Nov
2nd
2017
Points of Canon: S4x09 - Pinkie Apple Pie · 9:12am Nov 2nd, 2017
All earth ponies are related: they have Mother Earth.
“Just some genealogical research.”
So why exactly is Twilight interested in this? I can easily imagine her studying the methods of genealogy just for fun, but since Pinkie finds sufficient detail to conclude that she is related to Apples in the first scroll – notice, not book! Twilight is working with primary sources here, archival records! – she picks up, what Twilight is reading is not theory of genealogy, but actual data. Reading genealogy reference books is far more boring than reading dictionaries, if only because, unlike with dictionaries, knowing the family trees of ponies you are not related to is largely useless. So it follows that Twilight is probably looking for something specific. What? She never appears for the rest of the episode, so we never find out, and it does not appear to come up again. There’s a story in it for someone.
“Well, you actually have a fourth cousin twice removed by a fifth cousin, but that’s like exactly like a sister!”
- I won’t bother you with the logic – go watch Firebrand’s video on the episode, where he works this out – but assuming that this statement is correct means that Pinkie and Applejack share a grandparent either seven or nine generations back and are, therefore, correctly called either seventh cousins or ninth cousins.
- This is actually really, really distant, and for most families in our world data this far back would be really difficult to acquire, not to mention spread over an unpleasant number of archives and record books. Notice that here, Pinkie learns this from one, albeit a very long, scroll. And Twilight had it. Why?
- And the scroll is smudged. And Pinkie’s treating it hardly better than toilet paper.
- Assuming 30 years as the length of a generation – that does appear to be the typical age for ponies to have children – that nets us the records going back at least 200 years. Notice that this wouldn’t just cover the Smith Apples, but also, wherever the hell they came from. This can’t be a Ponyville local archive scroll.
- Apple Bloom is launched up on a mattress spring. Ponies use spring mattresses.
- “A Ponyville snail can hibernate for up to forty-eight moons!” See RTAC #11 regarding moons.
- It’s interesting that while Apple Bloom is so excited about having a new family member, Pinkie does not mention any of her three sisters, who would all be seventh/ninth cousins to Apple Bloom as well.
- “Huh, I just can’t believe we’ve never heard anythin’ about this before!” Considering that at this point, Applejack knows pretty much nothing about her own parents, and only finds out anything substantial in Perfect Pear, this is hardly surprising and rather ironic.
- “Applesauce of the Apple family lineage is a fourth cousin twice removed of the Pie family!” “I see the part about our great, great auntie Applesauce and fourth cousin twice removed part, but that last bit’s awful smudged.” So Applejack has/had a great-great aunt Applesauce.
- Goldie Delicious is the Apple family archivist.
- “I mean, Goldie Delicious doesn’t live that far away, and we haven’t been on one as a family in a real long time… Are y’all thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” Apples haven’t had a family road trip for a while. Not that we ever see them do it again or previously…
- The Apple baggage appears to include a white chest just like Rarity’s, a rake, a bench grinder, and an unpacked trombone. You shouldn’t do this with a trombone.
- Granny Smith refusing to acknowledge that she is in fact wearing the traveling bonnet that she was looking for is rather strange and seems like snapping for the sake of snapping. Wasn’t she the one who suggested to consult Goldie in the first place?
- “We want her to get to know the family she’s been born into, but, like, the best version of it, y’know?” Doesn’t strike me as particularly honest, here.
- “Are you sure the wagon’s strong enough to hold it all?” There shouldn’t be any concerns about Big Mac’s strength – he’s done better than that – but the concerns about the wagon are perfectly justified: Most won’t survive a metric ton. Which means that the Apples packed something like half a ton of luggage.
- The back of the wagon has two pans and a fork hanging off it. Apples typically aren’t seen using forks.
“We sing our song ’cross the pony nation, from Equestria and beyond”
- Ponies have a nation. Which, considering the occurrence of multiple “National” this and “National” that up to this point, should really be obvious.
- There is something beyond Equestria.
- The map Applejack is using depicts a section of Central Equestria, identifiable by the obviously marked Canterlot and the mountain it’s on, but does not have Ponyville marked on it, and the river on it does not match the official map – so we can’t be sure just where they are going to.
- Applejack is playing a banjo. She does seem pretty capable with plucked string instruments from childhood – she played a guitar / ukulele for Coloratura in The Mane Attraction in the camp flashback.
- “Family river trip!” Notice that this does not explain how would they get back with all the stuff they packed.
“Well, back in the old days, we used to use the sap from a sugar pine tree to glue things together.”
- Sugar pine trees only grow in North America in our world.
