Nov
4th
2018
Points of Canon: Friendship Games Shorts · 4:39pm Nov 4th, 2018
And more in the same vein.
As with Rainbow Rocks shorts, these shorts are not particularly interdependent, and are meant to stick between movies – however, unlike them, they are much less fixed and could float up and down the timeline a lot further.
The Science of Magic
This one is actually kinda important.
- Chronology markers: Rainbow has her guitar acquired in Guitar Centered, Applejack has her guitar acquired in A Case for the Bass, Rarity wields a keytar since Player Piano. Sunset refers to them ponying up, however, she does not refer to herself ponying up. While, purely on plot progression, this would start after Rainbow Rocks, since they are much friendlier towards Sunset than in Rainbow Rocks Shorts, it does not have to: all the definite prerequisites existed before the events of the movie began. There is no clear upper bound except the absence of Sci-Twilight, since there’s no way the situation would escape her involvement if she was available.
- The equipment Sunset is using makes no sense – that is, I can’t identify any sensible prototypes for it. It may make magical sense, but we are obviously not knowledgeable enough to understand what is it supposed to do in that regard. The use of a bubbling tank of pink liquid is particularly conspicuous: Measurement devices we use rarely involve tanks of liquid and it isn’t usually pink. Some of it, like the colander Sunset sticks on Fluttershy, is clearly improvised. Most of it is bloody heavy and Sunset would require assistance bringing it in. Notice also that this is not the music room seen in Rainbow Rocks, but a classroom with all the chairs and tables missing. The classroom also has a control room area behind a glass wall, which is actually pretty strange. What is this room normally used for?…
- “Uh, I thought we were rehearsing.” “Well, you are.” This is not solid enough to unambiguously mean that Sunset was supposed to participate in the rehearsal, hence why it might fall back to before Rainbow Rocks.
- “Back when I was Princess Celestia’s student, I learned best by going out into the field and actually doing something. Studying ancient books is fine for some people, but I like to solve magical mysteries by rolling up my sleeves and getting my hooves… uh, hands dirty.” This is an important statement, and so far we haven’t found anything to contradict it: Sunset’s education had a notable practical bent.
- “I can relate to workin’ hard outdoors, but what the hay does that have to do with us playin’ music?” Since when does Pedestrian Applejack use “hay” as an euphemism?…
- “Why you grow ears, tails, and wings when you pony up and what your instruments have to do with it.” Notice, not “we” – Sunset is talking as if this does not happen to her.
Phenomena observed during the experiments:
- Equipment misbehavior: There is generally no mundane way for a time-series curve to suddenly turn two-dimensional, but this is what happens on Sunset’s screen as Fluttershy ponies up.
- Materialization: Fluttershy produces butterflies out of nothing and Applejack spawns something like 20 kilograms of apples. Pinkie spawns a stream of balloons, which also project force. Rainbow spawns a splotch of rainbow paint, projecting it through a wire.
- Levitation: Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow and Rarity levitate. Pinkie doesn’t.
- Sunset has, or at least, had a laptop decorated with her cutie mark. I don’t think I’ve seen the thing again, at least for a good long while, and that splotch of rainbow might have damaged it.
- “Finally, after all this testing, I’ve come to a definitive conclusion! I have no idea how magic works in this world.” I have to concur with Sunset here: magic in Pedestria does not appear to be consciously directed at all.
One important takeaway from this one is that Sunset’s first impulse when studying magic is to use equipment – and what appears to be at least some form of coherent experimental methodology, which, in Equestria, only Twilight is ever shown doing, in Feeling Pinkie Keen and even she eventually mostly abandons this.
Pinkie Spy
- Chronology markers: Actually, this is difficult to date. While the plot explicitly revolves around checking out the competition for the Friendship Games, Friendship Games themselves are not a new thing, and Crystal Prep is the traditional opponent in those. If another Friendship Games occurred within Year 1P or Year 2P, this episode could be set at that time, and we don’t know if that was the case.
- Take note: This short starts with an excellent overhead view of Crystal Prep.
- “Crystal Prep High School. The competition!” Rainbow’s displays of acrobatics are not exactly beyond human norm, but pretty close to the limits.
