Points of Canon: S3x07 - Wonderbolts Academy

Now you see Lightning Dust.

And now you don’t.

• While Rainbow’s cloud mansion is mobile – and this time is located too far off the ground to be reached without wings – her mailbox evidently isn’t. Which is strange, considering the letter is delivered by a pegasus anyway.
• The use of the sunglasses by Rarity and the big parasol imply summer. Or a very warm spring. Sigh.
• This is yet another mailpony uniform. Seriously, every single mailpony has their own variation on the uniform.
• “See you guys in a week.” That is, the Wonderbolts Academy course is supposed to take a week, and Rainbow is supposed to spend that time in the camp. I wonder how exactly does this work with Rainbow’s day job – considering that at least two ponies we usually believe are on her weather team also got in, Thunderlane and Cloud Chaser.
• Pinkie uses a powered megaphone, but these things are quite commonplace by now.
• Rainbow is using an unpaired saddlebag.
• Wonderbolt Academy is based around an immobile plateau, but there’s nothing on the plateau but the runway – while every actual building is on a cloud. I wonder how exactly does this sit together with Cloudsdale, which appears to be at least a little mobile – and the Wonderbolt Academy Handbook claims the Academy is located there. This plateau is also not marked on any maps.
• Actually, why is it on a plateau? A cloud-based runway would be safer.
• Multiple buildings are marked with coats-of-arms, though the detail is too low to make out if they mean anything. Why?
• Damn. Remember how every medal in Equestria is a ribbon around the neck? Yes, some insignia that Spitfire wears in the first dressing down scene can be service ribbons. They are only on the right side of her chest, and the left side is taken by Wonderbolt insignia, so they’re not visible half the time. However, I doubt those are service ribbons: She has two “ribbons,” gold-red-gold, and gold-blue-gold, and the gold-red-gold pattern is repeated on both of her sleeves.
• Spitfire wears aviator shades, of course.
• “If you had what it took to be an elite flyer, you’d already be a Wonderbolt!” Which essentially means that the Wonderbolts are the only kind of elite flyers that exist, since to become a Wonderbolt one has to get into the Wonderbolt Academy first regardless of who they are, right?
• “You look like you’re the worst flyer in the whole academy!” Actually, considering the events of the Sonic Rainboom, you would think Spitfire would pick something else to insult Rainbow with. She did acknowledge she remembers Rainbow at least once before. Did anything change?
• “Give me five hundred laps!” At the speeds shown, that would take them at most twenty minutes.
• Spitfire is using another one of those mechanical stopwatches.
• This is one of the earliest cases where pegasi use their wings in lieu of hands – a wingslap between Rainbow and Lightning Dust.
• “And if I don’t write her back right away, she might think I didn’t get her letter, and then she might worry it got lost.” Well, if there is an appointed mail pickup hour, Pinkie doesn’t know or care.
• “The Wonderbolts are the fastest, best precision flyers in the world. But spin-outs can still happen.” For something called a spin-out to happen at all, pegasi have to fly more like fixed-wing aircraft than a bird. Birds can’t unintentionally stall, essentially.
• Not only does the Dizzitron require some source of power, it has electrical lamps on the control box. Notice the use of a turtle, hare, and a skull with wings to denote speed ranges.
• “Six seconds? That’s an academy record.” But I wonder whether this record accounts for the speed the Dizzitron is being run at. Because Lightning Dust’s 6.5 seconds can’t be fairly compared to Rainbow’s 6 because they didn’t start in identical conditions, and there is no obvious rule to adjust for the change. But 6.5 is just “not bad”. It’s interesting that Rainbow doesn’t see it this way and wants to be lead pony anyway.
• How did Bulk Biceps fit in the Dizzitron at all?
• The mess hall contains large numbers of standard mugs. All of them with handles.
• Spitfire spends her work day signing autographs making hoof prints.
• “Today you will all be participating in a flag hunt. We’ll divide you into two teams, red… and blue. Whoever finds the most flags of the opposing team’s color wins.” Notice that none of the flags are hidden in the clouds that we see, and there’s no communicated rule regarding interfering with the opposing team. Hmm…
• So is there any reason Pinkie is being so worried Rainbow forgot everyone in three days, or not?
• “Because what if the package gets lost in the mail?” Getting a package lost in the mail entirely is not unheard of.
• Once again we see wind generating funnels, previously seen in Sonic Rainboom and later turning up in Top Bolt. These ones are started with pink rather than blue liquid, which produces unusual pink lightning clouds, rather than just wind.
• The blizzard generators seen here are pretty unique.
• I don’t really get why, in order to pass the ponies moving in front of her and Rainbow, did Lightning Dust need to bump into them. Unless this is explicitly for the purpose of making them fail the obstacle course.
• While most ponies buck the clouds to disperse them, or at least use hooves, Bulk Biceps bites them…
• Once again, we see pegasi make a tornado, which doesn’t come up often.
• In this particular case, tornado utterly destroys the infamous pink balloon – the basket is allowed to fall down, the balloon itself is likewise ignored, and yet, the thing returns again and again.
• To catch the Mane 5, Rainbow compresses the clouds to the point where non-pegasi bounce off it. This is impossible without pegasi magic, and is probably the basis of cloud-based construction in the first place.
• Spitfire’s desk doesn’t come with a seat. At all.
• “Yeah, well that ‘effective tactic’ nearly took out my friends!” Notice that Spitfire is still not aware of the accident on the grounds at all. You’d think she heard the tornado, but nope.
• “And if being reckless is what gets rewarded around here, if that’s what it means to be a Wonderbolt, then I don’t want any part of it.” Considering the stuff Rainbow pulls immediately upon becoming a Wonderbolt, I wonder.
• How exactly did the door close behind Rainbow? She couldn’t even do that with a wing, because her wings are spread upwards while she’s walking out.
• “OhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygosh!” Who is that “gosh” you speak of?…
• “Now get out there and give me twenty!” And once Rainbow races out, her saddle bag drops and suddenly becomes a symmetrical two-bag set.
• So who gets to be her wingpony now? And for that matter, how exactly are the Mane 5 getting back home?

