Aug
19th
2017
Points of Canon: S2x20 - It’s About Time · 5:07am Aug 19th, 2017
Monitor EVERYTHING!
- “rocky road garage…” While it is conceivable that ponies would keep carts and wagons somewhere and call it a “garage,” we have yet to see any such structure. Spike’s dream ice cream house doesn’t include anything that would obviously look like a garage either!
- “rocky road” is an ice cream flavor ponies have. Which, in our world, is attributed to a specific author.
- Remember the blanket from Secret of My Excess? Well, Spike’s not using it, it’s still his patched up blanket. Granted, in the mess, the new one might have gotten lost or damaged.
1. Sic. :P
“Three A.M.?” Pretty specific mention of time, that, see RTAC #13. Also, “A.M.” Ponylatin1 could be the origin of “ante meridiem,” I suppose.
- Twilight teleports casually just to end up in the frame.
- The tear-off calendar Twilight tosses to Spike shows just a “4” – notice the readable Arabic numerals – but we don’t know anything about which month is it. Spike does say that “We forgot to celebrate Arbor Day?” though. While we have no idea when ponies would have an Arbor day, in most places which do have one, it’s the day when citizens are encouraged to plant a tree. Since neither Twilight nor Spike are earth ponies, it would only make sense for them to do so during the natural tree planting season – i.e. in spring. So this is unambiguously a spring episode.
- It took Twilight at least three days of the month to finish planning a schedule for the month. Which kind of explains why she would require setting aside time to plan for the next month: Planning occupies 10% of her time or more!
- Twilight’s schedule has a 5x3 grid. See RTAC #13 for discussion of this and related issues.
- “I could move my meeting with the Ponyville Hay Board to the following Tuesday…” I have no good ideas for what would a “Hay Board” be doing, nor why would Twilight be meeting with it. Any takers?
- “The Art of Invisibility Spells” is a book title. Which presumably implies that invisibility spells exist. We didn’t see those in action all the way until To Where and Back Again. “Thornhoof’s Brief History of Canterlot” is another book title. Notice that reading both simultaneously would only net Twilight a half-hour window, which means that it would take Twilight half an hour to read either of these books.
- I’m not entirely sure where is all the paper coming from, here, but it almost looks like the Future Twilight is preceded by a stream of paper and books. Is she, or this is just an illusion (in the optical and cartoon resolution sense) and all these objects are temporally local? None of them disappear when the Future Twilight vanishes.
- “How can there be two me’s? It’s not scientifically possible. You are not scientifically possible!” This is actually an implication that Twilight is not yet familiar with the abilities of the changelings, and thus, A Canterlot Wedding can’t precede this episode, giving us a somewhat unexpected hard lock.
- “Is there some sort of epic pony war in the distant future or something?” Ponies at least consider the possibility of war. Also notice that in Twilight’s mind, a war is permitted to be epic, and not just horrible or tragic.
- “Actually, I’m from next Tuesday morning, but that’s not important right now!” Actually, what day is it today? They never spell it out clearly.
- “The time spells are in the Canterlot archives. … They’re in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing.” And that’s how the shelf mentioned in Luna Eclipsed suddenly became a wing and the “Canterlot library of magic” became “Canterlot archives.”
- Notice that Twilight calls the wound on Future Twilight’s face a “scar,” but once she receives it, it’s a “paper cut.”
- Canterlot Friends are in town again.
- The spa and the beauty salon are in their usual places.
- Fluttershy is doormatting today: Pinkie talked her into carrying so much party supplies that Fluttershy can’t move. Notice that we never know what the party was, or where.
- A volume of balloons roughly at about 80% of the volume of Pinkie herself is sufficient to give her neutral buoyancy in air. That’s no helium. Not even vacuum. That’s some kind of anti-gravity gas. We already knew ponies have something like that, though…
- Notice that the Doctor is laughing at Twilight getting visited by herself from the future along with the rest of the crowd.
- “Rainbow Dash, you and the other pegasi spread out over Equestria, and look for any kind of problem that could lead to a disaster, and I mean anything.” Rainbow takes off immediately, but notably, two pegasi remain in the crowd as if this doesn’t concern them at all.
