Points of Canon: S9x05 - The Point of No Return

A G.M. Berrow episode. From the canon consistency point of view, this is actually pretty risky every time it happens: Berrow likes to show off how she maintains that consistency, but she ignores what everyone else writes and will readily involve things with more implications than canon can fit. Never mind that her own writing is very… idiosyncratic, and tramples over every halfway mature theme the show establishes more often than not.

• Chronology markers: School of Friendship is in evidence, and apparently, in session. Spike has wings. This latter is important, because no references to the beginning of Season 9 can be seen, and it can well backslide into Season 8.

• “We just had a really heavy delivery today.”

  • Derpy is still wearing the brown UPS style uniform. Looks like at least Ponyville mailponies are finally standardizing, because we haven’t seen other kinds for a while.
  • Derpy’s mail delivery, apparently, relies on making the scattered letters follow in her wake, dragged about by wind.
  • The box has a very large postage stamp with Celestia’s cutie mark on it. It is very likely that this is part of the definitive stamp issue – i.e. the “default” stamp series ponies use when not using commemorative stamps.
• “Is it a deluxe set of special edition Ogres & Oubliettes figurines that I’m totally surprised by and haven’t been hinting that I need forever?” Spike expected figurines. In Dungeons and Discord he used paper cutouts…
• “Really? She couldn’t have put it into the box?” The scroll arriving simultaneously with the package requires either that package delivery time being very predictable, or Celestia to actually be watching this somehow. Both would be strange – Derpy might be reliable, but there’s no way in hell she’s predictable, and Celestia has no reason to be watching this scene at all. Unless Trollestia, see below.

• “‘I’ve been conducting a thorough cleaning of the castle, and I came across a few items of yours in your old room. I thought you might want them back.’ I didn’t even know I left anything!” This here is the most problematic statement of the episode, because it would have us believe that the apartment Twilight starts the series in during Friendship is Magic is not hers, but part of the “castle.” This is contradicted by:

  • Amending Fences, where Twilight gives her key to Moondancer after finding the apartment entirely untouched for a period of several years. Never mind that upon the conclusion of that episode, Twilight is well aware she left her entire pre-Ponyville life in that apartment.
  • Cutie Mark Chronicles, where we see Twilight study and receive her SGU acceptance letter in that very same apartment.

  Twilight could, of course, maintain a room inside the castle in addition to that apartment, only, there’s a problem with that too. Multiple problems, actually:

  • There’s no need to use Spike for mail if Twilight has a room inside the castle proper. There’s hardly any need for mail at all!
  • There’s no clear reason for a book she borrowed from the library shortly before her departure would end up in that room, when it’s not the room she left from. If she intended to return it soon, she would, of course, not leave it in the castle when departing for her summer break – especially considering that she checked it out with the intent of reading it.
  • A flashback directly claims she tossed it underneath the bookcase in that very apartment.

  Unfortunately, the entire premise of this episode rests on that statement being true, so what the fuck is actually going on here? Beside writers having memory holes, I mean.

• “It’s the macaroni picture frame Cadance helped me make when I was a filly!”

  • The picture inside the frame is impossible: It contains a mark-less Twilight and Spike. Unless the timeline we’re seeing now, the one resulting from the ending of The Cutie Re-Mark, really is different substantially from the original.
  • Ponies have macaroni. Which is not surprising, but I think this is the first time the word occurs in speech.

• “My G1 Star Swirl figure!”

  • What, this one? Wrong color for this one.
  • For that matter, it’s a Star Swirl the Grey. Compare to the image of Star Swirl the White in Three’s a Crowd. Now, it’s possible that nobody except the Sisters knew he was not actually white – but this doll would imply that at least Twilight did, right?
• “And my extra-extra credit report on the impediments of using magic in everyday chores.” Magic is used in everyday chores, if a report on the impediments of such use exists, right?

• Other interesting things the crate contains:

  • An alarm clock. Spike, evidently, wasn’t enough.
  • Multiple sets of nail-on horseshoes, which would imply Twilight wore them at least at some point. One set is metallic gray, the other is blue.
• “Is my Smash Fortune comic in there? I’ve been looking for that for years.” Compare to The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows.
• “Just looks like an old library book.” Just how is Spike able to differentiate between library and personally owned books without opening them?

• “That means it’s overdue!”

