Oct
21st
2017
Points of Canon: S3x09 - Spike at Your Service · 9:27pm Oct 21st, 2017
I could do more comics, but frankly, I don’t like any of the ones past #53 to be excited about it. And there’s still more Season 3 left…
That episode is also a bit dubious though…
- “How are you supposed to read twelve books in one weekend?” Shades of Spike not actually spending his early childhood with Twilight reappear even this late, otherwise he would know.
1. Which is just a little faster than I read in optimal conditions. Reading is my only actual superpower, mind you.
An average non-fiction book, if there is such a thing, appears to clock in at 90k words in our world, which would imply Twilight has 48 hours to read 1080k words, at a rate of ~375 words per minute, assuming no sleep. That is actually not that fast. That said, Twilight presumably plans to sleep normally during this period, which would leave her only 32 hours and get her ~580 words per minute.1 That said, pony books typically seem to use a larger font and would therefore have to be shorter…
- Even assuming Twilight does not have a problem doing it, this kind of assignment feels like an attempt to shut a student up. At least, that’s the only reason why I would assign twelve books.
Spike’s list of things he’s been dying to do is odd:
- “Touch nose with tongue.”
- “Play bongos on my belly.”
- “Smell my dirty feet.”
Presumably, it’s a list of things Twilight forbids him from doing in her presence, otherwise, I can’t explain them at all – but then, it’s strange that the actual scroll is much longer than that.
Also, dragon feet smell – reiterating the comment about dragon perspiration Rarity made in Party of One.
Also, contrary to expectation, Spike used icons for this checklist rather than words.
- Spike kicks a random mushroom growing on the street. Not only it’s purple – I don’t know any purple mushrooms – but how is it growing in the middle of a street?
- “A hot air balloon ride!” Everyone assumes that it’s Twilight who owns this balloon, mostly based on the show opening, however, here, it’s Cherry Berry who appears to be giving children rides, and later on, she walks off with the balloon. Then again, she leaves the balloon unattended immediately, permitting Spike to let it get away…
- Also, remember the lady with three fans on her cutie mark? The one who objects to the use of the word “peeved?” She’s the one meeting Dinky after the balloon as well.
- Lemon Hearts isn’t just in town. She’s airing out a blanket in a window that Spike jumps past, and Spike ends up making off with it.
<insert clopfic>no, don’t. - Notice that even though a pegasus is immediately available – Spike runs past one – Spike never thinks of asking one for help in securing the balloon.
- Spike survives friction braking with his claws on the wheel getting red hot without even a wail of pain.
- It’s strange how Granny Smith is always in town whenever the show needs an old pony to cross the street, isn’t it?
- “I-if I didn’t know better, I would swear that I was in the middle of the dark and scary Everfree Forest.” Considering that the balloon chase couldn’t have taken him further than a kilometer, he’d better know better.
- Timberwolves breathe out something distinctly smelly, represented with a green cloud, which cause Spike to pinch his nose. Later in the episode, he comments that “You could smell a real timberwolf’s breath from a mile…”
- As a side note, Family Appreciation Day implies that timberwolves only appear during zap apple season, implicitly putting this episode on an integer yearly boundary with itself. Notice that the integer can be zero.
- Applejack kicks a stone into the timberwolf. Considering her later feats of strength – see Shadow Play, but also, later in the same episode – it’s clear she could have shattered the timberwolf entirely but chose not to. Yet the moment she can do it while they’re chasing her, she doesn’t hesitate. Which is a little strange, though I can think of one or two reasons to do it like that…
- “I mean, you rocketed those boulders at them like they were… rockets!” Rockets are a thing. At least in fireworks…
- “You saved my life!” Considering how resilient dragons have been shown to be since, I doubt that very much.
- Applejack’s justification for being “in the middle of” Everfree is “Saw the balloon floatin’ by with nopony in it, came out here to investigate.” However, that would require her to be close enough in the first place, and she never explained why she was.
- “Apple Bloom’s over yonder givin’ little Piggington a bath.” That’s the only time pigs are described with names.
- “Applejack, is it okay if I get goin’? I don’t wanna be late for my Crusaders meeting. We’re gettin’ fitted for water skis!” Crusaders already have meetings, and are engaged in regular crusading activities, which gives us a set of potential chronology locks. It also implies summer, since I don’t think you’d want to water ski in any other season.
- “I reckon you have repaid me in full so we are officially even Steven.” So who’s Steven?
- “I’m helping Applejack make some pies!” Both prior and later episodes show Spike to be a competent cook. So what exactly brought this on?
