Feb
5th
2017
Points of Canon: My Little Pony #48-50 · 10:54pm Feb 5th, 2017
This is a three-parter, so I’ll deal with it in bulk.
It’s interesting in that it defines more of Discord’s limits and is incompatible with many dominant fan theories…
- According to Twilight, the “Cosmic Convergence Conjunction” is a “once in a lifetime event” and “a form of syzygy.” Which implies three or more celestial bodies being aligned. Notice that neither the Moon nor the Sun can be either of them, since these aligned quite recently and can in fact align whenever their wielders please. I.e. what Twilight is describing is actually either an appulse or a conjunction or both – and other, previously undescribed celestial bodies are involved. See my second post about astrophysics. That they are even able to see them at all with the naked eye makes it more likely that Equestria’s Earth orbits a white dwarf rather than a neutron star, though the actual light may itself be a magical effect of the conjunction. At least one of the bodies is sufficiently fast moving for the event to be brief. The number of the bodies seen aligning is six.
- Applejack brought “carrot kebabs,” which continues the trend of using carrots in place of sausages.
- Discord explicitly breaks the fourth wall by reading the script marked “MLP #48.” He doesn’t do that often. And then he spawns a car and juggles a flaming chainsaw.
- Twilight uses a device to examine the cocooned Discord.
- Derpy is seen wearing a blue uniform, rather than the UPS-brown uniform she is seen wearing in To Where and Back Again. What happened?…
- The transformed Discord’s magic is exactly as inscrutable as Discord’s original chaos magic, since it produces “order” on a conceptual level. If this can happen, it has nothing to do with entropy, not that this wasn’t clear before.
- Mayor Mare refers to the unfortunate hotel under construction as “The Ponyville Hotel” – implying that previously, the town probably did not have a hotel.
- The architects are arguing whether the hotel should be “faux colonial” or “gothic revival.” While “gothic revival” passes the Google test, “faux colonial” does not, and I really wonder why would anything in Equestria be called “colonial” in the first place. After Accord magics them, they settle on “neo-rococo,” which doesn’t seem to be an architectural style.
- Notably, Starlight is the only one to actually consider mind control used by Accord actually questionable, even Mayor Mare’s only complaint is that this isn’t what she asked Accord to do. Even more notably, later, Starlight calls Accord out on it, which is pretty much never done in any layer of canon.
- Spike dreams of Kentucky Fried Crystals. This, fortunately, does not necessarily mean they’re a thing.
- Twilight is eating oats with “Element of Harmony marshmallows.” This is a rare instance of in-universe merchandising.
- Spike is reading a newspaper called “Daily Corral.”
- The dinner with Celestia and Luna shows no utensils used even when Luna is eating what has to be spaghetti under some variation of a tomato sauce. Notably, even Accord doesn’t get a set.
- Celestia casts a shield that is effective against Accord’s magic, which is the only instance of a shield blocking magic other than direct damage spells shown so far, and also, I think, the only instance of Celestia casting a shield at all. Notably, if the next panel is not an artist error, the shield is not visible from the inside. And then she teleports everypony out from under the shield. Apparently, being under that shield also conferred the immunity to Accord’s mind control on the party, because they continue moving while under Accord’s “hypnosis field.” Strangely, this immunity is not transferred to Twilight and Luna.
- In a rare fit of continuity, Twilight refers to the events of Friends Forever #20 when Luna visited Discord’s dreams.
- Twilight uses the word “brainwashing.” This is one of the rare cases where she takes a stance against mind control.
- There’s a “Floyd’s barber shop” in Canterlot. While there’s no question that ponies come with facial hair, I do wonder how did a pony come by that name.
- Discord eventually reveals that his transformation was primarily the result of his own desire to make himself more acceptable to ponies, fueled by the magic of the conjunction.
- “Dentist.” This sign is actually the first clear indication ponies even have dentistry. Minuette got her nickname for the look of her mane, not for any actual association with dentistry.