  • Canterlot Library, and presumably, other Equestrian libraries, uses checkout cards, which is the way most libraries across the world tracked outgoing books before implementing computerized systems – but here’s a problem: This card shouldn’t be in the book if Twilight has it! The standard procedure for using these cards is, a borrowing date and the borrower’s name or other identifier is written on the card, and the card is then filed under that identifier at the library, so that the library can then run through their files at regular intervals and shake down the patrons who have late books. In some libraries, the borrower might get a stamped reminder card telling them when is the book due, which would go into the same envelope – but this card definitely isn’t it, because it has cutie marks (identifiers) of other borrowers and record of the book being returned.

    Unfortunately, in the subsequent flashback scene, in which Twilight borrows this book – and others – from the library, Dusty Pages stamps the checkout cards that are inside the envelopes of every book Twilight borrows, and leaves all of them in, indicating that the card remaining inside is not an isolated occurrence.

    This prevents the card system from working entirely – if the library doesn’t physically possess a record of who checked out what in the form of the cards, there’s no way they can defend against multiple trivial ways to circumvent the entire system. Never mind that you having the card that lists who borrowed the book before violates the privacy of other patrons – which is something libraries have gone to great lengths to protect in the past, in our world. What the aerial intercourse?

  • For that matter, if this book is overdue, what about the other two in the flashback? Why did Twilight return them, but not this one?
  • This is one more case of cutie mark appearing to be the only identifier. Minuette and Time Turner must hate each other to bits, if that is really all that is written on the card – they have an identical hourglass symbol on their rumps.
  • The card is otherwise pretty standard for us. While the text on it is pointedly not readable, we can at least say that ponies write their dates in an XX/XX/XX format, with two digits for each component of a date, though we can’t tell for sure which of the three components of the date is which.

• “Make sure you bring this one back on time. We’ve got a long waiting list of ponies who can’t wait to read it!”

  • Not a thing in most libraries I’ve ever been to. Where would they even keep it, if they leave the checkout cards in?
  • Notice that Dusty Pages stamps Twilight’s cutie mark on the cards. This is only possible if Twilight is in and out basically every day, because having a stamp for every patron is impossible.
• “After all, you still hold the ‘Best Book Borrower’ title.” Not a thing in any library I’ve ever been to, either, but apparently, a thing here – but notice that later on in the episode, the portrait is under a thick layer of dust for an entirely unclear reason.

• “Dusty Pages prided herself that no books were damaged or lost on her watch, and I failed her!”

  • How, exactly, is it a librarian’s fault or pride, if they never have to deal with the books damaged or lost by patrons outside the walls of the library?
  • For that matter, we’ve seen that Twilight is hardly very pious with books – see, for example Made in Manehattan or Testing Testing 1, 2, 3, never mind how she does a reshelving…
• Once again both Twilight and Spike, apparently, fly to Canterlot directly, bypassing the train entirely.
• “I’m the Princess of Friendship. Everywhere I go, ponies recognize me. I’ll stick out like a sore hoof.” There’s no way in hell Twilight actually thinks that. This has never been a consideration for her before, and this has very rarely, if ever, been fact at all. Even in this episode, it’s not fact half the time.
• “Princess Twilight Sparkle in a library? Stop the presses!” This phrase works only if newspapers are typically printed on a printing press, which is not a given with this civilization.

• “What if Dusty Pages revokes my library card?”

  • Twilight has a wallet full of cards.
  • Notice the use of a card – rather than, say, a booklet. With a color photo. Cards only displaced the earlier booklets with the availability of lamination – which itself requires thermoplastics. Why? Because photos would get torn off of cards without lamination.
  • This card has a bar code. See Canterlot Boutique – there is no way in hell ponies have any technology for reading bar codes, let alone have that technology and still use checkout cards. I’ll treat this as an animation error if you will, because it scans as an UPC-E code that reads 01214121. No, I’m not about to look up which packet of chips they copied it from.
• “You sniff books?” How exactly would Spike avoid knowing that Twilight does this?…
• “I have a book to return.” And a Twinkleshine to ignore, but at least this time Twilight has an actual excuse.
• “Princess Twilight?! So good to see you!” And actually pretty surprising this librarian recognizes Twilight as if she saw her before, but does not know that Dusty Pages worked here. This would require Twilight to visit library and borrow books after becoming a princess – without the library being aware that she has an overdue book!

• “Is that the new edition of Mooncurve’s Seven Theories on Bending Time?”

