On the Current Timeline · 5:54am Dec 1st, 2013
Hey folks. Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving (or at least a tolerable one). I've been under the weather for the past couple days, but it's high past time I continued my work. This time, I'll be going over my theories on the Equestrian timeline, up to and including the season four premier as it explains a lot about the show's canon. If you haven't watched the season four premier yet... well, you've been warned.
The first thing to consider is just how much time has passed in the show's canon already, so we're digging into the season four premier right off the bat. Twilight's adventures begin with her being sent to Ponyville the day before the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration. There's an argument for one year and two years, but I'm more keen on two years for one very simple reason. It's certainly possible for all of the events of seasons one, two, and three to be compressed into a single year assuming you throw out the idea of chronological order—and let's face it, we're kind of going to have to. If we assumed that the episodes were in chronological order, we'd be on about year six, the first season alone tossing in two years with Winter Wrap-Up and Fall Weather Friends alone. Very few of the episodes are actually interconnected with one another, which I imagine was done on purpose on the part of the writers, so they can be reordered within a certain degree of freedom. There's really only eight episodes that give me any sense of time that has passed for the series, and six of those were two-parters.
The first episode arc is obviously the one that gets everything started. The Elements of Harmony: Part 1 and The Elements of Harmony: Part 2 set the stage and start Twilight and her friends' stories up. It's also one of the few episode arcs that's centered around a definitive date—the Summer Sun Celebration, also known as the longest day of the year, also known as the summer solstice. The only other episodes that do this are Winter Wrap-Up, potentially Fall Weather Friends, Luna Eclipsed (Though, like Fall Weather Friends, we don't have a concrete date on when it happens, only that it appears to be a homage to our own Halloween and follows many of the same traditions), potentially Hearth's Warming Eve for the same reasons of Fall Weather Friends, Hearts and Hooves Day because again holiday homage, and finally Princess Twilight Sparkle: Part 1 and Princess Twilight Sparkle: Part 2. The two most important events on that list are Winter Wrap-Up in season one, and Hearth's Warming Eve in season two.
Everything between The Elements of Harmony (e101/102) and Winter Wrap-Up (e111) can be transposed to any place before the episode Lesson Zero (e203), which is another major turning point in the series but has no definitive date. Any episode that contains one of our main protagonists other than Twilight composing a Friendship Report must be after Lesson Zero. It stands to argue that Twilight could still be the one composing the Report post-Lesson Zero for any episode that she is, and I'm fairly certain she does post e203 on several occasions, but let's not overly complicate things here. Similarly, everything between e111 and Hearth's Warming Eve (e213) can be transposed with a certain degree of freedom. For instance, Suited for Success has to happen before The Best Night Ever but after Ticket Master. This including Hearth's Warming Eve itself, which is where the issue of contention arises as to whether one year or two has passed since Twilight's arrival in Ponyville—there's nothing stopping the events of Hearth's Warming Eve from happening before the events of Winter Wrap-Up. It's logical to presume that Winter Wrap-Up happens on Twilight's first Winter Wrap-Up in Ponyville, but there's nothing stopping Twilight and her friends from being invited to play in Canterlot's Hearth's Warming Pageant.
Except for a few very tiny little details that are largely up for debate.
This is Canterlot's Hearth's Warming Pageant. Twilight makes a constant deal over the fact that they should all be honored to have been chosen by Celestia to play parts in the pageant, despite their assistance rendered to Celestia so far. If the pageant happens on Twilight's first year in Ponyville, the only major events that the Elements of Harmony are known for would be the defeat of Nightmare Moon, which, in all honesty, didn't make as big of a splash as it could have. It earned the girls a trip to the Grand Galloping Gala later that year, but it didn't thrust them into the public eye as did another event—the defeat of Discord.
Now, as I said before, it's possible that all of these events could be crunched into one year, if only because the previous point is up for debate. It's within reason that Celestia could have invited Twilight—(one of) her personal students and her friends—to play in the Canterlot pageant for saving her sister, but I don't think that's quite a good enough reason. Even ignoring the fact that the girls seem to be better friends in Hearth's Warming Eve than in Winter Wrap-Up where Twilight is still trying to figure out where she fits in, Celestia is a little more responsible than that, I would imagine. Once Twilight and her friends are made to stand on ceremony and are celebrated for defeating Discord, however, they're launched into celebrity status as the Elements of Harmony, legends in their own time. The only question is when did Discord attack. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were largely responsible for his escape (which I'm sure some folks will use as a point against Celestia's supposed responsibility I cited earlier), so it has to happen after the Crusaders form up—which is a pretty wide window, seeing as that episode isn't nailed down. You know what the important part of Discord's return is?
Corn.
I kid you not. There was corn growing in Ponyville upon Discord's escape, which is a spring and summer crop. The full sunlight and ample drainage needed for growing corn makes it unsuitable for autumn, and you obviously can't grow it during the winter. This means Discord either attacked in the first six to eight weeks upon Twilight's arrival in Ponyville, or he attacked sometime between the middle of spring and the end of summer the next year. Why the middle of spring? Because the corn was already growing, not planted. This in turn means one of two things—either the entirety of seasons two and three all the way up to Twilight's coronation happen within six to eight weeks before the next Summer Sun Celebration (which I remind you includes TWO, potentially THREE trips to the frozen north of the Crystal Empire and a trip from Ponyville to Canterlot takes the better part of sixteen hours. See MMMmystery on the Friendship Express), or Twilight's been in Ponyville for two years.
With just those five points of reference—Twilight's arrival in Ponyville on the Summer Sun Celebration, her first Winter-Wrap Up, Discord's escape, being invited to play for Canterlot's Hearth's Warming Eve pageant, and finally Twilight's participation in another Summer Sun Celebration—my head says two years. What happened to that other Summer Sun Celebration in the interm? Well, the canon events have already ensured at least one year, so what happened to New Years? What happened to Thanksgiving? Mother's Day? Father's Day? Nearly everypony's birthdays? My theory is that nothing interesting happened on that Summer Sun Celebration—there was no story to tell. If the show only focused on holiday events, it would never get anywhere else.
I wanted to get into the revelations that the season four premier gave us, but I'm getting up there in words again. If only I wrote as prolifically as I thought. The short version of all this is that I think it's been two years because of corn. Check back sometime next weekend when I can finally delve into Equestrian history.
By Corn, it will be done!