Aug
5th
2017
Points of Canon: S2x03 - Lesson Zero · 9:17am Aug 5th, 2017
Ah, the chronologically controversial one.
- The wasp hive is back.
- Twilight’s extra ink is in open inkwells.
How exactly does she expect to carry those around?…Wait, she doesn’t. But wouldn’t Spike still need to do it when working the eventual checklist? - The telescope in Twilight’s bedroom seems to have moved – I think it was by the bed before.
- So does the checklist of all checklists that do not contain a checkbox for themselves contain a checkbox for itself?
- Spike’s reaction is strange. Shouldn’t exactly this sort of conversation and preparatory steps before creating a checklist of today’s schedule have happened before?
“We’ve already dropped off your cape at the cleaners, returned the blackboard you borrowed from Cheerilee, ordered new parchment and quills from the stationery shop…”
- Twilight owns a cape. Notably, I don’t think we ever saw her wear it, let alone get it dirty.
- Ponies have cleaning services. Which would probably have to be dry cleaners. Notably, humans had this technology since mid-XIX century at least, but it’s probable that ponies, with their advanced chemical industry, have the 1930s version with tetrachloroethylene instead of petroleums.
- Twilight had to borrow the blackboard from Cherilee, instead of buying her own. Why?
- The checklist is pictographic. Why? We know for sure both Twilight and Spike are literate since episode 1, and we know that this is not the usual shape of pony writing. A guess: Twilight is experimenting with mnemonic techniques and trying to figure out if using drawings improves memory retention. The resulting extra time spent drawing is also the reason she needs an extra checklist for things needed to make a checklist and extra ink in the first place, and is the cause of Spike sighing at seeing obviously redundant checklist items – not to mention the increase in “parchment” usage.
- Twilight never cared about cupcake icing before or since.
- This is the most neurotic we ever saw Twilight. The most notable episode where a wingless Twilight behaves similarly is It’s About Time, with A Bird In The Hoof being only a little similar.
- Spike has a tongue long enough that he can lick every single part of his body. I wonder if clopfic authors remember that, but I’m not about to go check.
“I’ve been holding that quill so long, I’ve got a claw cramp!”
- Spike calls these appendages claws rather than hands.
- Claws are not immune to RSI.
- “We haven’t sent a letter to Princess Celestia this week?!” This entire dialogue pretty heavily implies Twilight does not send a letter to Celestia every day.
- When hearing about the week requirement, Spike goes “huh?” We haven’t heard anything about a deadline either.
- The last letter was sent on a Tuesday and today is also a Tuesday. See RTAC #13
1. ibid.
Twilight’s calendar appears to contain only four days per week, but we know it’s not possible1 which means that lines are eaten by cartoon resolution.
- Twilight insists she has “never been late with an assignment.” This is not necessarily true. In fact, Friendship is Magic #40 suggests it’s probably not.
2. I’m pretty sure that earth ponies and pegasi who are having their magic surges can also be ridiculously destructive, but unicorns would be inventively destructive.
“She’ll send me back to… magic kindergarten.” This episode is the only time the term comes up that I remember. While I imagine that little unicorns who still have magic surges might require specialized kindergartens,2 we never see one on screen or in secondary canon again that I can think of.
- Twilight clearly has rather unpleasant memories about her time in a magic kindergarten. Why exactly?…
- Spike could solve the entire episode if he framed Twilight’s problem as a friendship problem right there, (“Twilight is so neurotic that she’s causing trouble for everypony else.”) but didn’t.
- Twilight trots straight past Minuette again.
- Rarity is also a lot more dramatic than usual in this episode, normally, losing a ribbon would not produce such a social reaction when she is alone.
- I think that is the first (dramatic!) appearance of Rarity’s fainting couch.
- Rainbow Dash uses plastic safety goggles. Polycarbonate is definitely a thing.
- At one point, Rainbow bites through a support beam.
- So why is Twilight wearing those glasses when she’s trying to psychoanalyze Rainbow? Did she keep them on hand just for this occasion? This is the only time the pony-Twilight wears these, even though the human-Twilight wears glasses all the time.
- Why didn’t Applejack interfere before Twilight got Rainbow onto the bench?
- Where did the park bench even come from? It’s not present in the shot where Rainbow is dive-bombing the barn.
