Underlying assumptions · 6:24pm Oct 8th, 2016
Every author, whether working in actual canon or as a fan, must start from a set of basic premises and axioms. For myself, I find Ms. Faust’s original concepts and ideas for Equestria and the characters living therein, as described in various Q&A and interview sessions, far more compelling than the anachronistic hodgepodge that has developed over the course of the series. Necessarily there are some compromises, but I’ve tried to minimize those.
Ms. Faust has stated Equestria as she envisioned it did not have electricity. In the real world, electrical grids started developing in the 1880s, which establishes a pretty clear cap on the time period she had in mind. Steam locomotives and electrical telegraphy entered commercial service in the 1820s to 1830s, though the way they are depicted in Equestria argues for the 1860s at the earliest. This period, the 1860s through 1880s, is smack in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, though the ponies seem to be handling it more gracefully than human society did!
Further, she repeatedly described the Mane Six as being teens, in the range of twelve to seventeen or eighteen—which makes the Human Mane Six roughly the same ages, almost certainly no coincidence. The difference in the two groups’ situations stems entirely from the societal changes occuring during the twentieth century as the Industrial Revolution evolved, most notably the transition from apprenticeship to the modern intensive formal school system: Before then, and even well into that period, teens were seen as junior adults, with all the responsibility and latitude that implies. As society settled into the new pattern, teens became regarded as senior children, thanks to the enforced extension of economic dependence while they spend the years needed to absorb the huge stores of knowledge needed to become productive members of a thoroughly industrialized country.
Those are the most important points, though I may add others as I think of them.
Agreed. The series has decayed continually from its original quality and self-consistency, starting around Canterlot Wedding, in a variety of ways typical of "it's just a kid's show" syndrome, in which writers and other content creators respond to inconsistencies and shortcomings with "It's just a kid's show!"
But they're basically right, since even most of the adult fans don't care.
Depending on how certain things are in MLP:FIM I could see their ages being like that, but I think it might be closer to them being late teens to early 20's with a time dilation effect between Equestria and the Human world. Those things are as follows:
1: Whether or not some of the comics are canon, specifically the Sunset Shimmer origin comic that shows Twilight as a young filly in the background and her showing up in the human world during the Human counterparts being Freshmen.
2: Derpy's relationship with Dinky, about if they are mother/daughter or just sisters with Derpy being Dinky's gaurdian.
3: The best young fliers competition.
4: Apple family reunion, which happens once every 100 moons (important because the portal opens only every 30 moons and is suggested to have last opened when Sunset left through it).
The points are in no specific order, but the last one is somewhat the most important, and also require Applejack to be one of the older girls in their group. From memory and without looking it up, Applejack said that at the last family reunion she was around as old as Applebloom. Meaning that 100 moons equals AJ's age minus Bloom's age.
It seems like Bloom is 8 years old (I think it was stated that the CMC and other fillies/colts were aged up for the movies so they could be at the school). If Applejack was 18 then 100 moons would be 10 years, 30 would be 3. I will be back to this.
Point 1 comes about because Twilight has clearly finished whatever education they do give to ponies, so is either post high-school or post-graduate. It was at most a year between Sunset leaving and Twilight getting her cutie mark and entering school.
If it was only 3 years, then there would be no way Twilight would have finished all of her schooling in that time, especially considering that she spent between 1 and 2 years in Ponyville before becoming a Princess.
Now, if Applejack was closer to 25 there is more lee-way. Give and taking a bit, 24-8=16 and 26-8=18. 100/30=3.3 repeating. 16/3.3=5.3 repeating, and 18/3.3=6. So if 30 moons is between 5 and 6 years, and time passes closer to our own for the Human world, it would be either 2.5 or 3 depending on how they count moons. I'm doing 1 moon equal 1 month so 2.5 for the Humans. a ratio of 2.5:5.3 - 6 is easier to make some allowances.
If Twilight got her cutie mark later than normal (I think that was the case, can't really recall on that) so she was closer to 10-12 then mid to late teens for completing her school does work. Though that is cutting it very closely, and I think Rainbow was supposed to be the youngest of their group. Not sure if Twilight relative age to Rainbow was ever mentioned.
For the Best Young Fliers competition, it really depends on what 'young' means. 18 and down is obvious, but would require Derpy who was shown as a competitor, to be Dinky's older sis rather than mother. 21 and down is agreeable to most, and would let Rainbow be late teens, and Derpy have been a teen mother. 25 and down could be arguable, but unlikely.
If Rainbow is 18-21, Twilight would've needed to at least be 19-22. That does mean that there would've been at least 10 years between her getting her cutie mark and becoming a Princess.
However, if the portal had opened once in the intermitten years, and Sunset had waited to figure out the new world she was in and setting up a power base to start from before taking control over the student body through fear (somewhat suggest by the pictures in Principal Celestia's office showing Sunset winning the Fall Formal and going form 'nice' to outright evil) then the timing works.
Sunset flees through the portal. Twilight is around 10 years old.
Portal opens at some point while Twilight is finishing basic schooling before doing the more advanced (college level) studies.
Twilight around age 19-20 head to Ponyville and befriends the others.
Portal opens again, Twilight is around age 22. Sunset steals her crown yadda yadda.
I think that is all, though there might have been something I skipped from when I was thinking it over earlier. Going to add another comment on a separate thought.
EDIT: Recalled a point. What they view as a year is likely different than our own, since A) they make the sun and moon orbit the planet and B) they control the seasons. After a quick look, it doesn't seem like we have seen a calendar in the show and I don't recall them mentioning specific months, just the seasons. Which means they probably do the Harvest Moon thing where they treat the Seasons as the months and just have the year broken into 4 parts rather than 12.
