Points of Canon: S2x25-26 - A Canterlot Wedding

The grand finale!

Well, if you read Aporia, you’ll know most of my answers to the questions I’m asking here. But that doesn’t stop you from cooking up better ones, I picked the ones I needed for my story, after all.

• Notice this isn’t the same picnic spot the Mane 6 used in Lesson Zero.
• Applejack’s glass has a straw in it. For some reason, others don’t.
• Rainbow Dash is eating a sandwich with two pieces of bread. The components are tomatoes, reasonably sized cucumbers, lettuce and cheese. Notice how she’s holding it: she’s balancing it on top of a hoof. See Sandwich Problem.
• Spike is apparently capable of containing dragonfire mail for a certain period, though presumably, not indefinitely – at least, not more than one letter at once, because he comes belching up one letter, but then produces the next one from an unseen location. (See cartoon resolution: I’m sure he usually wears a backpack.)
• …So why is Twilight starting to read the letter aloud even before she knows it could possibly concern everypony else?
• Pinkie steps into the cake while jumping. Somehow the cake doesn’t cave in. She also turns over the teapot, which Twilight sets back upright without a word. Guess Pinkie does this sort of thing often.
• “Rarity, you will be responsible for designing the dresses for the bride and her bridesmaids.” Notice, no mention was made of outfits for the stallions. Presumably, all of them are officers in active service, who would be required to wear uniforms – at least, that’s all the ones we see.
• Notice that the invitations are sent in the name of Princess Celestia, rather than Cadance and Shining Armor jointly as they usually would be. Why?
• And this is how we knew Shining Armor exists.
• The shield over Canterlot is already visible in the background and presumably has been up for some time. Apparently, it is not an obstacle for dragonfire mail.

• “Princess Mi Amore Cadenza? Who in the hoof is that?!”

  • Twilight can only reasonably ask this question if the number of ponies wearing the title of a princess well exceeds the amount of ponies she cares to remember. I’m sure every foal knows the three. See Ticket Master and Rarity’s statement that she would become a princess upon marrying Blueblood: non-alicorn princesses must exist.
  • Twilight is not aware that “Mi Amore Cadenza” is Cadance’s official full name.
  • Any ideas what the “hoof” is an euphemism for here?
• The flashback includes fillies playing hopscotch. Notably, no bipedal stance is involved.
• Twilight is capable of holding a book with telekinesis well before she got her cutie mark. Notice that this is not true for, say, Sweetie Belle.
• According to Twilight’s flashback, Shining Armor came to see her off to Ponyville, and that is the last confirmed time she saw him.
• “I mean, they don’t let just anypony be captain of the Royal Guard.” We still don’t have a canonical confirmation of what this post actually entails, but seeing how his uniform is radically unlike every other one, he runs the thing.
• “I have just one question. What’s a bachelor party?” Nopony actually explains that to Spike, and the bachelor party eventually fails to materialize.
• “Ever since I moved to Ponyville, we’ve been seeing each other less and less.” At least according to Twilight, they did meet more than once after she moved to Ponyville.
• The particular train route to Canterlot used in this instance includes a very complicated bridge and tunnel system. Assuming that multiple routes exist and some of them could be out at any given time for repairs would explain why in some cases the train to Canterlot takes only a few hours while in others it is an overnight train.
• Entering Canterlot, the train passes through a specially marked spot in the shield. Notice that the two guards covering the entrance are outside the shield, poor guys.
• Pinkie sneezes confetti. Did she actually breathe some in, or did they come from somewhere else?
• Twilight is instantly recognized with no introductions or requests for identification. The guards are actually smiling and happy to see her, even.
• The first time Celestia appears, she’s staring into a telescope pointed at the horizon.
• The closer you get to Shining Armor, the more likely you are to see a saddle as part of a guard’s armor. They might be part of their rank insignia.
• Notice that Shining Armor is the only guard to have his cutie mark depicted on his uniform.
• “Ah, I’ve missed, you, kid.” Once again, the word “kid” is used as a term of endearment.
• “I’m your sister, for pony’s sake!” So who’s the pony in question?
• “A threat has been made against Canterlot. We don’t know who’s responsible for it, but Princess Celestia asked that I help provide additional protection.” So who made a threat and what kind? Because it’s completely silly for Chrysalis to just give up the element of surprise without getting anything in return.

• “You’ve got a really important job protecting all of Canterlot with a force field only you can conjure up.”