- The exact mechanism by which Rainbow achieves the explosion is not entirely clear. Nor it is clear why she never tries something like that again.
- Fluttershy wrestle-massages bears. But, well, we all knew that.
- The picnic spot has a dirt road that goes right up to that tree and stops.
- Rainbow uses what’s clearly supposed to be sunscreen, though I hope the purpose of this concoction is not to prevent skin sunburn, – not likely to happen anyway – but to prevent coat bleaching.
- Pinkie brought three balloons to the picnic, which immediately float away and take the basket with them. Which is sorta funny, but I wonder if it’s going to crash onto somebody’s head later…
- Rarity brought a pepper shaker, two teacups, two knives, two spoons and a fork, and no idea what else.
- Rarity is capable of summoning her fainting couch even though she probably did not bring it with her. Probably.
- “What? You didn’t expect me to lay on the grass, did you?” But that’s exactly what Rarity did in A Canterlot Wedding during a very similar picnic.
- “Oh, thank goodness. I thought something really awful had happened.” Twilight looks like she’s been through a wringer, and none of the girls take it seriously.
- Twilight does three short-range teleports in quick succession, and in general teleports pretty casually in this episode.
- “Clock is ticking, Twilight.” But not, apparently, the clock over her bed – that one shows 17:00 at the latest, Twilight should still have hours before sundown. We still don’t really know what kind of time zoning ponies have, if any, though…
- The CMC are playing ball together. We generally don’t see them doing anything quite so innocent, at that.
- Twilight teleports into the ball, destroying it.
- Meet Smarty Pants. “She even comes with her own notebook and quill, for when you want to pretend she’s doing her homework!” Twilight is very self-aware about playing with dolls.
- Scootaloo makes spinning motions with her hoof by her head. Ponies share this gesture with humans, which is in itself interesting.
- The CMC dump Smarty Pants on each other readily. They’re at about the same stage of teasing each other as they are in The Return of Harmony and Stare Master, it seems.
- By the time Twilight casts the Want-It-Need-It spell, the CMC are already struggling, but Twilight is too out of her wits to notice.
- “The ‘want it, need it’ spell. Works every time.” Did she ever use it before?
- It’s Tuesday, but Mayor Mare is about to settle down with a book in the sun. Which means she’s off work already.
- All the Canterlot Friends are fighting for the doll.
- Twilight requires a clear line of sight to disenchant the doll.
- The spell is triggered by looking at the doll, so someone who approaches it blind can theoretically dispose of it.
- Celestia glows a lot. She generally doesn’t get to be so glowy.
- Mayor Mare is the only one blushing once the spell is removed.
- Well, everybody knows Big Mac is the one who runs off with the doll, but if I don’t write this down you will complain, won’t you.
- Contrary to her usual behavior, Celestia hops right over the Mane 6 on her way to the balcony.
- “From this day forth, I would like you all to report to me your findings on the magic of friendship, when, and only when, you happen to discover them.” This marks the shift from Twilight-focused to general purpose correspondence with Celestia. Notably, the phrase itself does not prohibit sending in lessons learned from past mistakes.
- “Your friend Spike made me aware that you were letting your fears get the best of you. I commend him for taking your feelings seriously.” Basically, Spike sold Twilight out, and now Celestia fed him to the wolves. :)
- Celestia teleports away – presumably, straight to Canterlot, establishing her effective teleportation range.
- “Signed, your loyal subjects.” The formula still exists.
Chronologically, while I agree that many problems would be solved by putting this episode early, Twilight teleports way too casually and way too often for it to be an early episode.
At the same time, there are a few things weird about it:
- Why exactly is Twilight so much more strung up than usual? For that matter, why is Rarity more dramatic than usual?
- The Mane 5 did not treat Twilight’s worry seriously, but they should have seen her state. Why didn’t anypony try to pry further, or consult Spike?
For the teleportation, much evidence exists of Twilight Sparkle having a, to put it mildly, enormous personal magic reserve. It is possible that, while teleportation is normally very magically taxing, Twilight's reserves are powerful enough even at this early point that any hard limits on her powers are more likely to be a self-imposed subconscious mental block. In which case, constant teleportation is a strong sign of those blocks disappearing, either through discipline as we see in her song in S3E1, or through deteriorating mental state as seen here.
