Points of Canon: S612 - Spice Up Your Life · 5:59pm Jun 11th, 2016
Ah, the last episode before the hiatus. Judging by the leaked list of episode names, it’s the one least likely to screw up something from the upcoming ones, but let’s see…
There are surprisingly few atomic statements in this one, and it presents a huge, beautiful hole to slot your story into.
- Starlight is present in the episode and is not the plot focus for the first time. Moreover, Twilight explicitly states this is the first time the Cutie Map sends them anywhere since Starlight’s time travel shenanigans, which sets the position of this episode in the timeline.
- Time shenanigans actually broke the map and Starlight and Twilight had to cooperate to fix it.
1. That would be a lovely time travel episode, which makes me think we aren’t getting one.
The Cutie Map can get so borked on bootup that it can call out “Twilight and Twilight in Twilight’s Castle,”1 which suggests a particular internal logic, i.e. per-slot choice of cutie mark owner which permits duplicates, rather than, say, keeping track of where every cutie mark owner is and needs to be.
- Restaurant Row is a street of high class eateries in Canterlot.
- “Three hoof rating” by just one Zesti Gourmand is so influential, that apparently, that’s all you need on your signboard, or at least, it’s prominent enough that the actual signboard does not fit into the cartoon detail resolution.
- “Tasty Treat” has a sign with an elephant’s head on it, which at least implies elephants exist. But it depicts an African elephant, while the decor of the place and the background music are clearly meant to be reminiscent of India. Every picture with an elephant in it inside the restaurant likewise shows an African elephant. You can tell by the shape of the ears.
- Just when I saw earrings in a comic, minutes later I see them on Saffron Masala. Really, why don’t ponies wear them more often?
- Coriander Cumin moved “half across Equestria,” which once again muddles up the question of what Equestria is.
Just how the hell is it possible for one restaurant critic to wield enough influence to make a whole street of eateries pretend they’re a franchise without actually being so is never explained – when this is the actual problem of the episode, beyond the relationship between father and daughter. This is a story we weren’t told, and which, honestly, I would be more interested in seeing than the one we did see. The economic considerations likewise make it questionable – “Where do you want to lunch today – in the one with triangles or the one with squares?” Seriously, how did this happen?! Will someone write a story to explain?…
Also, I wonder, now, where in Equestria is Bollywood?…
Oh hey, Starlight did just get a bit part. That's good to see.
And yeah, precisely how Zesty got that much social capital is a curious question. I don't think this one is quite as simple as Fancy Pants paying her a complement...
Yes, time for a ponified remake of Gol Maal.
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It's way too widespread for one Fancy Pants compliment and way to widespread for, well, anything. Notice the Whinnyapolis tourists who are not "in" on the joke openly disdain the Zesti-franchise, and so do all the restaurant owners present for the re-re-opening, but average clients on the street do not. Instead of soliciting random ponies on the street, Rarity used her own social capital to invite ponies she had dealings with in the past, and at least one of them is the same pony that previously rejected an invitation to an unrated restaurant from Pinkie. And what about, for example, Pony/Donut Joe, who runs what is, pretty openly, Twilight's favorite donut shop?...
I honestly got no clue just how this can happen, but the explanation that evolves can be just as far reaching as Prince Blueblood, who is almost singlehoofedly responsible for the fanon idea of unicorn supremacist nobility...
The map being broken makes me wonder if all those "false alarms" were actually real friendship problems that occurred and then were resolved one way or another during the map's broken period.
For the elephant, you're right those are the ears of an African elephant. I suspect Canadian animators are less educated on the differences between Asian and African elephants.
Thanks for calling out the central problem with the episode. I actually thought Zesti herself was pretty reasonable. She likes food that isn't horribly over-spiced, she makes it plain she only recommends a very specific type of food and decor, and hands out her rating based on those straight-forward criteria.
The problem is that everyone else in Canterlot hates her preference for fairly bland food, but still relies on her rating to judge where to eat. That can happen with celebrities at a late stage, but to become a celebrity critic, your fans/followers have to actually agree with your taste! Otherwise no one listens to you in the first place! All those ponies who admitted they hated Zesti's style of food all along, but were each going along with her style? Why were they listening to Zesti when she was starting out as a food critic and saying "eat here, the food is really bland and in small portions, I recommend that style."
It's that perennial cliche you see where creators love to attack critics as out of touch with the style of ordinary people, who love the creator's work. But critics can only be successful when their accumulated fans continue to agree with the tastes of the critic, which is why "attack the critic" pieces of fiction almost always come off as a writer trying to excuse their own poor abilities after they were judged harshly.