  • As far as Twilight knows, Shining Armor is the only one who can put up this kind of shield.
  • The actual verb Twilight uses for the force field is “conjure.”

• “But I’d understand if you didn’t want to be my best mare now.”

  • Notice that Shining Armor did not actually answer the question of why didn’t he mention the wedding previously.
  • Pony weddings may include a role called “best mare” which is designated by the groom side. Which is exactly analogous to the human “best man.” I wonder if it’s gender-locked or not, and if it isn’t, what is the male equivalent called.
• “As in the greatest foalsitter in all the history of foalsitters?!” And that’s how we knew Twilight had an alicorn princess for a foalsitter, which repainted her as even more important from the get go, and which secondary canon reinterpreted pretty hard.
• “Ohmygoshohmygosh!” I am still out of good believable theories on what “gosh” is.

• The room shown in the next flashback is weird:

  • It’s not Twilight’s Canterlot apartment, which is the same apartment where she is seen studying in before getting her School for Gifted Unicorns letter – see RTAC #1.
  • It looks sort of like the room in Friendship is Magic #40 which was in the School for Gifted Unicorns dormitory. This is what I thought it was. However, Twilight does not have a cutie mark, which makes it impossible for this to be that room.
  • It looks nothing like the rooms depicted in Neigh Anything (Friendship is Magic #10-11).
  • When playing outside, they are clearly in the same district of Canterlot where Twilight’s apartment is.

  So where the hell is it? Did Twilight have an extra floor in the Canterlot apartment, up until sliding up the stairs to the studio area?

• Twilight is messing around with a toy chest. Among her toys is a steamboat. Steamboats are not new things.
• “You’re a princess. I’m just a regular old unicorn.” Twilight had been aware that Cadance is a princess from the beginning.

• “I am going for a hooficure and that is that!” “My girlfriends are all getting their hooves done!” Notice a few things:

  • The stallion’s complaint is that “I’ve already paid for three this month!” – that is, that he is the partner of the relationship with the money and he objects to frivolous expense on cosmetic procedures. Did someone say matriarchy?
  • Cadance’s resolution to the conflict has to involve mind affective magic.
  • We don’t know if the conflict is actually resolved for good, and more importantly, we don’t know in whose favor it got resolved – does she not want a hooficure anymore, or is he okay with paying for the fourth one this month?
  • Rarity’s “the usual” includes a hooficure. She probably spends a fortune on it, seeing how often she uses the services of the Ponyville spa.
• “How many unicorns can just spread love wherever they go? I only know of one!” But she’s an alicorn even in the flashback. Huh.

• “Ice sculpture, check.”

  • Applejack is using a pick-axe with a short handle to cut it, designed for teeth.
  • It is important for timing that you wouldn’t make such a sculpture too far in advance of its expected use.
• Spike likes playing with dolls and feels a little embarrassed about it. Mental note: Someone should teach him to call them action figures.
• For some reason, instead of fishing the wrapped fritters out of the trash can and showing the evidence to Applejack, Twilight elects to follow Chrysalis-as-Cadance.
• The three bridesmaids are Lyra, Twinkleshine and Minuette. And even though they stalk straight into the room after Chrysalis-as-Cadance, Twilight ignores them.
• Pinkie’s pin-the-tail-on-the-pony uses a stallion in what looks like a black version of the guard dress uniform instead of an abstract silhouette, this time.
• The gramophone is pink. Actually, it’s the same gramophone that got later used in Fluttershy Leans In. The plastic pink one.
• “Perfect! …If we were celebrating a six-year-old’s birthday party.” Notice that Pinkie treats this as a compliment.

• Luna returns to the city.

