Doylist Intrusion #2: Memories of an anthill · 1:02pm Oct 8th, 2017
There’s an interesting document floating about. Now, gentlemen (let alone the ladies) shouldn’t ask how I got my hands on it, just like gentlemen wouldn’t tell. Go trawl 4chan. But that’s not really important.
The title page says, “My Little Pony Adventures, Animated series show bible.”
Now, let me tell you something: It’s not what I would call a show bible. To be honest, my approach to writing a show bible for anything would be in a large part about making the job of the writers – particularly the part where they maintain consistency of the universe and the people in it – as easy as possible. I am of the opinion that as long as the world is consistent, the characters can be positioned relative to it – rather than just each other – and plot flows by itself, you don’t have to whip it along. Maybe that’s just me. Or my PhD in sociology of roleplaying game(r)s. But I would write a setting. An encyclopedia of an imaginary world. If I wanted to go into any kind of detail, it would be a Lonely Planet guide.
This very emphatically isn’t either. Also, if this is all they got, still, they’re more screwed than I thought.
If you hoped it would inform your writing, well, give it up, it is entirely useless in this regard – not only due to being many years out of date, but also by being less informative than careful study of actual episodes, and inconsistent even with the actually aired Season 1. It is, however, exceedingly interesting for another reason:
It gives us an insight into what the anthill wanted to say, permitting us to compare it to what it actually said.
I can’t vouch for the veracity of this document. While MitchH believes that due to randomly missing letters, it has to be textually watermarked, i.e. it is protected, I kind of doubt it. It seems to be a collection of notes – cribbed primarily from Faust’s original show pitch, presumably extant – sprinkled with some early design artwork and Flash assets, some of which appear to be exactly the assets actually used in the show, while others bear no similarity. It contains numerous stupid typos and other outright errors.
It’s also marked “Confidential” in threatening letters, has dire warnings, and is dated to 2009, which is actually a bit early. I remember Faust mentioning that the show was assembled in a tremendous hurry, as an excuse, but the existence of this document in 2009, when the air date for the first episode is 2010-10-10, would imply a longer development hell after certain key designs were already finalized and many of the art pieces we have seen throughout Season 1 have already existed.
Well, no matter. Let’s pick it apart as if it’s entirely real, because even if it isn’t, it does seem like it uses an otherwise unavailable source.
Of course, I shall avoid quoting the entire thing where possible, so pardon me if anything appears non-sequitur. Go find the original if that is an issue.
Typos, where present, retained as quoted.
Introduction
The very first line starts with this:
What does it take to make someone fall in love with a brand?
That’s literally the very first line of the actual text. That’s what you really need to know about this.
However, the introduction does stress the need for a believable, detailed world with a strong mythos behind it for the above falling in love to happen. Shame the text does not eventually satisfy this need at all.
Premise
We focus on 6 young female ponies who have a maturity level from 10 through 15 and their relationships with one another in the little pony village they live in, and the light hearted adventures they have beyond their village in the vast, magical world beyond.
Editing was very obviously not a priority when assembling this document. So tell me, which of the Mane 6 is supposed to have the level of maturity at 10?
Also, the picture of orrery in Canterlot used to illustrate this chapter is apparently very early – and includes those same extra mysterious bodies orbiting a spherical Pony Earth, presumably as part of a crystal sphere or somesuch.
World
Equestria
Though they live and act like people, everything they have and everything they do has some sort of pony “theme” to it.
Notice that from the very start, the world of ponies is defined stylistically rather than logically. No thought of how it could possibly have emerged has been involved, at no point it is honestly assumed to be real – yet the pretense of that is maintained. To further support this, the text frequently references ponies wearing tack rather than just clothing, and the design sketches depict the entire Mane 6 in bridles – but nowhere nobody stops to think why the hell would a real culture of ponies wear this unless anyone specific is meant to be riding them.
But one very important feature of the ponies lives is very, very different from ours. Ponies must endeavor to make world live.
Faust is on record saying that the importance of this idea was the reason why Winter Wrap Up was aired out of order.
Ponyville
Though the realm of Equestria is vast, My Little Pony takes place primarily in the pony village of Ponyville. Moderately populated by several dozen or so pony families, Fillydelphia is a quaint township surrounded by mostly meadows and pony farms, where Earth ponies cultivate the ponies’ favorite foods: carrots, oats, hay, sugar for sugar cubes and the sweet treat Fillydelphia is famous for, APPLES!!!