- Notably, it could be a source of sugar for ponies: the sap was used as a natural sweetener by Native Americans, and sugar can certainly be extracted from it industrially. That would explain the invisibility of sugar cane and sugar beet.
- When she’s saying that, Granny Smith completely ignores a squirrel that got glued to the tree.
- “Now remember, this time we’re only packin’ the necessities.” So what exactly are you doing with all the stuff that you’re not packing, this time, Applejack? You’re in the middle of the road.
“This one is for the scrapbook!”
- The scrapbook includes photos of at least one entirely nonsensical scene from the song montage – the one where Applejack was wearing a bicorne with a skull on it. So yeah, all that was diegetic too.
- Notice that it doesn’t look much like an equine skull either.
- While Pinkie’s camera does not appear to print the photos instantly, she does manufacture paper photos on the spot, doesn’t she?
- “So what you’re saying is, if I have the courage to jump, the parachute will open. Whoa! That is deep!” Also pretty dangerous. Also another reference to parachutes that I missed.
- “M to the A to the yeah, that’s right, P, Ain’t no other pony found a map like me.” I wonder, is that the source of the Twilightlicious meme, or the other way round?
- An eagle captures the fish which just took the map. The same eagle later picks up a duck who took the (steering) wheel. Seeing how the duck reappears, still wearing the wheel, it must have gotten away, but still, first evidence of actual predatory behavior in nature since forever: I’m sure at least the fish got eaten.
- “Does a June bug like to hide in a tree?” The jury on whether “June” is a month or not is still out.
- “And I also know we wanna head southeast!” The pattern of the rivers on the official map would make this pretty much impossible, so we can be sure a lot of them didn’t make it to that map.
- “Ponies go in… but they never come out!” Places with a reputation of being entirely deadly are not uncommon even in Central Equestria.
- “Best scary unidentifiable creature ever!” And that reputation is well deserved.
- Does it look to you that Pinkie is egging the Apples on deliberately? Because it does to me.
- The windows of Goldie’s house are mysteriously boarded up. Why?
- “Because it’ll give me enough time to get more scrapbook paper!” I think we should presume that Goldie actually lives near a town or village where scrapbook paper might be obtained. Otherwise we won’t just have to contend with Pinkie breaking reality for the sake of scrapbook paper, but also have to wonder what does Goldie eat and where did she go to get her errands done.
- “You must be Goldie Delicious. So nice to meet you.” Applejack has never met Goldie Delicious prior, or at least, has never met her when she was old enough to remember her. Notice that Goldie does not appear in Apple Family Reunion, and I wonder just how it happened that she’s the family archivist, but does not seem to go to any parties and lives alone with a herd of cats.
- The episode transcript says “Get off of that, Mr. Fluffy” – but I hear “Mr. Puppy” and the subtitles also say that, so I wonder. There certainly are no dogs in Goldie’s collection, but there is a cheetah. Or a leopard.
- “Those belonged to your great-great-great-great uncle Apple Tart!” Relics from that far back abound.
- Among Goldie’s collection is a pair of horns. These look like yak horns…
- Pinkie draws wings, thick eyebrows and glasses on her reflection in a mirror. Which does not give us much of anything, but someone is sure to spin a story out of it.
- “Well, that’s just it. I don’t know. The page is all smudged.” Interesting. Family archive is damaged, but the scroll with the official record – did it have any copies? Wouldn’t there be other documents allowing to infer if the hypothetical linking relative was in fact a Pie? This trip shouldn’t be over, but feeling that the episode is about to end, Pinkie just gives up.
- Pinkie uses her tail to take a selfie with the Apples.
- “Twilight agreed this was definitely an experience worth puttin’ in the journal.” Which is our chronology lock that forces this episode to stay within the bookends of Season 4: As Applejack is saying that, Big Mac is unpacking the cart outside, so this is done immediately upon return. While they start an argument about who gets to write up the story, the printed journal contains entries from all of them, so we should presume the argument ended soon enough.
Pinkie is a familyholic.
And the modern concept of nation IIRC is relatively a new things that connected to a technological revolution, mass education and book printing.
So there a possibility that relationship between ponies and yaks have a rough time, huh. Well besides the fact that this horns most likely a visual gag :).
That or Pinkie can photograph nondiegetic scenes, which I wouldn't put past her. Though it's entirely possible that there were costumes in the half-ton of luggage for some unfathomable reason.
Other way around. Can't cite a source on that one, but I'm entirely positive that that's the case. I distinctly remember my "Oh God, they actually went there" reaction when I first saw the episode.
Does the Everfree not qualify?