- Sign shows “Train platform 3.” In the show, we only saw one platform in Canterlot so far.
- Applejack says “Like fun we will!” So is the word “fun” an expletive or not? If it is, it would make more sense for Luna not to know it in Luna Eclipsed…
- Starlight conjures a monkey. Not a three-headed one. Whether it is illusory or material remains unknown, since it’s just there to be a distraction for the controlled Twilight and Luna.
- A sign says “Ponyville 14, Dodge City 48, New Horseleans 260.” The units remain unclear, and distance is as usual not to scale anyway.
- Either something is missing, or the entire unaffected population of Canterlot managed to fit in 8 train cars.
- Pinkie is wearing flippers for comedic purposes, so it remains unclear if ponies actually do use flippers or not, but more likely than not, they do.
- Celestia actually voices a doubt, suggesting that Accord’s attempt to bring order to Equestria was, paraphrased, “more successful and therefore better.” She doesn’t hint that this was said mostly to influence Starlight, which makes that a bigger smear on her coat than every single loss to date.
- Celestia directly references the Reflections comics storyline. Starlight directly references the events of My Little Pony #43-44-45, and Inspiration Manifestation. This is actually very rare.
- The conclusion they come to from reflecting on these events is that Accord wants the same things as Discord does, but reverses the means of their acquisition.
- Mayor Mare has been receiving “scrolls” from Canterlot since the whole mess started, but does not elaborate on how.
- Applejack voices a plan to defeat Accord with the Elements of Harmony. Upon which Celestia says she will teleport to the Tree of Harmony to retrieve the Elements. Evidently, not only that is possible, but the Elements also de-transform back into their necklace and crown forms, and Celestia plans to wield Magic herself.
- The plan spectacularly fails, converting both Celestia and the rest of the Mane 6. Accord states that the magic of the elements is “all about restoring order,” and this action extended his control to the entire Equestria, leaving Starlight the only lucky pony who cast a shield in time. That a shield even protected her is surprising.
- Twilight’s castle contains a photo of Sunset Shimmer.
- Starlight uses the only remaining option, that is, pointing out flaws in Accord’s logic, and he becomes Discord again, which is just as predictable as it is well done.
An important statement this entire storyline makes is that Discord is not, and has never been evil to any significant degree. While higher-level canon does give that impression, this spells it out very clearly.
After-credits story: “For the pony who has everything”
- Celestia actually celebrates her birthdays. Discord refers to her castle as “magical.”
- Present are Yakyakistan and “Griffon Kingdom” representative. Notice, not Griffonstone. The panel clearly means to reference Friends Forever #28.
- Twilight’s phrase “And I had to teach the dragon about the truth of other dragons’ personal experience” is both presented out of context and curiously ambiguous.
- Celestia apparently ends up being so busy playing a hostess and taking care of random problems on her birthdays that she never gets a piece of her own birthday cake, she always gives away the last piece. Don’t ponies have that curious social aversion to take the last piece of the cake that humans do?…
- Discord applies some interesting spells to Celestia: Something that makes others perceive her as someone else, but does not affect herself – and is visible in the mirror! – and something that “takes away her magic” and puts it in a box. Well, he’s Discord, but it’s still odd.
- The cutie mark on the transformed Celestia’s rump is an electric light bulb. Haven’t seen those… Pretty much ever.
- Fluttershy addresses a bear as “Otis.”
- Discord explicitly refers to Celestia as “immortal.”
- Instead of moving the actual sun, Discord used a “giant balloon filled with angry lava monsters.” If you can actually replace one with the other without world-shattering consequences for any length of time, the sun is tiny. Also, lava monsters exist.
Both of these stories heavily referenced prior comics and TV episodes, which they usually don’t do. …Okay, I’m taking bets on how quickly Season 7 is going to joss the hell out of these.
