Points of Canon: S1x09 - Bridle Gossip · 1:37pm May 15th, 2017
Compare and contrast with Cursed Quill’s list, which I tried not to read, in order to keep this duplication of work useful.
- Spike says “Rainbow Dash must have gotten up early for once and cleared all the clouds away.” That implies quite a few things:
- As far as Spike knows, Rainbow does not normally get up early. So how does he know that?
- Clouds can spontaneously generate, otherwise there would be no issue of clearing them. Which kind of contradicts with the whole weather factory business and suggests Spike doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
- The first pony we see slam the shutters shut does not use the rope like Berry Punch did a few episodes back – she leans out and grabs them with her hooves.
- Spike says “Is it some sort of pony holiday?” continuing the trend of weird dialogues that are easy to interpret as words said exclusively for our benefit, but difficult to interpret in-universe. Spike has lived all his life with ponies. He would know more about pony holidays than Twilight.
- “Is it… zombies?!” Not zomponies. Notably, Twilight does not refute the “Not likely… but possible?” – from her later tirade, we can conclude this is because the question is too stupid to grace it with an answer.
- Pinkie’s firefly-powered light source makes a very electric ‘click’ sound for some reason, and produces a very obvious light cone, which an obvious lantern full of independently mobile fireflies would not. How does that work?…
- I don’t think they ever explain why Zecora was doing the digging.
- Even Apple Bloom knows Zecora’s name. Nobody explains just how they know the name in the first place, which suggests the whole panic started a substantial time ago, and by someone who did hear her introduce herself.
- Apple Bloom’s reaction is in itself a bit strange. First, she addresses Twilight – whom she seems to be quite familiar with – with an obvious scared expression, but then Applejack says that Apple Bloom was scared, and she immediately needs to be contrary. She proceeds to grow less and less scared through the sequence, and by the time Pinkie’s song is done she is definitely not scared at all.
- Twilight recognizes a zebra instantly with no memory-searching whatsoever, the moment Zecora takes her hood off. She didn’t just read about zebras, but had to have seen one, even though that meeting probably did not include a lecture on zebra origins – those, she learned from a book, as she states a bit later.
- Absolutely nobody else in the room even knew the word… including Spike, who exclaims “A WHAT?!” in chorus with the ponies. How did that happen?…
- Only Applejack knew that Zecora lives in Everfree, everypony else is surprised to know that. Rainbow is not in the shot though, so her reaction is not definite.
- “The Everfree Forest just ain’t natural. The plants grow, animals care for themselves, and the clouds move all on their own!” is a monumental phrase that colored our understanding of Equestria forever. It was intended to. Even though it’s contradicted with rather annoying regularity.
- Rainbow is preventively annoyed to hear Pinkie’s song, and at the end of the episode, she is preventively annoyed when Pinkie regains speech. This happened to her before.
- Rainbow is the one to venture that Zecora comes to town “once a month,” probably because Rainbow spends most of her time in the air and knows when people come and go.
- It’s important that the resulting halt in all business and normal life would be very difficult to ignore. Even assuming Twilight could miss it once or twice, somehow, I’m sure this episode has to fit within the first summer.
- Twilight says “Oh brother.” I wonder if Shining Armor knows he’s an expression or not.
- Rainbow says “Well, that’s interesting to hear coming from Miss Magic Pants herself.” That implies the magnitude of Twilight’s skill is magic is already known, which suggests that Boast Busters has already happened.
- Twilight says “My magic, real magic, comes from within. It’s a skill you’re born with. Curses are artificial, fake magic. It’s conjured with potions and incantations; all smoke and mirrors meant to scare. But curses have no real power, they’re just an old pony tale.” This is a complicated tirade requiring separate analysis, because it really doesn’t sit that well with canon even as far away as season 3.
- Why didn’t any of them hear of the poison joke before, even though there’s a library book listing a folk remedy (!) for it is in itself interesting.
- Twilight has a different telescope in her bedroom. It’s not the one seen in Look Before You Sleep and is much more similar to the one later observed in the Friendship Castle.
- Twilight drops the brush a few seconds after she starts brushing, and then we see the floppy horn in polka dots. She does not use magic at all afterwards until the episode ends, and it looks like the horn gave out right then and there – i.e. the horn became floppy when she saw it. It’s possible that’s the trigger for poison joke.
1. Notice that much later in A Hearth’s Warming Tail we hear them say the same thing about the windigos.
Twilight says, “Spike, the word supernatural refers to things like ghosts and spirits and zombies, which are as make-believe as curses.” It’s pretty clear that modern science and magic do not accept those things exist.1
- Rainbow mysteriously avoids breaking the glass, but puts cracks into the tree wall.
