Why no investigation? · 4:22am Nov 15th, 2023
So a thread posted by someone who read a lot of my stuff prompted me to bring this up in regards to the Equestria Girls series. Why no investigations of the goings-on around Canterlot High?
Seriously, let's consider the events of each big EQG story.
In the first film, Sunset Shimmer turns herself into a demon, damages the school, hypnotizes most of the students and faculty present into a puppet zombie army, and in the process of defeating her, a gigantic crater is left on school grounds. So far as we know, there's no investigation of this event, and no wider acknowledgement. At least, not by anyone beyond Adagio Dazzle and the human world's Twilight Sparkle.
Second film? Big crazy lightshow occurs during the finals for CHS's Battle of the Bands, and again, no one seems to notice beyond Sci-Twi.
Third film? More magical shenanigans. Tears in the fabric of space-time. The Wondercolt statue is destroyed, and the pedestal upon which it rests has noticeable damage.
The fourth film I'm giving a pass to, seeing as everything occurred in a reasonably remote area and everyone involved is likely to be disinterested in advertising what happened there.
The third of the half-hour specials? Seemingly no reaction to Juniper Montage suddenly turning into a mini-giantess and going about the mall.
Forgotten Friendship, again, I'm giving a pass to. The Memory Stone was destroyed, and while it's possible that a security camera could've caught Wallflower Blush trapping Sunset and Trixie in that room, it's just as likely that they didn't. Security concerns or no, parents might complain if there were cameras everywhere in a high school.
Rollercoaster of Friendship? Again, pass. All the craziness that went down with Vignette Valencia could easily be dismissed as some sort of lightshow...though were I in charge of that theme park, I'd want to get a good look at how she was running things.
The Spring Breakdown special. Cruise ship gets damaged and sinks. The passengers all make it off okay, but not at a port or with the assistance of a passing vessel or a group like the Navy or the Coast Guard.
Finally, that special with Sunset reliving the same day over and over again. This one I have to give a pass to as well, as it's hard to prove the existence of a device that causes time to loop...especially when said device has been destroyed.
So out of nine named incidents, five had noticeable effects that could be seen from the outside, but didn't appear to be investigated in any meaningful manner. Call me crazy, but that just doesn't seem realistic. In the real world, there are several television shows dedicated to people hunting for ghosts and other paranormal entities, not to mention civilian and government groups dedicated to all sorts of spooky stuff. The American government might've used Project Blue Book to explain away the vast majority of UFO sightings, but they nonetheless investigated such sightings...and even they admitted there were some that they simply couldn't explain away.
And let me take a second to point out that yes, some UFO sightings likely are misidentified aircraft, or exotic aircraft not known to the wider public, or misidentified natural phenomena. People make mistakes. People are stupid, or want to believe what they want to believe. Just covering my bases here.
My point is that, were all of this to happen in the real world, someone would investigate. Bare minimum, you'd have someone out from the insurance company.
This brings up the Watsonian Versus Doylist perspective, or an in-universe explanation versus an out-of-universe explanation. The out-of-universe explanation for all of this, of course, is that at the end of the day, these are stories whose primary audience is children, intended by a toy company to help Sell Their Toys, and from that perspective, we aren't meant to dwell upon the details. Plus, from the perspective of those who produce said stories, their target audience likely isn't interested in exactly how all of this goes unnoticed.
The in-universe explanation? Sadly, existing canon doesn't really give us much to go on. Obviously, the damage to Canterlot High sustained at the end of the first film was repaired by the start of the second film, though the exact span remains nebulous. Creator commentary says "six moons", but no one has directly stated exactly how long a "moon" is, and my theory equating a moon to a month is simply that, a theory. Also, no mention is made of how it was explained away to the wider public. You'd think that Cinch would have brought it up at some point during the third film, if she were so eager to show Crystal Prep as being better than Canterlot High. And speaking of said third film, the Wondercolt statue was destroyed and its pedestal damaged, and while there's evidence that everything was eventually fixed, there's no mention of when or how. We human beings may have an amazing capacity for self-deception and ignoring things, but when an amateur scientist attending high school takes notice of odd activity, you can bet that other people will as well.
Obviously, I have considered this within the context of the Quiververse, at least in part. A gas explosion, at least to me, is as good an explanation as any for the damage suffered to the school's front entrance, and most people would accept that and carry on. A part of me, however, has recently considered the idea that there might be other factors at work, particularly involving how Sunset remains in attendance despite her part in the whole fiasco. There's even some hints of it in Legends of Magic, which will be expanded upon at a later time (if folks have a guess about that, feel free to note me to confirm - I won't give out spoilers here if I can avoid it). Within the context of my stuff, hopefully, the explanation will make sense. I just hope it doesn't break Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
It's a very fair question for sure, Echo, and one that I will be interested to see how you answer with regard to the Quiververse.
