Nov
20th
2017
Points of Canon: Equestria Girls · 11:24pm Nov 20th, 2017
I’m supposed to be working, but I’m totally not in a condition to dive into a 9 million line codebase today. It has sharks swimming between the unit tests. Meanwhile, this movie got brought up recently, and now I want to do a RTAC series post on the various potential origins for Sunset Shimmer, so I guess I’ll write this one up before doing that…
If you still haven’t caught up, “Pedestria” is what I’m calling the world behind the mirror. I’m hoping this name sticks.
- There is no sign of snow at all anywhere around the Crystal Empire. This by itself would imply a summer, but we know that the only space remaining for this movie is strictly between Magical Mystery Cure and Princess Twilight Sparkle, anyway.
1. See RTAC #2.
“Your very first princess summit.” Saying that this one is the “first” would imply that these are a regular occurrence, but it’s pretty strange for these to be held before the Crystal Empire reappears at all: There would be only two princesses to have a summit, Celestia and Cadance. Unless lesser, non-alicorn princesses1 are also entitled, which is doubtful, because we never see any, nor even any kind of influx of visitors. It’s quite a bit more likely that this is the first princess summit ever.
- “Haven’t really gotten accustomed to these yet, either.” Throughout the beginning of the movie, Twilight makes a show of not being accustomed to her wings, including being unsure where to keep them when she sleeps. Immediately after this phrase, she fails to hover. Which is kind of a contrast with the ending scene of Magical Mystery Cure, where she flies just fine.
- “I’m telling you, if I had a crown like that, I would never take it off. Why, I’d sleep in the thing.” It’s ironic that this is exactly what Celestia seems to be doing in Twilight’s Kingdom, and what Luna is doing in Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep.
- Chronologically, this shot would be our first glimpse of the Crystal Guard. As of this moment, it’s exclusively earth ponies.
- Flash Sentry is wearing the saddle variant of the Royal Guard uniform instead.
- “Twilight! I haven’t seen you since the coronation!” Cadance establishes our lower chronology bound.
- “You all look tired from your journey. Now, off to bed, all of you.” That was… a bit short, don’t you think?
- The bag Twilight unpacks is interesting: It’s a top loading wheeled bag with an extending handle – something that ponies would find relatively inconvenient to use in most cases, but Spike would find perfect.
- Twilight’s guest room includes a specially prepared bed for Spike. As a side note, how exactly did he escape knowing that he is a hero of the Crystal Empire this particular time, and only got told in Equestria Games? I could imagine a few possibilities – Spike’s role in the events could not be recognized immediately – but in fact, this explicitly contradicts the statement made in Equestria Games anyway: Twilight says, “Last time you were here, you got the Crystal Heart to Princess Cadance in time to save this entire empire from destruction!” Emphasis mine. Especially ironic, considering how the show writers openly declare Equestria Girls canon these days. I am not sure how this contradiction can be resolved.
- The dresser drawer is a strange place to put books, but that’s where Twilight sticks the ones she unpacks. By the time she actually went to sleep, she took them out and put them on the dresser, instead, but that moment never got on camera.
- There’s a crystal desk lamp on the bedside table. And it can’t be fuel-burning because it has a pull-cord switch, which Spike pulls to turn it off. More evidence for the Crystal Empire being freakishly technologically advanced.
- Sounds of a cicada or a similar night insect can be heard once they quiet down.
- This is one of the rare shots that shows that Crystal Empire has streetlights. And they’re lit at night, too, like most of the windows, suggesting it’s not very late in the night yet, either.
- There’s a Royal Guard patrolling the castle corridors at night, rather than a Crystal Guard. Notably, he’s a unicorn and is using his horn for a flashlight.
- The door to the room containing the mirror is strange: It’s a double door that has symmetrical keyholes on either side. When we see it, we also see the flash that corresponds to a mirror transfer – which implies that Sunset came through right now, rather than at any earlier time. Yes, this is definitely the mirror room – we can see parts of the mirror’s frame through the door. This is going to become important later.