1. English is not my first language, in case you still don’t know.
“Ponyville” is used interchangeably with “Fillydelphia” in multiple paragraphs. Often, both appear in the same paragraph, and it’s like nobody noticed. Like I said, editing was not a priority, and there are stupid typos that I don’t make.1
Notice also the statement regarding “several dozen pony families.” Assuming “several” means, say, 5, that comes out to a population in low hundreds. The variety of businesses and locations within Ponyville increased dramatically since this statement had been written, to the point where hundreds of ponies could never keep them afloat.
Stemming from it’s apple producing roots, Ponyville’s town square has become what you may call a bit of a tourist trap.
I did tell you that all the time, didn’t I? 
Pony Types
Earth Ponies: The most populous type of pony, they are also the simplest looking. They have no magic like the other types of ponies, but even so they have the greatest talent for caring for nature.
No magic. Right. :)
Pegasus Ponies: … With great effort, they can maneuver clouds before the sun to create rainbow bridges, but legend holds that pegasus can create a rainbow solely and completely on their own. Up until recently, this fact was believed to be a myth until one pegasus pony achieved this miracle, but she only did it once.
Notice the Sonic Rainboom, which has been in the cards since the very beginning, but, as we later find out, originally had no connection to the Mane 6 cutie marks at all.
Unicorn Ponies: Where earth ponies inhabit the earth and pegasus ponies populate the sky, unicorn ponies hail from the mountains. Each and every unicorn has magical powers that emanate from their horn, a Unicorn’s crowning glory. These individual powers usually coincide with each unicorns individual personality, talent and cutie mark.
Most unicorns tend to gravitate to the more metropolitan of the pony dwellings, like Equestria’s awe inspiring capital and home of the queen, Canterlot. Canterlot is a hub for unicorns to practice their unique skill, which is reading and sometimes controlling the stars. The knowledge they gain from the stars helps them to guide the pegasus and earth ponies in their work and make Equestria’s seasons run efficiently. Very talented unicorns can make certain stars shine brighter, or even move so that they may communicate with ponies far, far away. They are the scholars, artists and mages (who needs science when you have magic?) of pony society.
The departure of the canon from these ideas has been so radical that I’m compelled to quote the entire passage. We’ve seen a strong genre shift throughout Season 2, but the association between unicorns and stars suffered the most, even before the series actually began.
Notice that the text consistently refers to Celestia as “Queen.”
Characters
Twilight Twinkle
Not Twilight Sparkle, but we kind of knew that. The cutie mark is, likewise, very different – showing a single star and a crescent moon, but that, we also knew. Also, the text says, “Unicorn Power: Casts light in the darkness, to illuminate, lights the way” – which has been out of the window very early, with Boast Busters. In fact, at no point Trixie is mentioned in this document, even though a sketch of her does appear between the supporting characters pages.
In fact, this idiosyncrasy and her habit of losing track of time while she studies at night is part of what earned Twilight her cutie mark!
Notice the absence of the Sonic Rainboom cutie mark story, which has become so important in later seasons.
Conditions which could not be found in a courtly life in Canterbury, but only in Ponyville surrounded by the wonders of the world.
Editing really hasn’t been a priority, though I wonder what did they have against Canterbury.
Twilight frequently gets written royal requests from the Queen to complete missions. Some as small as gathering information or delivering an important message, but others as large as diplomatic missions to deal with stubborn dragons who’s behavior may be adversely affecting Equestria. It’s at these times that we experience our exciting pony adventures, and Twilight finds that she is a natural born leader! Cleverly utilizing all her friends skills and talents to achieve their mission, and oftentimes discovering a new magic power within herself.
Notice that the idea of Dragonshy predates pretty much everything, but the notions of magic transformed tremendously since that was written.
Rainbow Dash
Rainbow Dash’s greatest ambition in life is to earn a position on the elite aerial acrobatic team, the celebrated Blue Thunders!
I honestly don’t understand the need to rename so many things. Was a focus group involved? That’s usually why.
Sure, she has responsibilities like chasing away the clouds so the sun can shine on the farm ponies’ crops, but she unfortunately is not the most reliable pony in town.