"Yer great-great-great-great-grandpappy Cyanide Seed came home with those. Smelled like their owner fer three generations."
"How old are you?"
"Old enough."
4714861
They needed something to pad out the bench grinder so that it wouldn’t wreck the trombone.
There is but one Everfree, but this here is another place which explicitly has a reputation like it and is, at the same time, not Everfree. Ergo, Everfree is not unique, when, until this episode, it was the only place described in such terms. And since they stumbled on this cave while traveling “not far,” in an otherwise highly populated area – remember, the Smith Apples got to Ponyville while searching for farmland to settle – that would make them “not uncommon.”
Twilightlicious definitely pre-dated the map thing, and I believe Michelle Creber alluded to it in a convention panel prior to season 4 (she hinted that she'd been allowed to insert a meme into dialogue, but couldn't give details)
4714840
Nations were originally a religious concept, going back to the Church Patriarchs, you encounter characterizations of St. Paul as the "Apostle to the Nations", and there is theology about how Christianity is supposed to preserve humanity by subsuming the Gentile nations in the nation of Israel. But it's generally an ethnic or racial conceit prior to the 19th century.
Chart for determining cousinage.
We don't actually hear what Twilight told Pinkie. Pinkie states the alleged connection three times, and she says different things each time. Pinkie is a one-mare telephone game.
4714895
As far as I remember nation and nationalism in a modern sense become a thing in second half of eighteen century. And in masses, it starts to appear in nineteen century IIRC.
Yes, there been all sort of nation prior to this up to a point that some of the students of medieval universities called themselves a nation but as I said before - I talked about the modern concept of it.
4714861
Can confirm, sort of. Tara Strong recorded the original vocal track as a joke, and uploaded it to her own Twitter. Black Gryph0n animated it—leading a lot of people to attribute the meme to him, rather than to Tara. (Kind of like “Fluttershy wants to be a tree” all over again.) Then the fandom ran it into the ground, making variants for every character they could think of.
And here’s a video parodying the fandom’s reaction to this reference in the episode.
One of my all time favorite episodes. Regarding the records: I think we can guess that the Ponyville library either received a copy or made a copy from Apple family records, which between this episode and 7x13 we know are incredibly detailed. It is kind of weird that a traveling band would have such detailed scrolls.
Here's something important I just realized: For Twilight to be able to connect Pinkie and Applejack's heritage, records on both their families must be available in the Ponyville library. I think it makes it significantly more likely that Pinkie is related to someone in town, like the Cakes or Mayor Mare. If Twilight has already researched say Pinkie's family history for some reason and remembers her 7th-9th generation ancestor is Smudge Cake-Pie or something, that would explain how she could spot that name on a scroll of Applejack's ancestry and immediately connect them.
Why was Twilight researching a friend's geneology? Maybe now that she's a Princess she's wondering about the idea that the Apples could technically hold some kind of noble title over Ponyville, and even if nobility doesn't really matter, it would be good to know that.
4714895
So like "pony nation?"
4715340
Traditional fanon suggests more like the pegasi or the unicorns, largely on the basis of the now dubiously-historical Hearthswarming pageant. With the three nations coming together to form the Equestrian empire or confederation.
4715344 Oh dear, was Applejack singing an ancient earth pony traveling song with tribalist implications?
Also, the reason they had so much useless junk in the wagon was pretty clearly covered in the episode, Big Mac grabbed everything he could find just so he could show off how strong he was to Pinkie. Given that SWA apparently spends 1/3rd of their income on fancy outfits for Apple Bloom, of course he would grab a pirate hat or two for her.
Also, Ponyville snails are distinct enough from snails from other places for the distinction to be worth mentioning.
That being, I assume, the selfsame Auntie Applesauce from "Apple Family Reunion" and "Grannies Gone Wild" -- she's Granny Smith's aunt, thus Bright Mac's great-aunt, thus the Apple siblings' great-great-aunt. I am genuinely very impressed at this uncharacteristic show of continuity, I have to say.
Cheetah. The body and legs are too slender for a leopard, the spots are small, closed circles instead of open rosette shapes, and there are black stripes running from the base of its eyes down its muzzle -- leopards don't have those, but they're very characteristic of cheetahs.
Interestingly enough, every single time large cats have appeared in the show (in conjunction with Goldie and Ahuizotl, chiefly), all the spotted ones were unquestionably cheetahs. When leopards appear, they're always solid black (well, leopards or jaguars, either or -- both have melanistic variants). It makes me wonder if black panthers might not be the default in Equestria, and if spotted leopards/jaguars might even be present at all. We've certainly never seen any.