P.S. Oh, and this was the 50th anniversary issue. And my 100th anniversary blogpost. Go me.
Finished reading #50 myself. As usual you nail the key points Oliver, but I think you missed the headline here: It isn't that Discord isn't "evil," it's that the Elements of Harmony aren't good. (I think most people already knew Discord wasn't evil).
Actually, maybe it means Discord is evil, at least in the setting, but not to audience standards. In issues 48 and 49 Celestia, Luna and Accord all make the argument that Order=Good and Chaos=Evil. They imply that Celestia and Luna are seen as a force of order, both by themselves and by the citizenry at large. This severely josses a fan theory that "Harmony" is a virtue lying in between Order and Chaos, that ponykind follows as a philosophy. Before issue #50, I thought one of the big learning points would be everyone learns that Harmony is different from Order, and that Order is just as bad as Chaos.
But when the Elements of Harmony, the magical manifestation of Virtue in the world of Equestria, explicitly side with Accord over Celestia, that changes everything! Unless the EOH (and presumably the Crystal Tree that controls them) is a non-sentient being without the ability to decide whether or not to go along with its bearers, the EOH chose Accord or Celestia, because at that moment Celestia was more chaotic than Accord. Frightening thought: It makes me wonder what these Elements would have thought of Sombra, as he always cast himself as an orderly tyrant.
In the end, Starlight talks Accord around with more logic than emotion, and seems to be saying "yeah, you need chaos as well as order for friendship and harmony," and everyone seems to agree with that now. But really this means Equestria is now saying "despite what the EoH and a Crystal Tree say, we can live with some chaos." If there Equestria is casting away its moral lodestone in favor of reason and friendship. Chaos is an ideal that has a representative in the form of Discord. Order, as it turns out, is represented by the EOH and the Crystal Tree, and harmony appears to just be gilding the lily of order. Gilding the Lily that is, until the end of the comic, when it appears everyone is going to try and embrace that ideal, even if there are no magical deus ex machinas to support it.
All that is to say that this was a fantastic series, with great art and call-backs.
Also, that Yakyakistan thing probably also references the beginning of Dungeons and Discords, and it looks like that Griffon is supposed to be the new King of Griffonstone.
Yeesh. I did not like this one. Here for my review for anyone who cares, but I'll save my comments on this blog for lore discussion.
The point of most concern to me personally is this shit with the Elements of Harmony. Putting aside the weirdness of Celestia just being able to take them out of the Tree without consequence, and the regalia still being there somehow... their implied functionality troubles me a lot. If Celestia and the others really were acceptable bearers to activate and use the Elements, as this comic seems to suggest, and they really did just no-sell against Accord because he was too harmonious, then it brings up a tonne of awkward implications, and not just about the order=harmony thing.
Like, what about how much this nerfs the Elements? In this fandom, there have always been people who've questioned why the villain of the week couldn't just block or dodge the Elements of Harmony, or shoot the Bearers while they were doing the long charge-up attack. Now, I've always been of the school of thought that if it were that easy, then surely they would've actually done it, and that the Elements are probably too OP to stop with the obvious solutions. I even wrote a story to this effect. But this comic tells us both that the Elements of Harmony can be blocked by timely use of a shield, and that they don't necessarily protect their users against hostile magic. So I guess every character to ever get hit by the Elements were just all idiots (except for Starlight, of course, the one pony to ever figure out this solution).
Needless to say, I don't like what this does to the lore if we take it at face value. I think it's far better to chalk it up to the Elements failing to fire in the same way they did Return of Harmony, and Accord using his own magic and lying to demoralise them. I don't entirely like that explanation either, because to my mind, Celestia should still be an acceptable bearer, able to work with the new ones, but... the Elements did reject her once before, after she banished Luna, so there's precedent for it at least. Maybe say... Bearers need to be in harmony with themselves, not just each other, and Celestia's feelings at the time were too conflicted?
Anyway, that's my take.
