Sep
2nd
2016
Points of Canon: Starlight Glimmer and the Secret Suite · 5:52pm Sep 2nd, 2016
I mean, I couldn’t well miss this one, could I? Even though chapter books don’t have a good track record in terms of self-consistent canonicity, Starlight Glimmer’s has got to be at least a little interesting, right?
This has lots of details on the inner workings of magic.
- Starlight has a rather nervous reaction to Twilight, who is clearly doing her best to be an uncomfortable teacher throughout the book, to the point where Starlight is afraid of Twilight jumping out and surprising her while she is exploring the castle. Which is bigger on the inside. And Starlight continually has to remind herself that Twilight actually wishes her well. It almost feels like Twilight is her parole officer. Is Twilight supposed to be emulating Celestia in that or not?
- The narrator explicitly refers to Starlight as “the lavender unicorn.” I thought I’d just point that out!
- Starlight uses “Great Griffon’s beak!” as an expletive. I wonder who Great Griffon is, considering that all previously mentioned griffon polities were kingdoms.
- Twilight mentions an establishment called “Mythica University,” and the fact that she’s gathering books as gifts for their new library, because she has been invited to dedicate it. That’s the first explicit university a canon source mentions that I can remember.
- Starlight’s next friendship lesson involves a textbook (“Mooncurve’s Guide to Interval Incantations”) and is about making time spent with friends count. Somewhat oddly, it’s not a lecture but a joint research session with Twilight instead, as they’re aiming to make a time spell work.
- The spell Twilight wants to produce with Starlight is supposed to stretch the perception of time, but notably, it supposedly has a “phrase” and a “second verse.” Previously, only one spell in unicorn magic is even shown to have a verbal component of any sort – Star Swirl’s unfinished spell. Further on in the book, this spell is definitely declared to have a verbal component and involves reciting words.
1. I HATE those people.
Ponyville Game Night is yet another yearly festival. The one game Twilight refers to is “Settlers of Canterlot,” which, for some reason, Twilight never wins, Applejack does. According to Rainbow, it’s “one of the most awesome nights of the entire moon”1 and is like a mini Equestria games with less pressure. An official game day flag is involved. “It bore a symbol of a rainbow color wheel, cut out like slices of a pie.” Other events involve a colored water balloon fight and this year, at Big Mac and Spike’s special request, an Oubliettes and Ogres tournament. Since Discord is also described as a player, this also implies that the story wants to be set after Dungeons and Discord.
- Pinkie gave names to actual cornerstones of the castle. “Honesty,” “Communication,” and “Sea Otter.”
- Spike shortens Starlight’s name to “Star,” implying a higher degree of familiarity than he’s been showing in the primary canon so far.
- The narrator implies that the castle deliberately rearranges rooms to confuse Starlight. Either that, or the door she thinks is unique in appearance actually isn’t. But the room she finds appears to be the equivalent of Hogwarts’ Room of Requirement. One of the attributes of the secret research office that she finds is “a mirror pool for reflecting.”
- When Starlight returns, the Mane 6 report that while she secretly took a nap in the secret room, the entire Ponyville has been affected with what they call a “Hyper Time Boost,” which apparently, drastically changed their perception of how fast they were doing whatever they were doing. But it still leaves me unsure of what, if anything, happened to them objectively.
- Twilight refers to the research activity she was doing with Starlight as “spell-bending.”
- “Comet Tail’s Curse,” somehow, has no relation to the background pony known as Comet Tail, but is a possible risk when spell-bending. It results in permanent magical disability. It is also a story to scare fillies into finishing their magic homework. The actual wording of the curse, once Twilight finds it, is “The wizard who alters another’s magic must see to its intended end, or prepare to see their magic come to an end.”
- Starlight refers to Trixie as her best friend, telling us this story wants to be set after No Second Prances.
- Twilight tries to send Starlight off to Crystal Empire for a solo friendship lesson with Starburst. Notably, Starlight does not go, electing to hide in her secret room instead and keep working on the spell.