  • Mooncurve is a scientist of note. Or rather, a plug for Berrow’s book that mentions that author first, Starlight Glimmer and the Secret Suite.
  • Being a new edition, however, this would require Mooncurve to be a contemporary author, i.e. imply current, publicized research into time magic.
• “Dusty Pages, the head librarian? She’s worked here forever!” Now, why does Twilight have a portrait of her? Not, say, a group picture with her, but a portrait? How many pictures of your friends and acquaintances like that one do you have?…
• “A book out this long will probably cost a thousand bits!” This is inconsistent. We know that at least three years have elapsed since the day she borrowed that book, and possibly more. That would imply a fine on the scale of one bit per day late, or less, but throughout the day, late fees appear to accumulate by minutes – as Twilight says, “In the time it took us to get there I racked up another… seventeen bits in late fees!” Unfortunately, since in the end, it’s capped at 28 bits, we never know enough to make sense of it.

• “I’ll just find it in the card catalog. Uh, number 18905, got it!”

  • Notice that she does not open the book to find out its catalog number.
  • Notice also that somehow book checkout information appears to be on the book’s catalog card, which is the weirdest possible place for it to end up on.
  • If the numbers are sequential, the number is too low for the expected “millions” of books Twilight cites. If they aren’t, there are too few digits.

• “In the basement. Because of the shame.”

  • Behind the door marked “beware the leopard,” I presume?
  • The corridor through the basement has suspicious doors with barred windows in them – which seem to have a lightning bolt on them, so they might at least be electrical closets – and books shelved next to rusting steam pipes. What the aerial intercourse?…
• “Abandon hope all ye who enter?” Which is a quote from Dante’s “Divine Comedy” which Twilight could have read, in theory, having been to a human world herself, but ponies in general are rather unlikely to ever recognize. You see, “Divine Comedy” was a self-insert fanfic…
• “Out to lunch on Restaurant Row.” This is a pretty strange note which volunteers extra information about what First Folio is doing which is nevertheless patently useless.
• “Waiter, we’re ready to order.” Now, this incident is actually very strange: Do any dragon waiters even exist?… Or is that lady just stoned out of her mind? Never mind that Spike has acquired a dragon-sized apron and abandoned it later on.
• “Three samosas, two curry specials, do you think that’s enough for the two of us?” “Well, I would probably order some naan as well.” Both samosa and naan are vegetarian foods, but while samosa is indigenously Indian, naan isn’t. That said, visiting an Indian restaurant is something I’ve avoided so far, so I can’t tell if they would be encountered together in one of ours or not.
• “Moondancer, how’ve you been?” After the time you ignored her in Forgotten Friendship, you mean?
• “I’m just meeting my friend, First Folio, for lunch.” Notice that First Folio is not the same as the librarian that attends Moondancer’s party in Amending Fences. Moondancer made another friend. Good for her.
• “Oh, I heard she was forced to leave. It’s so sad, she loved the library. … She had a perfect librarian record, until one careless pony didn’t return a book, ruined it all.” Sorry, but this is bullshit for the reasons I cited above: There is no way in hell a librarian has any control over what the patron does with the book they borrow, and therefore, no way this could “force” a librarian to leave. Were this true, there’s no way anyone would want to be a librarian.

• “Didn’t you see the sign? No salesponies! … No carolers either. No surveys, no petitions, no free literature…”

  • Now… what kind of free literature are we talking about here, and why, for that matter, it’s this house that is, apparently, singled out as the mark for all of the above?
  • Observe the rare stallion with chest hair. Also notice Lemon Hearts whom Twilight just missed. Walking in the direction away from the door. Just saying.
• “It’s been stackin’ up for years!” I.e. Dusty Pages quit her job multiple years ago.
• Spike has no problem flying with this sack of mail.
• When searching for the “Silver… something” Twilight marks off places on a map that depicts a single township, but – it’s on the west coast, as the compass on the map indicates, and among other things, she asks Silverstream. Huh?…
• One notable feature of the town is the lighthouse, which indicates that pony seafaring finds lighthouses useful. Another is houses on stupidly tall stilts with no obvious ground access, previously observed in Pony Point of View.
• “Silver Stable Community” This is yet another example of a retirement community in Equestria. These things seem to be pretty common.
• “It’s the last silver spot on the map we haven’t looked.” So how many silver spots a map of a single town can even have?…

• Activities engaged in by the retirees appear to include:

  • Gardening
  • Plein-air painting
  • Woodworking
  • Windsurfing
  • Theater
  • Music
  • Fishing
  • Squishy food food-fight tournament.

