Aug
5th
2017
Points of Canon: S2x04 - Luna Eclipsed · 7:50pm Aug 5th, 2017
Woo.
You may want to re-read RTAC #10
Spike the dragon is dressed up as a dragon. Nice recursion, at least it’s not Barney. Notably:
- This is a specially made biped’s costume, ponies won’t fit. Who made it?
- He did something very similar the next time.
This is the first we ever hear of Star Swirl. Who is surely going to be the subject of a separate RTAC soon, but right now, a few important things:
- Spike does not recognize the costume. But the look is highly distinctive, and if he saw any official portraits, he probably should have.
- Spike does not recognize the name, either.
- Pinkie does not recognize the costume, though that’s hardly a surprise. But Twilight apparently expected her to. Same about Applejack.
- “Did you even read that book I gave you about obscure unicorn history?” By Twilight’s own admission (!) the parts of history that concern Star Swirl are obscure.
- Luna does recognize the costume instantly later, and even comments that Twilight got the bells right.
- Assembling this costume would require Twilight to sew it herself. Seeing how proud she is of it – “Look at the borders on these robes. These are hoof-stitched!” – she had to have.
- Twilight states that “Star Swirl the Bearded is only the most important conjurer of the pre-classical era. He created more than two hundred spells! He even has a shelf in the Canterlot library of magic named after him.” But Spike, apparently, did not know that.
- “amniomorphic spell” is a thing. Of course, nobody knows what that is.
- One of the three fillies is wearing a hennin. Which we previously saw on the damsel-in-distress Rarity in A Dog And Pony Show, which implies that ponies did wear these things at some point, or at least, modern ponies think they did. Incidentally, Good Night, Baby Flurry Heart also depicts Cadance’s princess character wearing it.
- Another one is wearing what has to be a spacesuit helmet – other kinds typically don’t come with antennae. See RTAC #9
- Granny Smith “should have been asleep five hours ago.” So what time is it?… Also, I don’t think she’s that anxious to go to sleep on the next Nightmare Night in Scare Master.
- All three fillies are wearing decorated pouches for candy on their necks. The princess one has a pouch with a Pacman ghost on it.
- Pipsqueak is wearing a pirate costume. The interesting thing about it is the eye patch: I’m pretty sure that’s not a pony skull painted on it, looks quite humanoid – and I am sure because other decorations in town do include different shapes of skull. This costume also, notably, comes with a sword, probably the first sword seen on screen, and Pipsqueak wields it with his teeth rather than hooves.
- “It’s my very first Nightmare Night.” “Since you moved here from Trottingham?” “No, my very first Nightmare Night ever!” They don’t celebrate Nightmare Night in Trottingham – otherwise, Pip could not have avoided a prior celebration. But Twilight did not know that they don’t celebrate it in Trottingham, or at least, did not remember that immediately.
- “Too old for free candy? Never.” I’m pretty sure it’s not candy that Pinkie is so anxious to have…
- Big Mac is apparently giving ponies rides in his cart. His costume also includes a skull – and this one is stylized to look like an apple and definitely isn’t a pony skull either.
- The celebration is very unambiguously connected to Nightmare Moon, with her face and distinctive eyes present on decorations everywhere. So why didn’t ponies recognize her instantly back in Friendship is Magic?…
More notable costumes:
- A lion. Lions exist.
- A pacman-style ghost.
- Someone is wearing a horned helmet that has to be meant to portray a yak.
1. I don’t see Twinkleshine for some reason.
Minuette is dressed up as some manner of doctor, while Lemon Hearts is a mouse.1
- A conical witch hat on a pegasus.
- Carrot Top is wearing what to our eyes, at least, looks like a demon costume – high collar, horns and a pointy arrow tail. This is actually bigger than it sounds: “Demon” might or might not be a thing, but similar visual imagery is.
- Sassaflash is dressed up as what we later found out was Cleopatrot.
- Rainbow Dash is dressed as a Shadowbolt. Not only this is a reference hardly anyone should recognize – unless she’s been telling the story to the entire town, because nobody except her saw them – but I wonder what made her think this was a good idea.
