Aug
19th
2017
Points of Canon: S2x21 - Dragon Quest · 2:15pm Aug 19th, 2017
Ah, the evil teenagers episode.
- Wait, since when the grass around Ponyville is blue in any way? Anywhere?
- Contrary to what you would expect, which is mimicking bipedal behavior for no rhyme nor reason, Pinkie and Applejack are digging the trench using short spades while holding them in their teeth.
- “But Fluttershy, the great dragon migration happens only once in a generation!” Unfortunately, we never know whose generation did Twilight mean. But this event is probably not seasonal in nature based on that. In fact, why would dragons need to migrate at all? And what happens to their stationary hoards while they are migrating? None of them are shown hauling any baggage.
- Twilight teleports casually just to avoid talking to Fluttershy across Rainbow’s shoulder.
- “Look, Fluttershy, I watched that boring butterfly migration with you, so now it’s your turn to watch the dragon migration with me!” It would be very interesting to know when exactly did that happen, but alas. Notice that there are photos of the event more likely than not taken by someone else, which only feature Rainbow and Fluttershy.
- Having run away, Fluttershy disappears and never turns up for the rest of the episode.
- Twilight is wearing a helmet which is, once again, only effective against shrapnel. This particular time, though, it could just be a helmet-shaped soft hat…
- The color of the camouflage used by the Mane 6 does not match the blue grass at all. Rarity’s camouflage colors are in fact a better match for this particular hiding spot.
- Twilight uses a spell to get rid of confetti dispersed in the air and the red carpet Rarity rolled in. Where did those things go?
- Unlike everypony else, Rarity uses opera glasses.
- One of the dragons does a loop above the trench for no obvious reasons rather than showing off. So they’re not particularly hidden, are they? In fact, when the next dragon attacks another dragon with the breath weapon and Rainbow gets singed, wouldn’t it be more prudent not to be hidden? Dragons are sapient, after all.
- Spike can blush. And this isn’t just a visual device, because Rarity refers to his delightful shade of red.
- “For the last time, Spike, you were given to me as an egg. I don’t know who found you or where they found you.” Which is something to keep in mind.
- “It’s hard to believe, but ponies know next to nothing about dragons. Apparently they’re too rare and too scary to try to talk to or study!” This statement has been with us for all this time, and we imagined sprawling dragon empires anyway. Then it was reinforced by Gauntlet of Fire, but it’s not like we changed anything, did we?
- Twilight teleports both Rainbow and Spike simultaneously, changing their orientation (!) and separating them from Spike’s bindle, even though both are holding on tightly.
- Where, exactly, is the migration going, that Spike has to cross mountains covered in snow to get there?
- One leg of Spike’s journey is performed on a raft driven by the very obvious Cranky Doodle – who is wearing the toupee that got destroyed in A Friend in Deed. In all other appearances he was wearing the toupee Rarity made for him, which is blond. I figure this requires this episode to precede A Friend in Deed.
- Spike’s journey had to have taken some time, but with all the tongue-in-cheek portrayal we have no clue how far did he have to go, or for how long.
- Spike identifies teenage dragons as such immediately upon seeing them, even though he has no way to determine how old they actually are. What’s his logic, anyway?
- Notice that the dragon costume exposes Rainbow’s wings for some reason, even though they can’t fly in it, and Rarity had to take the place of the dragon’s rear end.
- Garble explicitly points out that Spike doesn’t have any wings – when every other dragon shown does. However, they do not declare him a non-dragon based on that, for them it’s just an excuse to laugh at him, but nothing else. Being too much like a pony is a more significant criterion.
- “You fly in on your mommy’s back during the migration?” Could this possibly be a thing?
- “No, no, can’t you see baby Spike just hatched? I bet he still sucks his claw at night!” Why exactly would dragons be doing anything like that?
- Dragon entertainment seen during this episode includes: Belching contests, tail wrestling, king of the
hillhoard, lavadivingcannonball. - Since the belching contest invariably results in flame breath, I expect we can conclude that the source of the high temperature and the flame in dragon breath is the digestive system, rather than lungs.
- All three dragons participating in the belching contest produce different colors of flame.
“From the desk of Princess Celestia. Dear Spike, please te… Ha! Get this, guys! Spike’s pen-pals with a namby-pamby pony princess!” Actually, there’s a lot of interesting things in that one phrase.
- Garble can read Equish. Not at all a given!
- The way the letter starts implies that it probably isn’t written by Celestia herself, but rather, is merely sent the same way she sends her mail to Twilight, despite what Garble says and Twilight later assumes: Princess Celestia wouldn’t mark her letters with “from the desk of Princess Celestia,” would she?