  Windsurfing is probably the most questionable out of them. Twilight also supposed the existence of crochet and bingo, but we never actually see those.

• Apple Rose, Granny Smith’s favorite cousin, gives no indication she recognizes or knows Twilight at all. We’ve never seen them together otherwise, though.
• The sound Dusty Pages extracts from her acoustic guitar requires an invisible magnetic pickup somewhere on the body.
• “If Dusty Pages doesn’t go back to Canterlot Library to explain everything, then she won’t be able to get her job back!” Spike’s sucking on a packet of juice. The technology required to make those viable is actually pretty impressive, but I’ve mentioned those before.
• “How much do I owe now?!” The manipulations Spike does with the abacus do not make sense. In fact, the abacus itself doesn’t make sense, having only five beads per line, which doesn’t match any actual abacus seen in use by a human culture.

• “A squishy fruit food-fight tournament?!”

  • Notice that every time a food fight appears in Equestria past Over a Barrel, it’s a G.M. Berrow episode.
  • The gear used for the fight involves hard plastic protective glasses – you don’t use glass for the purpose because it would make the problem worse – and helmets. See Family Appreciation Day for a note about helmets: They would be effective against shrapnel, but not much of anything else.
• “Hey, everypony! We come in– Eh, pieces.” Spike uses a white flag to indicate truce/surrender.
• Twilight is capable of teleporting both herself and Spike without any of the squishy fruit that just adhered to them, which is actually good enough for several kinds of teleport surgery. Never mind cleaning the book later on.
• “Even promise to never take a book out of a library again, if that’s what it takes.” Wait, so why do the ponies other than Dusty Pages gasp?
• “Twenty eight bits.” Twilight deposits exactly 28 coins on First Folio’s table, as far as I could tell, which would imply she paid in 1-bit coins.
• “You’re sure? It’s got a stain.” The only way this stain wouldn’t get wiped off a hard cover is when the cover is cloth, rather than, say, plastic.

Either ponies don’t know jack about library science or G.M. Berrow doesn’t. And as usual for a G.M. Berrow episode, it casually makes a mess of canon, precisely because Berrow attempts to maintain continuity.

I don’t see a reasonable way to make this episode make sense other than a Trollestia-arranged prank, and since Trollestia can be used to explain anything and cannot be disproved, I’m not going with that.

Comments

[Scottbert]

Derpy just as fans imagined her.
Twilight you're a princess just buy Spike his Celestiadamn figurines. It's not like he hasn't earned some rewards over the last 9 years!
If she already sent a box why did she-- okay, sure, whatever,

"My G1 Starswirl figure!"

G1? Haven't most ponies forgotten who he is? Then again, there was that convention...

"Oh no, oh, no, OH NO!"

It's a library book, isn't it?
CALLED IT.
Anyway you're the princess of friendship, it's not like you can't afford some late fees.

For a second there I thought they were actually going to say how overdue the book was, and surely contradict themselves in the process.

"What if Dust Pages revokes my library card? Or bans me from ever entering the building again?!"

What if she revokes your library card in the place that she bans you to?! Well, this is Twilight Sparkle being Twilight Sparkle. And as much as I used to love Twilight Being Twilight episodes, we have the same problem as the S7 Rainbow and Rarity episode -- shouldn't they all have grown as characters by now?

Spike is the voice of reason. Does this mean he's going to be proven wrong by Twilight's ridiculous fears being proven true?

Yes, teleporting will draw way less attention than just walking up to the desk. Fortunately everypony is pretty absorbed in their books.

Uh oh. It's not Dusty Pages behind the desk. Did she die having lost faith in Twilight? Or... quit librarian-ing forever?

The grossly overdue book office for ponies who should know better.

And this library is where Twilight spent most of her formative years. It explains so much.

"'Abandon hope all ye who enter'?"

Equestria has Dante's Inferno?

Why does she wear her sadd;ebags over her wings, won't that interfere with flight? Or do all pegasi do that and I never noticed?

"In the time it took us to get here I wracked up another... 17 bits in late fees!"

Holy cow, they add up that fast? Maybe Twilight really is in trouble!

Canterlot Library fired an employee over the actions of a customer? ...This explains so much about Twilight.

Canterlot ponies actually walk around with their noses turned up.

"It's the last silver spot on the map we haven't looked."

Is the entire west coast of Equestria named silver something?