  • Notice that she does so in the evening – even though now we seem to agree that she is nocturnal. She even says, “As always, I will guard the night.”
  • She has to make a full-on hole in the shield to do it.
• Each of the Mane 6 got different colored drinks. And Applejack’s has an orange on it. All the glasses have straws this time.
• The decor of Shining Armor’s home is pretty distinctive, but of particular note are the two pairs of crossed swords, an empty fireplace, and a coat of arms above the fireplace.
• “She sure has a way of sneaking up on people.” Ponies don’t use the neutral “people” often, but they do use it.
• “I thought I made it perfectly clear I didn’t want you to wear that.” “This was my favorite uncle’s.” I’m not sure what this chest decoration is meant to be, but – Shining Armor and Twilight had an uncle, now presumably deceased, and I have a suspicion that he was also a royal guard – see The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows. Notice that this would imply the purple star runs in Twilight’s family cutie marks, which is not an unknown phenomenon.
• “She isn’t just unpleasant and rude. She’s downright evil!” Funny how it’s mind control that causes Twilight to decide that.
• Luna notices Twilight running across the yard and calls out to her even though she is looking at the horizon through a telescope at the time. That’s when Luna vanishes from the plot and doesn’t come back until the very end.
• “We’re gonna be Princess Mi Amore Cadenza’s new bridesmaids!” Notice that normally, in a human wedding, to which this one is quite similar, most of the duties the Mane 6 were doing would be things the bridesmaids do for the bride – or at least, things the bridesmaids oversee for her.
• “You sure this is what I should wear? Doesn’t seem all that aerodynamic.” In the end, though, Rainbow chose to drop the dress before performing the Rainboom. Guess Rarity couldn’t make it any more aerodynamic.
• The activities include a fully detailed rehearsal of the ceremony.
• “Shining Armor, you’ll get the ring from your best mare.” See all the previous complaints about ponies and rings.
• It’s very interesting that the form Twilight’s accusation takes is “She’s evil!” and not something that, well, doesn’t sound crazy.
• Twilight teleports casually merely for effect.
• Notice that this is the only scene so far in which Chrysalis-as-Cadance does not look fake and brings her best acting game to the table. Breaking into tears is basically the only weak moment in this particular performance, but once it’s done, Chrysalis is out of the scene and out of sight of Celestia, who would be the only pony in the room who knows Cadance closely enough to tell, is not under mind control and is not Twilight.
• “Because ever since I started having to perform my protection spell, I’ve been getting terrible migraines. Cadance hasn’t been casting spells on me. She’s been using her magic to heal me!” Notice that this basically means Shining Armor was mind controlled ever since the shield went up, and this is probably the moment Chrysalis replaced Cadance.
• One side of the double doors has one aura color when closing, but the other side has a different color. I presume it’s the two guards closing a side each, because otherwise it would have to be Celestia, and I have no clue who could be operating the other side.
• The spell Chrysalis uses to imprison Twilight is definitely not a teleport, and appears to be some manner of a spell for phasing through solid matter.
• Twilight uses her horn for light. Which is actually much less common than you would think.
• Notice that Chrysalis spends a whole minute taunting Twilight, while still disguised as Cadance, and finishes off with “Only way to stop me is to catch me!” And then Twilight blows open the wall leading to the chamber with Cadance in it. The only thing that convinces Twilight that this is the real Cadance is the “sunshine sunshine” playground oath.
• “How could I forget the filly I love to sit for the most?” There were other fillies.
• Chrysalis-as-Cadance has a crystal heart brooch as part of her wedding dress. Notice that when the actual Cadance says her vows and comes out to the balcony to greet the ponies, her dress includes no such detail, instead, there’s a plain white rose in its place.
• “The kind of day of which I’ve dreamed since I was small” Notice that it’s Chrysalis singing that. Was she ever small? FIENDship is Magic #5 implies she wasn’t.
• For the mining carts to remain in any semblance of working order, the crystal caves had to have been abandoned relatively recently, in historic terms – hundreds of years rather than a full thousand, to be sure.
• Ha. Remember those marching band uniforms we just saw in Triple Threat? They aren’t Ponyville-specific, that’s where they first appear: blowing trumpets at Cadance’s wedding.
• How exactly the CMC ended up as flower girls when they weren’t there to start with remains unexplained.
• Lyra and Minuette are present at the wedding among the other guests even though the real ones are in the cave below. These two have to be changelings – and this means that Chrysalis has other infiltrators in the city beside herself. :)
• Twilight teleports herself and Cadance at least twenty meters up into space she can’t clearly see.
• Where did that bouquet that Cadance throws come from is never adequately explained, but it could have been created on the spot.
• “She’s a changeling!” One interesting question is how exactly does Cadance know this.
• “And as queen of the changelings, it is up to me to find food for my subjects.” Notice, not children. Where do changelings come from remained ambiguous for a long, long time.
• “Equestria has more love than any place I’ve ever encountered.” The question remains which other places did they ever encounter.
• “Every moment he grows weaker and so does his spell.” The state of the shield is intimately tied to Shining Armor’s health.
• It’s interesting that Celestia is there, right next to Chrysalis, as Cadance enters, but vanishes immediately after, and reappears to enter dramatically once Chrysalis’ speech is done. I actually don’t have a good answer as to why.
• “I can protect my subjects from you!” Celestia rarely calls ponies her “subjects.” But if we take FIENDship is Magic #5 into account, this is an echo – the last time she had to fight Chrysalis, they were, indeed, subjects.
• Both Chrysalis and Celestia appear genuinely surprised that Celestia lost. Chrysalis recovers immediately, though.
• “The Elements of Harmony. You must get to them and use their power to defeat the queen.” Celestia believes the Elements will be effective against Chrysalis. Not a given, not really.
• The shield behaves very much like some manner of temporary glass – it cracks, but the shards dissipate soon after detaching.
• Changelings dive-bombing the Mane 6 light up their horns to produce the shields they use to protect themselves on impact. Yes, no matter what howard035 says, it’s a spell, because it behaves in all other respects like one. Presumably, only a certain subset of changelings is trained to use it.
• The number of changelings assaulting the Mane 6 is at least in the hundreds.
• Notably, very early on we see that even changelings themselves cannot definitely tell between a copy and the original – Rainbow and Fluttershy exploit this fact.
• At some point, Twilight casts a spell onto a copy of herself, which results in an unconscious detransformed changeling. It remains uncertain whether the transformation dispels on the changeling losing consciousness, or Twilight managed to cook up some generic purpose detransformation spell that also happens to knock the victim out. In any case, this method was never used to detect changelings on screen, so we can assume it turned out not to be generally applicable. Possibly, because the changeling isn’t actually unconscious, but rather, dead.
• “Meh, I’ve seen better.” I wonder where.
• The cocoon containing Celestia has apparently been spun in place while the Mane 6 were fighting, rather than produced beforehand. We never see her actually get out.
• Three changelings are chasing a Lyra through the streets. It has to be the real one, which means that now that she is no longer useful, the mind control on her has been dispelled.
• Run-of-the-mill changelings are using some manner of beam spells – though they are not actually seen casting, we see green bolts hit the ground without resulting in new changelings getting out of holes, and Chrysalis herself is not casting anything.
• Twilight improvises a spell to get rid of the changeling slime.
• The originator of the idea to use the shield spell to expel changelings is none other but Twilight.
• “What a lovely but absolutely ridiculous sentiment.” Chrysalis believes changelings have the monopoly on love to magic conversion.
• While a certain number of changelings presumably perish by being smashed into and through walls by the expanding spell, a large number clearly survive, scattered in random directions.
• And this is our first glance of Twilight Velvet and Night Light in a whole season. Notice, guess who, Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts standing right behind them.
• Fluttershy’s birds sing the Wedding March. How exactly did the ponies come by the melody remains unknown.
• Cadance picks the very last moment to insist on using “Cadance” instead of “Mi Amore Cadenza.” You only do this if Celestia kept resisting and insisting on using the full name for months.
• “Hello, everypony. Did I miss anything?” Rather a lot, actually, dear Luna.
• Twilight uses what has to be a radio microphone. And let’s not forget Vinyl Scratch and her entire rig, which requires at least a 1950s level of electronics to exist.

