Points of Canon: My Little Pony #47 · 7:23pm Dec 4th, 2016
I’ve been getting behind on my comics canon combing.
Work. Unrealistic deadlines.
But now I’ve got a few hours and some brainpower left over.
This is the second issue in the two-parter concerning the mayoral elections in Ponyville, so at least we get to see what kind of mayor Filthy Rich is.
Not a very good one. :)
- Filthy Rich finishes his inaugural speech with “and I do solemnly swear to uphold the town charter and the laws of Equestria.” Both these things exist.
- Starlight once again asks what Mayor Mare’s real name is, now that she isn’t the mayor anymore. Her question remains unanswered, we still don’t know. Way to go, gentlemen.
- Filthy Rich’s promised stadium is to be suitable for “hoofball, boffyball, track and field, concerts, demolition derby, all-night dance parties…” Notice the demolition derby. How exactly does that work with a dearth of powered vehicles anyway?…
- Construction employs dynamite. This is about the first mention of chemical explosives I remember.
- Construction workers have a marching band. That practices at night. No comments.
- Mayor Mare is fishing, presumably for relaxation purposes, rather than just to eat. We do know ponies at least occasionally eat fish, anyway.
- At the town meeting called because nobody is happy with Filthy Rich’s work, first they pelt him with tomatoes, and then they proceed to saying they’re “extremely concerned.”
- Someone metafictionally aware complains that Filthy Rich did not fulfill his promise of “more screentime for background characters.”
- So the cause of the mysterious disappearances of the freshly built playgrounds was a tatzlwurm. Why exactly is one in Ponyville in the first place? Doesn’t seem like a suitable environment for them, and if they were native to Everfree, we would have known by now.
- Tatzlwurms navigate by vibration, they are attracted by small vibrations and run away from bigger ones. Predictable.
- Explosives are used for the latter. The boxes are marked TNT, which is, technically, not dynamite. Not that anyone actually calls it by its proper name anyway. Notably, in our world, other explosives, primarily ANFO, have displaced TNT from most industrial uses, because they are much safer to handle, and usually cheaper.
- Mayor Mare is capable of handling explosives all on her own, and even Applejack comments on it. Mayor Mare’s answer is that she has been to a lot of ceremonial building demolitions. I’m pretty sure she’s lying.
- Pony bureaucracy has a special form for declaration of intent to resign for a mayor. Most human jurisdictions don’t, because the occasion comes up so rarely.
Notice that nowhere in there Twilight attempts to intervene in her princess capacity and reinstate Mayor Mare, even though the situation and most of the population calls for it pretty hard. I’m going to treat this as an argument that she has no legal authority to do so.
If anything, this two-parter is most interesting for an insight into the character of Mayor Mare, and my takeaway from it is that she is much more than she pretends to be. At the same time, other sources insist she has been the mayor for a really long time, so whatever interesting things she was up to had to have happened off camera simultaneously. I’ve got no theories at this time.
Also, what exactly possessed Filthy Rich to run for mayor? This entire endeavor was a net reputation loss for him, and there was nothing whatsoever to gain.
Abstract thought: Remember that idea of mine that “Ponyville” is named after somepony from the Pony family? Mayor Mare’s full name just might be the wonderfully abstract Pony Mare.
"Pony Mare." Yeah, that definitely doesn't sound like a pseduonym. And with Bonbon as a precedent...
I could definitely see a charter preventing royalty from interfering in democratically elected appointments in Equestria. They might have authority over a mayor, but not in deciding who fills the position. Or the comic writers continue to have no idea how to handle Twilight, but what fun is there in a Doylist explanation?
4328652
…Jane Doe.
4328661 "What kind of a name is Jane Doe?" "A deer name, I think."
4328661
Well that's an interesting possibility for a backstory: Mayor Mare is an Immortal and has been hiding in (and then mayor-ing for) Ponyville since before it was founded. Because Immortality reasons. First her pseudonym was Pony Mare, then after the town was named after her she switched to Mayor Mare. Further evidence is that we know she dyes her hair.
img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121128174817/mlp/es/images/6/60/Mayor%27s_hair_S2E23.png
I'm sure the Cutie Mark Crusaders have an answer for that one.
More specifically, if you ram applewood cars into each other for long enough...