- “You saved my life! According to the”Spike the Dragon Code“, I owe you a life debt and must serve you.” Naturally, this code is never mentioned again, and we never see dragons behaving in this fashion anywhere else, so we don’t know just where Spike got the idea. I blame Brimferno, mentioned in A Flurry of Emotions – this sounds like something a pony author writing about a barbarian dragon hero would cook up. His clumsiness could also be explained as imitating this hero, though that’s kind of pushing it…
- Notice also that Spike belches up the card he uses to illustrate this statement, as if it were a delivered letter, yet there’s nobody who could send this one and time it so exactly. Evidently, he can store messages at will.
“And, as you are aware, I adhere to my dragon code, and this means I must serve her for the rest of my natural born days!”
- Spike did tell Twilight about this code at some point prior.
- This “natural born” qualifier is strange, especially considering that Spike hasn’t been born, but rather, hatched, and in fact, this didn’t exactly happen naturally.
- However long it took Spike to walk to the library from Sweet Apple Acres and back was enough for Granny Smith and Applejack to completely clean up the kitchen mess.
- Notice that Rarity doesn’t just tear off a piece with her magic and eat it, she uses her magic to wield a dessert fork instead.
“I… had a big lunch!” “It’s ten in the morning.”
- Ponies usually don’t eat lunch so early. Expected, but not actually a given.
- This entire adventure with the balloon, washing the pig, messing up the kitchen and everything else took Spike no more than about three hours. Considering that baking a pie takes 40-50 minutes, most of this happened very, very fast.
- “I’d get them to organize my closets, and give me pedicures, and help me with my sewing and…” That’s the only time the word “pedicure” appears. Compare to “pony pedi” and “hooficure.”
- “What are you having him do? Wash your laundry? Clean your room? Help you with your unfinished novel? Mine’s about this awesome Pegasus who’s the best flyer ever and becomes the captain of the Wonderbolts!” Rainbow Dash is writing a novel. This is outright impossible before the events of Read It And Weep. There’s a good argument that Rainbow wouldn’t aim that high if Wonderbolt Academy hasn’t happened yet, but that is not a hard lock. Notice also that she apparently never finished.
- “So instead of hay, I’m gonna smash through rocks!” Smashing through the tower of rocks does not seem to actually hurt Rainbow, though she is not willing to try again.
- Spike is building the pile of rocks in a rather strange fashion he never seems to use otherwise: He’s climbing the pile on all fours while holding the rock with his tail.
- “The dragon is the finest creature ever, there’s more to him than just guarding treasure…” Further evidence Spike is under the influence of a book, I think.
- Twilight’s OCD is so strong that she can instantly detect one of her inkwells has been moved. And she moves it back immediately recognizing what changed in the room. Has she ever been quite that meticulous before?
- “Oh, Applejack, I wish I could, but this is dragon code we’re talking about. Surely you know how important the dragon code is to a dragon!” Twilight has, apparently, read the same book.
- Twilight chose to make a marionette timberwolf rather than directly levitate it, or animate it in some other way. Why? For that matter, why is Fluttershy tasked with the clopping sound effects when Twilight would probably do a better job of those herself?
- Rainbow Dash can quite convincingly imitate a timberwolf roaring, though, a talent she does not seem to ever reuse.
- “I was just hopin’ you could maybe, uh, sweep up all those leaves for a compost pile, and…” Compost piles are a thing. Not a given with earth ponies.
- “Oh, by the way, there are exactly twenty-four million, five hundred and sixty-seven thousand, eight hundred and thirty seven blades of grass at Sweet Apple Acres.” Counting them one by one as he is shown doing would take Spike at least a year, so he had to have arrived at this number by some other method. All of the methods available involve considerable mathematics. It’s more likely to be bullshit, though: A football field contains on the scale of 389 million blades of grass and Sweet Apple Acres is a lot larger than one football field.
- “I can’t! I’m really stuck!” With the force she normally applies, I am having trouble imagining how does this rock ensure that Applejack is stuck. Especially considering that Spike pries the rock off with a stick.
- It’s possible to choke a timberwolf, though the logic of how is this possible escapes me entirely.
- “But, maybe let’s just try to avoid situations where one of us actually needs the other one to save their life?” It’s interesting that while Spike later on ends up in situations like that rather a lot, it’s almost never with Applejack.
That episode became slightly less strange with time, though Spike’s sudden incompetence in cooking remains strange.
It's been theorized that Spike is only ever good at stuff when it's with Twilight, suggesting he's in some way her familiar. This theory is usually only ever used to explain away this episode.
4704451
I think my “Spike is imitating a barbarian hero from a book he read recently, and simply forgot he was actually good at cooking and not really anywhere that clumsy” theory fits a lot better. :)
4704458
Oh, definitely. Makes more sense than trying to justify him as a magically-bound pet.
The same thing happened to Pinkie in the episode “Maud Pie”. I wonder if getting a forehoof stuck under a rock is the pony equivalent of the Standard Female Grab Area.
