Points of Canon: S4x15 - Twilight Time

For the entire time, Twilight being a princess was ignored. Now it’s suddenly a big deal.

• The wall of Twilight’s library has a pinned poster describing the Chest of Harmony in great detail, covered in post-it notes and a diagram of what looks like ends of keys. Looks like Twilight has been trying to open the Chest by picking the lock. I expect that this is why they’ve been tidying the castle at all in Power Ponies, to serve as a longer term base for this activity.

• “Uh, Sweetie Belle, maybe we should run through the steps another few times before you try it on your own.”

  • Even telekinesis is a conscious magic that requires concentration and practice from the unicorn, not to mention explanations.
  • Only the very tip of Sweetie’s horn lights up.
  • Picking up a broom that weighs at most a kilogram is currently above Sweetie’s limit.

• “These are the carefully arranged pieces of a unicycle I took apart and will be putting back together… as soon as Twilight shows me how.”

  • While Twilight offers to find the instructions on how to do it, I have never seen a general “how to assemble an unicycle” book in my life. Service manuals on how to do it with a particular model of a vehicle of this kind, occasionally, but not often. I had to learn by trying or watching other people do it. What is in that book that Twilight tells Scootaloo to find?
  • For that matter, once you took apart something as simple as an unicycle, you should still remember how to put it back together, it’s not that difficult. She didn’t even take the bearings out the wheel hub.
  • Ponies have unicycles. Notice that we only see Scootaloo actually riding it in the very end of this episode, and, never again.
  • We see parts of the unicycle itself, but no tools. Taking it apart would require at the very least a wrench. Cartoon resolution?

• “Did you follow the magic plant-growing formula I gave you?”

  • Apple Bloom is engaging in what we would call alchemy to force-grow plants. Is force-growing plants something earth ponies actually do? We always assume they do, but the only time we see anything similar is Winter Wrap-Up, and other times in the series where the need comes up, it seems to be done by unicorn magic or with potions… Something’s fishy here.
  • If it is part of earth pony magic, i.e. Apple Bloom has to apply it to the formula to make it work at all, Twilight knows enough about it to teach it, and probably knew long before she became an alicorn.
  • They don’t expect the apple seedling to outgrow the pot as the result of the use of this formula.
  • Failed preparation of the formula animates the seedling, rather than makes it grow.
• The CMC are playing ball with Pip on a strange court, marked straight on the grass, which is a square divided into four equal squares. Is this meant for another game I’m not aware of but everyone else is?
• Notice that Sweetie Belle rears to toss the ball in the beginning.
• “As you all know, I had promised to put on an amazing, first-time-ever acrobatic display for you all today!” Notice the expectant faces. Nopony seriously doubted Diamond Tiara could actually do it.
• “But I did not wish to disappoint you all, so I brought my butler Randolph to do them for me.” Randolph is a very unusual name for a pony. How did he come by it? The guy is remarkably spry for the obviously creaking bones he exhibits.
• “I can’t believe she gets so much attention without even really doing anything!” Apple Bloom would be awesome at Points of Canon, I can’t either.
• “Hey, come to think of it, if we get really good at the stuff Twilight’s teaching us, we could be the big shots around here for a change!” Actually, when did Twilight start this extracurricular activity? For that matter, are the children at school because school is in session, or because that’s where they go to play when it isn’t? We don’t see an actual lesson in this episode, and never hear a school bell.
• Diamond Tiara knocking on Sweetie Belle’s head produces an empty bucket sound. I’m pretty sure this is just an auditory gag. :)
• “I was asking if your sister Rarity will be taking you to Manehattan anytime soon.” “Because if she is, maybe you can meet up with us while we hang out with a bunch of famous celebrities.” Now, you would think this requires this episode to follow Rarity’s trip to Manehattan for the Fashion Week in Made in Manehattan, but it doesn’t: by the time of that trip, Rarity already had been involved in making costumes, which would require fittings and actual visits, and she knew the city better than any of the Mane 5. But it does make me wonder just how often does she make those trips at this point in the series.

• “D-did you say Princess Twilight?! You hang out with her all the time? For real?”

