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Oliver


Let R = { x | x ∉ x }, then R ∈ R ⟺ R ∉ R... or is it?

More Blog Posts349

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  • 153 weeks
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  • 161 weeks
    A series of unexpected observations

    So I’ve been reading things.

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Nov
1st
2017

Points of Canon: S4x06 - Power Ponies · 1:35pm Nov 1st, 2017

Wherein Spike’s love of comic books comes to the forefront. Also, another major glimpse into the depths of pony fiction.

  • Twilight wears a nightcap to bed. It tends to only cover exactly one ear throughout the scene and likes to slide off.
  • The lamp Spike is using to read looks very much electric, with a push switch. He is still using that patched-up blanket too.
  • “The Mane-iac?” Twilight has not paid much attention to what exactly has Spike been reading so avidly recently, this is the first time she hears about Power Ponies. Evidently, Spike is permitted to purchase and read whatever he pleases, since in the end of the episode he also claims to have bought the comic himself.
  • The comic contains no visible speech boxes, I wonder why exactly.
  • “She was the power-mad owner of a hair-care product company.” Companies are a thing. We knew that, but more evidence that it’s not communism out there wouldn’t hurt.
  • “A tragic accident at her shampoo factory in Maretropolis not only gave her mane strange new powers, but also caused her to go completely insane!”

    • Closer investigation of the comic on screen reveals that it involved electrifying a mix in a vat that is normally not meant to be electrified – also an outright electrical cable.
    • Actually, remember It isn’t the Mane Thing About You? Compare and contrast: seeing how big a deal a mane is from the magical point of view, Mane-iac’s tragic accident might be entirely plausible and even likely!
  • “She and her henchponies are planning to break into the Maretropolis Museum and steal the Electro-Orb, so she can use it to power up her doomsday device!” Doomsday devices are an idea in pony fiction. Not a given and actually very useful.
  • “Of course, the Mane-iac wouldn’t have even known if Hum Drum hadn’t slipped up and told her all about it.” Spike’s speech is kinda jumbled. I wonder what is it exactly that Hum Drum told her and why were they even talking. And since the orb was in a museum, you would expect it to be on display and described in literature.
  • “But if we’re going to make any progress fixing up Luna and Celestia’s old castle tomorrow, we all have to do our part.”

    • “Luna and Celestia’s” – not Star Swirl’s. If this castle is associated with Star Swirl as his dwelling at all, Twilight does not know about it at this point.
    • This statement establishes that this episode has to follow Castle Mane-ia and also introduces the idea of fixing up the castle which gets quietly forgotten afterwards. During the Inspiration Manifestation, it looks somewhat tidied up, but after that it evaporates from the narrative all the way until Shadow Play.
    • Actually, why do this at all?
    • Rainbow and Fluttershy tarp up some of the holes in the roof – the ones in the throne room – but not all of them. Which would make hanging new paintings on the walls a rather stupid idea, since the rain will eventually ruin them. But that’s exactly what Applejack is seen doing.
  • Pinkie slides around on brushes, in a rare example of a pony-adapted tool. I don’t think it was meant to be used on all four hooves, though. Later, she slides around on her mane instead, mysteriously keeping exactly upside down.
  • “I know I saw a magnifying glass laying around the last time I was here…” Magnifying glasses were available a thousand years ago, which implies certain technologies.
  • “You can return to the place you started when the Mane-iac is defeated. Take a closer look to join the adventure in this book.” The phrase is printed so small that Spike requires a magnifying glass to read it. Presumably, because it triggers the enchantment on the comic, accidental reading needs to be prevented. But why, then, does the page not have any explanatory text in a normal sized font? It’s entirely blank beyond this small print.
  • As Spike is being sucked into the book, we can observe very obvious spatial distortions.

Comic Realm

Notice that most of the observations in this section refer to pony fiction and not necessarily to pony reality. However, it implies that artifacts described are imaginable even if they aren’t real. This isn’t how ponies actually live, but this is definitely how they imagine living in a few decades.