I would argue, that even if prior to his first "stoning" he was not evil so much as just unrestrained and self absorbed (which is what the entire basis of his reformation was based on), his actions in Return of Harmony were, frankly, pretty malicious. Enough to classify as evil, anyway. That could easily be a result of being aware of a millennium of being a statue and being really really ticked about that, of course, but it's enough that I don't think you can say he has never been evil. Briefly, but not never.
4410620
I think I’ll take the stance DannyJ presents here, or one close to it: we have no evidence to conclude the elements actually were expressing any particular viewpoint.
Wasn’t the whole point of this narrative in presenting a point of view that chaos and order are not ideals, but means of reaching the ultimate goal, harmony? Because that’s exactly what all of them appear to be saying outright for the entirety of these three issues, and the resulting answer is “neither pure chaos nor pure order are suitable for reaching harmony.”
4410815
I think it’s more likely a misfire. That is, the Elements did fire, but not at the power level required, and not in a way they needed to. Like a multitool that suddenly gives you a small Phillips screwdriver when you need a large flat one. The result permitted Accord to interpret it as the Elements siding with him and recycle the magical energy released to fuel his own ability.
Celestia forgot the requisite console commands in a thousand years.
4410815
Starlight does seem to be the most-versed in combat magic, though, as well as the best actual spellcrafter and rather creative caster. Nobody else autolevitates. She modified Starswirl's time-travel spell to break all its important restrictions (7d, one-use, stable loops only).
And yes, "Just dodge" is wonderful.
Also in "dragonshy"
Is the not-evil thing implicit or explicit?
As for the swapping-out of their sun, he could lie. It's not like he doesn't have power well-beyond that needed, though.
Immortal? yeah that's not gonna stand.
4411343
When speaking of Discord? The conclusion Starlight and Celestia reach that ultimately wins them the day is that in either his Discord or Accord state, Discord desires friendship, and the transformation into Accord is just the next step on the long “so that didn’t work, let’s try something else” ladder.
So I would say it's pretty explicit.
4411110
That works as well.
4410815
But that's just it: Only 2 characters have ever been attacked by the Elements of Harmony before, Discord and Nightmare Moon. Discord is in fact kind of an idiot, and has never been really threatened or worried about anything else in his life, the first two times he got hit with the EoH, it was while he was standing there and basically daring their bearers to take their best shot. Nightmare Moon is obviously clinically insane, to the point where a bipolar aspect of her personality was practically leading the Mane 6 to the Elements of Harmony in the series opener. The Elements of Harmony, as far as we know, have never been deployed against someone trained in combat tactics and in relatively sound mind.
Normally I'm of the school of thought of "If multiple characters obviously want X to happen, but X doesn't happen, then X most likely is being prevented from happening" myself. But given the limited pool of targets (2), and their significant combat deficiencies, there's just not enough evidence to suggest the Elements can't be dodged or prevented from activating.
That said, I do agree with you on the idea that Starlight didn't block the power of the EoH with a simple shield, or that Accord was able to overwhelm the Elements with magical might. The Elements don't fail their bearers here, they betray them, choosing Accord as the being of greatest order in the area to obey. Thus they open up the bearers to his magic. Accord redirects and spreads the magic of the Element blast to cover the surrounding area, and it's only this secondary effect that Starlight blocks, not the primary power, which was redirected inward to the 6 bearers.
4411110
Depends on who "they" is. Yes, that is the point of the narrative. And that is the conclusion that Discord and all the ponies come to at the end. But that isn't the point of view of the Elements of Harmony. Their point of view, we discover, is "order>chaos." The EoH aren't shown glowing and agreeing with Starlight's passionate speech (which now that I think about it, could be a subtle Picard-Q homage). Their opinion after the fact is not sought.