- Sunset is not searching the castle, but is going directly to the door of Twilight’s guest room. And she already has a fake Element of Magic crown to swap in for the real one in her saddlebag under the cape. While the fake is obviously crude, creating it with any method other than magic would require considerable time, and if she created it with magic, it would be much more expedient to do it right there, where she saw the original for the first time.
- Twilight instantly recognizes the crown peeking out from Sunset’s saddlebag, rather than looks at the fake on her bedside table. That’s quite lucky for her.
- “Stop! Thief!” Thievery exists.
- Applejack’s very first reaction to Twilight yelling this is not peeking out of her room, however: It’s putting on her hat.
- Sunset Shimmer can teleport just as casually as Twilight, and she can teleport from underneath her cloak, leaving it to continue moving by inertia.
- For someone who has spent so much time on two legs, Sunset runs very readily on four. Compare to Mirror Magic, where she fumbles instead.
- The room where the mirror is kept is not locked, but that doesn’t mean it never gets locked, because that’s where Sunset came from. It’d better lock, considering that it otherwise contains stuff in glass display cases.
- The Element going through the mirror produces a flash of light, see above.
- It’s daylight when Celestia starts the briefing about Sunset Shimmer – the windows in the throne room are blue. This is kind of important and I will refer to it later.
This phrase is going to get referenced a lot, so I’ll quote it in full: “Sunset Shimmer. A former student of mine. She began her studies with me not long before Twilight. But when she did not get what she wanted as quickly as she liked, she turned cruel and dishonest. I tried to help her, but she eventually decided to abandon her studies and pursue her own path. One that has sadly led to her stealing your crown.”
It’s as vague as vague gets, – for one, we don’t now what does “not long” mean to a creature like Celestia – so there are only two solid statements I can extract from that:
- Sunset was a student before Twilight became a student, but we don’t know if a time period existed. during which both of them were students, or not.
- There was some kind of teacher-student conflict, but she never quite says what it was about, and what was it that Sunset “wanted.”
- Sunset left of her own will, rather than was banished.
Considering that I typically don’t trust Celestia that much in the first place, that’s remarkably little.
- “I suppose Sunset Shimmer thought you wouldn’t notice right away that this was not yours. And by the time you did, it would be too late to go after your crown and Element of Harmony.” Cartoon resolution obviously can go the other way and exaggerate things we would otherwise not notice – I’m sure ponies don’t have eyes so big that they leave no space for a brain in their heads, for one – so we don’t know just how crude the fake is. But Celestia thinks it reasonable that Twilight wouldn’t notice the swap for however long the mirror remains open.
- “You’ll soon know more about this place than even I do.” What exactly did Celestia know about Pedestria remains unknown to this day.
- “This is no ordinary mirror. It is a gateway to another world. A gateway that opens once every thirty moons.” Notice that it’s Luna saying that. It’s reasonable to think that Luna would be treated as the authority on the subject, considering how closely the mirror seems to be linked with the moon, but notice that at this point, Luna has not been out for more than two years, and exactly one is much more likely. I.e. it is much more reasonable to suppose that the mirror existed before she was banished. Now, we know the Sirens ended up in Pedestria somehow, but notice that Shadow Play wants us to think that the mirror was not involved. Why would the mirror even exist, if it was not used as a tool for getting rid of the undesirables?
Luna continues, “It has always been kept in the throne room of Canterlot Castle. But when Princess Cadance took over the Crystal Empire, we sent it here for her to watch over.”
- We have never, ever seen it in Canterlot Castle, despite multiple shots of the throne room turning up on various occasions.
- Nobody ever explains why would sending it to the Crystal Empire be a good idea. Our only possible clue is Celestia’s phrase: “I had always hoped that Sunset Shimmer would someday use it to return, to come back to Equestria seeking my guidance. Obviously, this is not what has happened.” I.e. Celestia lost that hope for whatever reason. Why?
- “Twilight, you must use the mirror to go into this other world and retrieve your crown. Without it, the other Elements of Harmony have no power and Equestria is left without one of its most important means of defense.” We don’t know if Cadance is correct and the other elements are outright useless without Magic or not, but at least it’s a solid statement that they can’t be used in any combination other than all six. Shame that by the end of the movie Twilight demonstrates that loopholes exist.