- Notice that Rainbow’s wings are not reversed or upside down. They’re just attached to the bottom of her barrel rather than the spine. I suspect her constant flying upside-down in Dragonshy is the result of this day’s experience.
- Spike knows what an appletini is. Must be Blueblood’s influence…
- Applejack uses the term “hex,” which I don’t think ever comes up again. Practice safe hex!
- Pinkie has never heard of personal space. Rarity did. Which is itself interesting, because in our world, the term is the result of anthropological research that only started using it in the 1960s. I.e. ponies invented the concept at least twenty years ago, for it to become popular enough to enter public vocabulary.
- Spike writes down “Twilight Flopple” in the margins of “Supernatural.” Nobody notices.
- I question the origins of the phrase “pony feathers.”
- There has never been this much poison joke in Everfree before or since.
- Rainbow survives a collision with a ~40cm wide tree trunk. The trunk doesn’t. Even if the tree was rotted through, this says a lot about how thick pegasus skulls are.
- Both Applejack and Rainbow know the correct application of a bridle, and Rainbow is actually annoyed by it. So who has ever ridden ponies, if anyone?
- At the very least Applejack knows exactly where Zecora lives.
- All the masks in Zecora’s hut are equine faces, looking more like horses than anything else. Notice also all the horse-shape statues in libraries…
- It’s interesting that Pinkie is offended that Zecora’s hut fits her song so well.
- Zecora’s hut is lit by candles. Early seasons have very few candles.
- Zecora says, in particular, “The words I chanted were from olden times. Something you call a nursery rhyme.” So why was she chanting an old nursery rhyme?…
- Where exactly did Zecora get her own copy of the “Supernaturals” book? Because that would have to be a pony printing.
- Three (or is it four?) clones of Trixie are visible in the overhead shot of the town hall. I call animation error. Unless it’s a Trixie impersonators convention.
- The entire Mane Cast and Zecora march straight up to the Flower Trio, with no indication that they visited anyone else. Either it’s Daisy who stocks the required missing ingredient, or she’s the original source of the rumor after getting scared upon seeing Zecora a few months ago, or both.
Now, the elephant in the room: The interpretation of Twilight’s tirade on curses.
My magic, real magic, comes from within. It’s a skill you’re born with. Curses are artificial, fake magic. It’s conjured with potions and incantations; all smoke and mirrors meant to scare. But curses have no real power, they’re just an old pony tale.
The first half, up to “a skill you’re born with,” is obvious in that it is a statement that ability to use magic at all is inborn, and to improve an inborn skill you would need practice anyway. It’s the latter half that is problematic. As the series progresses, Zecora’s potions are used more and more widely, producing very tangible results, while Zecora settles into the niche of a Magical Negro. The word “curse” is used later in relation to whatever King Sombra supposedly did, as well as to describe the effects of love poison in Hearts and Hooves Day.
My interpretation is that at least at some point, certain folk practices – including, possibly, parts of earth pony magic – were branded as superstitious by the dominant magical science paradigms, and that included both non-working and working practices. Nopony told Celestia, though, and nopony told the non-specialists either. Over time, Twilight slowly deviates from this view, incorporating further and further non-compliant magics into her world view, but at this point in time, it takes assaulting her with a whole collection of imagery and group pressure to get her to consider the idea seriously.
I’m not entirely satisfied with this, but right now that’s the best I’ve got, Season 1 is difficult as it is.
On the hoof digging thing--that's something real zebras do, apparently to check the moisture of the soil. I've seen fanon that Zecora is doing it to check on Ponyville--maybe as a blessing, maybe as "why are they all running this time," that sort of thing.
It's possible Dash cleared out clouds she'd installed the day before. Darn partly cloudy forecasts.
I always thought Zecora's digging was a nervous habit.
The line placing spirits in the realm of make-believe is especially interesting when one considers that Discord describes himself as one.
As for the nursery rhyme, it's possible that Zecora was using a steady chant at a practiced rhythm as a timer. "Stir for three recitations of The Clumsy Giraffe, then add two tukatongue fruits."
And I'm more than happy with academic arrogance as an explanation for Twilight's rant. See also "Feeling Pinkie Keen."
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Discord will happily describe himself as a teapot given the opportunity, so I doubt his word can be taken seriously. :)
That does sound like an option, though this time, she was cooking up a recipe for the poison joke cure. Notably – should have written that down – in the end of the episode, spa ponies approach Zecora for a recipe, and presumably get it.
I.e. this particular recipe is probably mundane enough for the layman to replicate.
He meant to say "Ponyville holiday," but misspoke. Easy-peasy! :3
Actually, a lot of minor discrepancies can be cleared up with the explanation of people misspeaking. Fast fact: If you've ever seen the film American Graffitti, you may have noticed the actors flubbing their lines a number of times. George Lucas, then still a creative director, deliberately left the misspoken lines in to make the characters feel more real. So you see, such things turn out to be features, not bugs.