Notice that at no point does Spitfire admit that she recognizes Rainbow, this time.

1. I can’t, unfortunately, cite the webcomic I saw it in first.

This idea that Lightning Dust is related to Wind Rider, and this is his motivation to frame Rainbow, sounds really interesting upon rewatching this.¹ Lightning Dust isn’t just a jerk. She’s a jerk who has gone unpunished for a long time, which often happens to people who are related to people in high places.

Pinkie being that anxious about Rainbow forgetting her is probably the strangest part here.

Comments

[Shrink Laureate]

• This is yet another mailpony uniform. Seriously, every single mailpony has their own variation on the uniform.

If it's not uniform then it's not a uniform. It's a disparate. Anime has a lot of these.

• “The Wonderbolts are the fastest, best precision flyers in the world. But spin-outs can still happen.” For something called a spin-out to happen at all, pegasi have to fly more like fixed-wing aircraft than a bird. Birds can’t unintentionally stall, essentially.

It appears to just mean "losing control at high speed". You can't flap a wing if you don't know which way it's pointed, and you can't right yourself without flapping your wings. Birds are not stupid enough to fly faster than they can handle.

The are stupid enough to fly into windows, though.

[Mitch H]

Either Cloudsdale is less mobile than its rep suggests, or this bit of 'Cloudsdale' is separate from the main city. Maybe this is the home district that the rest of the cloud-city returns from time to time to 'claim' their ground-territory assigned to the polis. It's like an aerie.

Or is it the weather factory that's mobile, and the rest of the city stays moored more or less west north west of Canterlot?

[FanOfMostEverything]

“You look like you’re the worst flyer in the whole academy!” Actually, considering the events of the Sonic Rainboom, you would think Spitfire would pick something else to insult Rainbow with. She did acknowledge she remembers Rainbow at least once before. Did anything change?

You appear to be expecting drill sergeant-style chewing out to accurately reflect the positive merits of the one being chewed. Context is important.
(That said, Spitfire completely failing to recognize Dash is odd. Professionalism only goes so far.)

Not only the Dizzitron requires some source of power, it has electrical lamps on the control box. Notice the use of a turtle, hare, and a skull with wings to denote speed ranges.

The need for a power grid and other infrastructure might explain the use of the mesa. That, or it's just a nuisance to make the Dizzitron cloud-compatible.

