Aug
4th
2017
Points of Canon: S2x01-02 - The Return of Harmony · 9:36am Aug 4th, 2017
Let’s start on the next season.
Mind you, before reading this you should read RTAC #6 and Hypothesis #3 because, well, that’s where most of the actual analysis of the primary events of this two-parter essentially went. This here is mostly a “notice this” list.
1. Mine never had, for example.
Pony schools have field trips. Not a given.1
- One of the sculptures has a pony operate a bow and arrow with hooves, rather than like we saw in Equestria Games.
- Three of the sculptures are unusual in that the items they’re holding – a flag and some kind of staff, and something that remains off-camera but I think is a horn – are clearly not made of the same material as the rest of the sculpture.
- “All right, my little ponies, this one represents ‘Victory.’” Cherilee, your Celestia is showing.
- Three rhomboids on the flag are supposed to represent what?…
- The CMC argue and actually come to blows for no visible reason whatsoever. The only other time anything even remotely similar occurs is The Stare Master.
- “It’s not chaos, you dodo!” Dodos exist or have existed, because Scootaloo answers with “Don’t call me things I don’t know the meaning of!” – i.e. she accepts that “dodo” is a word. Notably, humans ate theirs.
- The town square contains two Bon-Bons and three Trixies. Also, the spa is still pretty definitely in its usual place in the town square, next to the beauty salon. The fountain has water.
2. Question for the audience: What color is the cotton candy you remember from your childhood? Because mine is white, and I didn’t think it could be pink until I saw this episode.
Rainbow has to taste the cotton candy cloud to identify it as such, smell and sight are not enough.2
- Applejack is picking corn. I.e. it’s late enough in the spring for the first corn harvest to happen, however many earth ponies can produce, which messes up the chronology a bit.
- “Cloudsdale is getting soaked by a major cola storm right now!” Ponies have cola. The interesting question is, how did Rainbow know that? She’s been busy dealing with local clouds and the first cloud the episode started with is still chasing her.
- Rarity’s umbrella saddle reappears. This time, it’s accompanied by a raincoat.
- “Don’t worry, everyone. I’ve learned a new spell that’ll fix everything.” This is a relatively uncommon misuse of “everyone” for Twilight, unless she’s also addressing the bunnies, squirrels and other miscellaneous animals.
- How exactly is that lasso holding cotton candy? The clouds are referred to as cotton candy but seem to behave much more like chewing gum.
Twilight whispers to Fluttershy so that she calls the animals to eat the clouds.
- Twilight needs Fluttershy for this to happen, she can’t do it herself.
- Pinkie reacts to Fluttershy speaking at the same time as the animals do.
Therefore, there’s no translation convention involved – animals just listen to what Fluttershy is saying and understand her, while for everyone else, animals understanding them depends mostly on the animal.
- There are actually three stained glass windows depicting Discord rather than just two. One has Celestia and Luna on it, one only has Discord and yet another one has Discord with marionette strings and random ponies.
- “I thought the spell we cast would keep him contained forever, but since Luna and I are no longer connected to the Elements, the spell has been broken.” Come to think of it, when exactly did this disconnect occur? Twilight even asks for an elaboration and doesn’t get any.
- …Actually, all of the columns in this hall of stained glass windows are decorative and don’t even reach halfway to the ceiling.
- Once the elements are discovered to be missing, Pinkie runs off, saying “If anyone needs me, I’ll be outside in the chocolate puddles with a giant swizzle straw.” She’s back after the commercial break and Twilight continues on as if the break didn’t happen with “The Elements! They’re gone!”
- Also, they have swizzle straws.
- That Pinkie can say anything like this at all means that the weather disturbance is pretty major, covering most of Central Equestria.
- While saying “The fate of Equestria is in your hooves” Celestia does something very interesting with her horn. It basically looks like she confers a knightnood on Twilight – at least, the motions involved definitely are an accolade. The action is never referred to afterwards.
- “I simply took them to ensure there’s no cheating. You see, this is the first rule of our game: no flying, and no magic.” He had to have taken earth pony magic too, otherwise, Applejack could just trample over the hedge…
- So why does Applejack run after the rolling apples? My only interpretation is that she’s chasing after what she expects to be her Element, because later on, Rainbow explicitly says that she thinks the cloud she is chasing is one. However, this is a bit too subtle for what I usually expect from these scriptwriters.
