May
25th
2017
Points of Canon: S1x15 - Feeling Pinkie Keen · 10:02am May 25th, 2017
The more of these I write, the sooner I have a full set.
- So Twilight is practicing transformation magic on a hill within city limits. Notably, in the establishing shot, we see the spa and the hair salon, they’re still intact, or at least in their original locations.
- Twilight says, “For this to work, it’s crucial we keep our concentration totally on the-” – so why is it crucial that Spike does this? The moment Spike looks away, the top hat is transformed back into a stone. Is Twilight trying to cast spells to transform objects into things Spike is imagining? Has to be.
- That’s the first instance of Pinkie hiding under a rock that looks like it is embedded into the ground, but is actually flat on the bottom and lying on it. This has to be a party pony power.
- Twilight says, “Ugh, never mind her. She’s just being Pinkie Pie.” So “being Pinkie Pie” is already well-established in Twilight’s mind by this point.
- Twilight says, “What in the wide, wide world of Equestria are you up to?” It’s like in Season 1, Equestria was supposed to be a “wide world” and yet absolutely tiny…
- Pinkie says “He just said ‘nice catch’ in Frog.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t give us much of anything because she’s Pinkie.
- Fluttershy is driving a flying carriage. The carriage observes the usual rules – Fluttershy has to move her legs when flying and the wheels rotate.
- Fluttershy is resettling frogs from one body of water into another due to overpopulation, which is probably part of her actual job. Notably, the frog that she dropped onto Twilight remains with Twilight, and Fluttershy never comes back for it.
- What exactly is that ditch that Twilight fell into doing in the middle of Ponyville? New water main? No signs to prevent ponies from falling in?…
- Applejack is well aware of the accuracy of Pinkie Sense, enough to scramble in a panic at the mention of a twitchy tail.
- All the taps in Pinkie’s bathroom have normal valves, compare to Call of the Cutie.
- Pinkie refers to the joint of the front leg as a “knee,” rather than “elbow,” but the joint that connects a front leg to the body is still a “shoulder.” The central upper part of a pony’s barrel is, likewise, a “back.”
- This is the first time Twilight saw Gummy, and this is the episode that introduces him. It’s a chronology marker.
- Twilight says, “Well, I still don’t believe all this… ‘special power’ stuff. It’s just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.” Now, we have already established that Twilight maintains scientific arrogance for most of early seasons, and is gradually letting it go, but how did ponies come by the words “mumbo-jumbo?”
- There’s an unattended (why?) cart selling soap and other care products in the middle of a street, and Twilight just has to go jump on the proverbial soapbox. You’d think that there would be a more permanent shop for this sort of thing, though, since ponies have to go through soap much faster than we do.
- One of the bottles is a typical liquid soap bottle with a press-on dispenser, but the other one is a squeeze bottle commonly seen used for shampoo or shower gel. How exactly do ponies use that latter one?
- Twilight says: “Magic is something you study and practice. It only happens when you decide to do it, and it’s meant to make something specific that you choose to happen, happen.” I.e. according to Twilight, magic is entirely deterministic, controllable and rationalized. We’re pretty sure it’s not completely literally true, though, because occasionally unwanted releases of magic are known to happen.
- I can see why Spike is backing out of the library, he needs to open the door and has his hands full. But why is he continuing to walk backwards after that, and where is he carrying all those books?
1. Notice also that none of the technologies Vinyl is using actually require being digital either.
This is the infamous scene that made a lot of people think that Twilight has a “computer.” I mentioned that multiple times already: The device Twilight is seen using on Pinkie is not a computer. We never see it compute or manipulate data, and in fact, most devices that output a running graph of a value on a paper tape weren’t digital until XXI century. Whatever it is actually measuring, it is not doing anything more complex than an electroencephalograph, – that is, it is recording multiple variables on paper and displaying results on dials. Technically, this is a moving paper oscillograph. Upon closer inspection in HD, most of these are dial readouts, rather than oscilloscopes, except one, which does have a waveform on it and has to be a CRT. The technologies required involve transistor-based amplifiers and electrostatic deflection cathode ray tubes – as well as, presumably, magic-sensitive devices that produce electrically measurable output, which is what all those crystals on the helmet have to be. Nothing much more advanced than the stuff Vinyl Scratch is typically seen using, and certainly nothing digital.1
- It’s interesting that the device also includes a source of steam – presumably, its own steam powered generator of some sort.