The fireflies never stop glowing; that clicking sound is from a shutter opening, to allow the light to escape. Sidebar: Later seasons have ponies switching to electric lanterns, presumably because their light lasts longer and is less cruel to fireflies. A loss of fairy-tale whimsy is the price paid for practicality, I guess.
I always assumed that starting in the time of S1, ponies began to visit the Everfree more and more often, gradually demystifying it... and probably altering it by their presence, for better or worse.
She was reminiscing about her homeland, and singing the song of her people. I've often found that the right music is good for dredging up old memories.
When she first arrived in Equestria, she passed through a larger, more cosmopolitan city--where they don't panic at the first sign of a stranger--and bought it on her way through.
I just realized--seven seasons in, we still know next to nothing about Zecora. I can't decide if that's good or bad.
On the clouds, Ponyville is right next door to Everfree. Having wild weather, including naturally occurring clouds, drift into Ponyville airspace makes a lot of sense.
On Twi recognizing Zecora as a zebra... maybe they had a zebra teacher showing up at Princess Celestia's School, or something?
And on Twi dismissing curses and spirits and so on... well, arrogance is her chief sin in S1, I think. She's firmly convinced throughout that she knows better than everyone else.
I posted on my page the notes I accrued, as Oliver noted. But he gets the better crowd, so please reply here rather than there. ;) I do recommend looking over my list too; I don't want to just copy and paste the whole damn thing, nor do I feel like picking favorites, as I keep winding up just expanding to the whole thing…
❧"They[Zebras]'re not ponies" (said Twilight)
was the one I felt needed singling out if any.
…pardon? As in, "Oh, brother, not this again?"
And, of course, unicorn magic is not considered supernatural.
Note also that in between, at "Hearth's Warming Eve" the windigos were described as spirits, one of those categories claimed not to exist.
Bull feathers, horsefeathers…more euphemistic/minced form of "bullshit"/"horseshit". Becomes very peculiar when there are
horsesponies with feathers, and hey, cockatrice hens do have teeth…He follows it up with the phrasal "zombie pony", too.
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I read somewhere* that indeed scuffing the ground with forehoof a sign of agitation in zebras…and aggression in horses**, which would make for an interesting example of cultural difference imported from Real Research if true.
*totally a trusted source, but technically FiMfiction hearsay **Humans are more familiar with this in bulls.
Repeating measurements is not wasteful.
With literary interpretation, multiple PsoV are useful. Besides, if we get enough detectors trained, perhaps we'll catch pony canontrinos.
I just got a little exuberant.
I'm not tryng to pillage your patrons, honest.
On the topic of pony xenophobia, I do find it very interesting that the ones who are most afraid of Zecora had no idea she wasn't a pony—and Twilight, the one pony who did recognize Zecora's species, was the only adult willing to give her a chance.
I'm told that this is a real-life bit of zebra behavior: they dig in the ground with one hoof to signal they're nervous. While real-life horses dig in the ground as a signal of aggression. If that is true, then the ponies' fear of Zecora makes slightly more sense.
Scootertrix the Abridged had earlier established that Trixie was Twilight's arch-nemesis, their antagonism beginning long before "Boast Busters". So they interpreted this scene as Trixie literally attacking Ponyville with clones of herself. Clones who Twilight unmakes in seconds with an "anti-clone spell". Trixie may be Twi's arch-nemesis, but she's still nowhere near as good as Twi.
Academic arrogance makes so much sense.
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Works this time. Actually, works very well this time, because we know that at least in season, Ponyville has a holiday every two weeks or so.
Doesn’t always work, alas.
You’d think so, but how do you think I know it’s a firefly-powered source? Because it’s a transparent cylinder, but the light somehow leaves it only through one of the ends. It mostly stays just off camera, but the top is visible for a few frames.
Her only saving grace is that she’s Pinkie and needed to be dramatic.
That phrase is more important outside the context of Everfree itself rather than in it. Everfree is “unnatural.” So most of the fandom believed it’s “natural” when earth ponies plant every blade of grass. But does this include cacti in the desert? :)
She’s being used as a Magical Negro, so it’s kind of a given.
There’s the Journal, which says that over a thousand years ago, somewhere “beyond the Everfree,” there was a whole village of zebras. Amy Keating Rogers further went on to say that the entire village was in its own separate reality not unlike Narnia, which is plain silly, because then the chance of Twilight recognizing a zebra would be practically nil.
And that’s it. Zebrica, Zebrabwe or Zebriopia? We don’t know.
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That’s what most people have been assuming, and it does make sense, the weirdness in the phrase is that it shouldn’t be normal for Spike, who is the one talking.