- Why does Applejack even treat the “keepers of the grove of truth” seriously, and even ask them about Discord, when there’s no way she wouldn’t know that no such thing existed until Discord turned up?… I’ve double-checked, and the scene depicted in the pond does not actually happen later in the form presented, so it’s not even a particularly clever manipulation, just a lie.
- “I was talking to… uh… nopony! No pony whatsoever!” Well, that’s not even a lie, she wasn’t talking to a pony at all.
- Rarity should have known this isn’t a real diamond because it definitely does not weigh the ~10 metric tons it should. It’s not even cubic zirconia, which would weigh twice as much.
- In any case, judging by the sound it makes when dropped on the ground, Rarity can carry around at least half a ton on her back…
- Fluttershy is the only pony who figured out that the hedge is not impenetrable even without wings.
- “Arrivederci!” Pretty much the only Italian word in the series ever, save “Cadenza” and “Amore,” and it’s used by Discord.
- Fluttershy employs her prehensile tail to slap Twilight.
- “Oh, you ponies are just the most fun I’ve had in aeons.” If you interpret this as a statement that Discord is aeons old, you’re not really justified in doing so – he had fun with ponies just a bit over a thousand years ago.
- Discorded Rarity, upon being threatened with the diamond being split, attacks Applejack which looks most like the stereotypical taekwondo moves.
- “Try it, punk.” The word “punk” means something.
- Once Discord swaps the sun and moon, we’re treated to a very thin crescent, unlike any other crescent moons seen otherwise.
- The library still has that wasp hive that was missing in the Party of One. Did the wasps pack up and buzz off in the chaos?…
- Twilight uses “everyone” to address the Mane 5, and this time even Spike isn’t with them.
- “Keep away!” It’s interesting that even discorded, the Mane 5 still participate in a team activity with no more communication than that.
- All six Element jewels can be packed up into a relatively small book.
- Even with five out of six Elements impaired or entirely non-functional, they can still produce enough energy for Twilight to get glowing eyes and to get everyone floating.
- This is one of the two appearances of Screwball – the other one is a flashback in The Cutie Re-Mark. Notice that this cutie mark works only in
EnglishEquish. - The pile of scrolls Spike received contains anywhere between 50 and 100 scrolls. If these are all friendship lessons that Celestia received by that point, we’re missing a lot of them.
- “Real friends don’t care what your cover is.”
That phrase does not occur in any episode except this one. It’s also very, very odd.It’s actually from Bridle Gossip. It’s still very odd to quote it alone like that. - “And like the path cut through the orchard, there will always be a way through.” This one doesn’t either, even if it probably refers to Over a Barrel. Neither does “The best thing to do is stay true to yourself.”
- Suddenly, the moon seen through the window from Twilight’s bedroom is actually bright.
- When restoring Applejack, flashbacks to Applebuck Season, Friendship is Magic, Winter Wrap-up and Fall Weather Friends are shown, in addition to a pretty generic scene of the Mane 6 together that I couldn’t identify the origins of. If anyone can help me catch it, it’s important for chronology.
- Both of the feed bags in Fluttershy’s cottage are in place.
- Rainbow’s house is low enough this time for Fluttershy to talk to Twilight before descending, after looking into the window.
- Twilight refers to the restoration procedure as “the memory spell.”
- Twilight snaps the reins to spur Fluttershy on. No comment.
- Rainbow continues flying while holding onto the cloud, implying that it’s the pegasus who confers their inertia onto the cloud they’re standing on and not vice versa. But then she slips off the cloud, muddling the issue severely.
- When sufficiently motivated, Fluttershy can catch up to Rainbow while dragging behind at least three times more mass and burdened with a lot more air resistance.
- At least in Discord’s eyes, playing cards have the usual four suits and cover at least the range of A-10. Not sure about the jack-queen-king though, as those are not present in his house of cards.
- Twilight is capable of casting an anti-chaos shield of some description even without involving the Elements directly – she stops Discord from dragging the Mane 6 by their Element jewelry and puts up a shield. Once the girls land, the patch they landed on that the shield was embedded into turns back into regular grass.