  • Actually, how is it that Diamond Tiara doesn’t know that? She obviously knows where Twilight lives, and yet, apparently, did not try to make a library visit herself. Is the place a public library at all?
  • For that matter, why is Twilight being a princess suddenly so big a deal after half a season worth of episodes? I would bump this as early as possible on the timeline for it to make any kind of sense, and screw the ordering of the printed Friendship Journal – but whether this can be done heavily depends on whether school is in session or not.
• “Oh my gosh, who dyes your tail?” “Actually, it’s not dyed. I’ve always…” The pinkish red streak in Twilight’s hair is natural.
• “Are those books in there? What a bold design choice!” Once again, is this a public library? Or is it just DT talking out of her rump?
• “They all think we’re the greatest, because we’re their ticket to get time with Ponyville’s newest and biggest celebrity, Princess Twilight!” No newer celebrity has arisen since the coronation yet, I take it?

• “When I told you when you could come eyeball the princess at one of her favorite hangouts, I said only two or three of you, tops!”

  • According to Pip a little later on, the establishment is called “Hay Burger.”
  • Incidentally, it bears all the typical trappings of a fast food establishment – disposable utensils, standardized menu, self-service. Ponies have fast food industry.
  • Minuette is here too, ignored.
  • Hayburgers have a batch of hay where the patty would be, rather than a simulated patty of any kind. They also contain round circles of something pinkish, but the segmented structure visible upon magnification implies tomatoes.
  • One other food item, beside the expected fries – hay or no hay this time, we don’t know – is some manner of horseshoe-shaped micro-pretzels that never get named.
  • Twilight, when hungry, is a very messy eater.
• “Twilight! Haven’t seen you here in, like, forever and a half!” “I know. I’ve been so busy I forgot how delicious everything is here!” This hamburger place is not really one of Twilight’s favorite hangouts as Sweetie claims, but Twilight does like it.
• At least six foals came with cameras. Cameras are cheap enough to end up in the hooves of that many foals.
• Twilight flies away rather readily, but only gestures with her wings once in the entire episode. She is not very consistent about the use of wings, is she?

• “I’m opening a new lemonade stand! Won’t you come to the grand opening? I’ll give you free lemonade for a week!”

  • Pip’s lemonade stand has lemons on the sign, and not much else.
  • Still, he feels a ribbon cutting ceremony is merited, even though he has to employ two foals to hold the ribbon in the air as it is being cut.
• “Done shining your hooves!” Notice that shining the hooves is a procedure distinct from a hooficure.

• “You three must come to my pool party. It’ll be much cooler than this.”

  • Filthy Rich has a pool. Actually, I think that’s the only time this family dwelling turns up on screen.
  • We don’t see much detail beyond the pool and the wrought iron gates, and I don’t think we’ve seen those from outside, ever.
  • The scene with foals jumping the gate chanting “Twilight Time” contains exactly 23 foals, and I think none of them repeat. I wonder, just how many kids this age are in Ponyville in total.
  • So does this guy’s cutie mark depict a train engine or a tractor? Notice that we haven’t seen a single actual tractor, ever. The placeholder name for him is Train Tracks, but I wonder. This is the first episode in which he appears.

• Two foals on kick scooters catch up to the CMC.

  The scooters are non-foldable, Razor type trick scooters, the design that only became popular in our world in the beginning of XXI century. While scooters as an invention are so ancient that nobody can tell you when they came about for sure, this particular design appeared following an era where scooters were considered uncool, due to availability of cheap bicycles, and followed the popularity of skateboards.

  Early post-skateboard scooters were made using skateboard wheels and trucks, and notably, Scootaloo’s scooter is exactly like that, and unlike those two, looks handmade. I’m pretty sure this implies, with the way we see ponies change fads like gloves, that skateboards were a very popular thing a decade or two ago, sometime in Shining Armor’s youth, and Scootaloo made her own custom scooter by tearing the wheels off an old discarded skateboard and nailing the trucks to the new deck.

  Whether this was done because she doesn’t use it like these two guys – she doesn’t kick, moving it like an airboat instead – so she needs four wheels for it to be stable, or because she simply couldn’t afford a new one, we don’t know, but she did have a scooter before anyone else.

• “Come on in, everypony! Spike made nachos!”

