Points of Canon: S6x13 - Stranger Than Fanfiction · 6:39pm Jul 30th, 2016
Ok, the hiatus is over, time to go back to our regularly scheduled.
We all know who is this episode really about. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a canon episode, does it? :)
- It’s interesting how Daring Do almost never gets to actually use her pegasus wings. Most of the time, she at least has the excuse of them being injured, but not in this particular cold open.
- Twilight is going to a “Friendship Summit,” in Griffonstone, of all places. Considering that Griffonstone, when last observed, had all the markings of a failed state, I can’t help but wonder how this was even achieved.
- A.K. Yearling “never goes to conventions.”
- Daring Do cosplayers use faux wings, at least three ponies are attending the convention like that. Which kind of lends credence to the idea that at least some of those animation error alicorns are in fact cosplayers.
- Since both Rainbow Dash and Quibble Pants recognize that the tiles are in the correct order, this means that the original text of the book included a description of the said order. However, that isn’t what Rainbow was narrating in Read It And Weep. I.e. back in that episode we were getting Rainbow’s second degree narration. Further statements about the correct number of arrow holes reinforce this.
- Quibble Pants’ cutie mark is an empty speech bubble. I wonder what’s his interpretation.
- The convention merch includes a dakimakura. Several, in fact. They exist. It is also interesting that a dakimakura is typically at least to some degree erotic, (otherwise, what’s the point) and if the pony one also is, it’s erotic to see Daring Do tied up like an earthworm. Hmmm.
- Fluttershy’s Sailor Moon cutout can be seen on the merch stands in the background in one of the scenes. Since she isn’t there selling them, she had to have bought them or someone has printed them and is selling them for her… Other cutouts from the same set show up later on.
1. Never understood people who cook carrots. Not sure I can understand the ponies who do that either.
While Rainbow Dash and Quibble Pants are arguing, in the background one can see what is clearly a hot dog roller being used to cook carrots.1 I.e. carrots substitute for hot dogs far enough to necessitate the same cooking devices, which are otherwise quite specialized…
2. And Rainbow Dash is totally the pony to utter “Someone is wrong on the Internet.”
Quibble Pants’ statements imply that at least a certain shift in tone between “early” first trilogy and “late” Daring Do books exists.2
- The hotel receptionist has a cutie mark with a hotel key on it. I do wonder how exactly does one come by that one.
- A.K. Yearling’s “map” depicts a path starting in Manehattan, of all places. And ends in a location that is clearly a reference to the temple in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” which is actually Al-Khazneh. Notwithstanding the prize for the cruel and unusual geography, I think it has to imply a sea trip…
- I wonder where the convention is actually happening, if Cabaleron can drag both Rainbow Dash and Quibble Pants, unnoticed, from a convention hall which, according to A.K. Yearling herself, crawling with security, and end up in a jungle where the temple in question is. And if it really took “forever” to get to, why didn’t Rainbow do anything to escape along the way. Something’s fishy…
- The code lock is a particularly egregious case of the Sandwich Problem, since it has to be terribly inconvenient to use for any race without fingers, no matter how (reasonably) capable their hooves are. Unfortunately I can’t hear what they’re actually calling it. Is it a “griffons lock?”…
- The guy in a vest with pockets has a pocket cutie mark. How wonderfully recursive! But he also has chest hair, in addition to the now relatively common facial hair…
- One of the murals in the temple depicts two creatures with the physiological traits of alicorns – hooves, horn, wings – and a snake/dragon/something, which kind of reminds me of Discord, but later statements by Quibble imply it’s a “serpent…” I wonder if it means anything, because honestly there’s no way I can spin it.
- Since Quibble Pants is so consistently insistent on believing that this is an “adventurecation,” we can certainly expect that the real one not just exists, but is elaborate enough for him to continue thinking he is on one.
- Quibble Pants says “the classic pony and the tiger bet,” which is a reference to “The Lady or the Tiger?” and implies ponies have an equivalent. Which is probably a better fit to the situation than our story.