- List of food items mentioned when Starlight is packing includes “carrot jerky,” further solidifying the idea that carrots mostly take the place of sausages in pony diet. Sure enough, while she was in the secret room, the temporal phenomenon hits again, though in reverse – now everyone is feeling slowed down. Which is probably equivalent to the goal of the spell stated initially, i.e. making time feel like it lasts longer. For some silly reason, Starlight expects this to be reflected in the work of a clock, but of course it doesn’t.
- Spike reads Smash Fortune comic books, implying those exist.
- By the time Starlight gets found out, because the room magically sucks in Spike’s snack supply, she has accidentally created “a vortex,” of which they say “Vortexes could only be created with the strongest magical energy known to ponykind.” It behaves like some kind of magically-created black hole.
- While both Twilight and Starlight feel drained and fear the magical disability resulting from the curse, it’s Spike who saves the day by insisting that the curse does not exist and telling them to try to cast the spell together. For a completely unexplained reason, this causes the vortex to dissipate.
- Upon reflection, Starlight decides the secret room was an “Andalusian Amplifier,” and Twilight agrees, saying that this room is supposed to amplify “everything” that happens inside it. I wonder, is it limited to magic? Because I can think of a lot of other uses for such a room if it isn’t…
Very little of the detail on the workings of magic given here actually meshes well with anything else. More importantly, this story actually tells us very little about Starlight herself, even though she is the nominal protagonist.
Verdict: Meh, I’m not sure how much of it is useful.
It's hard to know what to make of that. I have aways assumed that the show avoids giving too many details on the workings of magic so as not to limit themselves for future stories, and to avoid boring the target audience.
It's odd, therefore, that this chapter book gives any such details. Particularly if they are as redundant as this blog implies.
Twilight's castle being hostile to Starlight is an interesting idea, though...
4187624
Like most textual supplementary materials, it's a mixed bag, with a few good ideas sitting in a pool of barely connected and minimally self-aware references to TV canon. This one in particular so, because, say, Lyra and Bonbon and the mares from S.M.I.L.E. made a lot more sense within itself.
I like this idea that the castle hates Starlight. It amuses me.
Professional LUS makes me LOL.
Overall, not much here.
It's exactly like that. Starlight wasn't actually offered a choice in being Twilight's student, she wasn't even offered the option of prison instead. Twilight gives her enough homework to keep her from ever being idle, and I'm not sure if Starlight was even allowed outside of the castle on her own before No Second Prances, basically house arrest.
I guess one of two things: Either the Great Griffon is/was the equivalent of a magical alicorn, or a myth the griffons made up because they wanted their own equivalent of a magical alicorn.
Is it true Rainbow Dash completed the Kessel Run in 13 moons? And that she was able to travel at 3900 moons per hour?
4187624
Well, if the map is just a facet of the castle, and Starlight was the one who hacked the map and broke it for half a season, I can see why the castle would hate her. Explains why it redirected her so she walked in on Spike in the bathroom as well, since the castle probably hates Spike too (you know he's been discretely nibbling some walls.)
4187945
Er... LUS?
4188022
I'm currently toying with the idea that a pony hour is literally a millimoon, i.e. 1/1000th of it. Assuming sane amount of hours in a day, like ~24, this produces a moon that is 21.6 days long.
4188730
Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. The hallmark of bad fanfiction.
4188743
I know it is, or I wouldn't point it out, but I somehow missed the acronym. :)
Edit: notice that it's Starlight who is lavender, not Twilight.
4188758
It's okay, I've been drinking, too.
4188768
Well, I haven't, and it's grossly impolite of you to remind me when there isn't any alcohol for 500 meters around! :)
4188778
Well... as long as you're not out of ice cream, too...
4188799
Yes I am, actually.
4188802
Oh, dude! I am so sorry! Do you have somebody you can call?*
----------------
* Like a scotch and ice cream delivery service.
4188812
Most of the services that could provide this sort of delivery would only arrive tomorrow at best. :)
I'm going to have to walk to acquire either.
4188778 Oh no, you're in a dry zone .000003 cubic moons in diameter!
4188841
Be brave!
4188993
Eh, I can go on an Emacs tuning binge instead.
…to make something productive, D&D 3.0 allowed Haste to be applied to a room. Everything got accomplished at double speed in such a room. This is unreasonably useful.
Great Scott!
4188952
4308560
I miss 3.0, when haste would get you two spells a round. Three if you had a quickened one!