- The disaster-proofing montage starts with patching up the dam. The crack in the dam is not identical to the one seen in The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well, but we know Applejack and Rarity didn’t patch up just one crack: By the time Applejack is shown patching up a crack, she already has her hair covered in cement, while Rarity is periodically cleaning that hair.
- Twilight’s disaster-proofing checklist contains at least 80 different items, and probably quite a few more.
- The full list of disaster-proofing measures shown directly is: Patch up the dam, ensure the water tower is full, reinforce bridge supports, clean slippery trash off the sidewalks, patch up cracks in library walls, trim Pinkie’s hair.
- Ponyville has paved sidewalks in some places.
- How exactly is trimming Pinkie’s hair supposed to help?
- “The perimeter’s clear.” This is actually a cute choice of words for something that hardly has a well-defined perimeter. Did they set up a watch or something?
- “And my team gave the all clear from Fillydelphia to Las Pegasus.” Notice no mention of north or south – neither Crystal Empire nor, say, Manehattan and Appleloosa are apparently included in this search. My guess is, Twilight eventually realized that disaster-proofing the entirety of Equestria is not practical with the forces that answer to her, and settled for something more reasonable.
- When Cerberus jumps out onto the street, two ponies are standing staring right at his middle face: Bon-Bon and Rare Find. Yes, the first guy Tirek is shown eating much later.
- Twilight recognizes Cerberus immediately and knows exactly what he is supposed to be doing: “guarding the gates of Tartarus.” Also notice the first use of Tartarus in the series. Also notice that Bon-Bon moved and is now staring at Cerberus from a window instead.
- “But if he’s here, then all the ancient evil creatures that have been imprisoned there could escape and destroy Equestria!” We never get a full list of the creatures that could possibly do so. The only creatures ever said to have been imprisoned inside are Tirek and the bugbear in Slice of Life. For some reason, the comics avoid the location.
- “Hey, Cerberus! You look like you could use some obedience training! Magic obedience training!” Twilight is strangely confident in, apparently, trying to force a monstrous dog – whose purpose is to keep monsters imprisoned – to obey her. I expect this is the one case where she would use a mind control spell without thinking twice, and this is the reason why she’s so confident.
- “I have balls stashed all over Ponyville, in case of ball emergency.” Is it just me, or this actually looks like Retroactive Preparation?
- Twilight leaves to return Cerberus “to the gates of Tartarus,” wherever exactly that is, guiding him with the said ball, and returns with the crows of the rooster, so, it takes her anywhere between five and ten hours. Upon returning she is dirty, disheveled, and claims “I got him back before any of the evil creatures could escape.” Now here’s a question: Did she count them?
- Also notice that Spike receives a letter immediately: “What’s the big deal, it’s just a ‘lost dog’ flyer. I guess the Princess hasn’t heard we found Cerberus yet.” I.e. as of this particular moment, Celestia is aware of the Cerberus leaving, not aware of Cerberus returning, but is definitely aware that Cerberus left his post at least once. These details will be very important once Twilight’s Kingdom is under the magnifying glass.
- I’m not sure if this groove in the floor is a visual gag or an actual phenomenon, it’s only there for this one scene..
- Spike likes ice cream, but apparently, gets stomache aches upon eating more than a certain amount. Which would actually be pretty strange if his physiology did not involve fire and high temperatures. Unless he’s lactose intolerant.
- “Hey, Twilight, another pegasus just got back from Baltimare with an all-clear and…” So the plan of fortifying the entirety of Equestria was scaled down, but not abandoned completely, and they’re still working their way up north.
- “Hey, Twilight! There’s a mouse right behind you!” So is Twilight supposed to be afraid of mice?…
- Spike breathes out a jet of green flame, which, nevertheless, scorches Twilight normally.
- “It’s Madame Pinkie’s place.” The entire setup for a divination business is quite elaborate, and I wonder if Pinkie actually does this with any sort of regularity, or it’s just a one time gag. The phrase “Do you like my mystical orb of fate’s destiny? I just got it.” seems to imply that the crystal ball is new, but most of the rest of the paraphernalia is not. Other interesting objects in the tent include a dreamcatcher, a box with a smaller crystal ball, a fold-out fan, and a very normal looking kerosene lamp. Not to mention quite a lot of books.