• Reception photos:

  • Applejack is playing a fiddle by holding it in her hoof and wielding the bow with her teeth.
  • Rainbow Dash is dancing with Soarin, highly unlikely to happen if they were not acquainted previously. Notably, Soarin is in some variant of a dress uniform, rather than the more common flight suit.
  • Rarity takes a photo with Fancy Pants, pretty much impossible unless they already know each other and a hard lock on Sweet and Elite
• The carriage of the newlyweds is pulled by four royal guards – notice no saddles on those four.
• Rarity fights Lyra, Twinkleshine and Minuette for the bouquet and wins. You’d expect her to get married next, only, this still hasn’t happened.

Whew.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Twilight is capable of holding a book with telekinesis well before she got her cutie mark. Notice that this is not true for, say, Sweetie Belle.

Depends on when we're talking about. Sweetie was lifting everything from brooms to transfer students before she got her mark.

Pinkie sneezes confetti. Did she actually breathe some in, or did they come from somewhere else?

I'm pretty sure she secretes it.

The three bridesmaids are Lyra, Twinkleshine and Minuette. And even though they stalk straight into the room after Chrysalis-as-Cadance, Twilight ignores them.

And they ignore her, though in their defense, they may be at least somewhat mind-controlled at this point. Though they do still retain enough free will to disagree with Chrysalis's opinion of the dress. Hmm...