Notice the inconsistency which persisted into the actual canon and mostly remains to this day: If clouds have to be made, and don’t “move on their own,” why do they need to be chased/destroyed in the first place?
Pinkie Pie
Remember how they said that Pinkie was supposed to originally be a pegasus and called “Surprise?” Yet the change from “Twilight Twinkle” to “Twilight Sparkle” postdates this change, and there’s no trace of “Surprise” in the text.
Eager to amuse her friends and make everyone happy, Pinky Pie will find ANY excuse to throw a party, whether it’s somepony’s birthday, a baby pony getting her cutie mark, or less obvious reasons like somepony getting their mane trimmed, getting rid of an annoying hangnail or receiving a bill in the mail.
…wait, hangnail? Also notice getting a bill in the mail, which isn’t something we’ve ever actually seen.
So if you’re looking for her you’ll have a good chance at finding her at the Sugarcube Sweet Shoppe.
Notice the absence of a “Corner.”
Fortunately for Pinky, being the establishment’s best customer means the owners don’t mind that they have to replace their front door on a weekly basis!
Beyond the stupid typo – in a name, no less – it’s notable that Pinkie isn’t cited as working for Sugarcube, but rather, is a customer. In fact, while Twilight is cited as doing missions for the Queen, and Rainbow is a weather pony, Pinkie becomes a layabout divorced from any actual source of income.
Applejack
Applejack is Ponyville’s resident farm gal! She lives at Big Apple Orchard just outside of town with her family.
Sweet Apple Acres does sound like a big improvement.
Having grown up working hard to keep her family’s famous Apple business growing, Applejack has come to be known as the most down-to-earth, resourceful and de- pendable Earth Pony this side of the Brambledowns Dustbowl!
I wonder where is that.
And she just might be one of the only girl ponies around who doesn’t shriek at the sight of a bug.
Which is another thing we haven’t really seen ponies do – and later, Rarity is cited as the one fainting at the sight of a bug.
She prefers to stick to the tried and true ways of pony living, and when somepony has a new idea, whether it be a new food, or a new fashion trend, or a magic machine for growing apples Applejack is loathe to try it. Especially if it’s magic! She doesn’t trust the stuff! It ain’t natural!
Notice the very early hints of Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000.
And, please, don’t ever suggest that her Western tack isn’t as pretty as the more popular English dressage tack that all the trendy ponies wear. Applejack won’t take none of it! I mean, that confangled “bit” on the bridles? The one you put in your mouth? What’s that nonsense for anyway? Puh-lease.
See above: No thought whatsoever given to why would anyone want tack at all.
Rarity
Unicorn Power: To make anything shine and sparkle, can change almost anything’s color, has special ability to find gemstones
See above comments regarding magic.
In fact, her designs are by far the most gorgeous at one of Ponyville’s newest, hottest boutique, “Carousel Couture,” a fancifully detailed shop that looks like a merry-go-round.
When exactly the word “Couture” dropped from the title remains unclear, because there’s an illustration of an early design for Carousel Boutique – that doesn’t look anything like the final one, but does look a lot more like a carousel – titled “Carousel Couture.”
Rarity is also present in a sketch with her hairs in curlers and mega-cucumbers on her eyes, which is signed with “pony pedi” – instead of the much more popular term “hooficure.”
You see, Rarity is very generous with her talents and should she believe that one her outfits would be perfect for somepony, she simply gives it away — which, of course, is bad for business, much to the chagrin of Carousel Couture’s owner.
No mention of who actually owns the boutique is present, and I can’t help but wonder. In fact, it appears that the Mane 6 were originally meant to be significantly younger than they ended up, being hired workers at best, rather than business owners.
Rarity’s greatest ambition is to one day design for the Queen herself!
Which is an idea the show never actually used for some reason, even though it’s so blindingly obvious.
Fluttershy
Fluttershy has a lot of fears to overcome and growing up to do, but certainly one day her strength of character and enormous heart will make her a force to be reckoned with!
One day. Surely. Maybe in a few more decades. But notably, Fluttershy changed the least, and no thought has been given to her source of income any more than it has been done for Pinkie.
Spike
Spike changed considerably.
Spike the baby dragon has been sent from Canterlot to be Twilight’s assistant.