- “You will get a really cool birthday present next year.” I want to know what it was. Alas. Also notice that this phrasing suggests that in this calendar year, Twilight has already celebrated her birthday. Unfortunately, we do not know exactly when the calendar year starts.
- Even Pinkie comments that the flower pot crashing on Twilight’s head is inexplicable.
2. Sic! That’s actually what she says.
“Gosh, I haven’t seen Twilight since the flowerpot incident. Hope she still isn’t mad.”2 Was Pinkie expecting to catch Twilight before she changes her state from “not mad” to “mad,” (why would this even happen?) or did she misspeak and mean that Twilight had been mad after the flower pot hit her?
- Also, again, “Gosh.” Oh darn it all to heck.
- “Negative azimuth on the fourteenth moon…” Fourteenth moon of what exactly? What exactly would be the point of using a negative azimuth?
- “Can you help me recalibrate the apertures on the nine-and-quarter catadioptric telescopes?” Actually, only one out of the four telescopes in use at the time looks like a catadioptric telescope could, and that’s Twilight’s usual telescope. Notice that “nine-and-quarter” probably means inches of a diameter, and the telescope Twilight drags Pinkie towards just about matches.
- “I thought I saw something last night in the Horsehead Nebula…” Horsehead Nebula is a thing. Whether it matches ours or not remains uncertain, but since ponies do see the constellation of Orion pretty much unchanged, (see The Best Night Ever) it seems likely that this is the same nebula.
- Twilight uses a drawing compass. That’s about the only excuse they found in the series to show us one.
- Twilight spent three days setting up her monitoring without actually noticing the passage of time.
- The stealth suits used for infiltrating Canterlot Archives are the same basic design as the one used by Rainbow in Read it and Weep.
- “It’s not illegal to walk around Canterlot.” Actually, this is the only time the series uses the word “illegal.” For something to be illegal, there has to be a law.
- Canterlot Archives are somewhere next to the sculpture garden first seen in The Return of Harmony.
- Guards seen during this episode wear an interesting color variation on the standard Royal Guard armor, but are otherwise quite normal. Notice that all of those include a saddle, which is not true of every variation of the Guard uniform.
- Star Swirl the Bearded Wing is “the most secure section of the Archives.”
- Guards are using their horns for light.
- “Look at all those priceless magic scrolls. There are more than I ever imagined!” So how is it that Twilight has never visited this wing previously? Because that sure sounds like she never did.
- The guard is personally familiar with Twilight, and is sure she is to be permitted access to the locked room, even though Twilight was not so sure. Once Celestia comes by, she also makes no comment whatsoever regarding Twilight’s presence in an otherwise conspicuously locked section beyond “happy Tuesday!”. Even Twilight lampshades this with “Why isn’t anypony surprised to see me sneaking around in here?!” but abandons this train of thought immediately afterwards. This is actually quite suspicious. Celestia’s presence particularly so.
- You’d think Spike’s icecream would cause a complaint, though…
- The large hourglass in the middle of the room is suspiciously like the one Twilight has in her Canterlot apartment, as seen in Friendship is Magic.
- “But how do we find the time-stopping spell? There must be a million scrolls here!” “I. Don’t. Know!” Either Twilight knows there’s no catalog, or is too out of it to think of one. Which is it?
“It says you can go back once, and it only lasts for a few moments.” Notice that:
- It’s Pinkie voicing the “once” condition, and it’s never repeated again. We don’t know if she understood this correctly or not.
- We have direct observation of the “only lasts for a few moments” condition.
- There is no statement whatsoever regarding how far into the past one might travel with the use of this spell.
- There are no visible restrictions on where one might end up with the use of this spell.
There are few particular problems with this episode, – some inexplicable things about Celestia’s behavior, but hers is rarely cleanly explicable – except, well, Star Swirl, but the continuity consequences it has are quite significant:
- The incident with Cerberus leaving the gates of Tartarus is pretty explicitly connected with Twilight’s Kingdom and Tirek’s escape from Tartarus referred to therein.
- In The Cutie Re-Mark, Twilight immediately recognizes “Star Swirl’s spell” used to travel through time.
- Should this episode have preceded The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well, it would make the events of that episode impossible: Ponyville would be disaster-proofed up the wazoo.