- Applejack is dressed as a scarecrow. No idea if she is referencing the Wonderful Wizard of Oz or not, but probably not – otherwise the Great and Powerful Trixie would get laughed at.
- Derpy’s costume is a bunch of paper bags.
- There’s a filly dressed up as Frankenstein’s Monster.
- And another one in a traditional US-style fireman helmet. I’m pretty sure they don’t use helmets quite like these anywhere else in our world.
- The spa and the beauty salon are still in the main town square.
- There’s a paper cup with a plastic cover and drinking straw that Pinkie leaves in her wake.
- The tennis player guy is not costumed for some reason.
- Applejack thinks the beard is an attribute of a country music singer.
- Zecora – still at least technically an outsider, she doesn’t even live in town! – is given the task of telling the children their own local legend. (!)
- So where is the ritual of feeding the statue happening? In Everfree? The forest ponies don’t come back from? We haven’t seen that statue before, when it is a perfect match for Nightmare Moon. Seeing how nobody recognized her when she did appear, and how, during the battle with Celestia, no spectators were present in Princess Twilight Sparkle, this has to be new.
- Zecora is capable of making powders that produce animated optical illusions – at least, nobody else ever does it like that, so I’m assuming that’s her own ability.
- Zecora’s story is the first suggestion that Nightmare Moon actually wanted to eat anyone, but the entire story – and the feed-her-candy ritual, which we later find out is not new – is based on that idea. Costumes hide ponies from her, candy placates her. And something’s not right here, because I don’t quite see how this legend could arise in the first place.
- This is a special moon asset.
- Luna explicitly chose the most dramatic moment and place to appear – wherever this place is, it’s relatively secluded. Her chariot drivers are diving sharply, unlike any pegasi observed driving chariots otherwise. The wheels of her chariot are still spinning, but the pegasi are not moving their legs, once again, unlike pegasi driving chariots in some other manner. She’s wearing a cape with a hood, and that cape later dissolves into bats. There’s no way this wasn’t deliberate start to finish.
- Much has been imagined on the subject of thestrals / batponies / nocturnes / whatever. But see The Cutie Re-Mark – while the script, supposedly, did originally imply these were a special tribe of pony, later canon has been steadily making it more and more impossible. Unfortunately, it has to be a uniform.
- So I can guess why the children run scared, and why Pinkie does, but why does Zecora?
- When the chariot relocates to the town square, neither the drivers’ legs nor the wheels move…
- “Citizens of Ponyville!” Notice, not “subjects.”
- “We have graced your tiny village with our presence, so that you might behold the real Princess of the Night!” Luna sees Ponyville as a “tiny village,” even though it can’t be particularly tiny for her time.
- “A creature of nightmares no longer, but instead a pony who desires your love and admiration!” Considering the very calculated manner she appeared in, I wonder, it was almost like she was setting herself up to fail, and yet she is surprised at the reaction once Pinkie triggers the crowd.
- “What? No, children, no! You no longer have reason to fear us!” Notice that Luna dropped the Royal Canterlot Voice for this phrase long before Twilight called her on the volume.
- Luna does have earth pony strength. At least, she can crack the earth with a hoof without even noticing.
- Raven Inkwell – a pony the primary canon associates with Celestia otherwise – is also here, next to the mayor, and wearing a demon costume. My guess is, she went ahead of Luna on official business…
- “We won’t even bother with the traditional royal farewell.” There was such a thing as a traditional royal farewell.
- Luna can, apparently, manipulate clouds just by speaking, with no visible aura of any kind. Later on, lightning.
- Notably, Luna doesn’t just recognize the Star Swirl costume, but straight up addresses Twilight as the costume. She has to have been briefed on what people actually do on the Nightmare Night and why for this to happen.
- “But this is the traditional royal Canterlot voice! It is tradition to speak using the royal”we“, and to use this much volume when addressing our subjects!” See the whole debacle regarding Royal Canterlot Voice in the Journal.