I went back and checked the transcript on Family Appreciation Day, and while you *could* take away the implication that timberwolves only appear to herald zap apple season, it isn't stated so baldly. Not every time they appear or howl, but that timberwolf howling during a wild-weather event is a necessary-but-not-necessarily-sufficient sign that it was time for zap appling.
And the greenish miasma they breathe out... It's always been obvious that timberwolves are wood given life by 'wild magic'. The question is, why this magic, why this form? Timberwolves also appear in The Cutie Re-Mark, during the Eternal Night time-loop. You've hypothesized elsewhere that the Equestrian moon is the source of all magic in their world - if it's up in the sky always, 24/7, well. Maybe the world of Eternal Night is drowning in wild magic, a landscape suffused with overflowing wild magic. The Land of Eternal Night does not die by frost and freeze, but is rather boiling over with monsters, signs, portents, and terrible magics everywhere.
Do #57! It's awesome and has a lot to say about Discord, Pinkie and the chaos dimension. It changed my opinion on his fundamental nature.
Or in his experience Twilight usually reads thick dense tomes of magic and takes detailed notes about everything she reads, which would be really hard to do with 12 books in 1 weekend.
What if you were about to turn your student into a mutant royal and you wanted to give them some kind of extreme test first?
I remember this list bugged me since I thought it suggested Twilight keeps Spike working so much he can't even think about doing fun stuff. Doylistically I think it's because the writers hadn't thought of any interests to give Spike before comics in season 4.
Estee had a great story about Spike that suggested dragons are immune to fire because of a chemical that they excrete. Presumably that chemical would smell terrible.
I think they only howl and come close to SWA during Zap Apple Season... except that Spike and Applejack stumble into a pack and rile them up at the beginning of the episode, then Rainbow does a really good call to attract Timber Wolves near the end.
Maybe. I mean, if they could pin Spike down, could their magical wooden teeth eventually pierce dragonhide? Or could Spike literally choke to death on the fumes of their breath?
Also brings up the point that the Crusaders are engaged in very expensive activities that require lots of equipment. Do blank flanks just get free everything, or is this where SWA is spending all its money?
A long-standing question that no good watsonian answer has ever been found for. Subconscious self-sabotage so Spike can go back to Twilight?
I think Spike only adopted the code in response to the other dragons behavior, and this episode taught him the code was dumb, which would explain why we don't see it again.
Is Spike's fire the Cloud?
We've never seen a unicorn do that with magic unless it's the equivalent of finger food, I suspect it's a manners thing.
I could see Rainbow writing herself future Captain of the Wonderbolts from S1.
Regardless, why does Twilight think Applejack would know?
Based on later seasons, we know unicorn glow is visible, which defeats the purpose of using it in that way.
Her very first impression!
4704475
There's the theory that earth ponies channel their magic through their hooves. Perhaps when the hoof is pinned in such a way, earth ponies cannot use magical strength in that limb?
4704527 I like your theory about eternal night, it explains a lot of things.
In the movie, we can see fire around Dash front hooves (presumably from air friction) when she does Rainboom and she doesn't seem to be bothered by this. And dragon tougher that ponies so not that surprising?
She tended her secret garden of... stuff. Highly illegal... stuff :).
Depending on the content of the books and the point on the timeline, this could be some desperate pre-ascension cramming sent by Celestia. (“Sunset Shimmer’s due back soon, there are some discrepancies in Tartarus, I can’t remember the last time I checked on the Tree of Harmony… That filly needs her wings and she needs them yesterday!”)
And yet Twilight can commandeer it for, say, going to Cloudsdale, Wonderbolt headquarters, or the Smoky Mountains whenever she wants... yet at the same time, it's Cherry Fluttershy's paying for the ride back to Cloudsdale in "Magical Mystery Cure." Maybe it's a case of multiple identical balloons?
Does it? They certainly react to zap apple season, but I don't see how that implies that they aren't active at other points in the year.
The fairest, most even-handed river serpent in the Everfree, of course!
I view Spike's kitchen mishaps in this episode as subconscious self-sabotage. He's worried about how Twilight will fare without him, but he has a life debt to repay. Brimferno implanting the idea of life debts that certainly makes sense.
That or it's just bad writing, but that's hardly a satisfactory answer.
Of course not. This is Rarity we're talking about.
It's made of plotonium, the mineral no earth pony can lift. See also "Maud Pie."
4704565
That might explain it. Although I’d always figured that earth ponies’ strength came from pumping magic into their muscles and skeleton—that the only stuff channeled through their hooves was their Earth-connection magic that made them so good at growing plants. Still, even in that interpretation, perhaps pinning a hoof like that can block off that particular magic channel, which throws their magic out of whack in the rest of their body. Perhaps the magic that fuels their enhanced strength is drawn from the Earth through their hooves, so hurting or pinning even one hoof means they have access to less magic, and therefore less strength.