First, I can't let this get away without a reference to Pineta's wonderful analysis of the equations on Twilight's blackboard, which reveals her first plan for disaster-proofing Equestria using special relativity. I won't quote it here so as not to ruin the buildup, but go over there and read it. Really. It's worth it.
On other notes...
I'm not sure - there're enough earth ponies around town that I think trees could grow just about anywhere.
Too bad she's not an alicorn, or we could say Cerberus is in the habit of obeying alicorns. (Except Nightmare Moon? Maybe?)
Alternatively, I wonder if Celestia ever took her faithful student for a field trip to the gates of Tartarus - perhaps they've met before?
4640034
Arbor days are typically nation-wide things, meant to enable everyone to participate independently, though.
It’s possible, even rather likely – but we don’t know and nothing of the sort is ever referred to, so it’s a blank spot for a story.
Parallelism (in three parts even) to foreshadow the lesson that Twi ultimately learns. Twi exaggerates the severity of the wound on her future self’s face. Then she exaggerates how hard it will be to get into the Canterlot Archives. So when we realize Twi also exaggerated the severity of her future self’s warning, it feels like the logical conclusion, not a copout.
“Hahaha, time travel! That’s ridiculous, and certainly not something that actually happens! I’ve definitely never time-traveled myself! Hahaha!”
Seriously though, if Time Turner is a time traveler, I have to assume that he spoke to Twilight in private immediately after this scene. He probably listened to her story, figured out that she was in a ”You Already Changed the Past” loop, and tried to tell her not to worry too hard about it. Which obviously didn’t help Twi at all.
On the subject of a Hay Board. American agricultural corporatist concerns have 'boards' that are used to coordinate marketing, self-tax to fund said marketing, and generally act like a legal cartel. Virginia for instance has a Corn Board, a Small Grains Board, and there's a Milk Board out there somewhere. They're your typical "everyone gets some representation at the table" Progressive-era corporatism, but the majority will be big producers. A Ponyville or even an Equestrian Hay Board should be at least 80% farmers, and mostly concerned with marketing.
Maybe Twilight has opinions on advertising or dietary recommendations? We know she's a fiend for hay burgers.
I'd say it either regulates or promotes the interests of Ponyville's hay farmers. (That is, it may regulate the farmers, not their interests.) No idea why Twilight would meet with them. Maybe they were so impressed by how she handled Winter Wrap-Up that they want her on board as an advisor.
Or she's storing weight in her ironminds.
Sorry, been reading Mistborn novels. Though Pinkie having the ability to control gravity's effects on her would explain a lot. (cf. Amending Fences.)
When Pinkie's hair gets unmanageable, it really gets unmanageable.
Given how this has to take place before the wedding, I think we can be confident that the Crystal Empire hasn't yet returned.
The question then is how Pinkie will set it up. The time travel spell only works once, and she needs to set up the ball here and the eyepatch in Twilight's library. I'm not sure if one casting gives enough time for that, even for Pinkie.
Not so strange beyond a certain amount. I've definitely eaten enough ice cream to make me sick in the past.
Uh, whether you're going by US or Equestrian geography, Baltimare is southeast of Fillydelphia.
I'd say it was Celestia exercising caution after the Sunset Shimmer debacle, but what follows afterwards puts the kibosh on that. Maybe Twilight just assumed that she wasn't allowed in the most secure wing of the archives.
Other than seeing the spell in action and Twilight getting pulled back to her proper time after a short while.
I'm still in favor of this episode relegating Mare-Do-Well to an alternate timeline.
4640149
Oh, right.
…Wait, so what is the region covered by “all clear from Las Pegasus to Fillydelphia,” then?…
The interesting question is why did she assume that.
Which is exactly what I said?
4640154
Looking at the map, it's a coast-to-coast, minimally north-to-south strip of the country that includes much of the Everfree and some of Ghastly Gorge. Assuming, of course, that the map is even remotely to scale.
Ohhh. Sorry, with all of the negative statements in that sublist, I must have seen a "don't" in that item where there was none. Oops.
4640149 That doesn't sound like Twilight. Well, okay, she's paranoid about Celestia's displeasure, but I don't see her just assuming she isn't allowed in a library. Maybe Celestia was exercising caution and keeping her away, but something else (maybe Luna's return? Or Twilight finally making friends?) caused her to change her mind?