It seems pretty clear to me that the idea of Sonic Rainboom as the predestination connection between the Mane 6 is comparatively late – and Spike is more hired help than a family member in Season 1. His strange dialogs with Twilight for the benefit of the audience really were supposed to be like that because they don’t know each other particularly well.
Though he usually walks on all fours, he is able to stand and offer his “hands,” an ability that proves invaluable to the hoofed ponies."
Even the design used to illustrate this has Spike in a quadrupedal pose, which, in the actual show, he never ever uses.
When Twilight is ready to report her findings about the Magic of Friendship to the Queen, not only does Spike take dictation from her, but he uses his dragon breath to incinerate the letter. The glittery embers fly magically through the air finally re-assembling themselves in the Queen’s fireplace for her to read. In return, when the Queen has a letter to send to Twilight, Spike is able to “burp” it up in a puff of smoke — and usually in the most embarrassing of moments!
Nope, nobody thought how dragonfire mail might possibly work, even though it’s so important for just about every plot which can be resolved by asking for help.
Found orphaned as an egg, Spike’s dragon heritage is a bit of a mystery.
Still is.
Celestia
Celestia’s section deserves to be quoted in full:
Queen Celestia is the ruler of Equestria. She is a magnificent pony who is perhaps more horse-like than her cute subjects, and sports both a unicorn’s horn and a pegasus’ wings. She is profoundly magical and some say she is over a thousand years old. She alone is responsible for the rising and falling of the sun and moon, and as such, all of the ponies’ lives depend entirely on her. Queen Celestia is an elusive character, and very few ponies have had the privilege to see her or know her, though it is well known that she is wise and kind. She is spoken of often, but rarely seen.
Remember the opening narration in Friendship is Magic regarding “unicorn powers?” The term “alicorn” and the idea of an alicorn as a special state postdates this document a lot. Celestia is not a character in this document, she’s a plot device.
Notice also another thing: There is no whiff of Luna anywhere in this text, nor of Nightmare Moon. AT ALL. Celestia, with her wings and a horn, was supposed to be the only alicorn ever.
Others
- Big Macintosh is called “Big Apple.”
- “Granny Smith is the Apple Family matriarch and great-grandmother to the 3 Apple foals.” Emphasis mine. “If you happen to be down by the farm, make sure to check in to see if Granny Smith’s made any apple pies; they’re the best this side of Prickly Prairie!!” Which is one more location that never turned up.
- Apple Bloom’s original name is “Apple Seed,” but otherwise, no notable changes appear to have been introduced.
Scootaloo was apparently meant to be disabled from the start, but even in this internal document, they didn’t have the decency to make it a clear statement:
Perhaps this is because she feels she has to compensate for being an earthbound Pegasus. But this ‘handicap’ has led her to a special, unique talent: Scootaloo has fashioned herself a special pony scooter and she uses her Pegasus wings not to fly, but to propel her little scooter forward, her speedily pumping wings making little motor engine noises the whole way!
- “Cheerilee and Twilight Twinkle have developed a very close friendship as both of them spend lots of time at the library. Twilight to study magic, pony history and lore, and Cheerilee to find fantastical stories to share with her pony students.” Shades of this idea remain visible, but there was no time remaining to cover this relationship in any kind of detail.
- Zecora is named just “Shaman,” and is outright described as a Magical Negro. No mention of speaking in rhyme is made.
Stories
So when our little troupe is not dealing with dragons, gryphons and manticors, they may be meeting up with and learning about Mustang ponies on the plains, or with the native deer (who like ponies speak and sport cutie marks) who live like the native Americans of the Northeast. They may encounter llamas in the mountains, or lively Arabian ponies in the deserts! They may even have an adventure underwater with their neighbors, the seaponies.
Oh deer.
But Equestria is only part of a limitless magical world. Beyond the borders of their country is less defined and often mysterious to the ponies. Out there live other magical creatures that may or may not have an organized society like the ponies. Often these creatures have an effect on the ponies’ world and interfere with their ability to move the seasons.
Which is kind of what we have observed, mostly. It’s interesting that the rest of this page dissolves into a complete jumble, crossed with the column about Spike, as if someone tried to typeset the result of an OCR and didn’t care at all about the content. The next page is likewise mangled. The only interesting thing this section says is introducing an Adventure / Slice of Life dichotomy.