My half-joking headcanon is that it was named "Ponyville" by Celestia, because she knew it was going to be the town representing all Ponies when Nightmare Moon returned. And I guess Celestia wanted a significant name? Or one that would remind her of that every time she heard or thought of the town?
Oh, and I agree with 4328652 about Twilight's relationship with the mayor. What's more, that sounds like a point that'd naturally evolve out of the United Kingdoms of Equestria: the Princesses still can't interfere with local government.
4328802
In my United Kingdoms setup, the princesses essentially jointly take the place of the president of a federal nation and maybe a few ministry level positions. In most such countries, the president wouldn’t be able to do that either, though in some they can remove the post of the mayor itself, instead.
This was the primary thing I was hoping to get out of this two-parter, so I'm also pissed.
I imagine earth ponies running around bucking broken down carts and barrels.
Maybe the town charter allows for payment in produce as a form of in-kind barter for property taxes, and some ponies got clever in their interpretation?
Weird theory: We know Tatzlwurms interact strangely with Discord's magic. He recently summoned an active volcano nearby, and then made it disappear. What if a Tatzlywurm was digging through the base of the volcano when it was summoned, and then dove through the earth and avoided being banished with the rest of the volcano when it was returned? That would explain how one got in the area.
You realize this is an extended Tremors homage, right?
4328652
Keep in mind that Twilight can't interfere, but Celestia and Luna might be able to (in extreme circumstances that this situation didn't warrent). I mean, it is their kingdom.
I see this two parter as a sequel to the issue with Mayor Mare and Applejack, which was a much better comic. So I doubt Mare was part of the SMILE, but she might have quietly been using dynamite on the side to keep the monster population down before Fluttershy moved to the edge of the Everfree, where she'd notice Mare doing something like that. If you're looking for a fantastic series where Mayor Mare is a major character with a complex and shady past (and first name) though, I do recommend the Heart's Promise Continuity
4328920
Rarity would pay in failed experimental dresses then and wouldn’t have such a problem with increased business taxes. :)
Not impossible, I suppose, and I definitely don’t have a better theory.
Dunno, my first thought was “Dune” instead.
It could well be something else entirely. All I’m sure of is that she’s hiding something. :)
4328920
I've always had the impression there's a lot of unstated convention in Equestrian politics. Could Celestia overturn the results of an election? Probably, regardless of what the rules actually say, because she's basically worshipped. But by habitual convention, she doesn't. And that's largely why she could: because ponies would all believe that if she did, it must be for a really good reason.
4328957
I think you just explained the entire plot of "Ponyville Days."
As a Kevin Bacon fan, I can tell you they spent half the movies chucking TNT at the monsters to kill them, or away from them to distract the monsters with a vibration.
4328975 Yeah, I think you nailed it. The power of institutions and rules is only so much compared to a ruler with unlimited political capital like Celestia.
The sidebar of other blogs makes ctrl-F and also google's spider very confused.
4328702
She's no struldbrug¹, Houyhnhnm variant or otherwise. She has rejuvenation, youth-extension ability.
Thing is, Granny Smith's been around that long and nobody's accusing her of immortality. Perhaps M.Mare just aged very well.
Or a changeling; why would changeling projections need mirror their projector in age when they haven't in anything else? And why would the officiant not care about the changeling in "Slice of Life" unless s/he were a changeling?
But this is all speculation outgrowth from "Ponyville is named after Pony Mare" and similarly unsubstantiated claims? Could someone point out the "Mayor Mare has been mayor forever" datum? Certainly since Twi came ("unopposed every year"), but…beyond that?
4331223
But why would a changeling be dyeing hair?
No, mostly from the idea that learning about handling explosives “by being present at ceremonial demolitions” sounds so implausible that it’s best interpreted as a lie.
Flashback in Friends Forever #15 dates her first mayoral term in Ponyville to “hardly older than Applejack is now.” Notably, she dodges the issue of why she decided to run, just saying “something happened… something that made me want to run for mayor of Ponyville.”
Also notably, she turns up in Neigh Anything, in Friendship is Magic #12 which places her squarely into Shining Armor’s generation. As far as anyone has been able to tell, there is no more than ten years between those generations, so – she would be mayor for at most a decade…
It’s contradictory. :)
4331248
Second-order deception: make them think that you're lying to protect another lie. If they think they know your secret, then they don't look beyond it.