- The letter itself starts with “Dear Spike, please te[ll]…” – i.e. it most likely requests Spike to pass a verbal message on to someone else, and that is probably not Twilight – otherwise, it would be addressed to her directly. Alternatively, it’s a query for more information from Spike directly, and in this case we can say nothing at all regarding the contents.
- Garble is not at all surprised by Spike belching up a letter, he just picks it up and reads it, which suggests that dragonfire mail is not a Spike-unique phenomenon. In fact, the use of the word “penpals” implies the idea of sending letters is generally well known among teenage dragons.
- Dragon teenagers are not of a high opinion of Celestia and aren’t afraid of her, though we know nothing regarding the opinion dragon adults have.
- “I think he’s Crackle’s cousin.” Dragons keep track of families sufficiently strictly to have the concept of a cousin. Notice that the camera shows the said Crackle as this line comes up – who is also an unusual dragon, having eight legs, wings, and no arms. Looks like dragon phenotype is quite varied, at least in early life.
- It’s rather strange that the entire king of the hoard contest treats those mounds of mostly-gems as worthless communal property. That doesn’t sit well with the whole concept of greed as a driving force behind the dragon psyche.
- The term “lava cannonball” implies that dragons know what cannonballs are.
- The activity itself clearly demonstrates dragons survive temperatures of 700-1200°C with no ill effects, and can swallow it readily.
- In addition to the aforementioned, Spike survives a fall of something like twenty meters onto an effectively solid (that is, this lava behaves as a non-Newtonian liquid) surface with no ill effects.
- Garble performs the motions of an accolade with his tail as he dubs Spike a “rookie dragon.”
- “…and will now perform the initiation ritual.” The only use of the word in the entire series!
- “Y’know, Spike, I think you just might be ready for a real dragon raid.” And this is, apparently, what dragons do all the time. At least, we know of nothing else.
- “The eggs have hatched.” “What do we do now?” “We take the hatchlings, of course!” Actually, would this dialog happen if dragons were planning to eat the eggs? What was the purpose of this raid anyway? Just smashing the eggs? Hardly sounds like a “real dragon raid.” Does something interesting happen if you smash a phoenix egg?
- The exact mechanism by which the phoenix stops Garble and company is rather unclear.
- Notice that this one time, all three girls adopt a bipedal stance to fight the dragons for some reason.
- Twilight actually fails to teleport four targets at once the first time she tries, but succeeds on the second attempt. However, the second attempt has them emerge in a completely different forest, so the initial failure is probably the result of extra distance, rather than the number of targets.
- Spike ends the episode writing a Lesson Zero-pattern letter to Celestia, but does not refer to the events as having happened today. However, the egg hatches the moment he finishes writing. Since all the other eggs hatched while Spike was there, it means that the events are likewise very recent.
- This is the first appearance of the picture of Spike sitting in his egg shell together with the smiling Twilight. This picture is itself quite dubious, as I mentioned before – Friendship is Magic #40 implies and Cutie Mark Chronicles largely agrees that they were separated immediately after the hatching, and certainly, it did not happen on a table.
- The next picture clearly refers to the events of Luna Eclipsed, because the costumes match the ones Spike and Twilight wore then.
- The third picture depicts Twilight, Rainbow and Spike drinking cider. While you would expect it to refer to the events of Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, this is not necessarily so, as no such scene occurs during that episode, and it could conceivably refer to any other cider drinking occasion.
- The fourth picture is the most unusual. It depicts a scene in Canterlot, with all the Mane 6 attending, during daytime, and with a banner with a birthday cake with a single candle on it. Spike pasted himself into the corner, presumably because he was holding the camera which wasn’t equipped with an auto-shutter. However, whose birthday is it? It can’t be the Twilight’s birthday from Sweet and Elite, because that party started in evening, and Rarity left the next morning. There’s no reason why it would be Spike’s birthday, either, and anyway, just one candle is suspicious. When was that?…
- This episode introduces Peewee, poor thing.
Dragons, how do they even work? This episode creates far more questions about dragon biology and culture than it answers.
It's possible that dragons magically transport their hoards in the same way Spike keeps his business cards on claw in "Spike at Your Service."
We do see a camera timer in "Apple Family Reunion," but I agree that odds are there was someone else. I'd be tempted to say it was Tree Hugger, but Fluttershy only met her while she was away during "Three's a Crowd."
"Given to me as an egg" is certainly an interesting way of saying "Presented to me as a Kobayashi Maru scenario."