In the post that started this conversation, you had mentioned that Equestria was pre-industrial. I would like to disagree with that, they are more borderline industrial. The biggest point as why I feel that is because: Magic.
The biggest thing about Industrialization is the mass manufacturing that requires more people to work in factories. Which causes them to clump into urban cities and whatnot.
Equestria had different means to mass produce. Magic lets a pony do the work of several, and I don't just mean a unicorn using a spell to quickly assemble to duplicate.
While I don't think we have gotten an actual size for Sweet Apple Acres, I do think in one episode Applejack harvest 40 acres before realizing she only got a fraction of their orchard. I would say that they have 100 acres, but I think that might be too small a number. The also supply apples to a decent portion of Equestria (25-33% as one of the comics state there are Apples who handle the east and west coasts) which means that they are by no means just sustenance farmers.
They also only have 2 ponies who do the work. Granny Smith is to old to properly do the manual labour, and Applebloom is too young and also in school. Big Mac and Applejack handle the farm on their own. Granted, trees don't require much tending to, and they probably get the pegasus weather team to set up rain clouds to water the orchard. It was shown that they use a sprinkler system for their own vegetable garden, but that is a more private field vs business field.
Also how many times have we seen Rarity knock out a dozen dresses in by herself in very little time. A feat that, to match the time she does it in, would require at least a half dozen to a person per dress, with all their own equipment.
They don't really need electricity for the same conveniences we do because they have magic. Indoor lighting, magical heating for stoves (though I would guess most do use wood heating as then the stove would be used to heat the house as well) and just a few other things like that. A larger town/city might use electricity for it because they could arrange to set it up like that, but I would guess most small towns use magic.
That's sorta the problem with using terms we developed for a world that has access to things we don't. If we had magic, the Industrial Revolution would've been a lot different, and there would probably be less pollution, or maybe different kind of pollution.
4372977
I consider the comics a secondary source at best and give them less weight. G. M. Berrow’s official chapter-book adaptation hangs the lampshade through Twilight saying something along the lines of “I think I remember meeting her once”, implying Celestia met with each of them concurrently but separately.
Without more definitive information, I consider random pairings of background ponies to have little or no significance, especially since the art staff has stated here and there they didn’t give such pairings any significance.
I don’t see the Best Young Flyers Competition having much impact one way or another; it seems to have a pretty generous age range for eligibility. I agree “Young” implies “minors”, which again goes back to the 12–17 age bracket.
All the arithmetic is way too involved for me to answer without spending some time to unravel it. I haven’t seen or heard a statement about the CMC being aged up to be freshmen, but it certainly is plausible. (Another suggestion I’ve seen is CHS being a combined school, but the aging-up explanation works better.) Of course, I’d always thought of the CMC starting out at 10–12, though I confess I don’t have a citation for that.
Pre-industrial schooling was much shorter—that’s the whole point of outlining how it differs from modern education—though I can imagine the School for Gifted Unicorns having a more extensive curriculum. Still, that doesn’t preclude the 12–17 bracket, especially if Twilight is not at the end of the program when the series begins.
I haven’t seen or heard an explicit mention that Sunset fled during the previous portal opening, but I agree no other explanation makes sense—and the script does hit the whole “thirty moons” thing pretty hard.
I tend to take the provided information at face value, especially considering Equestria Girls is aimed at an audience in exactly the same age range. It seems pretty clear the idea is to present the target audience with characters the same age or stage-of-life they are, and I just don’t see the scriptwriters—or the executives directing them—trying to shoehorn twenty-somethings into a high school setting.
4372992
I don’t think I’m going to get into this at all, other than to clarify that Equestria was not supposed to be pre-industrial; it was supposed to be pre-electrification, which is not at all the same thing. The Industrial Revolution started in the late eighteenth century; large-scale electrification started in the late nineteenth century. There’s about a hundred years of industrialization going on between those two events, assuming pony technological development proceeds at the same pace as the real world.
Anyway, I’ve chewed this mutton way more than I intended or wanted to. . . .
4373031 Well the Human world contuerparts would be teenagers in high school. The Equestrian ones wouldn't be.
4373038 In the comment on In for a bit, in for a pound, you said Equestria was pre-industrial. At least somewhat, that what what my comment was discussing. Pre-industrial means primarily agrarian with most people living in the countryside as sustenance farmers. Hence what I said.
It's far to easy to get caught up in overthinking all this, but I do need to readjust my own thoughts on Sunset's age for my headcanon slightly. She left Equestria after a final (i think) so she would be around high school then, plus the time spent in that world would put her roughly very late teens maybe early 20's if she did skip/miss one portal opening. Though if returning to Equestria would revert her to proper age as if she never left she'd be maybe early 30's.
4373043
I consider the two sets of main characters to be the same ages, and am convinced I have sound information, logic, and conclusions to support the thesis they are, or at least started their stories as, teens in the range of twelve to seventeen. Further Deponent Sayeth Not.
I did use the word “pre-industrial”, which was imprecise, but contrasted that against the phase “fully industrialized”. Still, I should have been clearer about the first phrase—I meant “in the process of industrializing”, which is a bit long-winded.
4372977 Ended up looking up the Apple family reunion episode. Applejack was a filly at the previous one so 100 moons would be AJ's age. 30 moons is roughly 1/3 her age. I'll do my conclusion elsewhere, but I wanted to come back to correct myself for this post.