  • Nachos are a thing.
  • Those scooter kids have managed to screw up the bearings entirely, one kick should be enough to roll to the other end of this library on a well-maintained scooter.
• “Ponies interested in magic in this corner. Ponies who want to learn potions over here. Bookworm ponies over there.” Where do the ponies interested in mechanical engineering go? You know, like Scootaloo.
• “Because then I could get all my classmates to do me favors and stuff because I’m friends with a famous princess!” The CMC forgive Pip for this pretty easily, don’t they. Then again, they broke his scooter – in the end, it ends up with Twilight, and probably requires repairs…
• “If it’s true, then I’m sure you’ve all been practicing your skills over the past week. Show me how much better you got.” The events of the episode took at least one week, and possibly longer – Twilight Time might actually be a weekly thing, even – so it’s likely it overlaps with one or two others.
• “Hey! That’s my scooter!” Notice that Pip did not come riding one, nor does he have a helmet. How’d it get here?
• Pip’s scooter has a seat, unlike the others. Notice that it can’t be comfortable for Pip, who is a lot shorter than average.
• Apple Bloom’s bungled potion causes the apple to increase in size and eventually explode. That’s a lot of failure modes for a method to force-grow plants.

• “I guess Twilight must not be so super-upset anymore, ’cause she’s letting us do a diary entry like our sisters do.”

  Sweetie Belle is writing a Journal entry, which matches the one in the printed Journal verbatim, but the library is clean already, so we don’t know for sure just when it was written. Twilight says “Wow, all three of you have made so much progress!” which implies passage of considerable time, so the printed journal is definitely not a constraint on the placement of this episode even if you do accept it as a source. For that matter, in the printed Journal, the record is written in pinkish red, while Sweetie Belle is writing with a black pencil.

Comments

[Sketcha-Holic]

The CMC are playing ball with Pip on a strange court, marked straight on the grass, which is a square divided into four equal squares. Is this meant for another game I’m not aware of but everyone else is?

Four Square! It's a very common game in elementary schools... at least, in the U.S., I'm not entirely sure how common it is in other countries.

[howard035]

I think Twilight being a Princess is a bigger deal with foals period than it is with adults, at least in Ponyville. The whole time in this episode none of the adults seem to care about Twilight being a Princess. Maybe they just announced Matterhorn was an alicorn princess in the latest power ponies comic?

Four Square is obviously not played by Smoozes in Obscuria.

Butlers are usually referred to by their last name on earth, a rather unusual form of address. What if Randolph is the butler's middle name?

I really like your idea for Scootaloo building herself a customized scooter ahead of the curve, but if she had enough mechanical knowledge to do that, would she need Twilight to explain how to put a unicycle back together?

This is the 2nd of two episodes that has Pip sucking up to a Princess, and the 1st of two episodes that has Pip plotting to gain a position of power without really thinking about what he would do with that position. I could see him and Diamond Tiara being a real power couple some day.

[Oliver]

4717439

The whole time in this episode none of the adults seem to care about Twilight being a Princess.

If anything, I suspect that the adults got the hint that Twilight doesn’t want to be treated specially, but the children did not receive the memo. In any case, I am still inclined to put this episode as early as possible – it appears to be spread over multiple weeks.

What if Randolph is the butler’s middle name?

How did he come by it at all, though? Like the Pies’ middle names, they are completely unrelated to anything.

I really like your idea for Scootaloo building herself a customized scooter ahead of the curve, but if she had enough mechanical knowledge to do that, would she need Twilight to explain how to put a unicycle back together?

Actually, yes. A skateboard truck is magnitudes simpler than even an unicycle.

But even if she didn’t quite do it herself, we can assume one of her supposed aunts is hoofy with a screwdriver, or that she talked her neighbor the Doctor into doing it for her, such assistance can’t be too hard to come by in Ponyville.

This is the 2nd of two episodes that has Pip sucking up to a Princess, and the 1st of two episodes that has Pip plotting to gain a position of power without really thinking about what he would do with that position. I could see him and Diamond Tiara being a real power couple some day.

Villain for Season 12 confirmed. :)

[howard035]

4717604

Actually, yes. A skateboard truck is magnitudes simpler than even an unicycle.

Ah, good to know. I have no idea how to build anything myself.

Villain for Season 12 confirmed. :)

I mean, he's already got a british accent...