory that general lack of Equestrian armed forces in the show (and even Royal Guards at some degree) happens becuase they stationed on Equestria borders in case if Storm Kibg try to pull something.
Never thought I'd see this episode.
Interesting, it appears both Smolder and Spike are still considered "babies" by dragon standards, suggesting quite a long time until adolescence is complete. On the other hand, the fact that Sludge claims to be Spike's father, and Smolder doesn't object to this on biological grounds, suggests that a dragon old enough to have a child (decades ago) would still only be as small as Sludge, and not as huge as other dragons we've seen. All the other smaller dragons could plausibly have been teenagers or younger.
I think this suggests dragons spend many decades as children, but also that they don't start getting to the size of Torch or other larger-sized dragons until a long period, perhaps centuries, after they've already become adults.
Don't think of it as lifting, think of it as upwards hauling!
By its very nature a migration has a set route. I think Sludge honestly forgot about Smolder at this point.
So it sounds like Sludge has actually been to Mount Aris (I bet a lot of dragons go there to scavenge treasure) and Sludge town. He pretty much has to have been aware of the Storm King, and have a vague idea what the minions look like. He probably is basing the prison planet on stories of the Storm King's homeland. That said, if you look at the newest fullest map, it seems pretty clear there's an island in the southwest that is supposed to be the Storm King's home.
Also notable that it's not "my parents" it's "my Dad." Does he have a similar list of things for his dragon mom, or does he feel Twilight has covered that list?
Bam. We have explicit confirmation that it was Twilight who raised him, not Celestia or anyone else. (Some ponies might have helped, but to Spike Twilight is the only one who raised him). We already knew he considers her family.
Rarity assuaging her guilt by making him free clothes?
And yet Sludge never grows in size, even after Spike gives him all that stuff. Are adults immune to greed growth?
If he's been to Mount Aris and Sludge town, he's probably flown through Southern Equestria.
It also kind of puts a cap on the amount of complete evilness for the average dragon. So dragons are ruthless jerks, but they have self-respect and aren't generally lazy (perhaps they all craft their own armor or something). And they have some level of care for their kids, although we know they still throw them out to be eaten when their children molt.
Side note: Ember has wings, so she must have molted. If Torch is super-protective of her, did he throw her out when she was molting?
Ok, the big thing. We already know Twilight raised him and he considers her his family. But we get something more in this episode.
real parent. As opposed to fake parent, who must be Twilight Sparkle. Not real family, or anything vague like that, parent.
This is confirmation that Spike considers Twilight his parent. Not just a sibling or generic cousin, but an actual parent. From a setting perspective that may not be important, but from a character perspective it's huge.
I'd say this episode basically canonizes MLP Comics Issue #40.
4930026
4930054 I think adult dragons are immune to greed growth, but after many centuries they still keep growing to that size.
4930110
The Slippin' Jimmy of dragons. He actually spends a lot of time until the end being nice to Spike, doing quality time things with him. Setting him up for the long con?
4930157 Yeah, this episode could get backlash.
4930194 "Real Parent" versus "Fake Parent" plus "raised" is pretty un-coy. You don't tell your older sister you'd prefer your real parent unless the implication is that that older sister is your fake parent.
4930520
He has to have been threatening people in this world at that time period to get all of Mount Aries to flee. I do like the idea that he's from another world, but I suspect his yeti minions are from this world.
4930687
Then how was the Storm King's forces so easily able to invade the capital?
4930899
Most likely main Storm forces create a diversion so Berrytwist and Co able to reach Canterlot using storm clouds as cover. After new about Canterlot invasion reach army at least part of said army tried to reach capital as fast as possible and create a window of opportunity to the rest (or sizeable part) of King Storm forces to invade Equestria.
4930899
Or forward operating base. The one Equestria’s armed forces were off surprise-assaulting while he did his daring raid on the capital.
Seems to me that greed growth is an emergency-reserve style adaptation, primarily serving to prevent younger dragons from being robbed and eaten by adult neighbors once their own families kick them out during molting.
I suspect the throwing out might be temporary, i.e. once the molts are complete, the family welcomes the now-considered-adult dragon back in, to the extent dragons do families at all.
You know they’re going to forget about something this subtle immediately, don’t you?
…Which is exactly the case when the sister raises you without sharing her own parental figures with you, isn’t it?
Pretty sure that they share the origin with him, wherever he’s from – three fingers is very distinctive in Equestria, where every creature that has fingers has four. That said, he mysteriously has cloven hooves when his troopers do not.
4930946 That makes some sense.
4930997
Yeah, it does look like a barren island fortress. I like this theory that there was a grand diversion that got the EUP sent away.
Yeah, I could see that. Explains how dragons are able to survive the molting while they draw in predators with their stench.
Well, if she's not your biological older sister, but she did raise you from birth, and doesn't share her parental figures with you, that doesn't sound like a sisterly relationship to me. I don't think a big sister would have her hear broken into little pieces by being told she's not a real parent the way a mother would.
Speaking of Twi’s heart breaking into little pieces, even though the x-ray is clearly intended to be metaphorical rather than literal, it’s still interesting that it shows yet another example of bones inside pegasus wing feathers.
Alright. I have avoided all spoilers about the end of the season, but been really busy. Let's do this.
With how much crashing he's doing should he really be practicing near the pointy, spiky tip of the castle?
Also: Twilight stands by as he crashes into the ground again and again and not once uses her telekinesis to catch him.
Pinkie is the one who missed that it was a pun?
I wonder if there's a kind of real cider press that works that way? The designs I've seen were all more... horizontal.
That's quite a reveal... 'is this guy a fraud or not?' is such an obvious thought I'm not going to go into detail about it.
Starlight's levitation spell even keeps the water in the bath when it's at an angle!
You made Twilight cry, Spike! How could you!
Fact-checking 'dragon culture' with Smolder seems like something they shoulda done ages ago...
Well, this episode wrapped up rather abruptly. But then, ponies aren't big on revenge.
<-- Oliver
Eh, he's a kid, and kids change their minds all the time. That said, he seems to just be caught up in this whole 'holy cow I met my real father' thing--he could have asked Smolder about dragons at any time.
I just... don't really have a lot to say about this episode. It was okay, I guess. I hear the next one is a real mess for analysis. Guess I'll see soon.
4936762
Is he? Do the numbers. Depending on how old exactly was Twilight at the time the series began, and how old exactly are ponies when they usually get their marks, at the moment of this episode, Spike has to be between 14 and 25 years old. If you prefer to imagine Twilight as having completed, rather than just started, university-level education at the start of the series, Spike gets older. If you do not agree with the implied Year 1 limits which squeeze the first three seasons between two Summer Sun Celebrations, Spike gets a lot older by the time of this episode.
My biggest question for this episode con concerns Sludge's size. There's no way he's an adult -- he's barely larger than the stouter members of Garble's gang, let alone the size the other adult dragons have been shown to reach. It's very likely that he was lying about being an adult, given how many other lies he told, but I'm still surprised that no one brought it up in the episode itself.