- When the Mane 6 are getting commended for this adventure, the Canterlot Friends are all in the room. Many of them twice.
- “We are gathered here today to once again honor the heroism of these six friends who stood up to the villain Discord and saved Equestria from eternal chaos.” The phrase implies they were honored before, but we know they remain effectively anonymous regardless. But notice that Celestia never names them in this ceremony.
Just… This smile.
Actually, all of the faces made during this ceremony are really, really weird.
Cotton candy in my region is traditionally pink to the point that it's a hue of pink.
Maize in its field incarnation doesn't start harvesting until late July in the deepest south southern Louisiana and Texas. Sweet corn is much earlier, but still not until say, late June? And I'd put Ponyville in the Kansas or Colorado crop development region, given its central continental position and alpine terrain. So on the back side of the maturation curve. Earth ponies are a hell of an agri-technology though.
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Earth ponies are completely ridiculous in this regard. At all times of the year, Applejack is seen bucking apples, except winter, where we plain don’t see anyone. Very, very rarely, stallions are seen plowing. And I think we only saw ponies planting stuff once.
Applejack is apparently able to drag dirt and a bag of seeds into the Friendship Castle and end up with flowers at most hours later, even accounting for song montage time.
In my experience, cotton candy comes in pink and blue, and less frequently green and purple.
That's... actually a very good point. Huh.
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Remember when we all thought earth-ponies were have-nots? But the more we see of them, the more we see they're actually over-powered, at least in some ways.
Presumably, since weather offices are government buildings, they're wired for telegrams. And why not, since big weather systems sometimes require cooperation between different towns?
Blue or pink. This blog is the first time I've heard of white cotton candy.
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But they would have to be cloud buildings, wouldn’t they? This implies the existence and use of optical telegraph or heliograph…
4623735
That's even better, since such things would predate the invention of electric telegraphs. I must remember this next time it comes up in a story...
4623778
They always predate the invention of electric telegraphs. :)
Cotton candy was always pink or blue when I was growing up. I think I remember the blue stuff being a slightly more recent innovation.
Some things I find interesting about the discording of the cast:
Fluttershy is the only one who’s completely resistant to Discord’s smooth-talking. For the other ponies, he gets them to half-believe him before he whips out the mind control (except for Twilight, who I’ll get to in a minute). But with Flutters, all his words just roll off her back, and has to resort to brute force to make her cruel. This is some cool retroactive foreshadowing for “Keep Calm and Flutter On”.
And it’s not like Fluttershy is inherently less corruptible than the others. Just last episode, she went nuts because some animals snubbed her; later this season, she turns into a jerk by following a motivational speaker’s advice. I think it’s just that Discord fundamentally doesn’t understand Fluttershy at this point. He tries to make Flutters doubt her friends, but she’s inclined to think the best of others, especially her friends—because assuming the best of others is a big part of Kindness. He tries to prey on her insecurities of being “weak and helpless”—but she isn’t actually insecure about that. And so on.
And Twilight is almost the inverse of Fluttershy. She’s the only pony of the mane six who Discord corrupts without directly using magic on her at all. Instead, he has to corrupt her five friends, and wait for her own despair to corrupt her. Between that, and the way Twi could counteract Discord’s chaos, perhaps he can’t use his magic directly to turn the representative of the Element of Magic.
And then, Twilight uncorrupted herself just by reading her own words, while her friends all required her intervention to break free from his magic. I think that right there is why Discord is so interested in Twilight after his own reformation (which manifests in constantly trying to annoy her).
Also, some more retroactive foreshadowing for “Keep Calm and Flutter On”, while Twilight is discorded and is planning to leave Ponyville:
At first, Discord almost comes across like he wants a friend who can appreciate this chaos like he does. Until his “YES!” shows that enjoying the misery of others is fine, too.
It looks to me like the hall’s ceiling is a series of arches, and the columns are supporting the arches. Something like this.
Hmmm...
Have we seen any evidence of audio recording devices? Because, assuming that whatever magic she uses to make the audience of this ceremony forget the Mane Six's identities doesn't affect mechanical recording, this would be pretty strong evidence of such. However, due to the nature of the event, it wouldn't really serve as any kind of evidence of if Celestia's government gets recorded.