- Daring Do directs Rainbow and Quibble to “head west” which means that the nearest civilization is towards west and the site is east of it, but with the “map” we really don’t know if it’s even on the same continent.
- In the over-credits narration, Quibble mentions karate for the second time in the series.
There’s way too many Indiana Jones references in this one, including the “go over them” line. And it’s interesting that the closest lower bound on timing this episode is “The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone,” and not something later, because at no point Rainbow Dash boasts being a Wonderbolt, nor do we see any of the usual landmarks, the CMC, or Starlight Glimmer.
Rainbow/Quibble shipfics commence in three, two, one….
Maybe the first Daring Do book was supposed to be an archeological monograph by A.K., and it got sent to the wrong editor? Thus the pains-taking descriptions of floor tiles.
I have a hard time seeing Rainbow getting through a paragraph like that, though. Maybe there are a few sketches.
4122899
They also quote from the text, it doesn't quite sound like a monograph. But sketches, these could well happen...
Really a fun episode, overall.
Maybe she's a weak flyer like Fluttershy?
Celestia will be there too, right? I wonder if this ties into the recent comic, where Celestia and other Princesses had to mediate between Griffonstone and Yakyakistan. Or maybe "Friendship Summit" is how ponies describe an economic aid/trade conference, and it's being held in Griffonstone to boost the local hotels.
So Fluttershy just had those giant Sailor Pony cutouts lying around her house then? She's weabo trash!
RD and Quibble did wander out the back entrance into an alley, which really helped Caballeron with the kidnapping.
Scrutinized the main map, couldn't find a single Jungle east of a city or village. Considering Daring Doo was only at this convention while she looked for the hidden temple, my wild guess is that the convention is off the map, in Maretonia or something. There is a train track that keeps going past Griffonstone that might lead to Maretonia. That solves the timing issue of Caballeron's quick kidnap too, if we assume the "ravine" Daring said they were in is only an hour or so east of a Maretonian city. It seems weird that the convention would be so far away, but if AK Yearling said she would attend if they held it there, maybe that made the difference to the organizers.
They do call it that, which actually makes the lock makes some sense then, Caballeron figures no non-unicorn pony could open it. Then Quibble opens the lock off-screen, which is irritating. Of course, the fact that Quibble knows about the lock implies it was in one of Daring Do's books, which implies she solved it as well. Or maybe his special talent is puzzle-solving.
Paused, the creatures the earth ponies are fighting do look just like giant snakes, no wings or horns. Though they do spit acid. I wonder if they represent Tatzlewyrms, and the unicorns are fighting Ursas? Interesting that Griffons are fighting Pegasi, when in ancient times there was a long-running war between the two races.
Considering the guy with a fancy suit and pamphlet tried to sell RD one at the beginning, this seems like a safe-bet. Pretty sure this whole aspect was inspired by The Man Who Knew Too Little.
True, but this is one of those episodes where a fair amount of time in the background had to happen. It sounds like there are many different Daring Do books, and Rainbow Dash has read them all often enough to memorize them (we see her re-reading the first one in Two Many Pinkies). And that's in between her job, training to be a Wonderbolt, napping, and everything else she does. It's things like this that make me annoyed when we see rapid time compression between episodes, because ponies have to have realistic time to fit these hobbies into their busy lives, on top of all their other zany adventures.
Yes, of course we ship RainbowPants! If Quibble was real I feel like he would be very helpful right on this blog series.
I wonder if Quibble Pants runs a blog commenting on the canon of the Daring Do books...
It's a nice inversion of "Lost Treasure of Griffonstone", where Twilight was bemoaning the fact that the map wasn't sending her. Now, when she actually gets to go to Griffonstone on official princess business, she's bemoaning the fact that she can't go to a Daring Do convention.
There is a group on Fimfiction devoted to erotic stories about tying up ponies. The show just got away with a shout out to the clop side of the fandom.
4123188
It’s meta, for one. I mean come on, me and meta. :)
Except when she invariably escapes through the top of the temple, at top speeds.
More likely than not, it would be about economic aid to and trade with Griffonstone specifically, so of course it’s held there… But that would still need Griffonstone to do something on their own first. Like, you know, build a hotel.