- “We have been locked away for a thousand years.” So this time, Luna describes her state as “locked away,” but what exactly was going on?
- Fluttershy recognizes Luna as Nightmare Moon first, and then goes scared. If anything, the sight of the actual Nightmare Moon is probably not familiar to her. Fluttershy has no luck with princesses at all, has she?
- Twilight is capable of dragging Fluttershy out using telekinesis alone.
- Pinkie appears and the first thing she says – well before she has a chance to hear Luna speak in a normal voice, because Luna uses RCV for the entire time she was hugging Fluttershy, and Pinkie is approaching from a distance! – is “She stole Fluttershy’s voice so she can’t scream when she gobbles her up!”
- “Fun? What is this ‘fun’ thou speakest of?” Probably the most linguistically controversial phrase of the entire episode.
- “Since you choose to fear your princess rather than love her, and dishonor her with this insulting celebration, we decree that Nightmare Night shall be canceled! Forever!” See RTAC #12.
- “But I wanted to be a zombie next year.” Zombies are a thing.
- Visual gag or no, but when Rainbow interferes with her cloud and lightning, Pinkie lays Spike’s egg.
Mayor Mare says, “What’s Nightmare Night without the annual candy offering?”
- Nightmare Night is definitely an annual celebration.
- Candy offering is not a new practice.
- Luna uses some manner of illusion magic to look like Nightmare Moon again. But for whatever reason, this magic does not cover the teeth – she uses fake teeth.
- …but where did the statue go while she was doing that? Because while Twilight is dictating her report, the statue is back on the pedestal.
- The report to Celestia in the end of the episode is given by Twilight, which at least makes it easy to backdate it where it should be, in Autumn 1.
- Rainbow is not above being scared and running away in terror, no matter what she says.
Scary butt fun.
The episode works very well at face value – but once you start digging, a lot of things are really weird.
- Rarity is somehow missing from the festivities entirely. Where is she?… And yes, I know the Doylist reason, what’s the Watsonian?
- The entire sequence of Luna’s appearance is precisely calculated to be dramatic and scary and is ridiculously well timed and placed. And yet, once everyone is properly scared, Luna is surprised.
- Pinkie continually rousing children into running away is well timed, as expected from Pinkie, but the incident at Fluttershy’s cottage is really weird – there is no way Pinkie could know that Luna “stole Fluttershy’s voice,” and even if she did anyway through her mysterious party pony powers, saying that did not really add anything to the situation for the children, but clearly hurt and/or annoyed Luna.
Could all these oddities be connected?…
One of the most notable things about Star Swirl is that in this episode, he has a shelf in the Canterlot library named after him. By "It's About Time," he has an entire wing. From this, I can only conclude that he is still actively doing things at some point in time and space, and his legend is still retroactively growing as he continues to maintain or improve the timeline.
Do I even want to know what you're implying there? I'm not sure and I'm not sure if I want to be.
On the other hand, she does dress as a lion in "Scare Master." If she dresses as a tin pony during the next Nightmare Night episode...
I'll concede that canon has not been friendly to batponies... but I'll still note that those wings were moving. Illusion is possible, yes, but so to is physical transformation.
I'd like to note that Luna cites this as the reason why she might have trouble with volume control. Possibly implying that she was screaming the entire time, in whatever capacity she could.
Not at all necessarily. Twilight could file friendship reports post-"Lesson Zero" just as readily as she could beforehand. I agree that that's the most likely timeframe for this episode, but I do feel the need to caution you on this correlation.
As for Pinkie declaring Luna stole Fluttershy's voice, I'm pretty sure she was just riffing off of the first thing she saw, a dazed Fluttershy in Luna's forelegs.
My favorite theory (though I no longer remember who first proposed it) is that they’re just uplifted bats. The same spell from “The Best Night Ever” that turned mice into mouse-pony hybrids, here turned a pair of bats into bat-pony hybrids. They disappeared after Luna’s entrance because she didn’t need them anymore, so she let them transform back.