Wow, Dusty's a busy pony! The question is, is she trying to fill the hole in her life left by books... or did she discover that she loved all these things and would have missed them if she'd never left the library?

The one pony whose snout is just like that, ahaha

"A squishing food food fight tournament?!"

Holy cow that's epic, these old ponies are pretty spry!

Twilight can teleport herself and Spike clean. Neat!

Wait, the other librarian said she was forced to leave... Are the writers forgetting what they wrote mid-episode now?

All-in-all though not a bad episode, as things go. I'll read others' comments and respond to them later.

For a moment I forgot Spike could fly, and figured Twilight just forgot about him in her rush to get to Canterlot.

[Reese]

"Unfortunately, since in the end, it’s capped at 28 bits, we never know enough to make sense of it."
I was guessing that it was nonlinear, with the curve pretty steep this far out.

"Sorry, but this is bullshit for the reasons I cited above"
It seemed like the "I heard" might be quite relevant there; maybe this was just a rumor going around?

5050284
...Interesting point about the effects that library's policies may have had on Twilight. :D

[The Cloptimist]

Great reading as always!

Spike expected figurines. In Dungeons and Discord he used paper cutouts…

Those aren't mutually exclusive - indeed it's possible the reason he's been dropping hints about how he wants/needs figurines is to replace his paper cutouts. I'm not much of a tabletop gamer but I remember a kid in school being very proud that, as a birthday present, he could go to Games Workshop and replace the plastic Hero Quest miniature figurines that came with the game with loads of little metal ones.

while samosa is indigenously Indian, naan isn’t. That said, visiting an Indian restaurant is something I’ve avoided so far, so I can’t tell if they would be encountered together in one of ours or not.

Literally every Indian restaurant I've ever eaten in or ordered takeaway from - and I'd estimate that's somewhere in the region of several dozen by now, Brits take Indian food pretty seriously! - has offered a variety of naan breads, and you invariably find them in British supermarkets next to the chapatis.

[The Cloptimist]

Oh, also, the bit where Berrow teased us by having Twilight *apparently* be about to let us know, directly, exactly how long it's been since she left Canterlot to that point, and then having her give up for comic effect, was just cruel.

[Mitch H]

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Not only is naan a stereotypical Indian restaurant staple, I had a waiter drop a basket of naan on my table unsolicited the last time I went to the local Indian place. Since I'd already filled up to near bursting with mushroom saag, it was, well, a nice gesture, but unnecessary...

[Scottbert]

“‘I’ve been conducting a thorough cleaning of the castle..."

I never thought about 'why spike mail if Twilight lived in the castle'. Then again, it could be that the mail wasn't Spike's primary purpose, but rather a thing mages know you can do if you have a tame dragon. And hey, if you lived in a house as big as a castle wouldn't you text your student instead of sending them snail mail, just because you can?

If Twilight's old room isn't part of the main castle... I dunno, man, maybe there are multiple castles? What was the building she was living in /for/? Although, it might've been an observatory... Maybe Celestia just miswrote.

The picture inside the frame is impossible: It contains a mark-less Twilight...

Oooh, I didn't catch that. Animation error or soft reboot, I guess.

Just how is Spike able to differentiate between library and personally owned books without opening them?

Maybe he actually remembers every book, at least the title, in Twilight's collection? I suppose it could also be a detail we can't see, maybe for instance the cover of the book is in an unusual material. There's a material I don't know the name for I'd associate with library reference books rather than my own collection, for instance.

The card is a mistake I can't possibly attempt to justify. It seems clear that Barrow meant it to work like in our world and then forgot how that worked.

“I’m the Princess of Friendship. Everywhere I go, ponies recognize me."

I guess she's super-extra-self-conscious because she knows what she's done looks bad.

“Princess Twilight?! So good to see you!”

I took it to mean that this pony, for once, actually knows who the Princess of Friendship is (not surprising given her picture's been on the wall for years), and knows enough about her to know that Twilight visiting a library isn't exactly surprising, but hasn't met her before.

Now, why does Twilight have a portrait of her?

Shoot, I wasn't paying close enough attention when she pulled this out, and for the rest of the episode assumed she got it from the library or something. Could be it's a magical impression made of her memory of someone she used to see regularly?

late fees

Yeah, now that you point it out, the accumulation of fees Twilight and Spike assume can't possibly match up with 28 bits being the max fee for 'a month overdue'.
Theory: Someone told Twilight that late fees accrue at an outrageous rate as a joke, and she never found out because she always returned books on time before.

checking out books

I got nothin'. More of writers and artists misremembering how libraries worked, I guess.