- “Wanna see what else I have? Cat burglar! Dog burglar! Tree! Bunny suit! Camouflage!” Pedestrian Pinkie is capable of just as much reality warping as Equestrian Pinkie, but we kinda knew that. For that matter, the amount of balloons lifting her and Rainbow into the air is insufficient to produce this result and cannot be explained without involving Pinkie herself.
Considering that nothing of consequence happens, and this is primarily an excuse for Pinkie to be random, it’s not very useful.
All’s Fair in Love and Friendship Games
- Chronology markers: The statue in front of Canterlot High still exists, requiring this to happen prior to Friendship Games. The use of “eighth grade” rather than “last year” implies, but doesn’t hard lock, that it is in fact immediately prior to the movie, rather than a prior instance of Friendship Games.
“That time we went to the amusement park in eighth grade!”
- Pedestrian Lyra and Bon-Bon were together – whether “best friends” already or not – since before Canterlot High. Actually, I’m not sure best friends usually lock elbows quite like that…
- Which makes their subsequent competition all the more strange.
- “Is it just me or did things take a turn towards Weirdsville?” I am not entirely sure how diegetic is the resulting display of feats is supposed to be, but statistically, Bon-Bon displays more feats of strength, while Lyra, for some reason, presents more feats of endurance. But the yelling in costumes they finish on is entirely incomprehensible to me and feels like I missed a reference.
- As a result, both Lyra and Bon-Bon end up on the team, and we know they’re on the team in Friendship Games, but that still doesn’t exclude this from happening in Year 1P or 2P.
Couples injoke, I expect?
Photo Finished
- Chronology markers: Actually, none: There is nothing to date this short at all!
“Photo Finish, our yearbook photos this year could use a bit more… mmm, pizzazz.”
- Notice that Luna, an adult, addresses Photo Finish by pony name, rather than in any other way, and she would probably have to use the legal name. Compare to A Case for the Bass.
- As we know from Forgotten Friendship, Sunset would have to be the yearbook president or at least on the yearbook committee together with Wallflower during Year P3, and likely, at least for a certain time before that. That she is not involved at all, suggests this actually has to be backdated to the time when Sunset wasn’t involved with it.
“Shtop! Hold that pose!”
- As I mentioned before, Photo Finish’s assistants are among the very rare Pedestrians to sport crystal pony hair, and these scenes feature a lot of them.
- Using this telephoto lens at such a close range would result in some rather blurry pictures.
- “That book is out of order! It does not comply vith the Dewey Decimal System!” Pedestria uses Dewey Decimal, rather than any horse pun. Not a given and implies a man named Dewey existed, suggesting that the pony names phenomenon is localized.
- “Paint it! Paint it!” The object being painted is an alicorn, which are actually relatively rare in artwork in our world.
- “Sign the waiver!” Actually, quite an important phrase: Photo release forms exist in Pedestrian law, or there would be no need to do this!
Photo Finish accidentally referred to things she wasn’t supposed to mention, now we have more data.
A Banner Day
- Chronology markers: This dates to immediately prior to Friendship Games – however, we are still not sure if this is Friendship Games, or the hypothetical prior time they happened.
- “I’m sure you’ll come up with the perfect sign that lets the Crystal Prep kids feel welcome but also conveys that we are stiff competition.” Trusting the students to do this implies a certain policy – the cautious option would be to just tell them what to write / draw.
“We should decorate it with the sheet music to my song ‘Love in a Flash.’”
- Flash Sentry actually wrote at least one song, imagine that.
- Flash Sentry knows sheet music. This is actually bigger than you would expect: Quite a lot of career rock musicians don’t, and don’t think of music in terms of musical notation in the first place, they are a lot more likely to think in guitar tabs and chords. Furthermore, as Flash is drawing, we see him convert tabs into sheet music in his head as he plays air-guitar and then writes down the notes. That’s a lot more skill than we normally expect from the guy.