  • Maretropolis has one of the few airships in the series float past in the opening scene.
  • A pretzel stand that Mane-iac throws at the Power Ponies has mustard and ketchup bottles on it. Is that really a thing anywhere?
  • Mailbox, the kind where you deposit a letter to be sent. Actually, I think it’s the earliest mailbox of this kind I see in the series at all.
  • The pun “Filli-second” implies that milliseconds are in use and time actually can be measured in milliseconds.
  • “You’re the Masked Matter-Horn! You can shoot all kinds of crazy power beams from your horn!” The detail of Matter-Horn’s costume makes me think the character is actually a pegasus – the wings are exposed, while the horn looks more like a prosthetic than a helmet. Which would explain why Twilight fails at shooting a power beam from a device that does not fully imitate the function of an actual horn.
  • The next thing Mane-iac throws is a fire hydrant. Hail hydrants! Also implies a pretty specific organization of fire service, based on delivering equipment, but not water.
  • “Just think of something, anything, and your bracelet makes it appear!” Notice that Radiance is wearing two bracelets, rather than one. What’s the other for?
  • “You’re psychically connected to it! Will it to where you want it to go, and it’ll obey you!” Sounds like psychic powers of some kind are a thing in fiction.
  • “I was already awesome. And now we’ve all got superpowers!” What ponies regularly get up to is not considered superpowers.
  • Mane-iac’s top secret headquarters has an obvious neon hair care product ad above the door. Even Applejack instantly recognizes it as a shampoo factory. Does not sound very secret.
  • All of Mane-iac’s goons have hair care cutie marks, which raises a lot of questions regarding why are they following her.
  • “The Hairspray Ray of Doom! It stops you in your tracks and renders your powers useless!” Notice that it isn’t actually a ray, just a spray. It’s clearly named that only because rays are cooler.
  • The watchpony uses a mechanical kitchen timer to re-apply the spray at regular intervals. Unexpectedly smart. Notice that the timer rings pretty often – every two minutes.
  • Mane-iac’s superweapon is a hair dryer meant to convey an uncontrolled version of her hair powers onto every pony in town. It’s clearly electrical, since it’s powered by an Electro-Orb, and notably, we already know ponies have those, though probably not quite that big – the industrial pet hair dryer the CMC acquired in Just For Sidekicks was smaller. Since the Electro-Orb sounds too good to be true, I expect it’s the primary fictional part here.
  • “Tonight, we stand upon the brink of immortality, for we collectively … though, mostly me … have finally defeated our most hated nemeses!” Where’d this immortality notion come from?…
  • Notice that while originally, Mane-iac used goons to attack the power ponies, this time the room contains primarily mooks – identical green-haired ponies with identical hairbrush cutie marks. And Spike handily dispatches two large groups.
  • “…have struck a blow for freedom in the name of oppression!” Ah, she’s just crazy. Oh well.
  • “I mean, I know you’re evil and everything, but you hurt a teensy, little, harmless firefly?!” What’s a firefly doing in a city that never sleeps, anyway?…
  • Saddle Rager is immune to Mane-iac’s superweapon once powered up. Mane-iac herself is not.

Back in the castle

  • “Did you see how I was raining down a storm of justice at the end there?!” Vigilante justice is an idea in Equestria, and I really, really wonder why. Because, well, just go read “Super-history: Comic Book Superheroes and American Society, 1938 to the Present” – the origins of the masked vigilante that we know revolve around a specific, and rather unpleasant kind of socioeconomic situation. Did ponies ever have anything similar? When? Is it a Sandwich?
  • “Eh, we had a good half second before we got sucked back out of the comic, and the Maretropolis bakery was only sixty-five blocks away!”

    • The block size is not exactly a standard, but assuming reasonable defaults of ~100 meters, the bakery would be ~6.5 km away, and Filly-Second is capable of moving at about 26 km/s, which, at sea level pressure, would be Mach 76.
    • “The” Maretropolis bakery? I presume that’s the only one mentioned in the comic book, rather than the only one that exists in such a large city.
  • “This one I got in Canterlot at the House of Enchanted Comics. Well, I didn’t know it meant they were literally enchanted!” I.e. this is a form of publicly available magical entertainment, though how widespread it is, we don’t know: these comics never turn up again. Notice that they’re still cheap enough for Spike not to notice much difference compared to a regular comic.
  • So why does the comic disappear once everyone leaves the room?
Comments ( 7 )

I figured Humdrum spilling the beans was a case of the played-for-laughs "Good thing you don't know..." sort of thing.

Actually, why do this at all?

I figured they were refurbishing the castle for Twilight to use for official royal business. The fact that supplicants would have to trek through the Everfree would be a feature, not a bug. Of course, Namepending Castle rendered those plans moot.