Or Twilight did meet a zebra diplomat, which is just about equally likely.
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That’s more or less exactly what she says, yes. :)
In the course of a highly traditional play for little children with pretty obvious propaganda undertones, mind.
Precisely why I’m wondering.
Never said it was, but to prevent bias they need to stay independent. :)
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Zecora is often cited as an example of pony xenophobia, but considering how many checkboxes she ticks in a mysterious shaman checklist – many of them, deliberately, I’m pretty sure – I think there’s no such thing. For comparison, Iron Will is very well received, even despite his highly abrasive personality. My preferred explanation is that zebras approach the pony uncanny valley dangerously close, and Zecora personally smears her mystique over it, so the most hysterical members of the Ponyville community – the Flower Trio – just snapped when she asked them for specific flowers for her potion ingredients. Then they whipped the rest of the town into frenzy. Seeing as how Applejack knows exactly where she lives, and in fact knows more about her than anyone else, I suspect that for some time, nobody thought too much even of her unusual looks.
That would be cute, but I think canon precludes any appearance of Trixie between Boast Busters and Magic Duel. :)
Spike probably means "some sort of Ponyville holiday." Maybe he's referring to the Pony family you hypothesized founded Ponyville?
Alternatively, it started a few weeks ago, by Apple Bloom herself who heard Zecora? Maybe it was around the Summer Sun Celebration?
No surprise; Zebraica probably has an embassy.
?
A pre-Hearthswarming-Eve slur against pegasi?
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Nope, can’t be. You can’t come to a town “once a month” unless you did it at least once before, right? If Zecora didn’t come to town in between today, and a month ago, the panic has to have started at least very soon after her previous visit.
See my comment above.
How, exactly, would this be a slur?
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Well, yes. Scootertrix is pretty distinctly not canon Equestria. Their version of "Applebuck Season"—instead of being a story about Applejack stubbornly overworking herself—is about cows putting a curse on Ponyville, and then Applejack unintentionally prolongs the curse by stubbornly insisting that she's growing mangos, not apples, on her farm.
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If it's only there for a few frames, maybe it's an animation error no one noticed?
People tend to think of things familiar to them as "natural." Based on this and other bits of evidence throughout the series, it appears that before the events of S1, Ponyville was a small village of poorly-traveled hicks. But after recently being linked to the national railway and telegraph systems, the town is undergoing expansion and an economic boom--hence why so many Canterlotians are seen there later on. All this has brought in information from the world at large, so later on native Ponyvillians aren't so bothered by, for example, cacti in the desert.
The sad part is, years ago people were praising the show for portraying her as being stumped by the parasprite infestation, since no Magical Negro is ever stumped. Now she's got a potion for just about everything. Ah well.
4533971 Good point about "once a month."
And from the context, "pony feathers" means something bad. Not sure what it is, but I'm pretty sure there's some history there.
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Very interesting point in light of "The Fault in Our Cutie Marks", where Twilight also explicitly says that ponies are the only species that has cutie marks. Which means that, in spite of what the Card Game says, that sun-shaped sigil on Zecora's haunches is not a CM.
I can think of a few possible ways to explain that:
● Zebras actually do have cutie marks. Twilight's books on the topic are just outdated and/or racist. (I dislike this theory. I could see season 1 Twilight blithely repeating incorrect information from a textbook, but season 6 Twilight would have recognized the omission and tried to research it herself.)
● Zecora painted that mark on her flank, in an attempt to better fit in among ponies.
● Zebras have magical marks on their flanks, but they're distinct from pony cutie marks in some esoteric way.
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Luna’s entry in the Journal is pretty clear in stating that Luna thinks they do. That is, every zebra she met had a symbol.
However, that does not necessarily mean they are cutie marks.
Her shamanism diploma, perhaps. :)
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Yeah, I imagine it's a case of incompatible cultural expectations. Zecora acts like a mysterious shaman and sets herself up outside of Ponyville in an eerie, scary place but not so eerie or scary that determined and curious people can't make it to her hut. Which is exactly what your typical zebra would expect of a new shaman showing up, and thus Zecora would soon have a steady trickle of curious and/or desperate coming to her for advice and potions. But to the ponies, she's a strange-looking foreigner who behaves in a weird, aloof and creepy way (because of course too much familiarity at first would ruin the impression, and make the locals think you are desperate for their business, instead of deigning to allow them to bring their concerns to you like a proper shaman), and they are more afraid of the Everfree than the forest warrants, so Zecora settling there makes them extra wary.
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I'm partial to the idea that zebras have magical marks, but not the same kind of marks as ponies. (My headcanon here is that while pony marks represent their interests and special talent, the zebra marks represent their archetype -- are they a Leader or a Searcher or a Rebel or what?)