Sample Stories
This section contains a list of short episode blurbs, many of which did get filmed and aired.
- Ticket Master: Pretty much exactly as aired, and interestingly, it’s Canterlot, rather than Canterbury, but Fillydelphia rather than Ponyville for its description.
- Griffon the Brush Off: Exactly as aired, but notably, “But, one day, out of the blue (literally,) Rainbow Dash is visited by an old friend from beyond Equestria, a beautiful young griffon named Grizelda.” Both the name is different, and Gilda is explicitly said to come from beyond Equestria. Also, the bizarre official spelling of “griffon” dates to very early days.
- The Cutie Mark Chronicles: While it’s merely an idea of Apple Bloom asking how ponies got their cutie mark, no mention of Sonic Rainboom is made.
- Applebonk Season: “You see, ponies can’t climb ladders or gingerly pick apples with their big hooves, so they have to knock the apples out of the trees. The Apple family uses their heads for this, as they have found it knocks out twice as many apples as bucking.” Dafuq. Otherwise, it’s pretty similar to Applebuck Season as aired. Notice that hoof dexterity has greatly increased since.
- Bring On the Thunder: This one has never been filmed. While Wonderbolts are in town, Rainbow is trying to get their attention by doing stunts and failing miserably when they turn out to be looking the other way. At the same time, Apple Bloom – for some reason – is trying to get a cutie mark in stunts, and Rainbow has to save her and give up the chance to actually get seen by the Wonderbolts. Some of this seems to have gone into the Sonic Rainboom, but not much.
- Dragonshy: Exactly as filmed. One thing to notice is that the dragon is from beyond Equestria’s borders.
- A Dawg and Pony Show: Very close to what has been filmed, but the diamond dogs are remarkably different, and arguably make more sense than the final version: “Suddenly, she is captured by a posse of Diamond Dawgs: burrowing, half prairie dog, half troll creatures are dripping with gold chains, rings and earrings. They talk like gangsta rappers (or at least try to, and they’re really bad at it) and also like gangsta rappers, have a notable obsession with acquiring bling!”
Fancy Meeting You Deer: I’m going to quote that in full.
There has been a strange figure appearing in the woods that appears from afar to be a mysterious pony with… antlers? Curious and eager for adventure, Rainbow Dash wrangles up some of the girls to investigate, and what they find is a herd of talking, cutie-mark donning forest deer who speak and adorn themselves like the native Americans of the NorthEast. They find that the pony is their adoptive son, and a pony who does not know he is not a deer even though his antlers are obviously sticks (his deer family dance around the subject like it’s a bad toupee.) Can the ponies convince the deer pony of who he really is and convince him to come back to Fillydelphia with them — or should they??
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a fanfic exactly like that. Could anyone remind me?
Nothing More to Sea: This one is also getting quoted in full.
The ponies go on a vacation to the beach only to find that the tide has gone so unusually far out, it has uncovered a portion of the kingdom of the sea ponies! Dried up and languishing in the sun, the once lush, beautiful city of the sea is quickly turning into ruins. Twilight, having just learned some special water magic for the trip, helps her friends enter the ocean where they meet the sea ponies and find that the selfish, monstrous sea serpent, the Kraken, is hording half the water of the sea for his underground home and is taking more and more every hour. Can the ponies team up with the sea ponies to get the ocean back from the Kraken?
The notable thing about this one is tides: There’s no way they can exist, and according to this story blurb, they actually don’t – it’s the Kraken hoarding the water. :)
Consumer
This section is important, in that it reiterates some of what I already pointed out above:
But what sets My Little Pony apart from all other ’tween properties is that all these experiences have a FANTASICAL twist, and clever “pony” theme behind all of it. (For instance, if we were to tell a story about a sports competition, we would not have the pony’s play soccer, but polo, or rodeo, or a jumping competition. If we wanted to tell a story about a dance recital, it would be a dressage recital. All the feelings and experiences would be that of a little girl, it is only the details that would be pony.)
As I mentioned above, ponies were meant to be the paint rather than the nature of the world. It didn’t work per se, but the document persists in stating that.