The ketchup's dubious unless that stand also sells hot dogs (carrot or soy,) but I can confirm that mustard on pretzels is a thing. And delicious.

I agree with your pegasus Matter-Horn hypothesis. If only the IDW comics did as well.

Notice that Radiance is wearing two bracelets, rather than one. What’s the other for?

Symmetrical design? (And thus keeping the artist from having to keep track of which foreleg should have the bracelet.)

What ponies regularly get up to is not considered superpowers.

Of course not. If everypony's super, nopony is.

What’s a firefly doing in a city that never sleeps, anyway?…

Convenient plot resolution. Haven't you read comics before? :raritywink:

So why does the comic disappear once everyone leaves the room?

That's why the enchanted comics are so cheap. Infinite replay value's bad for business.

It's nice to see some actually fictional fiction in Equestria.

4714043

I figured they were refurbishing the castle for Twilight to use for official royal business. The fact that supplicants would have to trek through the Everfree would be a feature, not a bug. Of course, Namepending Castle rendered those plans moot.

This is an obvious idea, but I think it’s wrong: were this the case, repairing the roof, rather than just tarping, would have to have been the first order of business. However, the roof remains largely untouched, especially in the library.

That’s why the enchanted comics are so cheap. Infinite replay value’s bad for business.

That would work, but only if they are also cheap to make.

It's nice to see some actually fictional fiction in Equestria.

Don't jinx it!

“You’re the Masked Matter-Horn! You can shoot all kinds of crazy power beams from your horn!” The detail of Matter-Horn’s costume makes me think the character is actually a pegasus – the wings are exposed, while the horn looks more like a prosthetic than a helmet. Which would explain why Twilight fails at shooting a power beam from a device that does not fully imitate the function of an actual horn.

The character is wingless in the comics, so I believe she's an Earth Pony, though a broken-horned unicorn like Tempest is also possible. Either way, I agree that the treatment that horn receives definitely smacks of a cyborg characters.

So why does the comic disappear once everyone leaves the room?

Being single-use would explain why such a powerfully enchanted comic is close enough in price to a regular comic that Spike didn't notice anything amiss.

In world of all sorts of crazy magics you would expect that stories about superheroes have a little more respect :).

4714056
Ooooh! Imagine Tempest Shadow geeking out over Masked Matter-Horn, looking up to her because of disability, maybe roughing up anypony who tries to say that Masked Matter-Horn is a bad hero.

4714043

Notice that Radiance is wearing two bracelets, rather than one. What’s the other for?

Symmetrical design? (And thus keeping the artist from having to keep track of which foreleg should have the bracelet.)

Because Ponies are Flash objects which get flipped, depending on which way they're facing. Note that the Elements of Harmony, Twilight's replacement crown, Diamond Tiara's tiara, et al also are bilaterally symmetrical. But if we're talking in-toon, Rarity would most certainly say, "Because, darling, it's so fabulous I had to get a second one to match."

Ho boy, midway through the early season 4 slump.

"Electrical" devices working in the treebary are probably evidence of magical gem-powered devices, since that seems a lot more likely than running wires through a tree.

That's a good point, Twilight not knowing about Spike's comics does indicate a certain amount of independence. Normally I would say it means he has an allowance, but that's sort of hard to tell with a creature who could just skip seconds and then go spend that. Though presumably Twilight knows about his system if she doesn't wonder how he bought a comic, so in practice it works out to be pretty similar to an allowance.

Hard to tell a lot about the world through this because it is a fictional setting, but the fact that the MacGuffin is called an "electro-orb" suggests to me electricity is not in common use by the populace, it sounds like the way we write "gamma ray" in comics, citing a real but exotic technology whose limits the layperson is unsure of.


4714043

I figured they were refurbishing the castle for Twilight to use for official royal business. The fact that supplicants would have to trek through the Everfree would be a feature, not a bug. Of course, Namepending Castle rendered those plans moot.

Was thinking exactly that.

This is an obvious idea, but I think it’s wrong: were this the case, repairing the roof, rather than just tarping, would have to have been the first order of business. However, the roof remains largely untouched, especially in the library.

I'm not a construction expert, but perhaps the plan was along the lines of: Twilight is not expected to host any royal functions soon, not for several years. With no formal budget, she and her friends are planning to slowly rebuild the castle (at least a central part of it) in their off hours, so tarping up things to prevent further weather damage could be important. It's kind of silly, since 6 workers doing it part time would take decades, but it's the best I can think of.

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