Imagine what the narrative would be if the Elements had worked. We'ed have a story about Celestia being able to wield them again, Discord would probably revert to his old self and then feel bad, but Celestia would give a speech about how his Order as Accord was no better than Chaos, and that true Harmony doesn't involve mind control. The narrative would be simpler and more unified, and everyone would agree on the point. But that didn't happen.
I think that's a big stretch. Accord has basically won at this point, he has no need or reason to lie, and is acting in that expository narrator approach we often rely on Celestia for, so the audience can understand what's happening.
That also requires us to ignore the last couple of pages, where Celestia returns to the Tree of Harmony and once again it bequeaths their power to Celestia, and the Element of Magic bonds to Celestia's petrel under its own power. Or it ignores the background where Celestia has been slowly but steadily making friends with the rest of the Mane 6 through the past 6 seasons. I feel like that would be unlikely to happen unless the Elements were properly bonded and ready to go with Celestia....until she unexpectedly fired them at a being that, to their magical senses, was even more orderly than Celestia.
Unless there is a really big piece of evidence we are missing, I think we have to interpret the events as Discord describes them.
4411565
It’s this interpretation that I don’t entirely agree with. I don’t feel it is sufficiently grounded in the actual text presented.
It wouldn’t happen for two reasons:
1. The entire narrative revolves around Starlight’s experience with attempting to reach harmony through order, and her ultimate failure. If she isn’t the one pointing out the flaw in Discord’s logic, she has no reason to participate in the story at all, and could be an extra the same way the Mane 5 were.
2. For this to work, Celestia has to take the fall, again, which she does well before the Elements firing.
M-m-m-m… Imagine we’re standing in a field and firing pistols at each other. I fire and wound you in the arm, you fire and miss. I say “The gods are with me today, they smile on me, because my point of view is superior and more in line with their teachings!”
Did I or did I not lie? Did any gods have anything to do with the events? In fact, am I a better shot, or does your gun just have the sights misaligned?
Which interpretation is correct depends on the following factors:
Whether the said gods in fact exist.
Whether they care that you or I exist.
Whether they can actually exert any tangible control on events as minor as firing a firearm.
Whether my behavior was, in fact, more in line with their teachings.
Whether we’re interpreting their teachings correctly in the first place.
Whether someone misaligned the sights on your gun while you weren’t looking, because they believed my point of view is superior.
That’s a lot of conditionals. In the particular case of the Elements of Harmony, most of them are actually total unknowns: we have precious little specifics on the functioning of the Elements.
Making the resulting interpretation a point of interpretation policy rather than any well-defined truth.
4412721
I don't think that is an apt comparison. Discord (assuming Accord has Discord's memories) is an ancient and powerful magician. Discord is the guy who planted the plundervines in a long term scheme to destroy the Tree of Harmony, and presumably the Elements. While reformed, he's the person who figured out the mystery of the crystal box before Twilight did. He seems to me to be as much an expert on the Crystal Tree and the Elements of Harmony as well. So when he says they did X, it's at least the opinion of an expert.
And according to Discord, he actually made use of that magical blast from the Elements, in a single instant harnessing their wave of energy to all across Equestria. That's a really strong claim. Now, you can say Discord is lying. If he is, he put on a superb performance, uttering "as I said" in a deadpan confident manner one second after the blast. But in theory Starlight could have tested this claim. Before now, Accord had infected only Canterlot and Ponyville. According to him, right now everyone in Manehatten, Las Pegasus, Our Town, etc has been instantaneously Accorded. Starlight could even (possibly) have teleported to Manehatten right then and checked to see if everyone was staring with those big creepy Accord grins.
Of course, this claim of Accord's never gets tested, as Starlight saves the day with a speech and presumably Accord releases everyone in that instant. I believe, based on my reading of the text, that Accord was telling the truth. A lot of other people seem to believe, based on the same text, he was lying. We'll almost certainly never know. But I feel 100% confident that Accord knew the truth, no matter what he said.