One can only imagine what a mental patient's ward for unicorns with a high power level looks like.
The standard insert answer on everyone's exaggerated character traits would be 'residual chaos magic and the collective headache of only very recently getting out of it', which frustratingly gets around chronology constraints with the one-word handwave of 'chaos'. Recursive-recessive schizophrenia and subconscious desire to establish that you are who you are through in-universe simplification of character does sound rather chaotic.
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Yes, but do compare to what happens after she teleports in The Ticket Master. I’m pretty sure that reaction can’t be explained by a mental block.
Which limits this to happening after The Return Of Harmony, doesn’t it.
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Twilight's slight case of PTSD and the change in lessons seem to both be pretty indicative of the episode coming right after the season opener. In fact, I think I have to ask - why is this one chronologically controversial at all?
4624613
Ah, but how much evidence do we have that that wasn't her first, completely unprepared teleport?
I ask purely because I haven't seen Ticket Master in forever.
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Because you have to reinterpret a large number of S2 and S3 episodes that contain communications from Mane 6 to Celestia as being retrospective to make them fit other constraints.
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Considering that the first one was back in Friendship is Magic? I would say enough.
4624625
Oh.
Right.
Poo. Really thought I was on to something.
Um... Twilight's power level jumped a few notches after the Discord incident because she unlocked more hidden potential?
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She had been improving teleportation over time, that’s not the issue here. The issue is that there are yearly constraints between 1x01-02 and 4x01-02, and stories which otherwise fit well into that year, but contain, in the end, narration from the Mane 6 describing a letter to Celestia.
Sisterhoof Social is particularly bad there, because the letter to Celestia is written right there on screen, and yet there’s a chain of other episodes it affects all the way to Season 6…
Do check out my chronology tool. :)
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...Not sure what yearly constraints and friendship letters have to do with teleportation power levels, unless you meant to address everything except the first sentence of this message to Mitch. I'm not the one asking questions about chronology, I'm just trying to Watson out a reasoning for sporadic teleportation in Season 2.
I always saw magic kindergarten as the unicorn equivalent of flight camp, helping them learn the theory and basic usage of their magic in a safe, supervised setting. Granted, that implies that magic kindergarten is largely a Canterlot thing, though I'm not sure how many non-Cloudsdalers attend flight camps.
Twilight copying Rarity's summon drama couch spell?
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I'd call it less the one-word handwave of "chaos" and more the three-word handwave of "lingering mental trauma."
Oh, and regarding the teleport, it definitely wasn't her first. She performs one in "Friendship is Magic" while charging Nightmare Moon.
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There is no need to justify that behavior at all if we accept that it happened in Spring 1. (Series starts in Summer 1 and we have a Summer-Autumn-Winter-Spring cycle…) There are episodes where she teleports casually which have to go well before that.
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Plausible, though couldn’t she pick something nice to summon. :)
P.S. And that is specifically a fainting couch, that’s what they call them.
given how generally-fallible common knowledge can be, yes. :) Separating common knowledge into data and falsehood is what we're here for, after all.
(Like how I thought bear-wrestling turned up rather later than this)
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and that limit, combined with assuming Celestia only sent back friendship lessons in Return, gives a nice
two-year$SCROLLCOUNT week maximum for s1e1-s2e2.She shows shades of this in “Swarm of the Century”: her mane gets disheveled, and her proposed “solution” to the parasprite problem is to build an exact scale replica of Ponyville in five minutes. Which just goes to show that the possibility of failing Princess Celestia directly is one of Twi’s anxiety triggers.
Is there a possibility that good ol’ Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome is at work here as well? Twi’s cutie mark is for Magic, and Friendship Is Magic, and failing to write a friendship report could easily represent a failure of Friendship in Twi’s mind.
So I suspect Twi’s catastrophic freakout resulted from an untimely convergence of stressors she could have dealt with individually, but were too much together: fear of failing Celestia, fear of failing her own cutie mark, lingering trauma from Discord, and lack of support from her friends, because they were too busy dealing with their own Discord-related trauma to realize what a bad state Twi was in.
