Oct
7th
2017
Points of Canon: S7x22 - Once Upon a Zeppelin · 6:48pm Oct 7th, 2017
Canon fodder episode! Also lots of awkward.
Twilight is busy with paperwork.
- The amount is immense: That’s two stacks of paper at least two meters high each. Somewhere between 20000 and 40000 sheets total depending on sheet thickness and how new it is.
- The actual pattern of performing the duties is strange: She takes an apparently clean sheet, writes something on it, and puts it into the next stack. Spike later says, “I can keep track of the friendship log, boost community morale and answer fan mail for a few days” – but neither of those three duties seem to fit this pattern, except maybe the friendship log…
- Actually, considering that Cadance does not seem to do anything similar, neither in this episode nor anywhere else, could it be that Twilight is actually doing Cadance’s share?
- “I thought I had too many deep fried gems.” Spike deep fries gems.
- The message Twilight receives through Spike is from her parents. So how exactly did they send it? If any unicorn can do dragonfire mail, there’s no reason to involve a dragon in the first place.
“They won a zeppelin cruise and get to take the whole family!”
- Notice that while the airship is referred to as a “zeppelin,” it does not fit the definition: A zeppelin is a rigid envelope airship of a fairly specific design. Evidently, this word does not mean for ponies what it means for us. See perpendicular linguistics.
- The said type of lighter than air craft is also named after Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. So how exactly did ponies come by this word?
- Winning a cruise in a contest is a thing. Not a given.
- “Even Princess Celestia takes a break sometimes, and she raises the sun!” Primary canon contains no incidents which could be solidly interpreted as Celestia taking a break. Secondary canon does, a few, and most of them also happen to be sources subsequently jossed by primary canon.
- “But Spike, you’re as much a part of my family as anypony!” Took her long enough to say that out loud.
- The gondola is way too big for this envelope, even compared to prior instances of an airship on screen. This is not possible without magic at all – even the lifting capacity of vacuum in a solid enclosure is insufficient for this feat.
- “Oh gee.” Gee, I wish to know where that word came from.
- While Shining Armor’s magic can be seen around the handle of the floating pram, it is apparently floating on its own.
- Last time Twilight Velvet had a vacation, she thought bungee jumping over Luna Bay was relaxing. So where would one bungee jump from in that area? Another airship?
- “I was just telling Twilight about my new bingo strategy book, it’s a real page turner.” Most people wouldn’t refer to the book they wrote themselves like that, so he must mean the book he purchased – only, just what kind of strategy would there be in a bingo game? Later, Twilight insists that bingo is his primary hobby.
- “I remember you getting airsick at Admiral Fairweather’s Wild Ride at Pony Island!” Compare Coney Island. I’m not sure if we should presume this is an amusement park somewhere in the vicinity of Manehattan or not.
- There are almost no familiar ponies on the cruise, except two Ponyville elders who only turn up for bingo – why the hell did they want this cruise is an interesting question. Notably, the Canterlot Friends chose to sit this one out.
- The airship is equipped with a public address system and a radio microphone. Yep, ponies have radio effective at least at short range.
- Other notable artifacts observed on the airship include an engine order telegraph, a telescope and a piano – we haven’t seen one in a while. The propulsion is accomplished by flapping, like with Fancy Pants’ yacht.
- Twilight Velvet tips the porter with a coin from a purse – exactly the kind that would be quite difficult to open without fingers. Well, we knew tipping porters is a thing. No, it’s not universal in human cultures.
- Notice that Twilight Velvet’s aura color is identical to Shining Armor’s and Twilight’s.
- “I just love how the numbers and letters are organized into little boxes!” Well, I guess that’s where Twilight’s OCD comes from.
- “Only you would remember I love tiny things!” Well, she remembered his ant farm in The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows…
- “There’s a peewee princess playtime here…” What does the word “peewee” mean in this context and where did it come from?
- “Barrel jumping at Neighara Falls sounds interesting!” Also incredibly dangerous. Most humans who tried the equivalent stunt did not survive.
- The cover of the atlas Twilight pulls out contains an obvious orthographic projection of a spherical planet.
“Our ship passes the Frozen North at sunset, which is the only time you can see the astrological phenomena known as the Northern Stars! It’s like the stars are shooting out of the setting sun!”
- Astrological. What the actual flying fuck. Pun intended.