And one other piece needs to be quoted in its entirety:
Boys (believe it or not)
They won’t admit it, but they’ll watch. When their sister’s watching it, they’ll balk and act like it’s dumb, then they’ll sit down and watch it. For the same reason Moms will find My Little Pony interesting enough to happily share with their daughters, the compelling conflicts, the strong characterizations, the silly humor and (most importantly for boys) the ADVENTURE, the boys will watch, too. Really.
Older boys, however, tend to have an eye for detail…
Conclusion
And that’s all of it. Now, let me tell you what I think about it…
- Assuming that this document is in fact real, it’s an early attempt to produce a series bible document when they needed to get new writers on board. At the time, all they had were old notes, a certain quantity of actual assets, the project had already been given a go, but no actual scripts existed. Even Season 1 episodes contradict some of the ideas presented.
2. They might have.
Since it gets leaked now, presumably, no subsequent, more detailed document was ever written. In fact, reusing some of the ideas as late as Season 2 suggests it remained in active use even afterwards, although, the usefulnesses kept diminishing. This literally went out the door together with Faust, though not because anybody hated her specifically,2 but rather, because it was entirely useless by the time she left. No concise document or reference replaced it.
- The descriptions appear to be written deliberately to leave as much world undefined as possible, to create it as they go along. This is a viable approach. To make it work well, though, you require someone meticulously taking notes on the team as people do add to it and create along. I’m pretty sure the story editors did nothing of the sort, or, if they did, they kept their notes private and never shared them with their successors.
- The author of the document explicitly sees “pony” as a style choice, rather than a plot driving force, at least, they say that much. Pony world was never meant to be consistent and was never supposed to make sense, or stand up to any sort of critical scrutiny. At the same time, multiple story blurbs presented diverge wildly from this view, and put things like cutie marks and hooves front and center. This ambivalence remains with us to this day, and apparently, both views coexist within the same brain.
Say hello to the anthill.
Wow. This is downright Precambrian in terms of the show's development. Strange to see how much changed between even this and the premiere.
The fact that this was never updated strongly suggests that either there never has been a continuity editor on staff, or else, they work exclusively with the storyboard artists and are kept away from the writers entirely. Who seem to be treated like anchorites in the Hasbro production process anyways - there's no such thing as a writer's room, virtual or real, and all communication goes through whoever is the current showrunner.
4691129
Well, it does say it’s a “bible,” but if it is one, all it contains is the book of Genesis.
4691131
Actually, I think that a continuity editor that only works with the storyboard artists is structurally equivalent to fishing Flash assets out of a library of all assets previously accumulated…
IIRC Faust said same thing on her DA page. That Mane 6 supposed to be a teenagers at best. She also plan that ponies mature more like real horses.
4691131 Alternatively, if we're thinking optimistically, there is a newer document but for whatever reason that one didn't get leaked. Perhaps the leaker was someone who left the show in S1-S2 who didn't see anything newer, or perhaps the leaker decided it'd be best to leave the newer stuff secret.
On the other hand, yeah, it's possible this's it.
4691266
Considering that this got leaked simultaneously with a full batch of Season 7 broadcast scripts and the rest of Season 7 episodes, this doesn’t sound that likely.
The “Fancy Meeting You Deer” synopsis has been known to fans for a few years—Faust mentioned it in a conversation with some fan at a convention. The Elements of Friendship, Book I: Harmony reused it for the subplot about activating the Element of Honesty. But if that’s not the only fanfic, I wouldn’t be surprised.
If Celestia was to be the only alicorn. Could one say that either, she grew lonely or tired of raising both the sun and moon, and so split herself in twain, creating Luna.
4691340
Nothing in the text suggests such a possibility. It’s an interesting idea, though.
4691289
It's the one I remember, at least, thanks.
On the other hand, all the pencil sketches of Fluttershy depict her as an earth pony, while the vector art shows her with wings, and the text clearly says she’s a pegasus. And those pencil sketches have the butterfly cutie mark, not flowers, so she’s definitely supposed to be a ground-bound Fluttershy, not Posey.
I’d always heard that the the change from Surprise to Pinkie Pie happened at roughly the same time as the change from Posey to Fluttershy (to keep the E/U/P numbers matched within the mane six). It’s interesting that there are no pencil sketches of Pinkie Pie, just vector art.