- The amount of tech in the library basement lab is rather immense in terms of sheer mass of metal, and unless Twilight spent most of the months since her arrival assembling it, most of it has to predate that. This would also explain the on-board generator in the measuring device: it could predate the power grid as well. Unfortunately the function and nature of all the other devices in the lab is unclear – not enough detail. But much of it does not appear to be electrical.
- The frog is pointing towards the direction Fluttershy is traveling in. On one hand, this means it’s smarter than it looks, because it probably means something. On another hand, not very smart, because I’m pretty sure Fluttershy can’t actually see where it is pointing. On a third hand, if you can find one, I’m pretty sure frogs aren’t supposed to see quite that well.
2. If they were roof prism binoculars, the objective wouldn’t be so much larger than the eyepiece.
Twilight uses a pair of binoculars. Notably, these are not prism, but Galilean.2
- Twilight is wearing a pith helmet. Which is normally meant to protect one from sunstroke. I’m not sure where she got one, and whether she is wearing it for its intended purpose, or just to get into the naturalist mood – but if it’s the latter, she has to be imitating a character from a Daring Do book. If it’s the former, it has to be the hottest part of summer.
- “Scientific name: Pinkius Pieicus” This is the earliest appearance of “pony latin.” It is also very “dog latin” at that.
- It’s got to be a weekend, because Pinkie is outright running around looking bored, while Twilight doesn’t have anything better to do than track her.
3. Really, why they were even here?
After getting stung by bees/wasps for no observable reason,3 Twilight patches herself up with band-aids. These have to be a bitch to peel off coats.
- Applejack has an apple cellar, which never turns up again.
- Twilight is in a wheelchair. Ponies do have wheelchairs, though they seldom use them.
- Twilight survives, in quick succession: A flower pot, an anvil, and a full cart of hay bales falling on her head, followed by a piano. Uh… ponies have pianos. Right. No, seriously, this shouldn’t be survivable unless some exaggeration is involved, or unless Twilight can instinctively cast some manner of protection spell that is not a visible shield after getting hit with that flower pot. This is an episode pretty low on realism in the first place…
- Notice that the pegasi are unloading their truck, which is probably the reason why all of this stuff fell down: Someone bumped into another cart while unloading the moving truck, causing the pegasus driving this to lose concentration and/or get detached from it. Also notice, that the cart of hay bales does not stay in the air when detached, it falls down. I think this is evidence that pegasi chariots do not have to be particularly special to fly.
- Someone is moving into a cloud home in Ponyville – the pegasi continue unloading the remaining boxes. Notice that the two pegasi driving it remain strapped in, which prevents them from helping with the unloading. I expect that is because when they detach the truck, it will fall down immediately.
- Applejack, when asked, says she is “Takin’ more apples to my new apple cellar.” But at the moment, they are in a park in the middle of town. Why exactly does Applejack have to pass through it to take more apples to an apple cellar on her farm?
- All the signs of damage are gone pretty fast from Twilight’s body, aren’t they.
4. Mind you, we haven’t seen any hydras since either.
Pinkie has never seen a hydra before, or she wouldn’t be asking if that is a hydra.4
- It’s interesting that the hydra has only two legs. That would only work for a creature that is mostly aquatic, and for something big like that, the Froggy Bottom Bog seems to be too small, or at least, too shallow – neither enough space to swim in nor enough food.
- Fluttershy references the “hop, skip and jump” song from Dragonshy.
- Twilight should be perfectly capable of teleporting across the chasm even with all the columns destroyed – how could those form anyway?… – but mysteriously forgets about it. Must be getting hit on the head a few minutes ago.
- Twilight has evolved into a Rapidash… This is just one of the multiple ways her magic appears to go out of control in cases of extreme shock.
- So with no provocation whatsoever, Celestia drops out of the sky and snatches the letter Spike was about to send. And leaves without saying a word. But why?!