And it’s explicitly canon that Luna has experience in transmogrifying bats, since we can see that she made a cape out of them as well.
That’s Dinky right there.
I remember when the MLP mobile game included Dinky in response to fan requests, they featured her with this episode’s fireman costume, and named her Fire Chief. And that’s the closest she’s ever come to being named in an official source.
4624861
…All I was implying was that Pinkie wants to run around pretending to be a chicken. Get some soap and wash your mind. :)
So were Fluttershy’s wings in Scare Master.
Voice, and not something else, is a lot of coincidence.
4624865
That’s really clever, but The Cutie Re-Mark clashes with it pretty hard, with Rainbow turning up among them.
…On the other hand, Rainbow as an uplifted bat…
Ow, poor thing.
On the subject of thestrals, real or costumed gag, they've still refused to give any indication that Luna has any entourage of her own, even as late as "A Royal Problem". There are no fright-night-costumed guards following her around, not even any Raven Inkwell-esque sidekicks or stewards or senechals. All this time, and Luna's still a loner. What the hay, Celestia!
4624865 Actually I think (can't check because it's in a book I didn't buy) that the bat-winged ponies are a race that was fighting with the dragons way back when, until Celestia/Luna made some sort of peace treaty with them. Then again, book-canon is not cartoon-canon which is not comic-canon.
(I still used the concept for my 1940 story I'm writing, though.)
Selling or letting last-minute costumes, for all ages
and for not-all ages.
It'd be a real moneymaker night; not one she can yet afford to pass up for expanding her empire.
The weird thing is, Raven’s an earth pony here in Ponyville. Fast forward to “The Crystal Empire”, and Raven is spontaneously a unicorn while working as Celestia’s aide. Then fast forward even more to “Filli Vanilli”, and Raven’s suddenly an earth pony again, and now working as Mayor Mare’s aide.
Either Raven leads a very, very interesting life, or the earth pony in Mayor Mare’s office is just a doppelgänger of the unicorn in Celestia’s court.
"“amniomorphic spell” is a thing. Of course, nobody knows what that is."
From this episode, before later things were said increasing the prominence of Starswirl, I developed the hypotheses that Twilight's opinion of the scale of his importance is a minority one based on her having what would have been a birth defect if it wasn't corrected pre-birth with the amniomorphic spell.
...Hm. I wonder if Starswirl's rise from obscurity later in the series is actually because of Twilight? Maybe her dropping his name in the Hearth's Warming Eve play was something she added (though presumably with a historical basis). People (and, being in Canterlot, the audience probably included some pretty important people) saw the play, wondered who he was, and did some research, and he became a popular historical figure. I further wonder if anything got awkward in the vein of "Actually, Twilight, it wasn't really an accident that most people forgot about the mage who experimented with time travel, cutie mark and destiny alternation, and alicorn ascension...".
"And something’s not right here, because I don’t quite see how this legend could arise in the first place."
...Oh, right, she was defeated almost immediately in show canon. I was going to suggest something about using pony sacrifices to sustain magic keeping plants growing, and parents trying to convince their children that disguises to hide and working hard hard to "buy candy for her" (pay taxes, since the ponies she finds more useful alive are less likely to be selected) were fun games. Then that would get gradually mutated down the generations as the danger receded further and further into the past.
As it is, though... yeah, where did that come from?
"The entire sequence of Luna’s appearance is precisely calculated to be dramatic and scary and is ridiculously well timed and placed. And yet, once everyone is properly scared, Luna is surprised."
...Maybe it was traditional to make an intimidating display, to show what Equestria's enemies would face and reassure the people?
I mean, getting to dress up is nice and all, but everyone knows
HalloweenNightmare Night is all about the candy, man.I figure Luna was given a brief on the holiday, and what it entails. Her problem is that she does not, until the end, realize that the yelling and screaming is an indicator of delight, even after Twilight tells her so. It isn't until Pipsqueak comes back for more that it finally sinks in.