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I feel like it was a gradual process. Zesty Gourmand started out as a relatively sensible critic with a particular ideal and a lot of charisma. When she first started out, her ideas may have been revolutionary enough to make a place stand out. As time went on, though, she became progressively more and more radical in what her idea of what good food is was, but by then she was already the Tastemaker of Canterlot's Restaurant Row. Social inertia meant that anyplace that was anyplace was one that Zesty approved of, and nopony was both willing and able to temper or go against Zesty's radical ideals.
It's a story of the fall from the avant garde to the old guard.
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Sudden thought: It has to have involved a restaurant getting the unheard of, fabled, four hoof perfect rating.
Then going out of business. For reasons.
Personally, I read Zesty as a criticism of three things:
1) The Michelin three star system, which has long been criticised for favouring the French style of cuisine and dining over all alternatives (the identikit restaurants are telling here), and, more pertinently, for being irrelevant for most diners (unless you are very wealthy, it is profoundly unlikely that you will use the guide for its intended purpose).
2) The tendency for food critics, particularly those who specialise in fine dining, to become increasingly detached from reality on the whole topic of normal food. If you wish to see this in action, there is a show on the BBC called the Great British Menu. The judges, while far more personable than Zesty (who is pretty clearly constructed wholesale from straw), are still decidedly eccentric in terms of what they consider acceptable.
This is rather important: the whole point of the show is for the chefs to complete to cook at a banquet, such as the one held for world war two veterans. There was a very clear disconnect between the food the judges felt appropriate and the tastes of the veterans.
3) The increasing tendency of people to utilise, and rely upon, reviews. The advent of internet access via phones allows shoppers to check out multiple reviews of anything they buy whilst in the shop contemplating buying it. I am as guilty of this as anyone: yesterday, I caught myself looking up reviews of hiking boots while trying them on in an outdoor stop.
The negative side of this is that negative reviews, often from people who have no business reviewing, can really harm a good product. Equally damaging is having no reviews at all, as was shown here.
In all, a good episode. Probably not the best use of Rarity (seeing her business side completely overwhelm her desire for artistic flare and individualism was odd), but it made up for it with some cool new characters (I fully expect porn featuring Saffron Masala to hit the feature box imminently) and a rather nice new song.
All in all, pretty cool.
Are there no other food critics in the capital?
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Gentleman, who are these criticisms for? They are not ones that younger viewers would have any idea about, but the notion that the entire population of a city makes life far less pleasant for themselves because One Bad Person fooled them is fit only for those six and under.
Personally, when they say they moved halfway across Equestria I take it as meaning they moved from that great center of immigration, Manehattan, where Ponies actually know something about food.
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Either there aren't, or Zesti ate them...
...but in Equestria, that's not outside the realm of possibility, really.
My impression is that since they depict elephants everywhere so much, the actual cusine is not originally Equestrian, but brought over by elephant immigrants or something like that.
But I wish the show writers would imagine the world outside Equestria's borders a bit better for once. :)
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Where's Anton Ego when you need him?
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Perhaps I chose the wrong word with criticism.
You are right: the writers were not likely setting out with imparting those specific points to the target audience. Still, what the writers intended to do and what they did are not necessarily the same thing.
Of course, that doesn't mean I'm right; I could well be barking up completely the wrong tree.
That Zesty's three hoof rating is derived from the Michelin system is not in doubt, however, you are correct in stating that this is not likely to occur to the target audience.
As for my other points, for the purpose of the target audience: "Reviewers don't know everything, form your own opinion" would be better as the intended moral.
Regarding your statement about "one bad person fooling them," it is not outside the realm of possibility that very young children will reach that conclusion, and I imagine that your estimate regarding six year olds is likewise correct; older children will likely come to more sophisticated conclusions than that.
One point to remember is that the writers are very fond of employing caricatures to get their points across, and Zesty very much fits the type. The target audience are very unlikely to encounter a critic like that, in that situation, but they are very likely to encounter critics.
I still feel it very plausible that the writers would try to teach their young audience to be sceptical regarding critics, and their reviews.
I am so goddamn tempted to write a "Twilight and Twilight" cutie map team-up story. I hope someone beats me to it, because I have plenty of other things to do.
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I kinda had the same thought and abandoned it for the same reason. :)
Ah. I was gonna ask. Elephants seem the main takeaway, since I'm sure you're as leery of taking TV-guide episode-blurb "India" as indiacitive of anything.
well, they were in Saddle Row Review in spoon form…
with the crystal candlestick! Er, hmm, Hasbro does own that now…wait, that's a half-decent idea for implementing this.
❧Curry exists.