“Out to lunch on Restaurant Row.”

First Folio is ahead of his time. He's ready for pony twitter.

“Waiter, we’re ready to order.”

I assumed that because Spike's been Twilight's assistant for so long he just radiates an aura of servitude that transcends species. He's one of those people that customers constantly assume works there wherever he is, but he's probably not a regular anywhere except the Sofa & Quill and Donut Joe's.

Dusty Pages was fired

Since she herself says she left later, this must've been a rumor or joke that got out of hand with noone to deny it. Of course, it's pretty incredible, but this IS the library with the Grossly Overdue Book Office For Ponies Who Should Know Better, In The Basement Because Of The Shame.

No surveys, no petitions, no free literature…

Dusty Pages must have been signed up for a lot of newsletters and social action groups and never changed her address because her new life is so exciting she forgot.

She asks Silverstream

Initially I figured maybe there was a hippogriff community named silver something, but it occurs to me now that this is just a joke of her checking everything named silver, even individuals.

[The Cloptimist]

5050405

There's a material I don't know the name for I'd associate with library reference books rather than my own collection, for instance.

Buckram?

[Oliver]

5050405

The card is a mistake I can’t possibly attempt to justify. It seems clear that Barrow meant it to work like in our world and then forgot how that worked.

Actually, that’s the whole problem. To exist, this episode requires two monumentally stupid things:

• That it is impossible for the library to proactively determine that Twilight owes books – i.e. that the library uses these cards, but doesn’t keep them.
• That a librarian considers it a matter of pride that all the books are returned and undamaged while being unable to tell that they’re out of their hooves at all, as per above.

I cannot reconcile that with common sense. Or Pinkie Sense. Or anything.

Could be it’s a magical impression made of her memory of someone she used to see regularly?

Could be, but the episode has enough issues even if you don’t posit the existence of a spell that they otherwise have always avoided.

[Comnislasher]

This card shouldn’t be in the book if Twilight has it!,

Russia uses (or at least used) a similar system. The card always stays in the book and have a written reminder when you supposed to return a book. The library itself has named booklets on every user where the librarians write every book that you take from the library.

[Oliver]

5050475

The library itself has named booklets on every user where the librarians write every book that you take from the library.

And they keep those precisely so that they could go through them once per month and call the patrons insisting the overdue books be returned.

Now, consider the situation here:

1. Someone notices, in Twilight’s records, that she has an overdue book. She’s not a princess yet.
2. So they send a letter to her current address, which would be the Episode 1 apartment.
3. The letter bounces because she’s not here. And since there was no mail in Amending Fences, Twilight did file a mail forwarding form, but, let’s imagine the letter bounced anyway. The next logical step is to contact the owner of the property – and this episode would have us believe it’s not Twilight, nor her parents, but Celestia.
4. Celestia gives them Twilight’s Ponyville address. Red-faced, Twilight returns the book before the end of summer.

What the episode wants us to believe is that the library knows a book is missing, but cannot find out who has it, and/or cannot track Twilight down if they can find out that Twilight has it. Otherwise, none of this episode can happen. And it also wants us to believe, that even given that handicap, librarians feel responsible for the loss of books by patrons.

I think I’m going to treat this as a nightmare Twilight had one night.

And in the morning, she woke up, sent letters to Dusty Pages and Moondancer and the rest of her Canterlot Friends and went on a tour of quiet tea parties tracking down everypony she lost touch with.

[Comnislasher]

5050508

And they keep those precisely so that they could go through them once per month and call the patrons insisting the overdue books be returned.

Yeah, definitely. I just pointing out that this whole "card inside book" isn't that unbelievable.

Now, consider the situation here:

It's possible that they lost Twilight library papers or they send letter on wrong address, or mail service lost letter. Something like that.

[Samey90]

• This is one more case of cutie mark appearing to be the only identifier. Minuette and Time Turner must hate each other to bits, if that is really all that is written on the card – they have an identical hourglass symbol on their rumps.

Dibs on writing this!

[schpeelah]

• “Just looks like an old library book.” Just how is Spike able to differentiate between library and personally owned books without opening them?

My personal experience is that library books have characteristic clear foil wrapped around their covers, held together with staples. I haven't seen anyone use this preservation method on privately owned books.