Himself, working on it in his free time. You don't hang around Rarity for long without picking up a few tips on sewing.
I've often compared Star Swirl to Themistocles, and this is one of the reasons. If not for Themistocles, Western Civilization would probably have been stamped out by the Persians before it could come into its own. But more people know about his contemporary Leonidas, probably because that name is easier to remember. Sadly, importance in history does not necessarily confer popularity in the present.
Not to mention, if you can't cast unicorn magic, you have no practical reason to learn about somepony associated with it.
Nah--just a denser part of White Tail Wood, I'm sure.
Nobody says they did out loud, but I submit most were just too overwhelmed to comprehend the implications of what they were seeing. Everyone gasps when Twilight says the name, because that's what it takes for the truth to "click" with them. If we suppose for a moment that the Devil exists as a real entity, and he decided to crash a party, I imagine something similar would happen.
They're "citizens" of the town because they vote for their mayor, but "subjects" of Equestria for obvious reasons.
That's all I got. ^^
4624861
This actually works. Star Swirl is not just a time traveller (which is a common explanation for the many centuries his appearances cover), but one who's based somewhen still in the future and who continues to travel through history fixing things up.
4624945
Yes, Twilight re-popularizing him always struck me as an elegant solution, if one didn’t want to invoke even more time travel.
4624870
I honestly believe she likes it that way, and, importantly, always did.
4624887
Which book would that be?
4624889
…So Twilight didn’t even come to visit?
4624902
Or a twin. (And why not?)
But yeah, I missed that they are tribally distinct.
4624945
Considering that “amniomorphic” is usually translated as “shaped like a pot,” it would be some interesting birth defect.
That is an interesting theory. Though considering the Journal, there’s plenty historical basis, enough that anybody not recognizing Star Swirl becomes strange instead.
In the discussions for RTAC #10, a theory was put forward that the canonical appearance of the Nightmare Moon to fight Celestia is not her first appearance, but rather the last one – the moment when Celestia identified Nightmare Moon as being her sister – and she had some time to at least raise some hell before that.
That offers some wiggle room, but any theories for explaining the Ponyville traditions based on the idea that Nightmare Moon participated in organized oppression of any kind remain incompatible. Unless Celestia was the source of this oppression, i.e. Luna was her secret police chief. Which is kind of a stretch if you ask me, it brings too much human into pony, though it does work.
4624973
Well, I’m not everyone and they don’t celebrate either around here.
Now that is the best explanation offered so far.
4625305
Because it would be a pony-specific variation of Half-Identical Twins, a common fictional device that’s much, much rarer in reality. Since the two Ravens are different tribes, they aren’t identical twins. But fraternal twins shouldn’t look any more alike than any other pair of siblings. (For example: Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake.)
So for them to be twins, one of the Ravens must have mutated very early in gestation. Or a pony’s tribe is actually determined by complex interactions between their genetic code and other, unknown factors.
No, wait. That ship has already sailed. Ponified versions of the Lutece twins (from Bioshock Infinite) appeared in the background of “Trade Ya!”, so Half-Identical Twins are already a thing in FIM. Nevermind!
4625305
The candy thing is (partly) in jest. In more seriousness, candy is typically seen as Serious Business by children in areas where Halloween is a major celebration, such as the US. Pinkie's statement about candy is meant to highlight her childishness, I think.
4625305
Hmm...point. Twi normally would visit. However, she is also super-fangirl for the Princesses. And Luna recognized Swirlbells. "Talk to Historical Figure" easily stamps out "check up on new friend".
4625305
"Considering that “amniomorphic” is usually translated as “shaped like a pot,” it would be some interesting birth defect."
...Huh. I was not aware of that translation. I was relating "amnio" to "amniotic".
I wonder what a spell shaped like a pot would do?
"Though considering the Journal, there’s plenty historical basis, enough that anybody not recognizing Star Swirl becomes strange instead."
Ah, oh well.