Good questions. I actually have a couple of theories concerning that stuff:
The first is that there HAVE been OFF-SCREEN investigations where most of the more fantastic stuff have been dismissed as "doctored smart phone" antics and the destruction has been given the more mundane explanation as high-school pranks gone wrong. What? I never said they were GOOD investigations.
The second explanation is that better-intentioned government agencies handling paranormal investigations have discreetly looked into that stuff and helped cover things up because they could tell that, by and large, these ARE mostly good kids and generally have the situation under control by the time they arrive. Heck, I'm sure at least a few fan fic writers have run with variants on this theory.
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Those are very good possibilities.
I'm pretty sure "moons" equating to "months" is general practice in real life, referring to how the cycle of the moon, from New Moon to Full Moon back to New Moon again, lasts about a calendar month.
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Oh yes. And that's where my theory came from. But the showrunners have never been firm, so they might just be treating the word 'moon' in this context as a vague period of time. Which annoys me to no end, but there you are.
Well... if it helps, I can join the list of those who agree with your point. :) It's unrealistic that as far as we know, no one from any governmental authority got involved on any of these situations.
I will admit I am a bit more forgiving when it comes to some of these, but, hoping I'm not slipping too much into promoting my own stuff, there are some I'll just outright change for my own AU when I get around to it.
That said, in addition to the ones you mentioned, I can forgive two more, because of the exact circumstances involved.
First movie - You mentioned a gas explosion as a possible cover story, which I think is perfectly possible. But speaking in general terms, I think it's also possible (if maybe very statistically unlikely) that Canterlot High just had no actual bad eggs and everyone was simply willing to keep the cover out of the goodness of their hearts (and admittedly also because they felt they wouldn't be believed). Granted, I think this is kind of contradicted by a number of materials (I think I remember some of the comics and shorts show actual bad eggs among the students of Canterlot High)... but maybe even those would still balk at having Sunset carted off to a government lab to be dissected or worse.
Rainbow Rocks - Kind of like Vignette's parade, this one has the advantage that it happened at a festive event, so it's possible that whoever happened to see it just thought the visible soundwaves and the giant winged horse with a horn and the fish-like monsters were all part of the show. And well... if I may say so, given Vinyl Scratch's frankly futuristic car, it just may be a smaller leap in that universe than in ours.
I can also forgive the Friendship Games movie well enough, because in that one Principal Cinch does mention that she'll report all that happened to the school board, and is specifically shot down when she basically gets told she'll be written off as crazy if she does, because no one will believe her. And aain, one can only guess that the Crystal Prep students just are naturally good (or at least, good enough) souls that they agreed to keep the secret. This one, I admit, is kind of paper-thin, considering the cultish fashion in which so many of them joined into pressuring Sci-Twi in Unleash the Magic... but even the movie showed they learned the error of their ways, so this could be another step.
I definitely have nothing to say for a defence on the points about Juniper Montage's display at the mall or the Spring Breakdown incident, though. I only would add that the second one is even worse, because, while all the passengers made it okay, they went back home through Equestria, which implies at least tens of strangers went through the surreal experience of having all their things be horse things, as Sci-Twi put it. Granted, again, it's possible they would all understand the importance of keeping it a secret... but the fact that at least tens of people would seemingly vanish in the middle of the sea and then reappear back in Canterlot city, which is potentially hundreds if not thousands of miles from where they vanished... someone would notice.
On the 'moons' matter... G4 does seem to imply them as months, (though I admit that for my AU, I distinguish moons from months, and use 28 days from the English common law for the duration of a moon, while having the actual months be just the human common calendar months). G5, however, actually seems to have moons meaning years, as Phylis is celebrating heading Canterlogic for 20 moons in the New Generation movie, and Sunny wishes to listeners a happy new moon alongside a Happy Wishday in her song set to We Wish You A Merry Christmas in Chapter 3. I can only conclude there must have been some sort of in-universe shift in the centuries that passed, because G4 distinguished moons from years and, if I may say so, I doubt that six years go by between the first movie and Rainbow Rocks.
That said, all of this is just my opinion, and I will admit I can be forgiving, as much as I try not to leave such proverbial holes in works I made.
At any rate, I definitely look forward to seeing how you will handle this in the Quiververse. :) And while I said I can be forgiving, if I may say so, I've read enough from the 'verse that I think I won't need to forgive much (if anything at all) as per the general norms of the setting.
Wishing you the best of lucks in its development, and as always, in your life in general too. :) Take care.
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You have a very optimistic outlook on this. No shame in that.
Thank you for your thoughts on this. And rest assured, I look forward to making things clear when the time is right.