4624039
Indirectly, a lot.
They might not have pocket recording devices or broadcast radio (see RTAC #5 for a guess as to why) but electronic audio recording in general definitely is a thing, they don’t just scratch masters into steel and press vinyl.
That reminds me of a bombshell that McPoodle drops outta nowhere in one of his sequels to Javelin (don’t remember which, sorry). Basically that Discord’s brief reign of chaos was so traumatic that Princess Celestia collectively wiped all the civilians’ memories of it, immediately after that ceremony we saw at the end of the episode.
It definitely made a lot more sense back in the days when it looked like Discord would never return again.
Good question. When Celestia banished Nightmare Moon, and it took a millennium to free Discord? Or when Twilight and the gang bonded with the Elements? I feel like it's more likely to be the former than the latter. We see no visible magical effect encompassing the Sisters when the Mane 6 attune themselves (besides the obvious one of Luna getting lasered in the face). But after Celestia battling NMM, five elements turn to stone and the sixth one disappears(or does it?) That seems like a visual cue, in a show that relies heavily on visual cues to explain magic, that the sisters have lost their connection to the Elements.
Now I wonder what Pinkie does to pass the time during the theme song of each episode.
I think Discord really only affected Ponyville, Cloudsdale and Canterlot this time around. However, effecting Cloudsdale really would affect the weather for all of Central Equestria. (Is there a Cloudsdale East that produces weather for Manehatten?)
Good point. Also, Pinkie never really did anything "whacky" that I can remember while the magic was taken away. Did Discord take her chaos powers as well?
Interesting. I would celebrate the idea of proof that many things are happening off screen we don't see, but I also suspect Twilight sends stuff to Celestia beyond just friendship lessons. If Celestia is just mass-dumping every scroll she has ever gotten from Twilight, it could probably reach 100 even if only 20 of them are friendship lessons.
I think Rainbow is pretty demotivated here as well, at least subconsciously.
Probably the Mane 6 got a star on the wall at SMILE.
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Don't forget that apple the size of a volkswagen Applejack grew with a little "TLC."
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I agree, but then we have that question of why it took Discord a thousand years to get out, if this affected his imprisonment spell at all.
Several interesting options exist:
The problem with Celestia being just correct is that over a thousand years, there’s no doubt whatsoever that numerous chaotic events have happened next to the statue, and one argument between three fillies won’t cut it.
She sings along of course.
Only, then there would be a chance of this happening:
“This is my letter about my summer schedule. And this is my chemistry homework. But why would she send them back? …Discord!”
And then Twilight doesn’t get restored.
Probably.
Pink, blue.
and obviously the third of the trio, "mi"…but I expect "capisce" [capeesh] is also present, though it's kind of been absorbed into English.
in conjunction with Lesson Zero, this might produce a hard bound on the number of weeks Twi's been in Ponyville.
"You hear that, Agent Sweetie Drops?"
Still wrestles/massages bears.
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I still find interesting bit that this is basically the only remorseful/auto-distasteful use of mind-control …and it's by a villain who is in their villainy.
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I suspect the answer is that when the Elements lost their connection to the Regal Sisters, the equivalent of a small chink in the dam that was Discord's spell appeared. It still took him a thousand years of the spell gradually wearing down, and/or accumulated chaos to overpower the spell.
I think Celestia would throw out old schedules and homework. But there's a middle ground there. Would you honestly be surprised if Twilight writes letters about how her day is going to Celestia and mails them off every other day, and Celestia keeps those letters, even if the official friendship report is only due once a week?
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The issue with it is that him breaking out now becomes a contrived coincidence instead of something that happens naturally and inevitably. There should be a better option. :)
Well, probably not.
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Found that phrase in Bridle Gossip. It’s still funny, though… :)
4624539
That is true. I do dislike everything happening exactly 1,000 years after everything happened before.
Corn harvests here in Indiana (Which is right smack dab in the middle of Cornland) usually don't start until late August. Most of it is done in September, really. It's always been a fall crop to me. NEVER a spring one.
Cotton candy was always pink for me as a kid too. Though they can be any colour you can flavour it now.