"In the discussions for RTAC #10, a theory was put forward that the canonical appearance of the Nightmare Moon to fight Celestia is not her first appearance, but rather the last one – the moment when Celestia identified Nightmare Moon as being her sister – and she had some time to at least raise some hell before that."
Ooh, interesting.
"That offers some wiggle room, but any theories for explaining the Ponyville traditions based on the idea that Nightmare Moon participated in organized oppression of any kind remain incompatible. Unless Celestia was the source of this oppression"
Because she couldn't be too open about it?
4625367
Nothing except making Star Swirl a stealth pun: He’s a “Hairy Potter.”
It’s not exactly uncommon for people to think Luna was meant to deal with the dark side of government. However, it’s not all that canon-compatible, no matter how much sense it makes.
4625377
"Nothing except making Star Swirl a stealth pun: He’s a “Hairy Potter.”"
[obligatory groan]
:)
"It’s not exactly uncommon for people to think Luna was meant to deal with the dark side of government. However, it’s not all that canon-compatible, no matter how much sense it makes."
That's not what I meant; I was talking about why Nightmare Moon couldn't have participated in independent organized oppression in the scenario you proposed and guessing that it was because she couldn't act openly enough for it.
4625388
If Nightmare Moon existed and did anything while Luna was still on the throne, doing anything organized without getting caught would be exceedingly difficult unless Celestia herself sanctioned it, that’s what I meant.
4625390
Right; I think that that's the same thing I meant, with Nightmare Moon not being able to act openly enough to do anything much significant without too much risk of getting caught.
Sorry about the confusion.
Has anyone put forth the theory that Nightmare Moon had a Jekyll and Hyde influence on Luna? Like, NMM did enough bad stuff in her own identity to build up her legend, while Luna was at first unaware of and then unable to control her existence, and then eventually the Nightmare's influence grew so strong that it was able to talk Luna around to going up against Luna?
4625574
Not that I know of, but I did not make an exhaustive study of the fanfic portrayal of Nightmare Moon / Luna relationship. The one I see most often is rehashing of the idea that “Luna was jealous,” which I, as I mentioned before, don’t buy.
4625583
In that case, followup: with all the things we've got, how plausible is a Jekyll-Hyde?
4625584
Moderately. I’d say we have good grounds to think that Nightmare is an entity that is not originally Luna, and that Luna at least thinks she could resist this possession in the manner that one resists temptation. Canon leaves the issue relatively open to interpretation.
Interpret this as “she found she had a Hyde in her and thought she could squash it but did not” and it works.
Man you are rapid-firing these today!
I think whenever we see custom-made clothing in Ponyville, it's a pretty easy guess who made it.
Legendary Sword-wielding centaur pirates.
They probably thought some powerful psycho in a Nightmare Moon costume had somehow kidnapped Princess Celestia.
Correction: Tennis Player guy is always costumed.
He's the Disco Stu of Ponyville.
Slow cultural contamination from the Zebras? Even though Luna brought peace, she still seemed more of a friend to the Manticores than the Zebras in the journal. If Zebras could get some alicorn magic (or other form of dark magic) to jump-start their past-seeing potion, they could have been the ones who originally discovered what Nightmare Moon looked like, drew pictures and shared it around.
Based on the Chucklelot cartoon, I think Luna really was trying to intimidate the ponies a bit, she just thought they would be fairly scared, then when she announces this big feast, they'll be so releived they will go along with her command. Obviously she underestimated her intimidation.
A magic uniform, of course, but yes.
She probably made half the costumes in town, and collapsed from exhaustion this year. In future years she will plan better.
Pinkie wanted to anger Luna into chasing her, Pinkie isn't always good at reading the room.
4625377
Tricky. Luna does fly around defending the realm at night, she's certainly the best Princess to lead a Secret Police. On the other hand, it's pretty hard to be the head of the Secret Police and also the trusted face in dreams.
4626114
Only, I don’t think Rarity made the Star Swirl costume for Twilight… She wouldn’t get the bells “right,” that’s for sure.