“Shining Armor, you’ll get the ring from your best mare.” See all the previous complaints about ponies and rings.

At least both bride and groom have horns in this case.

How exactly the CMC ended up as flower girls when they weren’t there to start with remains unexplained.

Sweetie and Apple Bloom might have tagged along with their sisters, but if this predates "Sleepless in Ponyville," then Scootaloo's presence is indeed a mystery.

“The Elements of Harmony. You must get to them and use their power to defeat the queen.” Celestia believes the Elements will be effective against Chrysalis. Not a given, not really.

I suppose we have to assume Twilight can open the vault, both in terms of knowing the spell to unlock and physically being able to insert her horn into a hole that's at wither height for Celestia.

Rarity fights Lyra, Twinkleshine and Minuette for the bouquet and wins. You’d expect her to get married next, only, this still hasn’t happened.

Well, it's not like there have been any weddings of the ponies present that we know of. Unless Cranky and Matilda were in the crowd and I forgot, anyway.

[Meta Four]

First, some shout-outs and some shameless self-promotion.

Mendacity is probably my favorite reinterpretation of the Canterlot wedding. It was canon-compliant at the time of publication (with one very brief exception, which gets explained in-story as the work of an unreliable narrator), though later seasons have jossed it. Bon Bon is a changeling defector, and she’s the one who initially reported the threat Chrysalis posed.

There’s also Derplicity, in which Chryalis’s abysmal imitation of Cadance resulted from a catastrophic breakdown in intelligence gathering.

And in my own story, The Changelings are Due in Canterlot, the events of the episode dovetail pretty nicely with a twist from a classic Twilight Zone episode. (Though Moondancer’s appearance here does take the story into completely AU territory.) All those times Chrysalis did something stupid that undermined her takeover? Completely intentional. The invasion of Canterlot was meant to fail, as the first step in a larger plan.

“A threat has been made against Canterlot. We don’t know who’s responsible for it, but Princess Celestia asked that I help provide additional protection.” So who made a threat and what kind? Because it’s completely silly for Chrysalis to just give up the element of surprise without getting anything in return.

I took that as a less-precise way of saying “Our network of spies uncovered that someone out there intends to attack during this timeframe.” Rather than, “Someone’s planning to attack, and we know because they told us.”

• For some reason, instead of fishing the wrapped fritters out of the trash can and showing the evidence to Applejack, Twilight elects to follow Chrysalis-as-Cadance.
• It’s very interesting that the form Twilight’s accusation takes is “She’s evil!” and not something that, well, doesn’t sound crazy.

Soft evidence that this episode precedes “MMMystery on the Friendship Express”?

Notice that Chrysalis spends a whole minute taunting Twilight, while still disguised as Cadance, and finishes off with “Only way to stop me is to catch me!” And then Twilight blows open the wall leading to the chamber with Cadance in it.

Best explanation I’ve seen is that Chrysalis was trying to goad Twilight into killing the real Cadance.

“Meh, I’ve seen better.” I wonder where.

Reference to Pinkie clones from the mirror pool?

The cocoon containing Celestia has apparently been spun in place while the Mane 6 were fighting, rather than produced beforehand. We never see her actually get out.

Now I’m imagining an alternate ending of the episode. Cadance and Shining Armor successfully expel the changelings, then Twilight sets up a new wedding, and everything goes off without a hitch. Somehow, nopony notices until the morning after the wedding that Celestia’s still stuck in that cocoon.

[Cursed Quill]

Rainbow Dash is eating a sandwich with two pieces of bread. The components are tomatoes, reasonably sized cucumbers, lettuce and cheese. Notice how she’s holding it: she’s balancing it on top of a hoof. See Sandwich Problem.

She doesn't like other ponies touching her hooves, and she hovers everywhere. She might actually keep clean hooves.

…So why is Twilight starting to read the letter aloud even before she knows it could possibly concern everypony else?

Close friends.

Notice that Shining Armor is the only guard to have his cutie mark depicted on his uniform.

Rank hath its privileges…and anti-impersonation guards. (Though, it covers his cute mark, so…)

it’s completely silly for Chrysalis to just give up the element of surprise without getting anything in return.

Forgive me if you used these answers, but requiring that shield be up after she's replaced Cadence means weakening this über-shield-caster in advance of her plot, through use and through draining.

the purple star runs in Twilight’s family cutie marks, which is not an unknown phenomenon.

…Glimmer is a Sparkle? I mean, when she showed up in chartags before I watched, I was expecting her (lke Dragon Lord Ember) to be Twilight's evil twin or something.

