Points of Canon: Legends of Magic #10 · 11:04am Feb 18th, 2019
There are only 12 issues in this particular series…
Continuing from Legends of Magic #9:
“The treaty is clear, if dragons cross this line they are at war with the pegasi and our allies!”
- Notice the comic once again being of multiple minds just whether any form of unified Equestria exists or not and who’s the royalty here.
- Dragons are considered treatable… treaty-able… whatever. I.e. the dragon lord is both capable of enforcing a treaty signed with another sovereign state – I wonder which one – and is considered trustworthy enough for that sovereign to sign it. Far from a given.
- At the same time, it has been known that the dragons plan to break it, since the war was “brewing.”
- “Listen here, you overgrown iguana…” Iguanas exist and were known in the era. Supposedly.
“They came here because dragons got sick with what they called ‘wingbreak’, making dragons lose their wings. But I’ve treated plenty of crocodiles and recognize scalerot when I see it. The only plant they knew that could cure it only grows in the south, so they felt like they had to come get it.”
- Scalerot is a disease of scales, which dragons are mysteriously susceptible to, despite being so dissimilar from reptiles.
- Whether the dragons attempted any manner of diplomatic resolution actually remains undefined, but since the war was “brewing,” it might be that they have and ponies simply refused them access to a vital resource. Not kosher.
- “Next up is Southern Equestria.” This stupid name again. But see prior considerations regarding Sunburst reading and text potentially being written or edited in modern day.
“I think there are certain elements that heroes possess that allow them to save the world. Rockhoof is strong. Obviously, strength is one of the biggest traits associated with heroes. Flash Magnus, you’re fast. I think speed is probably important. Mage Meadowbrook is connected with nature. Nature’s a strength a lot of ponies forget about, like a hidden greatness. … Well, the two we haven’t gone after yet are wisdom and like… a soul or spiritual kind of magic. Me, I’m not a hero, I’m just a pony.”
- Remember, this is, if anything, Stygian’s autobiography, and this is Stygian saying this. I.e. he makes a claim that the conceptualization of the original Pillar framework belongs to him. We have to blame Stygian for this whole nonsense now.
- This would also imply that Star Swirl is supposed to be the wisdom in this equation, when we know full well the old coot is anything but.
- Notice that Somnambula did not occur to Stygian.
- “Brains!” Why the hell would mummies, rather than zombies, be interested in brains, is anyone’s guess. Even Stygian agrees that it’s zombies who should be interested in brains, which implies he knows what those are – even if they’re only supposed to be legendary. Notably, Stygian also says this about mummies: “They’re legendary creatures in Southern Equestria. But they’re not supposed to be aggressive and they definitely aren’t supposed to attack in groups.” implying that ponies do not make mummies from ponies, dead or otherwise. Which would be pretty stupid if mummies actually exist, even though Flash Magnus uses this as a justification to go medieval on them. Stygian contradicts himself a page later: “It’s like somebody created mummies that doesn’t understand how mummies work.”
- “Nothing I do slows them down! I tried stink bombs, slow potions, even a shrink potion!” All of these are potions, though why would Meadowbrook think stink bombs would help I have no idea.
- Somnambula is capable of flying so fast that she is represented as a fireball, though how much of this is purely in the perception I don’t know.
“More precisely, they are nightmares projected by a pony who put on a cursed artifact.”
“Ah, so they’re working on dream logic!”
The full weight of this phrase in relation to the way magic works should be obvious, the implications are pretty massive.
- “Some gems we used to use in our armor cracked when we flew too high.” Pretty sure nothing of the sort happens to anything normally called a “gem.” Stygian ascribes this to temperature changes, rather than altitude, but that wouldn’t just require flying high up – it would require flying high up very fast and result in the pegasi wings icing over.
- “We need the element of surprise!” Remember, surprise is the most common seventh element of Harmony. Funny how it’s Somnambula saying it.
“This is my friend Prince Hisan.”
“But he was the emerald mummy!”
“Yes, someone gave him a cursed emerald brooch.”
- Just who had this genius idea or why is never explained.
- What happened to the rest of his kingdom or say, his troops, is never explained either. In fact, Somnambula skips out on the entire cleanup phase, leaving the poor confused prince to deal with it. It’s almost like she’s not attached to him at all in any way…
- “Fantastic! What is next! A living island? Time travel? Space?” Time travel and space are ideas in this time period. Well, we know time travel was – there was time travel research, even – but space?
- And in her first moments in this comic, Mistmane gets eaten by her own pony-eating plant in her own greenhouse. Greenhouses are a thing. Another anachronistic thing…
To be continued… 
Well, third of their population able to fly. And if Starlight any indication - powerful unicorns can pull Munchausen on themselves and also able to fly. So there a possibility that they get the idea that there is something beyond the atmosphere way earlier than us.
Notably, in our Egypt, brains were believed to merely be the mucus-producing organ and were removed through the nose and discarded before mummifying.
What is obvious to one person w/r/t dream logic is very different to another.
I don't find it that much of a stretch, honestly. Lyme disease and the Black Death can both jump from rodents to humans, and do so quite readily. If we assume that whatever it is that causes scale rot isn't too picky about whose scales it's eating, I can see it work.
Also, technically from the last comic but topical here: I noticed that the dragons in this altercation were a lot more physical varied than the adult dragons in the show usually are -- one was clearly some sort of wyvern, and others had no limbs except for their wings.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2017/12/27/1617675.jpeg
Why the hell would zombies care about brains, for that matter, is something I never understood.
5016031
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/d/d3/Crackle_ID_S2E21.png/revision/latest?cb=20140122025356
Oh, so that’s where Crackle got his extra legs.
See All Flesh Must Be Eaten for ideas.
I definitely like the idea that part of the distortions aren't just Sunburst, that Stygian was also an unreliable narrator. The dude wrote 3 best sellers. Do absolutely truthful autobiographies usually become best-sellers, or do flashy books where the truth is, if at all present, wildly exaggerated usually become best-sellers? I think we know it's the latter.
Somnambula's element isn't hope because she's an essential optimist at heart. It's actually because she'll leave you to whatever shit you got yourself into and just hope it works out alright.