Only, in Castle Mane-ia we find out that purely local legends about Nightmare Moon exist in Ponyville area which could not have existed until Ponyville was founded – which is far more recent than whenever Zebras could have managed the feat you describe.
That’s also an option.
…Or she was the one who orchestrated Luna’s entire entry shtick. And then she hid so that Luna wouldn’t eat her too when she realized Luna isn’t getting the reaction she wanted…
Should have consulted Trixie too.
Given that the showrunners put this line in Luna's first non-villainous canon appearance, and that it's a not insubstantial part of the episode that the ponies teach her how to enjoy herself, I am still salty at the ridiculous later implications that the Element of Laughter was Luna's.
(That was primarily in the much-lamented JOTS, iirc, but when we saw the gems divided between Luna and Celestia onscreen in the show, supposedly the laughter-colored one one went to Luna.)
Celestia realized that Luna wanted to make a dramatic entrance to the festivities, remembered the Sonic Rainboom episode, and realized that having a pony in town whose sole purpose in life is upstaging her friends would be the Worst. Possible. Thing. So she sent Rarity tickets to a prestigious Nightmare Night royal ball.
4624985
Fun Themistocles pony fact: According to Wikipedia, one of his two eldest sons, Neocles, died from a horse bite.
4626956
I've heard that the word "fun" has only existed for about three hundred years. Thus, it is a linguistic misunderstanding, rather than a conceptual one.
... There's a story idea here somewhere, but I don't know where.
4627293
The Journal disagrees with thee. It contains the word “fun” already. :) In general, no significant changes in the language appear to have taken place over the course of pony history, unless we’re assuming such a huge translation lens, that we’re better off ignoring spoken lines entirely.
And that’s why I said this is the most linguistically controversial line in the episode.
4627395
Actually, I'm surprised that you're not assuming a huge translation lens. The Journal takes place a millennium in the past; the same length of time between now and when Beowulf was written. Here are that book's opening lines, as they would have been pronounced in those days:
Now, if you translate Beowulf to modern English, it reads like a heroic-fantasy novella. But that doesn't mean you can't use it to learn things about the Nordic peoples of the time. The Journal is still useful.
Your next question will surely be, "How are Luna and Nightmare speaking in modern and semi-modern Equus?" I submit NMM was able to watch ponies' dreams while trapped in the moon, and pick up the language that way. But most or all of those memories were swept away in Luna's exorcism. Thus, NMM speaks almost like a modern pony, (though with a dramatic flair) while Luna at first talks like a Quaker.
Any holes in that?
4627425
The Crystal Empire disappeared at about the same time. Upon reappearance, the entire Mane 6, Cadance and Shining Armor, and even Spike converse freely with the crystal ponies without the aid of a translator or magic or anything visible, days after the reappearance. Yet Luna’s grammar exists.
If we assume translator microbes, Luna should speak completely normally as well. If we don’t assume translator microbes, crystal ponies should speak like Luna, they don’t.
Therefore, we should take the Journal at face or near-face value, and assume that language did not change significantly in a thousand years, and Luna’s habit of using archaic grammar is due to the tradition of using it in formal situations – and that grammar had already been archaic at the time.
4627441 4627425
This is one of the major reasons why I headcanon that Celestia made a deliberate effort to keep Equestria in cultural stasis during the thousand-year interregnum.
(Of course, there are occasional horrifying implications of that, as at least one Writeoff fic that I can remember has pointed out: if she was impeding technological and/or medical progress on Luna's behalf, think of how much needless death and suffering that caused…)
4627441
Aww... I shouldn't have asked that.
4628131
You don’t have to. The recipe for getting this situation is relatively simple:
If linguists don’t define “correct Equish” as “the way Princess Celestia speaks” in a hundred years, you don’t have enough moral authority, go back in time and repeat.
4628198
I would have told you the same even if you didn’t ask, it’s not like I never thought about it before. :)
4626114
Not always, no. A thought: Pinkie is usually quite good at reading ponies, but Luna's expressive tells are a millennium out of date. (Or, less interestingly, she never sees them because she's always running away.)