“She isn’t just unpleasant and rude. She’s downright evil!” Funny how it’s mind control that causes Twilight to decide that.

Very strange,given how all royalty seem to indulge in that with little care.

See all the previous complaints about ponies and rings.

Canterlot being a unicorn town…

The spell Chrysalis uses to imprison Twilight is definitely not a teleport, and appears to be some manner of a spell for phasing through solid matter.

It's not a simple discontinuity-flash teleport as Twilight uses, but I'd disagree that it's purely passwall. I think "fire-portal" is as good a name as any.

Where did that bouquet that Cadance throws come from is never adequately explained, but it could have been created on the spot.

This is strongly-likely to be among her talent-based abilities.

fiendship is magic #5

hiss!

It’s interesting that Celestia is there, right next to Chrysalis, as Cadance enters, but vanishes immediately after, and reappears to enter dramatically once Chrysalis’ speech is done. I actually don’t have a good answer as to why.

Invisibility to see what's going on, possibly covertly do a few spells to check the story, + teleport, to enter dramatically. However, if Chryssy does have infiltrators present, they're watching her rather than important targets…

no matter what howard035 says,

I'm curious.

which means that now that she is no longer useful, the mind control on her has been dispelled.

Or the "beat someone up" method of breaking mind control worked between the bridesmaids.

Rainbow Dash is dancing with Soarin, highly unlikely to happen if they were not acquainted previously. Notably, Soarin is in some variant of a dress uniform, rather than the more common flight suit.

So, soft-lock post-Gala?

[Eruantalon]

“How many unicorns can just spread love wherever they go? I only know of one!” But she’s an alicorn even in the flashback. Huh.

" the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn; the younger brought out the moon to begin the night... One fateful day, the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon..."

“How could I forget the filly I love to sit for the most?” There were other fillies.

Not necessarily. It's a standing joke I've seen around - "You're my favorite X" / "I'm your only X."

Three changelings are chasing a Lyra through the streets. It has to be the real one, which means that now that she is no longer useful, the mind control on her has been dispelled.

I want to hear Lyra's story of that day. I've seen fics referencing it... but never seen it itself. (Except in Mendacity, but that introduces so many elements of its own that I still want to hear the canonical Lyra's story.)

Rarity fights Lyra, Twinkleshine and Minuette for the bouquet and wins. You’d expect her to get married next, only, this still hasn’t happened.

Well, Lyra, Twinkleshine, and Minuette haven't either, so...

“Because ever since I started having to perform my protection spell, I’ve been getting terrible migraines. Cadance hasn’t been casting spells on me. She’s been using her magic to heal me!” Notice that this basically means Shining Armor was mind controlled ever since the shield went up, and this is probably the moment Chrysalis replaced Cadance.

Ohh... This's huge. I know several fanfics that based large points of backstory on how we don't know when she replaced her. This isn't conclusive - maybe that's when Chrysalis dropped the acting - but it's a huge hint.

[Oliver]

4642108

I took that as a less-precise way of saying “Our network of spies uncovered that someone out there intends to attack during this timeframe.” Rather than, “Someone’s planning to attack, and we know because they told us.”

If so, this is a really obtuse way to say it, don’t you think?

Soft evidence that this episode precedes “MMMystery on the Friendship Express”?

Probably not, unless all the “many mystery novels” Twilight read were also read afterwards. She’s definitely not treating it as much of a mystery, either way, she just accuses.

Reference to Pinkie clones from the mirror pool?

Probably not, because Twilight was also intimately acquainted with these. That said, Pinkie’s pretty irregular in the first place.

Somehow, nopony notices until the morning after the wedding that Celestia’s still stuck in that cocoon.

Meanwhile, Thorax shuffles out the gates with a sad face…

4642169

…Glimmer is a Sparkle? I mean, when she showed up in chartags before I watched, I was expecting her (lke Dragon Lord Ember) to be Twilight’s evil twin or something.

Glimmer’s purple star is a different shape – a purple rhombus over a white four pointed star.

Twilight’s is a six-pointed purple star over a six pointed white star. Shining Armor’s is the same six-pointed purple star over a shield. And this shield-like decoration that “belonged to my favorite uncle” also has the same six-pointed purple star on it.

I’m curious.

howard035’s stance has often been that rank and file changelings do not have any spellcasting ability.

So, soft-lock post-Gala?

Probably.