- Spike says “Holy guacamole!” – twice in this episode. Not only guacamole exists, which involves avocados, which we have yet to see. This is the earliest time anyone says “holy.” Ponies don’t appear to call anything holy outside of expressions like that.
This has been a whole lot of absurd and more cartoony than most neighboring episodes. The big questions remaining are:
- So what actually happened to Twilight after she was hit by the flower pot.
- What was Celestia doing here and why is she leaving without as much as a hello.
This is why you should count on hooves instead of hands.
This episode is the closest we ever get to a Warners Bros cartoon. Twilight's lab equipment might as well have come out of Acme Scientific, Inc boxes. But it also informs a lot of my headcanon about chariots and pegasi anti-grav.
4546266
I can always chop off someone’s, it’s not like it’s that much of a problem.
...
Is it strange that I've never come across the idea that this entire episode is just Twilight Sparkle being extremely delusional after flower pot impact before now?
4546277
Not really.
4546310 Honestly, it's a pretty good theory. Though perhaps it works better as a senile Granny Pinkie Pie telling a highly fictionalized version of a philosophical discussion to her grandfoals.
Polsky was never big on adhering to canon or established parameters. He's the guy who gave us ponies pulling locomotives, after all.
Laughter magic is a strange and insidious force. It operates on a logic all its own, as do its practitioners. And it acts to defend its secrets from those who would analyze. Thinking too hard about a joke kills it; the cartoonish shenanigans were the magic acting in self-defense. This also explains the copious logical breaks and impossibilities in the episode; laughter magic not only can operate according to its own logical framework; it must.
At least, that's my hypothesis. Nothing beyond Pinkie Pie as laughter shaman makes much sense.
Entirely deterministic, controllable, and rationalized. Yep.
4546313 Why would she have to be senile for that?
4546458 The senility is more the fact that anypony who hasn't lived as long as her will think she must be this way because she's senile. Little do they know...
4546336
And this solves a lot of the issues caused by looney-toons slapstick throughout the series, not just in this episode. After all, if Pinkie has one power that's measurable but not clearly understandable, why not two?
I imagine it works sort of like this:
Post 1: my initial notes.
S1E15: ❧Feeling Pinkie Keen
RE-Watched, because it was my first episode.
Mare, does Twi have the Idiot Ball here. And that moral she takes is just wrong about everything.
there's that purple tent by the town hall…is that the spa?
can see Twi at longshot
Temporary transfiguration requiring concentration of caster and target to maintain…or at least, complete. ensemble is one spell, if it's the latter.
Umbrella hat.
♪"She's just being Pinkie Pie" - …isn't this her performing the 'lesson' she dictates at the end?
♪"What in the wide, wide world of Equestria" funny with how small it's implied by Fall-weather Friends, isn't it?
Pinkie speaks Frog, or at least "Nice Catch"…or is joking, but I prefer more impactful interpretations to lesser.
Flutters is using a cart, and flying with it. It doesn't look special in any way.
❧Fluttershy doesn't collect the frog…why?
♪in ditch"Because Pinkie predicted it" -no, Spike, not a self-fulfilling prophecy, nor a causative…this time.
♪"Those who've lived in Ponyville a while" - Pinkie Sense has a body of evidence behind it.
♪"special powers = mumbo jumbo" and "magic does what you want it to"- uh, see Starswirl's last spell, or even the Come-to-life spell.
soapbox, also cultural stand on a soapbox
♪Spike beeps when backing up. Enchantment, or mere gag?
Lab!magnifying lens, pressure gauge, steamwhistle, Doc Brown's thought-reading helmet-alike, polygraph/seismograph, sonar display, bubbling flask(s) in which the bubbles go to the top of container, not just edge of fluid
♪"That makes no sense" --except, Twi, yuo don't control your sensory inputs.
Pinkie can slip shackles. Alternately, sandwich problem: shackles for no real wrist.
∃"new apple cellar"
∃pith helmet…
consider what it's supposed to defend against, pithing.♪"Pinkieus Pieicus"- [pony] latin is used for taxonomy, binomial nomenclature specifically.
❧Pinkie likes rolling in the grass.
