May
24th
2017
Points of Canon: S1x13 - Fall Weather Friends · 11:48am May 24th, 2017
Looks like people are getting bored with these. Too bad, there are still a lot of them to go.
- This is explicitly the last episode of an autumn, because of the Running of the Leaves, and the statements in Tanks for the Memories where we can see that winter starts immediately after Running concludes.
- Ponies play horseshoes. While horseshoes constantly turn up in pony iconography, language, and now in games, the jury is still out on whether they actually wear them or not, and how common this practice is if they do, because cartoon resolution.
1. Hopefully, not unlike a hotelier.
Rainbow calls Applejack “cowgirl.” See all the considerations on whether cows are free citizens or not: At the very least, keeping cows is explicitly a profession.1
2. I know the human equivalent is normally believed to refer to Saint Peter, thank you. I want to know what do ponies know about the gentleman.
Applejack says: “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” So, who is Pete?2
- Applejack also appears to grow pumpkins, or at least, I don’t think these could be anything else. And you’d think with the snowfall scheduled for the day after tomorrow she would have picked them all by now.
3. The Ironman competition observed around here is a triathlon that is essentially nothing like what the ponies do.
Rainbow challenges Applejack to an “Iron Pony competition.” The usage of the phrase implies these are a thing in their own right, though where does the term originate remains unclear.3 Notably, Twilight is not aware of what it is.
- Once again, the spitting-and-hoof-slapping ritual is observed to seal an agreement, two times in this episode.
- While the Iron Pony competition between AJ and Rainbow is clearly an ad-hoc thing, a suitable sporting arena that they are allowed to use exists in town somewhere already. I don’t think we ever come back there – it looks somewhat like the place used for the Wonderbolt show in Newbie Dash, but I’m not sure the terrain matches, and the benches on this one look wooden.
4. Why are they using American football balls this time?
5. The sum of scores is 20.Individual events within the competition include: Barrel Weave, buck strength measurement, Bronco Buck, some manner of roping competition, ball bouncing, bale throwing, hoof wrestling, ball kicking,4 pushups, long jump, a rather odd competition that involves carrying chicks towards a hen without splattering them, and tug of war. At least 8 of the events are not shown or described.5
- Barrel Weave is also an event in rodeos, and Bronco Buck looks like it would be one as well.
- Bronco buck involves the opposite method of score keeping to bronc riding, since the competitors are ponies, and not riders. However – this time the rider is Spike. Who would be the rider if Spike were not available?
- Rainbow wins the hoof wrestling.
- Spike announces the competition as “first annual,” but it’s likely that this is just Spike having fun playing announcer – there are no spectators outside the Mane 6 anyway, at least at the start. Past the barrel weave, some spectators mysteriously turn up, which notably includes Lyra and Bon-Bon. As well as Derpy tossing roses at Rainbow, though the rose thrown by Derpy ends up being caught by Fluttershy. By the final event, the crowd includes Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts, but surprisingly, Minuette is the last to show up. Additionally lots of duplicates of other ponies appear, in particular, Shoeshine, who is present at least ten times. She’s so there!
- Spike is using a mechanical stopwatch, though the hands on it are rather weird.
- Some time (or distance, more likely) is cut out of the Barrel Weave, because that was way too short for 17 and 18 seconds respectively.
- Twilight casts a spell that results in the disappearance of a scroll. This is probably not a teleport, since there is nowhere useful to teleport the scroll to, and she probably meant to put it away. She uses this multiple times in this episode.
- Applejack’s long jump is at least 15 meters long. The human record is 8.95 meters.
- The whole issue of using wings for an easy advantage implies that either the competition does not normally have pegasus contestants or that Rainbow is much more fundamentally dickish than the series would have us believe up to this point, because it was she who challenged Applejack.
- The balloon is used for eye in the sky commentary. Is it just me, or is it Pinkie who uses it the most often?
- Pinkie states – announces, even – that without the Running of the Leaves, the autumn leaves never fall, though it is not entirely clear how bad of a thing this is. Twilight later refers to Running as a “Ponyville tradition,” suggesting they probably use magic for the purpose in Canterlot, too. The mechanism by which running causes the leaves to fall in sufficient amounts is never explained.