- “Your crown does not belong in the place Sunset Shimmer now calls home. And in her possession, your Element of Harmony will no doubt be used to bring harm to the inhabitants of this other realm. They will not have the power to defend themselves.” If Luna had any knowledge of the other realm, I’d wager it is out of date, and does not include modern weaponry. She does talk about it as if she has some knowledge, though.
- “Sending all of you could upset the balance of this alternate world, creating havoc that would make it impossible for Twilight to get the crown back from Sunset Shimmer.” I see no rational means to conclude this, unless Celestia just ate a plot device for breakfast. Any takers?
- “Time is of the essence. On the third day, when the moon reaches its peak in the night sky, the gateway will close. And once it does, it will be another thirty moons before you will be able to use it to return.” This statement – and the particular phrasing – is important and I will refer to it later. Notice that Luna even uses an illustrative illusion to make her point.
- Notice that Luna puts saddlebags on Twilight – that’s her aura color – and presumably, she was the one who packed them, because Twilight came with an entirely different bag. These are Twilight’s personalized cutie marked saddlebags, though…
Pedestria
- “But I have no idea what you are!” No humans, even legendary, in Equestria. If there are, neither Twilight nor Spike ever heard about any.
- The bus on the opposite side of the road has doors on both sides because animators just had to flip the asset.
- Notice that when Twilight puts her hand through the monument, it turns into a hoof – but nothing of the sort happened on the mirror side. The human-transformation magic seems to be anchored on the Pedestrian side.
- “Yeah, I don’t think that’s how the new you is supposed to…” Actually, what’s this other kid doing here with his dog at school? Later, Fluttershy says, “You’re not really supposed to have pets on school grounds. Might wanna tuck him into your backpack. That’s what I do.” But this dog is a bit too big to fit into a backpack. With the direction he’s walking in, there’s nowhere for him to come from but the front door of the school…
- “Makes sense. You don’t exactly have your horn.” If there is a way to cast spells without a horn, Twilight does not know one offhand.
- “What do ya think, Spike? Other artifacts she’s stolen from Equestria?” Is Twilight making a mistake here or not?
- Diamond Tiara just took a picture of Twilight with Spike on her hands and never even noticed.
- Scootaloo’s scooter is visually identical in construction to the Equestrian one. This would be a problem if it didn’t have actual skateboard trucks: She would be completely unable to turn. See Twilight Time.
- More smartphones appear throughout Twilight’s song. Judging by the total lack of hardware keys on the front panel, this one appears to be at least an Android 4.0 era device, i.e. early 2010s. At least half of the smartphones that appear in Pedestria are that new. At least one is a slide-out keyboard device, which died out completely by 2012 or so – you can’t get one here anymore.
- “You must be new here. I can speak to anyone any way I want.” Sunset does not recognize Twilight’s human form, even though the cutie mark should have been the deadest giveaway possible. For that matter, Twilight doesn’t either. Even Sunset herself comments on this later. Are those cutie marks really there? They never refer to them in conversation, just like they never mention the skin colors…
- “He usually just tells me.” Wait a minute. Why exactly does Spike decide that dogs in Pedestria don’t talk? The only one they saw was the one out in the yard, who didn’t bark either.
“This morning, I was passing out flyers for the animal shelter like I do every Wednesday.”
- At the moment the Element of Magic went through the mirror, it was morning in Pedestria, but in Equestria, it was early night.
- It’s still Wednesday.
- “I have no idea how it got there. But I didn’t want anything to happen to it, so I decided to give it to Principal Celestia.” Notice that Fluttershy does not report seeing Sunset appear, even though there’s only ten seconds between the Element of Magic bouncing in and Sunset following it. Yes, I counted. Fluttershy’s flashback takes eight seconds between the moment she gets smacked in the head with the crown and the moment it ends – and at the conclusion, Fluttershy is still holding the crown in her hands.