One other thing that makes me wonder about this Bible is the completely useless Table of Contents. It doesn’t quite match the actual content. The entire “Key Art” section is just plain missing. “Key Locations” is supposed to have sections on Cloudsdale, Canterlot, and “Other Locations”, each as long as the description of Ponyville, but they’re gone—and Ponyville’s description was moved before “Key Characters”, into the place of the one-page “Welcome to Ponyville”.
But the biggest offender: the Table of Contents lists page numbers, but none of the pages in the Bible are numbered.
Assuming this is legit, it feels more like a design document than a proper Universe Bible. I honestly suspect this is Faust’s original pitch to Hasbro which the staff just rebranded as a Bible because they didn’t have time to make one properly.
The section on the Cutie Mark Crusaders does confirm what pretty much everyone suspected: that the cutie marks they got in season 5 weren’t at all what the showrunners were planning back in season 1. Apple Seed’s bio states:
Scootaloo’s bio talks about her inability to fly and her talent for scooter-driving, ending with:
And Sweetie Belle’s bio says she wants to be just like Rarity, but all her attempts to help her older sister fail miserably. But she has a remarkable singing voice...
What weirds me out the most about this Bible is how tribalist it is. The three pony types segregate themselves:
Of course, it’s hard to keep things Separate But Equal for long:
And it creeps into the synopsis of “Applebonk Season”:
All hail the Unicorn Master Race. And, of course, Twilight is the only one helping AJ here. The rest of the mane six are at Pinkie’s party at the beginning of the synopsis, but completely disappear afterwards.
Oh, and why is Grizelda such a jerk?
“We want to include other societies like deer in the forests, llamas in the mountains, mustangs in the plains, and Arabians in the deserts—to teach kids how to respect other cultures and make friends with people who are different from them. But Griffons? They’re all jerks. Screw them.”
4691340 4691344 If Celestia was to be the only alicorn at this point, I wonder what would happen to Nightmare Moon? Would the Elements of Harmony destroy her entirely, or turn her to stone like Discord?
It really depends on how much lead time it really takes to animate. Allegedly, the whole “Canterlot Wedding” idea came from Hasbro’s mandate to make an episode inspired by Prince William’s wedding in real life—and the pony version aired a full year after the real thing. And the first episodes of season 1 probably took even longer, considering all that art had to be made from scratch, while “A Canterlot Wedding” had the season 1 assets to draw from.
You’re being a bit generous when you say “many of the art pieces we have seen throughout Season 1 have already existed.” A bunch of background art already existed, but even some of these had to be changed (like this early design of Carousel Couture). The show-accurate pony vectors are only in two poses: a generic “standing in profile and smiling” pose, and a single 3/4 view image of Pinkie with one forehoof raised. Every other pose is either a pencil sketch, or Faust’s vectorized art that almost matches the show’s models, but doesn’t. No evidence of the hundreds of other poses and facial expressions that would need to be made in Flash. They don’t even have any vector art of “Apple Seed”—just a pencil sketch. If this is really is how far the artists had gotten at the time, then they still had a lot of work ahead.
And “©2009” still leaves wiggle room. Does that mean January 2009, December 2009, or somewhere in between?
4691545
It does leave the wiggle room. There’s also that mysterious focus group that resulted in changing half the names even from this document, that would have taken time…
Here’s another interesting consideration:
Should we assume that the document is a hoax, it’s a very strange hoax. Were I making a hoax of this kind, you would never catch me in a typo, spelling mistake, slipping formatting, lost sections and missing page numbers. A hoaxer would be aware they would be called out on this and would avoid technical mistakes wherever possible.
But should we assume this is a real document, the sloppiness is by itself pretty staggering, you don’t write like that, not if you expect people to read it. You definitely don’t write like that if you expect people to make a financial decision based on it, which is one of the reasons I think it might be based on the original pitch, but is not that pitch text itself.
So what’s actually going on here?
4691541
Nothing, obviously. The document contains no mention or design of the Nightmare Moon, let alone Discord. “Queen Celestia” really is a plot device, not a character, and no threat on the presumed scale of Nightmare Moon is ever mentioned therein.
Yes, the pilot episode appears to have come entirely out of the blue. Pun intended.
4691557 Uh, wow. Any mention of the Elements of Harmony?
4691572
Nope to that either. Remember how the entire Season 1 and most of the subsequent series quietly pretends that the Mane 6 do not have any kind of national hero status? This is why.