- The megaphone Pinkie uses appears to be unamplified, but surely sounds like it is amplified. Once Spike joins, he is using a condenser microphone.
- All the Canterlot Friends are in the audience, of course. They’re watching Lyra, who has three copies of her participating in the race. Lemon Hearts does not appear on the start line, but later turns up among the racers too.
- Applejack says “trussed up like a turkey.” In which particular circumstances would a pony truss up a turkey?
- Twilight’s number is 42. I doubt she is aware of the significance, though.
- Twilight admits to having never run a race before, and wants to “experience” the Running of the Leaves herself, which means, at least, that this is the first Running she participates in, and probably, the first one she sees.
- The racers include earth ponies and unicorns, but no obvious pegasi beside Rainbow. The scene after the race includes three worn out pegasi with numbers on their rumps, though. Notably, I don’t see any stallions racing at all, I wonder why.
- Pinkie says: “You know, Spike, despite its name, the leaves don’t do any of the actual running. No, that’s left to my little ponies.” Which is a form of address typically only used by Princess Celestia…
- Applejack uses “oh hayseed” as an expletive.
- Random apples fallen off the trees and random apple trees turn up during the course of the run. Wild apple trees?… Sometimes I start suspecting that most of those apples in the trees are decorative, or aren’t actually apples, because the apples that actually end up in Applejack’s buckets look nothing like them.
- Rainbow tripped on a stump. Just how did a stump end up in the middle of a road?…
- If Pinkie is to be believed, ponies use ketchup, mustard and pickles with their carrot-based hot dogs.
- At some point, Spike says: “As the racers enter Equestria’s Whitetail Wood, Rainbow Dash is back in the lead.” I don’t understand why the qualifier would be needed.
- Applejack mysteriously breaks the laws of physics using a branch as a spring. This has to be an application of earth pony magic.
- Bees, or at least beehives, are sufficiently smart to communicate in icons, that is, “?!”
- Notably, nobody but Applejack is confused by the arrow sign pointing in the wrong direction. Why?
- Rainbow uses “horse apples” and “what the hay” as expletives.
- At some point the race passes through a sap collection area, which is a rather odd thing to see in autumn, since most sap-producing trees in our world only produce sap in early spring, when the nights are below freezing but days are above freezing. On the other hand, ponies don’t have such periods at all, as all the snow gets cleared in a single day, so probably, their sap-producing tree species are different, if they aren’t explicitly bred for the purpose.
- This race does have a medal for fifth place, which Twilight gets. I wonder who won the first four.
- Twilight uses “horsing around” as an euphemism for what Rainbow and AJ were doing.
- Princess Celestia suddenly turns up unannounced for no obvious reason whatsoever. She says she came “to celebrate the Running of the Leaves,” and that’s all. Also notably, her phrase “Now, unfortunately, because the two of you were busy tricking each other instead of shaking down leaves, many of the lovely trees of Equestria are still covered” implies that the run covered most of Equestria, which we know not to be true.
It’s interesting how much Equestria grew during Season 2, isn’t it?
Wait, people are getting bored with these?
I mean, I'm hooked until at least Season 4.
I thought Applejack might be saying "peat's sake." An unusual turn of phrase, I'll admit, but possible.
Could the Iron Pony arena be where Ponyville holds its rodeos? AJ had to win her blue ribbons somewhere.
I always like to think that the duplicate ponies in early episodes are changelings. That wasn't laziness; it was foreshadowing.
I figured the Running of the Leaves shook the leaves off of the trees through ground vibration... though that doesn't explain why two competitors out of a much wider field might muck it up.
I wonder if Celestia came to Ponyville because she heard Pinkie steal her catchphrase.
For the record, I'm not sick of these. Still looking forward to seeing what else you can glean from the early episodes.
I love reading these, I'm checking in every other day, don't care if you're doing early episodes.