4413168
I’m not sure you’re allowed to suppose that Discord is simultaneously the expert on the Elements and the Tree, and yet is so stupid that he can’t avoid taking a face full of the rainbow twice. :)
Notice that I never said it. What I’m saying – what I think he is doing – is that Accord does not know how the Elements work in sufficient detail to be sure of whatever processes occur within, and only has a hypothesis, which he bases on the limited evidence available to him and his own natural biases – “The Elements desire order, I do order more efficiently, therefore the Elements fail the command given by the wielders in such a way that they present me a pool of free energy I may immediately exploit.” He has no means to test this hypothesis, but he presents it rhetorically as truth in speech. Doing that is a bit disingenuous, but only really serious scientists would consider it lying. It’s certainly easy to do this in a deadpan confident manner if you believe in it.
That was why I wrote out the above analogy, really.
4413886
I'd say relative expert, in the sense that he knows about as much as anyone else does about them. Luna could probably be counted as an expert and she's been shot by them twice too.
The first time Discord was petrified, I almost think he let that happen on purpose, just from the way he was acting right before-hand. I can't figure out why, but it sure seemed like he was letting himself be stoned. Maybe he thought the Plundervines would quickly free him and also destroy the Tree of Harmony once and for all?
The second time, Discord has a pretty good plan to disable the Elements by messing with their bearers, based on his correct knowledge of how they work. He fails because he doesn't account for a memory spell, and he gives the Elements back because Discord in general can be pretty thoughtless and an arrogant megalomaniac.
Of course, his most impressive credential of expertise (figuring out how to open the box before Twilight does) occurs after both stonings, so maybe he was studying them during season 4?
Right, you never said Discord was lying, just to clear that up, I'm saying Discord was either lying or telling the truth. Here's why:
That's my point: Discord does have a means to test this hypothesis and would know the results instantaneously, and therefore he is either lying or telling the truth. The key point he makes is the last paragraph: "In fact I've used the magic of the Elements to spread my influence. Your shield protected you, Starlight Glimmer- But now you may be the only un-controlled pony in Equestria."
Discord/Accord is making the claim that in the instant the Elements of Harmony fired, he somehow altered the magical blast to assimilate the rest of the population if Equestria into his hive mind. Ten seconds ago, there were let's say 100,00 Accord drones in Canterlot and Equestria. Now there are 50 million. I make the assumption that Accord can know instantly the number of ponies in his hive mind, no matter the distance, especially if they just increased by a factor of 500. If that assumption is true, then Accord is either telling the truth or lying about his hive mind just growing exponentially. And since his statement about the hive mind relies on his previous statements about the Elements of Harmony obeying his wishes, I think the reasonable assumption there is to believe that if Accord is right about his hive mind, he's right about the EoH obeying him out of some loyalty to Order as well.
If it was just a question of "did the Elements misfire?" Then I would agree with you there are many possible explanations for it, it's the fact that Accord attaches a provable claim at the end that makes me think he's either telling the truth or lying.
Um... One thing. That scene in Manhattan... So these things are really big TV screens? Considering that they cast a powerful light on Pillars and Elements they cant be projector screens?
4707702
Rear projection is a thing, and it would cast a powerful light. Also, a sufficiently powerful front projector illuminates those standing close enough to the screen by reflected light as well.
That said, I don’t think it’s a projection. Unless it’s animated, – and I don’t remember it being animated except by Pinkie, with whom, all bets are off – it probably isn’t any form of a TV screen either. Rear-lit prints on transparent plastic (historically, vinyl, I believe) have been used in advertising since at least the 70s, and primitive non-animated low-resolution screens are possible with simple lamps.
4707810
Huh... Sorry, only now I realized that my post somehow ended up in wrong blog post. I would swear that I write it in season finale post... Strange. How exactly it ends up here?...
4707825
No idea. You had two tabs open at once and typed it into the wrong one, perhaps? I can imagine multiple site bugs that could cause this in theory, but all of those would be much more likely to select an entirely different post.