- Any good guesses what those things are anyway?…
- “…where Princess Twilight Sparkle once toured the weather factory.” So how exactly did Iron Will come by this particular detail? The participation in the Young Flyers Competition is probably public knowledge, but the tour of the weather factory wouldn’t be. Even Twilight notices this, but this question remains unanswered. Seeing how the rest of Iron Will’s statements are outright nonsense, though, and are confirmed as such by those referenced in them, it might have been a lucky guess.
- The course of the airship makes no sense whatsoever, unless large time skips are involved, because in the space of minutes, they see Cloudsdale, Canterlot and the Crystal Empire. Maybe, because they all start with C.
- More T-shirts. In fact, t-shirts appear to be the preferred means of declaring fandom among ponies.
- We see multiple alicorn cosplayers on this cruise.
- “What are you doing here?” Notice that in Putting the Hoof Down, Twilight has never actually met Iron Will, and yet she instantly recognizes him. I suppose at least one of those comic appearances would have to have happened between there and here. I suspect it isn’t the Siege of the Crystal Empire (My Little Pony #34-37) – Iron Will says, “The assertiveness seminar market dried up,” as if it’s all he has been doing before now.
- That purplish-pinkish unicorn with an autograph book has a very interesting book which shows up twice in this episode. It has “Autographs” written in an almost-readable English script on the cover, and inside, there are four autographs. I can’t read all of these squiggles, but I suspect one of them is meant to say “Celestia.” Another says “Elvis Presley.” Twilight signs the fifth with a completely unreadable squiggle. Who are the remaining two?
- “Iron Will outlined all the details of the cruise in the prize acceptance and consent form that you signed.” Small print and written contracts of this kind are very much a thing!
- “…and break the hearts of every Princess-adoring pony on board.” Notice that nopony thinks to call him on it – even though surely it would have to mean a lawsuit and damages he would not be able to pay, seeing as how eventually, he does run.
- Raffles are a thing.
- “I’m in the water, it totally cancels out!” Looks like Shining Armor also gets seasick. Are the writers contractually obligated to pick on him or what?…
- When Iron Will takes away the life jacket, Twilight’s magic remains floating in the air holding onto nothing, which is actually important for the mechanics of telekinesis.
- “I’m gonna write about this race tonight in my journal!” This is a phrase that is easy to explain Doylistically – they meant a blog, obviously – but is really stupid when a Watsonian explanation is attempted.
- Twilight Velvet is strong enough to pull Shining Armor out of the water with magic.
- Flurry Heart is still the only baby with non-button eyes. Remember that Applejack has non-button eyes in The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows on her birth certificate, but all other appearances of baby Applejack have button eyes.
- Flurry Heart stacks babies. See Sombra.
- Cadance interrupts Flurry’s magic by covering her horn with a wing. I wonder how exactly did that work.
- “I’m just on my way to take some old time Appleloosan photos.” More evidence towards counting Appleloosa a town settled at least partially for tourist reasons.
- Cadance carries Flurry in a hoof while walking on three legs. We’ve seen this quite a few times, it still looks pretty surreal.
- Barrel rides are not a one-off stunt, but something repeatable and apparently, reasonably safe, requiring no more safety gear than a helmet and a life vest. So what about drowning?
- Just how exactly does Twilight Velvet’s horn fit into that helmet, anyway?
- Throughout the episode, Iron Will’s silent goats are present in an accessory capacity, reiterating all the questions they posed in their previous appearance. See animals vs. people problem.
- “My hoof!” I’m pretty sure that seeing the kind of damage earth ponies sustain completely unscathed, this kind of injury is not possible without earth pony powers. Yes, Twilight does seem to have them as well.
- An ice pack is used for pain relief. Not a given!
- This is the first appearance of a parachute in primary canon. The only appearance of one in secondary canon – unless I missed a poster somewhere in Rainbow’s mansion – is a picture of a poster in the Wonderbolt Academy Handbook, even though I’m pretty sure ponies had to have invented it really, really long ago.
- “He may be pushy and manipulative, but nopony can say this minotaur isn’t prepared.” It’s yet another weak statement to support the notion that minotaurs are a species and Iron Will is not a unique creature. Primary canon is still thin on those.
- Night Light’s aura is gold – the same color as Flurry Heart, even. But it’s Twilight Velvet who is levitating Shining Armor, Twilight Velvet and Flurry Heart all at once. Which means she isn’t just self-levitating, but self-levitating under load.
- Why there’s a North Star flying over Canterlot remains unexplained.