- “My friendship algorithm!” Why in blazes would Micro Chips say that, when he was out to paint a model of DNA, I don’t know. Why would he even consider that a friendship algorithm is an expression that makes sense is an even muddier question. Any takers? Did he have an opportunity to interact with Princess Twilight for an extended period and get infected with her ideas of friendship calculus?…
- “And how am I supposed to paint my spirit guide when there’s DNA and a treble clef in the way?” At least Sandalwood believes that spirit guides exist, which drags in a huge load of cultural baggage Pedestria might not have had otherwise.
- The guitar Flash drew has seven machine heads. While seven string electric guitars do exist, they’re quite exotic and are associated with metal, so I really wonder why did he draw one.
- “Now just add ‘Welcome Crystal Prep,’ and I’d like to see five more by the end of the day.” Actually, why would Luna need five more?…
This would imply that Flash is not so much a rock musician as he is actually a symphonic metal guitarist, – that’s the only reason why would he use both a seven-string guitar and musical notation rather than tabs that I can think of – which is quite unexpected!
Some analysis
- Notice that Sunset isn’t in any of those except the first, which I suspect might actually date back to Rainbow Rocks. That said, the Humane 5 are rather scarce as well.
- The key to dating these is determining whether prior Friendship Games existed in Year 1P or 2P or not. Consider the very strange scene in Friendship Games, where Sunset knows about the games, and does not know about CHS/CPA rivalry, while everyone else does, and the statement by Wallflower in Forgotten Friendship that makes it clear Sunset was there since the first year of high school. This might actually imply that the core of the characters are not condensed in the same year of high school, but currently I’m not sure how it comes together, if it comes together at all. I suspect this might emerge as one of the biggest issues of Pedestrian chronology. Or we could blame everything on Wallflower wiping Sunset’s memory one time too many…
The thing with Sunset in the room behind a glass wall, looks a lot like a recording studio setup. I suspect the school has a recording studio, and Sunset has taken it over for experimentation purposes.
4962985
Possible but unlikely: No sign of soundproofing on the walls, and there’s a blackboard.
Maybe she not exactly "abandon" it? I think that it mostly a procedure that dictate how to research unknown magic or magic abilities. So she, perhaps, only apply it to things that she clearly dont understand. Like Pinkie Sense.
I love your detail on the guitar mechanics. I don't know anything about this stuff.
Also, a relevant comic: https://derpibooru.org/959856
4962998
Well, we certainly never see her do it again, even to the Chest of Harmony, which certainly qualifies as a magical object she does not understand: The limit of methodical approach when studying it is a diagram on the wall.
4962999
I spent about two years recording (as in, I was the sound engineer for that project) an amateur rock opera. This involved three years worth of yelling at each other and learning quite a lot of things, even though I can’t play music worth a damn myself.
The guitars involved in the project ended up in my closet as sediment.
Indeed, which is one of the reasons I’m not sure we’re meant to take the whole mess diegetically.
4963001
As far as I remember she never tried to use the scientific approach on EoH. So it doesn't surprise me that she also doesn't use it on Harmony Chest.
A possible alternative interpretation of this statement is that Sunset isn't surprised this happens to her, because she was originally an Equestrian pony, but she's questioning why it happens to a bunch of humans, too.
4963020
Yes, but the chronological position of this scene remains ambiguous.
I thought the Friendship Games only occurred once every 4 years, and that's why Sunset didn't know about the games.
I too, have always wondered about that. But I do think those costumes were physically present, and Luna was just picking the weirdest students to be on the team, since she knew the ones with the magical edge would be the final 6 anyway.
Photo Finish's ability to compel her subjects to pose for her almost feels like another example of Pedestrians having access to cutie mark-style magic.
I wouldn't be surprised if his parents made him start with music lessons at some point, before he switched to guitar.
I'm pretty much picturing Meat Loaf right now.
We might have to go with this, since we're seeing all of them in their 4th year, it's hard to fit them into different years.
4963143
See the PoC for Friendship Games. There’s a moment when:
Normally, this would suggest that the Games are bi-annual and Sunset wasn’t around for the first Games that they would have seen during their time in school, but is around for the second. But Forgotten Friendship insists that she started school with them.
I.e. we have a problem.
And why not? That’d be a better voice for Flash, I think.
4963225
He did date a girl who at one point looked like a Bat Out of Hell.