4704726 I've always agreed with the interpretation you gave for how earth pony magic works. I'm not sure about the new theory, because then earth ponies wouldn't be super strong when they aren't standing on the ground. Like, how could Pinkie pedal her gyrocopter?
4704527
Everyone keeps calling me out on that, so I’ll answer to the one who put it forward first:
At all other times, nobody is wary of timberwolves specifically when entering Everfree.
4704565
But I’d have to do #54, and #55-56! And #54 is about Angel, by Fosgitt, and sucks! And #55-56 is not much better…
Then I would certainly avoid overtaxing her with having to remember 12 new books. Generally, so many books could only be needed at all when introducing a student to an entirely new discipline they have previously never heard about. Even then, that is generally best accomplished with three books, tops.
These three items are either noisy (bongos) annoying (touching nose with tongue) or outright disgusting (smelling feet) – so I think it’s just a list of things Twilight told him not to do, that he planned to complete with things he actually wants to do, but never got around to.
I think it’s far more likely he would simply reduce them to cinders in short order.
Presumably latter, seeing how approving Applejack is of this activity this time.
Depends on how noxious and toxic to your business it is. :)
She always says she’s going to be “a wonderbolt” before then, though, never “captain of.” But I put it down as a soft lock, anyway.
Why wouldn’t she, if it’s a popular book of fiction? We don’t see Applejack read for entertainment, but in Read It And Weep she states that she does, so it’s reasonable to assume that a hot popular new adventure story of
ConanDragon the Barbarian crossed her hooves at some point. Twilight is aware it is bogus, but she’s happy that Spike found something to be his role model, which has been a problem, historically. Spike cooked up the Noble Dragon Code based on it. He also imitates the other aspects of a barbarian dragon without noticing, but it’s not something Twilight can’t tolerate……unfortunately, it is something that Applejack can’t tolerate. :)
She does have other means of animating things, though.
4704715
Maybe, but then we see Scootaloo use it to visit Rainbow, too. I expect the easier way out is that Cherry owns it and it’s available for long term rental.
Whew, I was worried it’s a human-crystal gem hybrid!
4704775
You’re right; that would be silly. But what if EPs draw magic from the Earth, through their hooves, but they don’t require contact with the ground to do it? And messing with the magic channels in their hooves has bad effects.
4704900
Between when Spike lands in the balloon and when he is able to lower it enough to tie off the rope, there's a soft fade, so an indeterminate amount of time could have passed. That said, you have a point that Applejack wouldn't casually wander into the forest.
Also, when Rainbow does her Timberwolf cry, we actually see it waking them up and getting their attention. So even when they are calm enough to sleep, they can come running to the edge of SWA in a minute or two.
You could probably skip ahead. The only thing we learn from #54 is that Fluttershy is a passive-aggressive manipulator, and we already knew that. #55-56, while terrible, do have some valuable lore. You can always come around and cover them later.
Probably settling a bet with Luna then.
That's an elegant explanation and I like it.
He's no AWS, that's for sure.
Spike trying to act like Conan does explain a lot of things about this episode.
If Spike could get through his mental block about flaming things, totally. Luckily we know he has now, thanks to the movie.
4704914 Interesting. So their frogs act like a unicorn's horn, drawing magic into the body, but if the frog is bent at a significant angle the channeling doesn't work.
4704927
Plausible!
I’m sure that if you beat him up for a few minutes – and he can last a few minutes if he survives a 20-meter drop into molten basalt, that is, lava – this block will be gone rather rapidly.
4704933
I remember how frustrated I was watching a 🔥 breather get beaten by wooden enemies.
http://grammarist.com/idiom/even-steven-and-even-stevens/ not a name in our language. http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Steven_Magnet
So one can have Scotty in a teleporter buffer now.
…which puts a lock after "Dragon Quest":
Well, she does roar at Fluttershy in "28 Pranks Later"…
4704459
Well, he is
bornhatched by her magic.4704565
Remember AB "helping" sell apples? She can get money rather more easily than you'd think…I suspect most of it is RD giving Scoots "awesome gear" and Rarity being Sororally Generous, though.
I think we do hear it invoked once more, but I can't place it.4704613
Or a still filled with Mostly Apples.
4704775
Or how could she fly with tailicopter?
4704900
Barbarian? Given his fantasies in "Dog&Pony" I'm expecting it to be the chivalry of a knight.
4710504
Well, Granny Smith found Zap Apples in Everfree and Applejack find... I don't know? LSD Apples? Mescaline apples? Something like that :).