Unfortunately, this method prevents exactly the sort of stains the book acquires at the end, so. And I'm not ever sure if it's used with hardcovers in the first place.

Anyway, an extra wrinkle is that Dusty's speech about perfection implies the librarian actually can do something to maintain the perfect record, even though everything else says it's completely out of their hooves so ??? Unless we are to understand that the perfect record discouraged her from doing anything else because she wasn't perfect at anything else.

[howard035]

An ok episode, if you enjoy Twilight freakouts.

Spike expected figurines. In Dungeons and Discord he used paper cutouts

Right, that's why he needs figurines, right now he only has pawns.

Unfortunately, the entire premise of this episode rests on that statement being true, so what the fuck is actually going on here? Beside writers having memory holes, I mean.

Yeah, I knew this was a problem. I would suggest that A) Twilight as a princess was granted a royal apartment in the castle of her old room and can gift it out anytime. B) Perhaps the details of the flashback in the Cutie Mark Chronicles were unreliable, like Derpy winning all those races in Rainbow Dash's youth.

The picture inside the frame is impossible: It contains a mark-less Twilight and Spike.

Are we sure her mark is in frame?

Starswirl the White is G2. Some credence to that theory of multiple Starswirls perhaps.

Just how is Spike able to differentiate between library and personally owned books without opening them?

The binding. He's spent most of his life training to distinguish between the two.

Unfortunately, since in the end, it’s capped at 28 bits, we never know enough to make sense of it.

I think we just know enough to know that whole list of new bits added every few hours in the show is basically Twilight imagining fees.

This is a pretty strange note which volunteers extra information about what First Folio is doing which is nevertheless patently useless.

True, except it shows First Folio wants to brag that she's eating at the fancy area.

Do any dragon waiters even exist?… Or is that lady just stoned out of her mind?

She might be really sheltered, and think that because she's in a really foreign restaurant for the first time ever, that really foreign creature must be the waiter.

That said, visiting an Indian restaurant is something I’ve avoided so far, so I can’t tell if they would be encountered together in one of ours or not.

Every Indian restaurant I've ever been to has naan, it's almost like chips at a Mexican restaurant. That doesn't mean it's authentic of course.

Moondancer made another friend. Good for her.

A friend that doesn't require her to leave the library. The theme at the end of this episode makes me feel kind of bad for Moondancer.

There is no way in hell a librarian has any control over what the patron does with the book they borrow, and therefore, no way this could “force” a librarian to leave.

Definitely. I could see Dusty bragging about this supposed record she keeps track of in her head, and then once it's no longer perfect she feels so ashamed she quits. So and so quit/got fired often gets blurred in the telling, like whether someone dumped their significant other or was dumped.

• Now… what kind of free literature are we talking about here, and why, for that matter, it’s this house that is, apparently, singled out as the mark for all of the above?

Good question. For the signs, I assume this guy is a paranoid nut job. But free literature is usually from evangelical religious types. And petitions are interesting, they suggest ponies regularly circulate and sign government petitions, implying a fair amount of grass-roots initiative that is rather surprising in an absolute monarchy.

Twilight marks off places on a map that depicts a singletownship, but – it’s on the west coast, as the compass on the map indicates, and among other things, she asks Silverstream. Huh?…

I couldn't find a single feature on an Equestrian map with the word Silver in it. I want to guess that map represents Vanhoover/Tall Tale because of the western ocean and islands?

• “It’s the last silver spot on the map we haven’t looked.” So how many silver spots a map of a single town can even have?…

I know this is a stretch. The western ocean is the lunar ocean. Maybe it used to be called the Silver Sea or something and then they renamed it when Luna returned? So all the areas around there would be part of the "silver sea" locations.

• Squishy food food-fight tournament.

Cause they don't want to show ponies holding paintball guns.

Apple Rose, Granny Smith’s favorite cousin, gives no indication she recognizes or knows Twilight at all.

And another one of the Golden Horseshoe girls was there as well, doing Tai Chi or something.

Twilight deposits exactly 28 coins on First Folio’s table, as far as I could tell, which would imply she paid in 1-bit coins.

They animated 28 actual bits? I'm pleasantly surprised.

I don’t see a reasonable way to make this episode make sense other than a Trollestia-arranged prank, and since Trollestia can be used to explain anything and cannot be disproved, I’m not going with that.

Yeah, we want to avoid that. I will say just as a lot of people say Episode Zero was Twilight's delayed reaction to Discord, I could see this as a delayed reaction to the fact that Celestia still plans to retire and make Twilight ruler of Equestria.