Some thoughts
- Notice that throughout this episode, nobody names Twilight Velvet and Night Light, despite them getting their first proper speaking parts for the entire series.
- Twilight Velvet comes out as a real dar
edeviling do, doesn’t she? She’s also much more magically strong than the average unicorn. - Aura colors are probably hereditary.
And next up, we’ll be discussing the leaks…
1) Peewee seems to have originated as a size of game-marble. Possibly derived from cockney rhyming slang based on 'pea'?
2) The Northern Stars are some sort of orbital object attracted by the setting sun. Probably not actually either stars or moons or planetary objects. Equestria's local space may be *extremely exotic* in composition.
3) Canterlot, Cloudsdale, and the Crystal Empire are all on a great circle course. Which extends across a good third of the northern land-mass. But then, so does the ground-route between Ponyville and Starlight's nameless village, which he traverses on a semi-daily basis in what seems like a single day. Travel in Equestria obeys no known topological constraints, assuming orthodox spatial curves.
4) Sadly, once kids come along, parents' names can often be displaced with 'Father' or 'Mother'. Especially if Mom or Dad shares a name with Junior.
I suspect it's more a matter of Twilight having no capacity to delegate what she sees as her duties, whereas Cadence may actually have a staff beyond a little brother and an apprentice.
Not necessarily. The unicorn-end functionality may amount to "send target message to target Dragon," if I may wax Garfieldian.
If people believe there's a strategy to slot machines, they'll believe there's one for Bingo.
I can't speak to the etymology, but this isn't the first time the show's used the term. (see "Dragon Quest.")
Based on research by the crack team at Derpibooru, the other autographs appear to be those of David Bowie, Celine Dion, and Alan Rickman. Make of that what you will.
Is it? I could see such a massive fan wanting to immortalize the moment any way he could. Digital or analogue, what's a journal for if not record important moments in one's life?
I'd say that Flurry hasn't fully grasped object permanence, and thus not seeing the other foals would keep her from maintaining the spell on them. However, that would run counter to her actions in "A Flurry of Emotions." Hmm...
The same way her daughter's fit in the cowboy hat earlier? I think dimensional pockets are an expected part of haberdashery in Equestria.
Also, there were leaks? Oh boy, here we go again...
Confusing cosmic events aside, I thought this episode was decent. Iron Will suddenly jumping off an airship in flight to escape having to pay refunds was the most unexpectedly hilarious thing I've seen all season.
4690152
That would work, actually. I wonder how dragons are targeted, and how does Spike target Celestia, then.
There is a strategy to slot machines: It’s whether to increase the bet or to cash out, and many slot machines offer more involved options. Bingo, however, offers exactly one choice: Which card to take. Even that is random in most variations of bingo.
Unless they’re fill-in cards of some kind, then, there can be a lot of strategy…
Something you usually keep private, unlike a blog.
We can’t conclusively place this episode before or after A Flurry of Emotions.
The entirety of remaining Season 7 and a document titled “Show Bible.” Yep, pretty official one.
No, it’s not useful at all and I’m going to rant about it for pages and pages.
As in "Gee up", perhaps? In this case meant sarcastically?
4690207
What about all the other uses of the word? It comes up a lot.
Yeah, that is a weird one. I looked at a map of Equestria, and noticed that Luna Bay is quite close to hills and mountains. Without a scale, it's hard to say how close. There's definitely a settlement there. Maybe Luna Bay is more a reference to the settlement, and the ravine in the mountains behind it?
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here. What's wrong with him saying he's going to be writing in a journal?
EDIT: Oh, I just noticed your response to an earlier comment in regards to the journal. I'm not aware of a blog being anything other than an internet phenomena, so of course he's not going to say blog.
If you're arguing that he can't be writing in a journel because he's not keeping it private, then I still don't see what your poitn is. There's no evidence to suggest that he wishes to let other people see it. He only expressed excitement about writing in it. Yes, it's unusual that he mentioned what he was going to put in the journal, but so long as he doesn't show what precisely he wrote, I can still see it being a journal.
So what was Spike so eager to have the castle to himself for? He was awfully happy for Twilight to go and leave him there.
4690151
For reasons nobody has ever been able to explain, neither my sister or I have ever referred to either of our parents with anything other than their name. It drives people bonkers.
4690177
Ha, I was going to ask if you’d heard anything about the alleged Show Bible.