∃Band-Aid-like adhesive, padded bandages; wheelchairs, binoculars, horned anvil, piano, and
∃a moving truck, complete with a differential and rubber tyres.
Derpy did it.
She's walking on those casts. That's…usually not good.
♪"it'll happen at Froggy Bottom Bog"--the non-scientific portion of Pinkie Sense is the directionality of this. Also, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Then she's fully-healed of battle damage and galloping.
♪"I just want to see the look on your face" - ponies, specifically Twilight, may be motivated by spite.
Spike's stretchy tail
a bug on that hydra segment. A few times in a row, so it's not just being picked up.
Spike can keep up with ponies at a trot at least.
Spike's stretchy tail.
∃dragonfly
heads around group, then together…suggesting real depth.
❧Pinkie is the one to recognize the hydra.
❧Remember Spike being implied to swim in "Winter Wrap-up"? UNBOLTGuess not. He needs rescuing.
Twi-flame. This is a different reaction than Anger-Cloud in "Bottled Up."
Inflate-a-pinkie.
❧The hydra…has four heads, two legs, a thagomizer; its heads do not share sensory input from the heads (consider the puzzled heads looking at the goose-egged one), can laugh, AND are intelligent enough to raspberry.
The hive's at the library.
❧Celestia takes the letter in her mouth, not her magic.
❧Also of note is that the tail-twitch heralded a falling thing that was not necessarily otherwise going to injure someone.
Pinkie sense list:
All correct by the chart.
so yeah, unfortunately, "it'll happen at Froggy Bottom Bog" goes against the idea that Pinkie has only gathered, repeated, correlated data about her Pinkie Sense predictions, as she's never had a doozy before. The rest seems to support it, though. *sigh*
OP responses:
Looks like most of them will be in my original notes!
Ah, was wondering what the general term was. Thanks.
Well, MultiVAX wasn't digital ether, now, was it?
Good catch! It does.
Because they were ones she was selling at market, and now she's closed the stall.
Still, she knows the concept and recognizes it.
Yes, strangely, her startle-response to teleport from "The Ticket Master" is gone.
4546268
♪"I hold your hand in mine"♪
…why is it called Froggy Bottom Bog if there's ample room to repopulate frogs to it?
So, of the frogs Fluttershy relocated, how many do you think the hydra ate?
4546636
All of them. She has to feed it plenty of frogs on a regular basis. She can't just let the poor hydra starve, can she? That would be mean.
4546591
Because the R is extraneous.
Yes, Fluttershy is repopulating the United States Department of State with frogs.
4546838
I now have an irrational desire to see Fluttershy cuddling with a hydra.
4546879
…with Freedom Frogs?
4546908
Or just frogs. I mean, someone has to actually work for the State Department, why not frogs?
4546917
It was a joke about the French and the stupid, stupid Freedom Fries incident.
4546935
I noticed. Which is why “why not frogs?”
4546879
4546591
The hydra ate all the previous frogs.
Great analysis of one of the hardest episodes, Oliver. Thanks for the background on the underground lab, I always thought it was a computer.
As for how it got there, if Twilight had such a lab assembled in her tower, she could have teleported the entire setting to a cargo car in Canterlot station, rode with it down to Ponyville, and teleported it to the basement, without having to disassemble anything.
I think Twilight's full body cast that immediately disappears has to be the equivalent of cartoon hearts when an MLP character falls in love. I like your idea about the shield spell that flickers into being in a microsecond though.
Twilight freezes when she is in danger because she has never had combat training, especially magical combat training.
4546277 That actually explains a ton of things that we really strain Watsonian explanations for to the breaking point in this episode. If not a total delusion, it could have Twilight hallucinate that an entire piano was dropped on her, for example.
4547362
There is no way Twilight previously kept this lab equipment in her Canterlot apartment for the simple reason that her two-story studio apartment in Canterlot does not have any space left for an invisible floor to stick it into. It has to have come from somewhere else.
I do have a much more sensible theory. But detailing it would be a spoiler for Aporia. :)⁽¹⁾
It could have dropped inches away from her next to the anvil, and then the impression we get is the scrambled perception resulting from the flower pot that did hit her.