- “Principal Celestia? She’s the ruler here?” Notice that Twilight still hasn’t figured out she’s dealing with a school, otherwise, she would pick up on the word “principal” meaning an actual principal. The only other interpretation I can think of is that the head of a school is not called a “principal” in Equish, and the word “principal” means something else. See also Hypothesis #3.
- “Yes. I’ve had Vice Principal Luna put it somewhere for safekeeping. No idea how it ended up in the front lawn.” Now, there is that possibility that the fake crown Sunset tries to replace the Element crown with is the original crown for the Princess of the Fall Formal created for the upcoming dance, which matches the Element crown through the same mechanism that causes pony-human correspondence. However, it’s notably a lot cruder than any of the crowns Sunset is wearing in the photos. What’s up with that?
- “It’s Canterlot High’s big Fall dance.” It’s autumn in Pedestria now. Notice that it’s definitely summer in Equestria.
- All three of Sunset’s portraits on the wall are in different dresses and in different crowns, implying that Sunset has already won the title three times. But a “Fall Formal” can only happen once a year, in the fall. Unless there are other yearly dances which result in a crown, this year’s would be the fourth time Sunset competes, which would make it the last year of high school for the US. However, there are such dances: Fluttershy later says, “Just ask the girl who ran against her for Princess of the Spring Fling.” That spring gets brought up multiple times afterwards. Notice that this one is also a princess titled dance, and there’s no reason it wouldn’t include a crown if a Fall one does. This permits us to conclude that Sunset has spent at least two years in Canterlot High, but we can’t know how long she really was at it. It’s quite likely that the Humane 5 have just started their third year, rather than the fourth.
- “Twilight, why didn’t ya just tell her the crown was yours and ask for it back?” I would very much like if she did so, because then we would at least know whether Luna had a really crude crown made this year because she secretly hates Sunset – and didn’t notice it was replaced by a much better one – or that they decided to use the crown literally found on the street for a school function without trying to figure out if anyone owns it. Both possibilities are pretty weird.
- The burger Twilight selects at the cafeteria has a green patty, while burgers with brown patties are available next to them. I’m pretty sure this was not random on her part.
- There’s a cash register at the cafeteria, but it’s not being used and no cash exchange takes place. Is that normal for an American school? I really have no idea.
- Among the party implements is a cornucopia with raw corn stalks and what appears to be grapes. Huh?
- “Hi, my name’s Twilight Sparkle and… Pinkie Pie?” Notice that Fluttershy apparently didn’t even tell Twilight the name of the head of the party planning committee.
- “Are you psychic?!” “Uh, no. I don’t think so. Unless of course that’s something you can do here.” “Not usually.” Psychic powers are not normal in Pedestria or in Equestria. Neither is a given.
- “She can be a real meanie.” So Pinkie believes Fluttershy has done something mean towards her personally. Notice that Pinkie has nothing against Applejack who turns up later in the scene with cider.
- “Dance is day after tomorrow.” So today is still Wednesday, tomorrow is Thursday, and the dance is on Friday.
- “Do you have a twin sister who lives in the city, has a pet dog named Spike that looks just like that one?” Either Pinkie is messing with us, as she often does, or she has encountered the Pedestrian Twilight previously, closely enough to at least hear her call her dog.
- Twilight picks up the pen with her teeth. She did learn to write with her mouth at some point – probably, way before school, at the same time as learning to read. She never learned to write with her hooves, though.
- “Somebody order a dozen cases of fizzy apple cider?” Actually, for apple cider to become fizzy, it would have to be unpasteurized. Would they even allow this in an American school?…
- Pinkie breaks physics by floating up on a balloon she inflates. But this is nothing new to Applejack at all – she pulls Pinkie down and recovers the balloon for illustrative purposes.
- “But then, here comes the backstabbin.’” Wait, where did that needle come from?
- “About the only girl in this school you can trust less than Sunset Shimmer is Rainbow Dash.” “She’s also the captain of sayin’ she’s gonna do somethin’ for ya, and then turnin’ around and not even botherin’ to show up.” Applejack has something very specific against Rainbow, though we don’t find out what exactly until much later.
- “She’s the captain of, like, every team at Canterlot High.” …wait, the boys’ teams too?