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I’m just seeing a certain drop off in the number of blog reads. :)
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Compare to the same phrase in For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils by Sweetie Belle, The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 by Rainbow Dash, and Over a Barrel by Spike. Also, that’s what they all say on the official subtitles…
The spectator seating area in The Last Roundup is completely different.
Yeah, but ten of them, seated in neat identical groups of five? :) I’d be more inclined to think they’re all imitating some movie star, and are actually substantially different, but the cartoon resolution is not high enough for us to tell.
That would require an omniscient Celestia, though, wouldn’t it… Otherwise, as good a reason as any.
Peter is technically a verb. I'm not sure how you could turn it into a name, but give me an hour or two, and I might figure one out. Although "Peter Out" sounds kinda filthy. Petering Out would be a pony with somnambulism, I guess.
I think that implies that AJ won the hoof-wrestling match in "The Ticket Master". So Rainbow, determined not to be shown up again, worked on her foreleg strength to make sure she won the next match.
At least on your new ep postings, posting on the fast-air schedule will fragment your audience; those who would wait until they see the episode will had to manually check back, further fragmenting. Fragmenting means people will not hit discussion critical mass…
real post later
Blame Discord. Or Giant Spike. Or maybe the parasprites, depending on chronology.
Perfect spot for your small Kingdom of Equestria to explain things!
Not necessarily; it could mean "a pony who associates with cows." It does seem more likely it's a profession, though.
Funny how hostler, "keeper of horses", has the same roots…
Dunno, but he has a dragon…(/jokeref)
Pinkie is much more at her trans-pterippus (Surprise) roots in S1. She has her flying machine, the balloon…
because the stars were intent on winning the race rather than advancing the season, the plantamantic Earth pony ritual gaiamancy-quake-generator centered in the Earth Pony town of Ponyville did not produce enough vibration.
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Actually, there may be something to that. Could the Running Of The Leaves be part of a ritual to amplify earth pony magic across a much larger area?
I still love reading these, though I comment a lot less because it's something I haven't actually watched in years. That said, the fact that Applejack complained about Rainbow Dash using her wings always bugged me. If Rainbow Dash doesn't use her wings, presumably she can't access most of her pegasus magic, right? But during the entire competition Applejack was obviously using enhanced strength and constitution given to her by earth pony magic, so if Rainbow doesn't use wings then the contest is unfair. Or are we supposed to believe that earth pony magic A)can be turned off by conscious effort and B)Applejack was doing that?
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Probably, but here’s a thing:
1. At least half the events involved in the Iron Pony competition make flying or having an extra set of limbs so advantageous that it’s pretty much OP, pegasus magic or not. Long jump, chick carrying and tug of war are particularly notable.
2. It was Rainbow who challenged Applejack to this N-athlon, not vice versa.
Iron Pony events inherently offer an advantage to ponies with wings over ponies that don’t have them, even if everything else is equal. If Rainbow was interested in keeping the competition fair, she could have picked something else to challenge Applejack in.
4546209 True, it's pretty obvious Iron Pony is for earth ponies, since they never even considered rules on wings. Rainbow Dash is either incredibly strong for a Pegasus, and/or she's using tight wind control with her immense pegasus magic to do things like knock down trees with a punch, so she's arrogant enough to think she could compete in an earth pony competition against a powerful earth pony.
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She beats Applejack in hoof wrestling, where wings or pegasus magic cannot possibly offer an advantage, so yes, Rainbow is ridiculously strong for a pegasus.
I for one am not getting bored with these, but they come out so fast, I can't keep up, and I don't want to post in threads people have moved on from.
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1. Iron comes from the earth.
2. Challengee usually gets pick of weapons.
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Find excuses to quotelink people so their alerts get pinged~
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Well, yes, why do you think I posted it?
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Honestly, I can't blame AJ for not wanting RD to use her wings, and I can't blame RD for using her wings. Rather I blame both of them for not anticipating the problems that RD's wings might cause and working out a mutually agreeable solution before the contest began.
4546215 I'd like to see a replay of that contest with rear hooves instead of front hooves though.
4546626 You nailed it.