If I had to guess, I'd say they're between his size and that of an adult dragon, so they're probably between the respective ages as well.
The claw-sucking does raise a number of questions. I hadn't thought about it, but that is a mammalian reflex.
Yeah, dragons make little to no sense. I blame their insanely magical biology. That does nasty things to common sense (and, in Crackle's case, basic anatomy.)
4640283
The volume involved would be rather huge, why would Spike ever need a bindle in this case?
This episode is all about not hurting Spike’s feelings in the first place. :)
Spike also says he hasn’t done it “for months,” when he’s at least ten years old…
So the Fillydelphia enclave came pre-Jossed.
Dragon's Milk.
Contraindicated by the flame-sneezes that Spike has done at various times…and that Ember does in s7e15 "Triple Threat". Also semi-contraindicated by the visibly gaseous belch from s1e9 "Bridle Gossip".
There's the 'apparently' part of the statement, and the fact that ponies' lack of knowledge on griffons, zebras, to a lesser extent yaks and large chunks of their own history doesn't exactly fill anyone with confidence that ponies know what they're talking about.
4640300
Spend enough time with a species who can't store all their possessions in another dimension inside your mouth, and you start carrying things like they do.
If Celestia’s office/court uses stationary with a pre-written header, then either Celly herself or one of her underlings could have written this. And Garble read the header—like someone unfamiliar with modern publishing might start a book by reading the entire copyright page, and wonder why the book’s so boring.
Although it would be kind of weird for standardized stationary with letterheads to look this weathered already. Almost as weird as the way the act of crumpling it up turns the letter white.
I’d seen speculation that this burnt letter was supposed to be Twilight’s personalized notice, before the impersonal invitation, that Shining Armor was getting married. Not sure if that really fits with these details.
“Dear Spike, please tease Twilight about that face she makes when she’s trying to solve a math problem. Seriously, it’s hilarious. Sincerely, Princess Celestia”
“Dear Spike, please team up with Twilight to solve the Rieponny Hypothesis. I can’t say too much now, but it’s critical that it be solved as quickly as possible. Twilight will need your help more than you realize. Sincerely, Princess Celestia from one month in the future”
“Dear Spike, please tear up some paper immediately! Tell everypony around you to start tearing up paper! We’ve got a dangerous confetti shortage here! Love, Pinkie Pie”
Dragon teenagers. I'd wager Garble and his buddies are in their 70s.
With the once-a-generation line, my guess is this is when dragons migrate together to produce the next generation.
It might be a dominance thing. Dragons don't feel like they need to attack cowering ponies, because clearly those ponies know who is boss. Ponies who are ignoring them, on the other hand...
This is indeed important. It implies pretty strongly that Spike is considered Twilight's pet/child/property from egg stage on. This is basically confirmed by comics, but important to track in the show.
Most fanfiction I read actually predicted dragons fairly well. They have a rudimentary society and leader, but not a lot of fancy cities or anything.
The later Equestrian map strongly suggests Spike took that raft across the Celestial sea, to "Dragon's Lair" the only shown volcano. Given the size of the map, this thing must have been mulptiple weeks, even a month, even if Spike took a train to Baltimare.
Bigger than him, smaller than the one adult he's seen up close.
Yeah, that whole "Song of Sylex" phase we went through where Celestia could take on an army of dragons has been pretty beaten up by canon, between Celestia being warfed and teenage dragons being able to split boulders with their fire.
Maybe when the eggs hatch down the line the fingerlings will eat these, and until then they are considered worthless?
Agreed, because this different forest was probably on the other side of the Celestial Sea.
4640283
I wonder how much Spike is told about the entrance exam? It's probably not fun to know you were an accident like that.
4640300
Like most things dragon, power increases with age. It also explains why that red dragon took off so fast in S1.
4640638
Equestrian investment in anthropology is rather lacking.
A common visual mistake here. Despite flowing like the liquids we're familiar with, lava is still basically the same density as rock. Falling on it would feel like falling onto rock (that also set you on fire). Swimming through it would be like swimming through solid rock (that also sets you on fire).
While it's possible that the animators are telling is something interesting about Equestrian geology and dragon physiology, it's more likely they just copied what they saw elsewhere.
4640936
In this case, dragon migrations would only happen once or twice in the entire history of Equestria, wouldn’t they?
Considering the dearth of humans, that’s not surprising, is it. :)
4641206
Maybe every century. Or maybe it's just the regular mating cycle for dragons, which occurs every 15-20 years, a pony generation.
Considering the debt that society owes to humanity from its various magic mirror connections, it is a little bit.