- “Obviously it’s gonna be my coronation. I’m running unopposed.” “Not this time. The new girl just signed up!” Sunset’s habitual method of winning these contests is by making sure she’s the only one on the ballot, rather than by actually being popular. In fact, is she popular at all? I see no evidence to support this notion.
- “You don’t know the first thing about this place, and I already rule it.” As Sunset says this, we can see a poster with the silhouette of the Element crown on it. This could only happen if the crown Sunset tried to replace the Element with was originally the Fall Formal crown for this year. So why didn’t Luna notice that it’s different, again?
- “Pop quiz: what happens when you bring an Element of Harmony into an alternate world? You don’t know? Seriously?” Full stop. How does Sunset know what happens? As far as we could possibly conclude, this is entirely unprecedented.
“I want you to follow her. Bring me something I can use just like I did with that last girl who thought she could challenge me.”
- The last girl who challenged Sunset would be the one that ran for the Princess of the Spring Fling, right?
- The last time Sunset did this, she succeeded at providing evidence of inappropriate behavior.
- This is the first time ever Twilight sees a vending machine. Vending machines are therefore not a thing in Equestria.
- Library doors are kept open by propping them up with a table. Wouldn’t that involve noise? Most librarians would object.
- The mouse is on the left side of the keyboard for some reason. Who’s left-handed around this school?
- “When you’re a younger…” I do so wonder which word did the CMC have in place of “pony.”
- “We’re just seeing how many hits our new music video has gotten.” Pedestria’s Internet has streaming video services and equipment sufficiently powerful and cheap to permit little girls to produce music videos. YouTube did not exist before 2005, and the entire chain would be pretty difficult to pull for a child at the observed level of quality before 2010 or so, because it would require top of the line computing hardware and expensive software. It has been getting progressively easier since.
- “It’s a little dusty. But it doesn’t seem like anybody comes up here.” You know what this sort of place would get used for in a normal school, right?… That would actually explain the books stacked up like a bed.
- “I found this book. It’s called a yearbook. It seems to be something they use to keep a record of things that have happened at the school.” So Equestria’s schools don’t have yearbooks, but have picture days? Because a picture day comes up during A Flurry of Emotions.
- The yearbook picture of the Humane 5 is markedly different from what they look like now. That’s quite a growth spurt. Later, Applejack dates it to “The Freshman Fair.”
- The school’s library roof is entirely transparent. Quite posh for a school if you ask me…
“Good morning, students, and happy Thursday. Just a reminder to pick up your ballots for the Princess of the Fall Formal today. They are due at the time the dance starts tomorrow night, so don’t forget to turn them in and make your voice heard.”
- The dance starts “tomorrow night,” i.e. on Friday evening. Just keeping track.
- Ballots get distributed on Thursday. With just one day of voting, swinging the election could be achieved with very few votes, actually…
- “Time to make a good first impression on my fellow students.” A shower would be a good start…
- “I do have an eye for these sorts of things. Not that you seem to care.” So Rarity has something against Pinkie.
- Pinkie continues the trend for Pinkie to have the most customized gear. Human Pinkie’s is a laptop.
Sunset’s smear campaign starts with a YouTube video with a clearly identifiable Sunset Shimmer voiceover.
- Notice that there’s no way to make those available only to a specific group. Would Twilight have been a local, this could have easily resulted in a huge problem for Sunset in our world.
- The video includes effects and background music. So who exactly did those?
- “Word of advice? Don’t accept her help. She doesn’t take anything seriously!” And Fluttershy has something against Pinkie. Just trying out to figure the pattern to which particular bonds did Sunset break…
- “She said she’d get the softball team to make an appearance at my bake sale. I tell everybody they’re comin’, and then not one of ’em shows up! She made a liar outta me! That’s different!” So the softball team was sufficiently popular to affect the bake sale.
- Pinkie’s smartphone is some variation on a Blackberry, with a built-in hardware keyboard.
