Random thoughts about canon #1: The House of Twilight

First, let me delineate for the purposes of this post and all the subsequent ones in that vein…

TV show is “canon.” Movies and other official video material are as well. Comics are “demi-canon,” which basically means that they are canon until they contradict the higher authority source. Other licensed printed works like “The Journal of the Two Sisters” are quasi-canon, i.e. one step further down, because they match even worse. But occasionally I will employ all of them to argue something anyway.

Now, today’s observation about canon:

1. Entrance from the street straight into a room on top kind of implies it is, in fact, an apartment, and not a separate house.

The apartment atop the tall tower¹ that Twilight is in when she sends the letter to Celestia in the very beginning of the series, that she abandons never to set foot into again all the way until season 5 episode Amending Fences, is the very same apartment that she is seen studying in during Cutie Mark Chronicles before she gets her cutie mark. The telltale signs are the very distinctive wood stove in the corner and a ladder up the shelf, even though the large hourglass in the middle of the room is not visible.

It seems exceedingly unlikely that she would be permitted to live alone at this age, which implies that it was her family’s dwelling at the time, and everypony else moved out later – since otherwise, the apartment would not have a year’s worth layer of dust when Twilight returned in season 5.

What complicates the issue further is the fact that the depictions of the family home in the comics (My Little Pony #11-12, “Neigh Anything”) do not match the tower at all. Instead, they resemble the house seen in A Canterlot Wedding when Twilight confronts Shining and Chrysalis/Cadance.

Since Twilight has no cutie mark in the flashbacks in Cutie Mark Chronicles or A Canterlot Wedding, this implies that the family moved to the tower after Shining Armor finished school – most likely, leaving the house to him. But a few years later, possibly, not long before the beginning of the series, the parents had to have moved out yet again, leaving Twilight alone – otherwise, there’s no way the apartment would have stayed empty for a year.

Which gives us the following ideas to play with:

• 2. This comes up in fanon rather often. Based on the stars on Twilight Velvet’s cutie mark and the crescents on Night Lights’ many people have chosen to believe they are astronomers. I don’t think cutie marks are necessarily so literal, but that’s a discussion for another day.

  Twilight’s family is wealthy enough to purchase multiple dwellings in Canterlot in the time span of no more than five years and they’re big on giving their children personal space. Which seems to rule out purely academic careers for them² unless they’re “gentleman scientists,” so to speak, i.e. wealthy for reasons other than their careers.

• Canon remains completely silent on just where Twilight is typically staying when she visits Canterlot – it’s just that it’s definitely not in her own apartment. It also remains silent on where did Night Light and Twilight Velvet shuffle off to, as that third presumed dwelling is never seen, but if Twilight stays there, rather than at the palace with Celestia, as fanfics seem to so often presume, this at least explains how she could have avoided meeting Shining Armor in the weeks immediately preceding the wedding, preventing him from telling her about it.
• Moving around a lot, even within the same city, would, in fact, make Twilight less likely to form a childhood friendship with anypony outside her school circle…

Comments

[DannyJ]

Well-observed. I'm going to take a look at this myself when I get the time, because that's an interesting idea if it's truly the case.

[Queensarrow]

How do know it isn't a boarding school, that her apartment was something that was only assigned to students or prospective students pending acceptance? Celestia's School may take the place of high school and university/college.

[Oliver]

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How do know it isn’t a boarding school, that her apartment was something that was only assigned to students or prospective students pending acceptance? Celestia’s School may take the place of high school and university/college.

SGU is a boarding school, if we believe Friendship is Magic #40. But, we see Twilight’s room in this school twice, and it matches between the two appearances: In A Canterlot Wedding and in Friendship is Magic #40. It looks nothing at all like the apartment in the Friendship is Magic TV episode.

[Fome]

I appreciate your observations, but I feel like you've started off on a shaky footing with how you use the word "canon". From what I understand, a canon is technically just a body of work with an agreed-on composition. There's no such thing as a particular work "being canon" in an absolute sense, never mind "demi-canon"; and it certainly has nothing to do with consistency or contradictions between works of fiction.

Interesting that you present it as fact that the Journal is a worse match to the series than the comics. I know it has a little bit of weirdness, especially in characterization; but nothing I would have thought was as bad as the comics'. At the time you posted, there wasn't even the Flurry Heart problem. And there's the fact that it was written by a series writer. Maybe you elaborate in another post.

[Oliver]

4653658

I appreciate your observations, but I feel like you’ve started off on a shaky footing with how you use the word “canon”.

Do check my blog index please.

And there’s the fact that it was written by a series writer. Maybe you elaborate in another post.

Do check… well, I’d rather not repeat myself, but yes, I wrote about this too. :)

[Fome]

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I'm hoping to get through all 182 posts to date in your index, but no promises. Looking forward to finding whatever you're referring to if I get that far, though.