Anyway, the “It’s About Time” comparison is interesting, because that episode almost feels like a do-over for the lesson in this episode—that is, Twilight learns again to stop making mountains out of molehills. And the Aesop Amnesia doesn’t seem that unreasonable here. Since “Lesson Zero” put so much emphasis on the other ponies taking Twilight’s concerns seriously, I could see why Twi might subconsciously think her freakout was vindicated—and would need another meltdown to finally teach her to stop blowing things out of proportion.
Considering most pony clothes is formal or semi-formal wear (or simple accessories that rarely need to be washed), I suspect all clothing is basically considered dry-clean only.
I would wager cartoon resolution, just like lazy scrawl we are supposed to assume is text.
I'll chime in at this point to agree that Twilight and everyone else acting extra neurotic this episode is indeed suffering post-Discord symtom, and I'll discuss logical objections at the end.
Pinkie knows this is the day when interesting things happen.
Based on the comic and show together, I suggest her education was in two stages: Stage one, 11-16, Twilight lives in CSfGU, and gets special tutoring with Celestia. By 16 Twilight has completed all the regular coursework two years early, plus her baby is getting a little big to share a dorm room with, so she moves into the tower (or back into the tower according to your notes, which would make her serious nobility), graduates normal CSfGU, and is the equivalent of a grad student with Celestia as her academic adviser. Notably, this is probably the set up Sci-Twi was going to end up at if she attended Everton Academy. I think Twilight has never been late with an assignment from Celestia.
She was basically friendless, since she ignored Moondancer and the rest. She thinks it would be the same the second time around.
I bet Pegasi have strong opinions about helium balloons.
she had to have. I hate to say it, but the only person I can imagine her casting it on repeatedly and not getting in trouble over it is Spike. Maybe when he acted up she would put the spell on the gem, and he would focus on the gem for a while, until he inevitably ate it?
Mayor Mare is genre-savvy, listens to Pinkie Pie, and takes every Tuesday off. When she comes back in on Wednesday Twilight will have the damage the Mane 6 have caused, hopefully.
This spell is really scary in retrospect, you see the violence of the mob, and you remember that Big Mac is in the same scrum as a couple of little kids. Twilight is so lucky no one's skulled got kicked in.
She's embarrassed she didn't realize she should spend Tuesday in Canterlot, out of range of Tuesday craziness.
Spike's friendship lesson of the day is that snitches get stitches.
Right. So what if we take the S1 episodes where Twilight teleported casually (i.e. her and a bunch of other people, or her a bunch of times) and move them after Lesson Zero?
"But Howard!" you will burble (still convinced you are the Smooze in disguise), "where did all those friendship lesson that resulted in a giant pile of scrolls in the S1-2 come from then?"
Even though they are called "scrolls," we actually see Twilight write on paper sheets most of the time, and the "scrolls" don't have dowel ends to wrap around. I think the scrolls are just rolled-up paper held together with a seal. Why is this relevant? Because Twilight probably sends Celestia ten sheets of paper per Friendship Lesson, because she would always write a ten page paper where a one page paper will do. But Celestia didn't re-roll the scrolls, she kept them un-rolled. Then when she had to roll them to send them back to Spike (I think that seal might have something to do with the magic), she just slapped a seal on each individual page. That's how you get like 5-10 friendship lessons that we see Twilight remember stretched into a hundred little "scrolls."
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Counterpoint: Rarity washes quite a few kinds of clothes in Sisterhooves Social.
…Well, she could have simply stopped taking Zecora’s tea for whatever reason…
Ew.
If I were, I think I would have eaten most of the site by now.
Most of these are already in Season 2.
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That's basically professional equipment for Rarity, but she wears clothing more often than even most Canterlot ponies, so it could also be a high-end luxury she has sprung for.
Yeah, but you pointed out incidences in this episode where everyone else acted fairly neurotic too. Rarity being extra-dramatic, Fluttershy wrestling bears instead of only massaging them, the CMC retreating into the safe-place of playing with a simple ball.
On the other hand, if Zecora has cut Twilight off from her "tea" I'll point out that Twilight permanently seems a bit calmer and more reasonable after the S5 episode where she meets Treehugger...
Awww, you think this site is a jewel!
Then I have to agree with Mitch, there doesn't seem to be a chronological issue with having this episode post-Discord.