4691577 And also why Luna never shows up again till the one episode specifically about her. Wow.
Hmm, I've seen one fanfic in which Luna didn't exist until Nightmare Moon was reformed, and another one where Nightmare Moon faked her own defeat, but I wonder if someone could do something where the Elements of Harmony never existed till then. Alternatively, maybe even something where - somehow - Nightmare Moon's return never actually happened?
4691579
I don’t think anything like this exists. For the viewers, Nightmare’s return is the defining episode of the show.
And yet, it’s slotted in, it’s not part of the pitch or the only reference document we have available.
4691554
Like you said, it reads to me like they needed a “Show Bible” but were too pressed for time to make one properly. So they copied text wholesale from Faust’s original pitch, slapped their most recent art all over it, gave it a quick editing pass to replace a few outdated names, and decided that was good enough.
Perhaps in parts, they only had hard copies of the pitch, so they had to scan them and use software (Adobe Acrobat?) to extract the text from the picture. Typos like...
...look like the sort of errors I’ve seen crop up in image-to-text scanning. Could the paragraphs with random missing letters also be caused by that?
As for “Why would anyone publish something this sloppy?”: well, in my professional experience, I’ve seen some companies’ internal communications and even official memos with similar disregard for spelling and grammar. I’m also told that Christopher Nolan’s scripts are riddled with typos that everyone else works around. Basically, if you think that a document will never ever get released to the general public, then there’s a huge temptation to let your writing standards slide. “As long as you understand what I mean, who cares if it’s pretty?”
4691594 What I was thinking of was story where Nightmare Moon's return and the Elements of Harmony were a myth created retrospectively by some sort of magic so the Elements could be there to defeat Discord. It's a really vague idea; perhaps I should be writing it on my own?
Back to Doylism, I'm surprised the S1 opening was inserted so late, but I think that was a very good decision. It starts out by grabbing the viewers and dragging them into the show's world; I don't think the brony phenomenon would've been a thing without it.
4691131 What's weird is that apparently Hasbro, through GI Joe and Transformers, invented the show bible and detailed settings and backstories in the 80s, and they had extremely successful properties because of it. Why they wouldn't put in a similar effort here is a mystery to me.
Show bible??? *reads* …yeah, that's…yeah.
loath [grr @ whoever wrote it]
They didn't get around to it, then Twilicorn happened, and she then Already Had.
EQG of course technically skewers it, but…still, you're wrong, you know.
4692078
I'm increasingly convinced that this isn't the actual story bible, but, as people have been saying, more like Faust's initial pitch document or a very early outline that just got labeled as "story bible" when it was released.
That's... a lot of racial stereotypes.
4698445
I’ve been thinking about it in the background, and I’ve come to the conclusion that this isn’t the whole story. Throughout the text, the author drops certain comments, and one in particular is interesting:
I.e. in the eyes of the author, non-horned ponies are uninteresting, because they’re not unicorns. It’s not so much racism as in the belief in the superiority of one pony kind over others, as it is racism in the belief that other kinds just don’t exist. It’s external to the original franchise entirely.
4698460
I was referring to the Native Americans and Magical Negros, dude.
4698479
Ah. Well, those have been with the American fiction for decades, why should they go away now. :)
4698480
...Because they're racist?
4698483
Take that up with Faust.
4698479
The real WTF moment for me—the one that made me less inclined to a charitable interpretation of the Magical Negro and Native American stereotypes—was modeling the Diamond Dawgs after gangsta rappers. If casting that kind of stereotype as the episode’s villains (easily-outwitted villains, at that) wasn’t intentionally racist, then it was at least stupidly tone-deaf.
Stuff changing brings to mind an ex-editor for the show that talked in length about Hasbro wanting the show to go a certain way, though I don't think they mentioned whether there was a bible they made an attempt to follow.
Though your other blogs about anthill plots going every which way from multiple writers was a thing they had to deal with later on.
Dunno if you're interested in reading it, PM me if you want a transcript of the conversation.
Tolkien made a similar point in an essay he wrote in the late 1940s; for an audience to truly get immersed in the world you have created, it has to be internally consistent and function in a believable way. This is what he termed 'secondary narrative' and why creating Middle Earth as a setting took so long.