Still an enjoyable episode though.

[Oliver]

5050846

An ok episode, if you enjoy Twilight freakouts.

If you’re not concerned about episodes making sense, yes, I suppose it was okay.

1. Twilight as a princess was granted a royal apartment in the castle of her old room and can gift it out anytime.

So why is Celestia cleaning it out then, after Twilight gifted it out?

1. Perhaps the details of the flashback in the Cutie Mark Chronicles were unreliable, like Derpy winning all those races in Rainbow Dash’s youth.

For most flashbacks, this sort of interpretation works because we know Scootaloo is imagining it. (And notice it’s usually Scootaloo.) However, in this particular case there is no way Scootaloo could have imagined it, because she’s never been in that apartment.

Are we sure her mark is in frame?

I am.

Starswirl the White is G2. Some credence to that theory of multiple Starswirls perhaps.

Promising idea.

And petitions are interesting, they suggest ponies regularly circulate and sign government petitions, implying a fair amount of grass-roots initiative that is rather surprising in an absolute monarchy.

Pretty sure it’s not an absolute monarchy by now.

They animated 28 actual bits? I’m pleasantly surprised.

I’m unpleasantly surprised. Why would you use 28 1-bit coins if 10-bit coins exist, for example?

[Seraphem]

The scroll arriving simultaneously with the package requires either that package delivery time being very predictable,

The EPS just as incredibly accurate and comprehensive 'track your package' options. Celestia just got an alert saying her package had been delivered.

because it would have us believe that the apartment Twilight starts the series in during Friendship is Magic is not hers

The past bits, it does look similar, but has enough wile room it could just be coincidence, or she decorated her new room to look like her old one. As to Moondancer, if Tia gave her the tower for use, I can see Twi figuring she has the right to pass it along. Stretches yes, but plausible. The knowing she left stuff behind is harder to reconcile.

The tower, I was always under the impression it was either on Castle grounds, or School grounds. Just a separate structure there to give Twi her privacy. Also, it's possible that was just her private study, and she did have her own actual room's as well, just spent most of her time in said study.

The picture inside the frame is impossible: It contains a mark-less Twilight and Spike.

Huh....go go animation errors *ding*

Just how is Spike able to differentiate between library and personally owned books without opening them?

Most library books tend to have a label of some kind taped to the spine, don't they?

For that matter, if this book is overdue, what about the other two in the flashback? Why did Twilight return them, but not this one?

They did show this one getting tossed under a piece of furniture, so likely just got overlooked.

This is only possible if Twilight is in and out basically every day, because having a stamp for every patron is impossible.

Especially blank flanks.

This phrase works only if newspapers are typically printed on a printing press, which is not a given with this civilization.

We did see a rather crude, hoof driven newspaper printing press in Ponyville Confidential.

This would require Twilight to visit library and borrow books after becoming a princess

Or Book Horse is just that famous among the Librarian crowd.

Now, why does Twilight have a portrait of her? Not, say, a group picture with her, but a portrait?

It's Twilight, can you not see her favorite Librarian ranking just below Celestia as far as "Ponies I see as my greatest heroes"?

Were this true, there’s no way anyone would want to be a librarian.

Well, The Librarian would still love his job. But that's cause everyone would be too terrified of pissing him off to NOT return the books on time in perfect condition. But yeah, glad that wasn't at all the case.

“A squishy fruit food-fight tournament?!”

My biggest 'wut' in that, is that how in the hell is a full watermelon 'squishy'?

Wait, so why do the ponies other than Dusty Pages gasp?

Book Horse being Book Horse is just THAT damn famous. Or Dusty has told them all stories.

Pretty sure it’s not an absolute monarchy by now.

Correct, it's a diarchy.

[Oliver]

5051152

The EPS just as incredibly accurate and comprehensive ‘track your package’ options. Celestia just got an alert saying her package had been delivered.

Yeah right.

Most library books tend to have a label of some kind taped to the spine, don’t they?

Very much depends on the library – in my part of the world, library books are typically marked with a stamp somewhere in the front matter instead.

They did show this one getting tossed under a piece of furniture, so likely just got overlooked.

And that would still require the library not to know that Twilight still owes books, wouldn’t it?

Correct, it’s a diarchy.

Pretty sure it’s a lot more complicated and in any case, “diarchy” is a purely fanon term.