Unless they actually belong to Angel Bunny and she borrowed them.
But since I don’t think she’s the source of the cutouts, I have to conclude she’s the recipient. :)
There isn’t. The reason why I say this episode gets a prize for cruel and unusual geography is that I believe that it’s meant to make us think that the convention is in Manehattan. See Yearling’s “map,” which starts with a very recognizable Manehattan outline, and continues through the stages exactly followed by RD/QP on their way. And Jungle immediately follows a bridge out of Manehattan on it.
My editor suggests his special talent is medium awareness. I suppose he’s just smart this way: he likes the books in which Daring solves puzzles, and vastly prefers them to the books in which action takes pride of place instead.
Hundreds, if you believe My Little Pony #41 but I don’t. The total number of books can’t exceed about fifteen and is probably closer to ten. That’s because Quibble only likes “the first trilogy”. If there were a hundred of them, it would be effectively the same as saying he doesn’t like any Daring Do books at all, and the change in tone would have to be really drastic, enough to make even Rainbow notice how different they got.
Yes, he sounds just like the type of pony to understand the Aragorn’s Pants problem. :)
4123542
Of course not. Daring Do books don’t come out every week and ponies don’t have the Internet or computers.
He writes long-winded articles in a zine and lots of letters, instead, and there’s probably a local club meeting in a bookshop every weekend where he discusses his work and has presentations with slides and other stuff… :)
Yes, that is amusing. In fact, ever since the Cutie Map arrived, Twilight has never been particularly happy with official princess business…
At least that’s the halfway mainstream presentable segment of the clop side… :)
Lazy writers, you have a species where 1/3rd of them fly, and there is a massive undiscovered temple visible from the air near the world's largest city? Quibble would have something to say about this!
I was annoyed that after Daring Do showed up, she never explained why her first trilogy and her later books were so different. I hate to say it, but I think Quibble might be right: Yearling was pretty straightforward in relating the facts in the first three novels, after that she just started exaggerating the action sequences because that's what most of the fans wanted.
Oliver, you know Quibble was banned for life from that group at some point.
4123963
Nah. They're ponies. They're probably still suffering.
4124012 Oh, he still got that lifetime ban, they just keep forgiving and unbanning him, then throwing him out again when he blows up. It's a cycle.
Watched another few episodes.
illustration.Already notedThis feels like the extended Harry Potter reference.
Sleepover.
…RD refuses a pamphlet for one earlier in the episode.already noted by another.Medium awareness is a funny suggestion for a talent, because the episode has him being wrong in that field, thinking he's on an adventurecation.
i'd say quibble pants's talent is, in fact, in finding subtle, arcane distinctions nobody else notices (if we're being unkind, that nobody cares about). Pants are, after all, spectacularly useless in pony world. It would still apply to puzzle solving, and fits with him distinguishing the first trilogy from later books.
That would be more modeling on The Hardy Boys or Choose your Own Adventure than Harry Potter.
4123188
See second point below.
West does not necessarily get them back to the convention, it's just the given direction that presumably gets them out to where they can get home.
4123963
In a ravine. It could well be partly overshadowed.
❧
抱き枕already noted❧Another obvious use of winghanding, this time by A.K. Yearling on the key.
❧
"Lady or the Tiger?"already noted…❧❧but the implication of that violent story still having cultural currency, what with its violence, parental control of dating, abuse of power…an evil (likely pony) ruler…
❧❧Tigers exist [conceptually, at least] and will eat ponies.
Something that only now occurred to me. Quibble Pants is a purist who insists that only the original trilogy of Daring Do books really count. He has nothing but praise for Caballeron as a character:
Yet, according to “Daring Don’t”, Caballeron debuted in the fourth book:
Maybe Quibble Pants considers Caballeron the one redeeming feature in an otherwise-terrible book. Or perhaps Daring Do and the Razor of Dreams was actually the third-published book, the last part of the original trilogy—but Dash refers to it as book four because of a prequel (which Quibble refuses to acknowledge).