Did you account for the lift-gas-bearing mane and tail Pinkie sports? They audibly deflate, after all.
Keeping the eldritch gods with portals to Elsewhere in their manes appeased is important!
somehow I don't htink she thought twice in "Lesson Zero".
I don't know, how do you get a negative length? That aside, -π to π can work as well as 0-2π for angles…except being more prone to sign error.
And distinct from Pnkie's from "Not Asking for Trouble".
4640554
They would only contribute significantly if they were also full of the same anti-gravity gas.
4640568
I was trying to imply that, yes. Also, hasn't she been able to inflate balloons with lift gas (whether anti-gravity or no) by exhaling?
Interestingly for anyone who cares about the limits of Equestrian magic, this also implies that, prior to this incident at least, there are no cloning spells within Twilight's knowledge. This could also possibly serve as a chronology lock setting this episode before Too Many Pinkie Pies, since otherwise Twilight Sparkle would probably think about the Mirror Pool and the possibility that one of them is a clone.
4640627
Good point, I do believe this is a hard lock.
Agree on the timelocks.
The doctor is laughing becuase if he believes Twilight, it's just invalidated his life's work. Give it time to sink in...
The hope is that if the volume of the mane is decreased, whatever eldritch objects get pulled through it also decrease.
"I thought I was retired, but they keep pulling me back for one more job!" Actually, you have to wonder why she didn't think to go check on Tartarus at this point, just to make sure the Bugbear is still secure.
Obviously not. I think she's making a hopeful statement hear. Also, do we think this is when the Bugbear escaped, or did he do so separately?
Did we ever decide if Pinkie gets paid to plan parties? Because if not, I could see this as a side gig to bring in extra money, similar to how Rarity probably use to do mane styling. Of course, once the twins are born the Cakes need Pinkie to pick up more shifts at SugarCube Corner, so this tapers off.
My guess is that Twilight is too busy to go to the library herself when she can just send Spike.
So this episode took up a week to 11 days (i.e. next Tuesday, not this Tuesday). And it looks like the entire town spent all day every day working on Twilight's disaster preparedness.
While we're at it, another way for there to be 2 Twilights is if a Twilight came over from Pedestria, which makes this a hard lock before the 1st movie. I mean, the lack of wings does that anyway, but still.
4640902
Actually, upon further meditation, I must conclude that Rarity simply insisted that fashion disasters also count as something that needs prevention.
Which is probably why she isn’t around when Twilight becomes a fashion disaster herself: Overworked.
No idea, to be honest. Not enough information to decide anything conclusively. Bon-Bon’s tirade to Lyra is senseless by itself, especially coupled with what Bon-Bon does for the rest of the episode. My current opinion is that while she did, and possibly still does work for a covert government organization, – they’ve got their own chapter book, that has to count for something – everything else she said that one time is pure bullshit, told to prevent Lyra from finding out what she was really doing while the rest of town was running around in chaos, a backwards sort of coming-out.
Speaking of chaos, I wonder, how did Discord miss that?…
There is no consensus on how party planning pays.
Diamond Tiara is on record saying that “I demanded all the best, I suppose she passed the test” – and I think it implies that at least this one time, party planning was a paid service. Since it refers to a cute-ceañera, I think we can assume that in the general case, planning private parties is a paid service, and public parties run on some kind of volunteer chip-in arrangement.
In any case, party planning pays pretty penny – Pinkie sports more customized equipment than any member of the Mane 6.
A bit too obviously redundant, that. :)
4641513
Was it really chaos though? Lots of activity, but it was mainly the ponies of Equestria working together to disaster-proof the place. To me that comes off more as an exercise in order than anything, decreasing localized entropy and all that.
I think private parties are a paid service, new-to-Ponyville parties and parties thrown for Pinkie's closest friends she pays for, which is part of why she needed the side gig when she already had room and board from the Cakes. I suspect Pinkie's parties are like 40% of the Cake's business, either the ones she pays for herself, or through her customers, part of why they are so tolerant of her shenanigans.
4641785
I meant Slice of Life.
4641850 Fair point. He probably wants to avoid Bugbears though, as an issue of paternity.
4640627 4640633 Also, a hard lock setting it before Canterlot Wedding, or Twilight would assume Other Her is a changeling.