4642588

One fateful day, the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon…"

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why not having a show bible sucks.

Not necessarily. It’s a standing joke I’ve seen around - “You’re my favorite X” / “I’m your only X.”

Neigh Anything likewise heavily implies there were other fillies – Shining Armor basically exploited Cadance’s babysitting practice to approach her to ask her out.

Well, Lyra, Twinkleshine, and Minuette haven’t either, so…

They can’t. Lemon Hearts keeps hogging all the stallions.

This isn’t conclusive - maybe that’s when Chrysalis dropped the acting - but it’s a huge hint.

Strategically, it’s in Chrysalis’ interest to minimize the infiltration time, anyway.

[Meta Four]

4643029

I took that as a less-precise way of saying “Our network of spies uncovered that someone out there intends to attack during this timeframe.” Rather than, “Someone’s planning to attack, and we know because they told us.”

If so, this is a really obtuse way to say it, don’t you think?

Maybe there are better interpretations out there, but it’s still a less dumb interpretation than “Chrysalis sacrificed the element of surprise to say ‘I’m going to attack you, neener neener neener.’”

• Notice that this is the only scene so far in which Chrysalis-as-Cadance does not look fake and brings her best acting game to the table. Breaking into tears is basically the only weak moment in this particular performance, but once it’s done, Chrysalis is out of the scene and out of sight of Celestia, who would be the only pony in the room who knows Cadance closely enough to tell, is not under mind control and is not Twilight.

Reminds me of another story, which had some really interesting ideas marred by a lackluster execution. One of those ideas was that Chrysalis actually did a reasonably good impersonation of Cadance—just off-screen. But because she didn’t realize how close Cadance and Twilight had been, she messed up that first meeting with Twi. Realizing she’d aroused Twi’s suspicion, Chrysalis revised her plan on the fly and started gaslighting Twi, to drive a wedge between Twi and everypony else. Chryssy-as-Cadance put on a show of being bridezilla whenever Twi was around, but was the perfect model of kindness and decorum at all other times.

• “She’s a changeling!” One interesting question is how exactly does Cadance know this.

It’s possible Cadance picked up some information about her captors while she was being kidnapped, or while imprisoned. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine Chrysalis blowing off some steam by gloating and monologuing to her captive princess. Or perhaps, as the alicorn representative of Love, Cadance has been studying the topic for years. And her research included a mysterious species that feeds on love.

I find myself wondering how much Celestia knew about changelings before Chrysalis revealed herself.

[Oliver]

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Maybe there are better interpretations out there, but it’s still a less dumb interpretation than “Chrysalis sacrificed the element of surprise to say ‘I’m going to attack you, neener neener neener.’”

Well, mine is “Chrysalis actually sent a threat that made them expect a giant monster, which prevented her changelings from encountering the regular army by getting them deployed elsewhere, and left the secret-service-plus-local-police Royal Guard as the sole defenders of the city. The shield was never an issue.”

See Aporia. :)

Chryssy-as-Cadance put on a show of being bridezilla whenever Twi was around, but was the perfect model of kindness and decorum at all other times.

Me, I kind of thought this was the point from the start: If Chrysalis is aware of the Elements of Harmony, disabling them should be a priority.

I find myself wondering how much Celestia knew about changelings before Chrysalis revealed herself.

If you believe FIENDship is Magic #5, enough, but not a whole lot, and she certainly believed them to be extinct: Imprisoning Chrysalis inside an active volcano is not a punishment you expect someone to survive.

The question of how Cadance knew they exist is important in that the answer you pick defines how much information on them is available to ponies at all and is tightly coupled to their ultimate origins.

[howard035]

I feel like we've talked a lot about this on Aporia, so I'll just say something I now realized that I haven't asked before: Why did Chrysalis care about arguing over the details of the wedding with the Mane 6?

Good catch on the mind control spells being a counter for how long Cadance was kidnapped for. Since the shield never appeared on any other episode, we just need to hardlock anything else and we can guess just how long Cadance was down in those caverns.

Sounds like the Diamond Dogs must have been active in those caves, rather than just them being dug by ponies for stone to build Canterlot Castle or something.

Oh, I wonder if the eventual "bachelor party" was Spike's first game of O&O?

[Oliver]

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I feel like we’ve talked a lot about this on Aporia, so I’ll just say something I now realized that I haven’t asked before: Why did Chrysalis care about arguing over the details of the wedding with the Mane 6?