It adds an interesting wrinkle to the whole “The show would have been so much better if Faust hadn’t left!” debate. Because the elements from Faust’s Show Bible that never made it into the show were a real mixed bag. Some improvements over what we got, and some really indefensible crap.
Quite a fun episode.
Kind of weird, but we see him immediately pick up where Twilight left off, so we can guess that that's what those duties are. This list also serves as a pretty good representation of Twilight's Princess Duties on a day-to-day basis (presumably Spike would not face down ancient magical monsters if they pop up during the three days).
Besides Cadance being lazy (never once does she offer to take on some of the activities Twilight agreed to during this episode), I think most of her job as glorified mayor is handled with a dedicated staff, just like 4690152 suggested.
It's a cruise with bingo. Doesn't matter the theme, old people going to show up.
I don't think they're doing it the same way humans do. Based on how Velvet ends her jump on the same level with everyone else, my guess is a Pegasi flies you up to the top in a barrel, drops you in, and at the level of the bridge a powerful unicorn grabs you as you fall.
Amazingly strong evidence that "stars" in Equestria are just quintessence clumps rotating around the planet?
Twilight is speciest and a little lucky. She sees a minotaur and assumes it's Iron Will. She's correct, just like it really is a challenge to make friends with a Griffon. Doesn't mean she's not rude.
I guess we know where the aliens dropped him off!
Yeah, the fine print isn't signed by the actual Princesses, so he could be sued on the grounds that he didn't actually ensure the Princesses would be there. I guess when he offered to cancel the cruise he was bluffing.
Reincarnation confirmed.
Every time I think about Appleloosa I realize more and more how much it comes off as a theme park. They had a guy who would sketch pictures of you in western outfits!
And he ditched them like a jerk when he parachuted away.
The siblings got their nerdiness from their dad but their power from their mom.
One other thing to note: I was surprised that at no point did Iron Will try to capitalize on the presence of Flurry Heart, even though he must have expected her to be there. Apparently he has some limits.
4690225
When it finally gets broadcast over here I'll have a look...
It's short for Gaia
4691125
Yeah, right. :)
"Dear Diary: Today I helped Twilight Sparkle officiate a tiny boat race. It was awesome. I will treasure this valued memory for a long time, and I am writing it down so that I never forget it."
Have you, like, never heard of people writing about stuff they found interesting about their day down in a private book for the purposes of memory? Or have you legitimately spent so long online that you think pointless daily minutiae involving personal idols are only written about if other people will see them? The trope of a lovestruck girl writing about how the hot guy at school bumped into her today and it was so totally romantic is a modern staple.
4706217
Notice that you wrote “Dear Diary” and not “Dear Journal.”
So is the trope of keeping this document secret, hiding it under a pillow and keeping it under lock and key.
4706578
...Diary and journal are synonyms for each other. I chose diary because you seem to not know what the meaning of the word 'journal' is, and Dear Diary is a phrase with evocative connotations.
None of which precludes telling someone that it exists. Especially someone who you'll most likely never have direct interaction with again and who you're being encouraged to see as a close family member.
Seriously, what part of "I am going to write about this in my journal" explicitly states that Star Tracker wants other people to know about it, as you seem to be implying? He's whispering it in Twilight's ear, for heaven's sake.
Given the picture on his parachute, questionable.
Funny bit of wing-flapping the airship has.I dunno. Perhaps it influences magic.
We do have astrological events that are seemingly true in Equestria: s1e1 "The stars will aid in her escape"…
4690828
He has a reasonable expectation he can talk Cadence or Twliight down from vaporizing him. This is not as true of Flurry Heart, who might vaporize him with a sneeze.
She seems better-controlled now, but the rumors would still paint her as a bit of a mobile disaster zone.
I'm surprised nopony employs the "remote camera/replay vision" spells Twilight and Trixie have used ("Mane Attraction"/"Magic Duel", respectively), to let Twilight see those 'stars'.
4824408
Sure. Why did it take us a whopping seven seasons to hear this word then? Because otherwise the events are referred to as astronomical, like in Owl’s Well That Ends Well.
I expect most of them simply don’t know these spells.
4824408
Agreed. I was also kind of surprised Twilight broke down over missing them. I mean, they're there every night, presumably, she could just fly up high again some other night.
4824497
Given the ending, I suspect the "with my family" is a very strong component. (Also, she is a Princess, she's busy, it's not like she can just teleport up and make it take seconds of her day. Oh Wait…)
…speaking of, why was she galloping and not teleporting on the airship?