So is there any reason Pinkie is being so worried Rainbow forgot everyone in three days, or not?

Subconscious awareness of Twilight forgetting her Canterlot friends?

Also, is this the comic you were looking for?

Also also, note that this is the episode that demonstrates that the contrail effect isn't unique to Rainbow Dash, and appears to be a magical byproduct of any pegasus moving at high enough aerial velocity.

[Meta Four]

• So who gets to be her wingpony now?

There was a deleted scene that clarified Lightning Dust was demoted and given another chance, rather than booted out of the Academy entirely.

[Meta Four]

4671357

(That said, Spitfire completely failing to recognize Dash is odd. Professionalism only goes so far.)

How professional are the Wonderbolts at this point, even? Anyway, maybe Spitfire is trying to avoid the appearance of favoritism, and she overcompensates because she’s still new to this whole “ethics” thing. Alternately, she totally does recognize Dash—and she feels threatened, because she knows Dash is a better flyer than her. So Spitfire postures and defends her territory by pretending not to recognize Dash, while singling her out for more criticism than the others.

[Oliver]

4671357

You appear to be expecting drill sergeant-style chewing out to accurately reflect the positive merits of the one being chewed. Context is important.

Drill sergeant style chewing should have teeth, or it is not effective at getting the one chewed out to follow orders. :)

Subconscious awareness of Twilight forgetting her Canterlot friends?

She doesn’t worry anyone else is going to forget the Mane 5 though, I think…

Also, is this the comic you were looking for?

Yes, that’s the one, thanks.

4671394

There was a deleted scene that clarified Lightning Dust was demoted and given another chance, rather than booted out of the Academy entirely.

Deleted scenes don’t count. She never appears with Wonderbolt reservists either… :)

[Meta Four]

4671819

Deleted scenes don’t count. She never appears with Wonderbolt reservists either… :)

When a deleted scene would explain a plot hole in canon, it should at least be considered.

Also, considering that Spitfire had encouraged Lightning Dust’s recklessness until this last incident, it would reduce the appearance of LD getting punished for Spitfire’s mistake (in addition to her own), if LD was given a stern dressing-down and put on probation, rather than kicked off.

And there’s plenty of time between episodes for LD to screw up again and get booted out for good.

[Oliver]

4671296

It appears to just mean “losing control at high speed”. You can’t flap a wing if you don’t know which way it’s pointed, and you can’t right yourself without flapping your wings. Birds are not stupid enough to fly faster than they can handle.

I spent some time meditating on that, and then decided that’s not it.

A glider can spin upon exceeding the stable angle of attack, but that primarily will result in loss of speed – from which a fully controlled wing, like that of a bird or pegasus, will easily recover. A fixed wing aircraft can enter a spin it won’t properly recover from, because the engine keeps pushing it forward through that spin.

But a creature that propels itself by flapping can’t unintentionally stall: the wing moves through all the available angles of attack during the flapping motion.

It follows that pegasi, at least in certain modes, do not propel themselves by flapping, or have much larger, invisible flight surfaces. There are some indication that this is how it works elsewhere, for that matter – see Newbie Dash.

[howard035]

One thing that bothered me about this episode was that most of the Mane 6 violated military airspace and were thus at least partially responsible for being in the path of that tornado, but they do not seemed to have realized this.

4671822 I think deleted scenes cut for time count as canon myself. And you're right that Spitfire here shares a lot of the blame, since she pushed Lightning Dust to be so reckless. On the other hand, it's undeniable that we never see her again when we see other new Wonderbolts and reservists, so she might have been cut loose.

[Cursed Quill]

So is there any reason Pinkie is being so worried Rainbow forgot everyone in three days, or not?

Same reason as "Party of One".

Unless this is explicitly for the purpose of making them fail the obstacle course.

that, and banging into them moves them off course and costs them time, too. It is, I believe, a fairly common trope for the "win at all costs" racer to try to run others out of control, usually with such a maneuver.

4671357

That, or it's just a nuisance to make the Dizzitron cloud-compatible.

anything putting out so much force and oscillation will dissipate/fall through a cloud damn fast, I expect (consider RD shaking off cloudshoes in "28 pranks later")