If you want my theory – she didn’t care. She needed to make sure that Twilight thinks the faux-Cadance is evil, while everyone else finds her behavior at worst excusable, hoping to get the dramatic rejection scene. In an ideal case, the fight could be serious enough to disable the Elements for good right there. In a less than ideal case, once Twilight has a fight with her brother, and none of her friends support her, nobody wonders where she is – they think she ran off to sulk.

Oh, I wonder if the eventual “bachelor party” was Spike’s first game of O&O?

Considering that Spike ends the episode with a statement implying that the bachelor party is in the future, right after the newlyweds have left, I’m guessing the bachelor party failed to materialize.

[howard035]

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She needed to make sure that Twilight thinks the faux-Cadance is evil, while everyone else finds her behavior at worst excusable, hoping to get the dramatic rejection scene.

Ok, but then if her plan is to get the rest of the Mane 6 on her side, why act like a bridezilla and hope that they won't mind, instead of just agreeing with whatever they say and then just pulling Twilight aside to say something horrible to her?

[Oliver]

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Because Twilight needs to disappear “to sulk” without stopping the wedding. The wedding does produce a large amount of food love from unrelated parties all on its own, and this is an amount Chrysalis was banking on, her minimum guaranteed loot. Simply kidnapping Twilight would likely interrupt the wedding (She’s the best mare, remember?) and replacing her is not very feasible, because most regular changelings have the acting ability of a wet paper bag.

[Frustration in Excelsis]

I don't know if this has been brought up before, but I think I have a decent idea regarding why Shining didn't give Twilight advance knowledge of his and Cadence's relationship.

Going by the "Neigh Anything" arc of the main comic line, Shining and Cadence began dating when Twilight was still a blank flanked filly -- i.e., before the events of the flashbacks in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" and, assuming that ponies get their cutie marks at about the onset of puberty or just before, when Twilight must have been around eight or so years of age, possibly a bit less. Given that the mane six seem to be about their early twenties in the show proper -- or early adulthood, at any rate -- then Shining Armor and Cadence would have been openly romantically involved for the majority of Twilight's life.

Given that it seems that Twilight's relationships with Shining and Cadence seemed were some of the closest relationships she had in her life before moving to Ponyville -- and, as Twilight stresses throughout this episode, that she knew Cadence extremely well -- Shining Armor likely assumed that Twilight already knew that he and Cadence were an item and that she likely had known since she was a child. Thus, he may have felt that the formal announcement of the wedding was all that needed to be made, since simply saying to Twilight "I am dating Cadence and want to marry her" would have just been telling her what she already knew.

Of course, this turned out to be wrong and Twilight apparently had no awareness that Shining and Cadence were involved (or were still involved, one or the other) and the knowledge that two of the people she had been closest to all her life were a romantic item took her entirely by surprise.

I do feel that this is consistent with what has been shown of Twilight's pre-Ponyville approach to interpersonal relationships. Besides the fact that she did not know Cadence's full name (and, combined with the emphasis she put on her role as her foalsitter in... everything, essentially... makes me think that she knew Cadence in one very specific setting but did not know much of her life outside of when she came to babysit her), "Amending Fences" clearly shows that Twilight easily lost contact with the friends she had known for most of her life once she left town and never thought to contact them afterwards.

If we extend this to her other relationships, we can also assume that she similarly lost contact with Shining and Cadence once she stopped seeing them regularly. Given that she knew of Shining and Cadence's relationship as a filly (again, going by the comics), the likeliest conclusion is that she simply lost track of Shining and Candace's personal lives in the process of losing track of... well, more or less everything that did not involve studying magic.

Basically -- Shining and Cadence had been dating for most of Twilight's life; Twilight seems to have had a tendency not to put effort into maintaining relationships with others and to lose track of what those other people are doing if cut off from them; Shining likely assumed that Twilight was familiar with his and Cadence's continuing relationship, which Twilight was not; when Shining informed Twilight that he and Cadence were to marry, Twilight was shocked that Shining was marrying at all.

One could argue that Twilight knew that Shining and Cadence were dating and simply did not recognize Cadence's name when she read it, but her reaction was surprise that Shining was marrying someone she didn't know -- not that he was marrying someone other than Cadence. If she had been thinking of Shining and Cadence's preexisting relationship, then that would have likely come up at some point in her rants. The fact that she didn't bring it up makes me think that she either thought the relationship was no longer occurring or -- more likely -- that she just didn't think about it until Shining named Cadence's nickname.