- “I got a text from you saying that you didn’t want a silent auction. You wanted a big party!” “Uh! I never sent you a text!” Now wait a moment. Faking an SMS message requires some really significant know-how, if Pinkie knows Fluttershy’s phone number and keeps her contact list in order. And I’m sure that she does, with her gigantic contact list. Faking a email, which is what Rarity is experiencing, is a lot easier, but still rather nontrivial. In both cases, it is far easier to just become a man-in-the-middle and ensure that they have the wrong contact information for each other than do anything else, and that still involves some interesting trickery and assumes that no voice calls will happen. So – did Sunset do any of that herself, or did she put some nerd under her thumb first and got him to do it? Because it’s this hypothetical guy’s fate that worries me more than the Humane 5. Everyone likes the Humane 5, nobody even remembers this guy (or girl) might exist.
- That’s some really fancy goal. Is it regulation? Because I’m sure the rules of any strain of football I ever heard about give pretty strict definitions of what a goal should look like.
- “First to five goals wins. One-zip!” It’s a real dick move on Rainbow’s part to declare that before Twilight even had a chance to get up, but according to Pinkie it totally counts. It also has to be the hardest possible competition for Twilight, who isn’t bipedal back home for more than a few minutes at a time.
- Notice that the photos of Twilight kicking the ball were once again taken with smartphones, rather than an instant film camera or, well, anything else. Which will become important in a bit.
- “And… can I get mine with extra oats?” So what is Twilight ordering here? When she dumps it on Flash Sentry, it looks like coffee. I do wonder what oats in coffee could taste like…
- “Flash Sentry broke up with her a few weeks ago. I can’t believe she hasn’t done something awful to him yet.” Flash was Sunset’s boyfriend and broke up with her, rather than the other way round. Common fanon is that she dumped him once she no longer needed him requires you to ignore this and accompanying statements.
- “Freshman year, they were very, very popular. A way for everybody to show their school spirit! You know? ‘Go, Canterlot Wondercolts!’ Ahem. I haven’t sold any in ages.” Pedestrian Rarity is a huge sports fan, far bigger than the Equestrian Rarity was ever caught being. Not only did she sell these ears and tails on the freshman year, she keeps some around just in case she might pawn off a pair on someone new.
- Notice that this entire conversation happened sometime Thursday – but would need to happen before the lunch break. Did they all skip classes to go to Sugarcube corner? Even Flash? And then they had the time to prepare a dance routine and the music? Or did the day change, and the singing at lunchtime happens on Friday? This is quite important.
- Spike operates a boom box with an iPod dock. The circle is replaced with a triangle because the Apples had the audacity to copyright anything round.
- Flash Sentry plays a bass, but still mysteriously produces the sound of a regular electric guitar – which implies he’s just posing and did not really produce sound without an amplifier. In any case, he has good music sense to time it to where it should be.
- “Take those off! I have something I need you to do.” Actually, where did Snips and Snails even get them? Nobody left the cafeteria while the song was going on.
“This is clearly you in the photographs, is it not?” The stupidest scene in the movie, really.
- Such photos existing at all implies that someone took them, and did not stop the action, nor called the authorities in time.
- Notice that Luna does not, at any point, investigate whether Twilight is even a student at the school. She immediately shifts the conversation to the Fall Formal crown, instead, but with the amount of property damage involved, parents and much more serious disciplinary action would be normal. But that’s exactly the questions Twilight would have the most difficulty answering… We could always imagine that Luna never thought Twilight was guilty, and was hoping Twilight would spill something interesting about Sunset instead, but was interrupted by Flash. But it’s fishy.
- Wouldn’t wrecking the party preparations be the stupidest move anyone seriously intent on winning could do? Earnestly suspecting Twilight would only make sense in one case: If Luna had been counting ballots and knew already that there is no chance Twilight will win. But if that were the case, the only reason for Sunset to trash the party before it starts is to ensure that Twilight gets stuck in Pedestria, rather than just loses. Doesn’t she also get stuck for the next 30 moons? She would have an easier time divesting Twilight of the crown during that time, but that’s quite a risky move.
- “I found these in a trash can in the library. Thought you should see them.” The very fact that such evidence exists – in a world where they have video editing software – is suspicious in the extreme.
- Notice that Flash was present when Sunset handed over the photos to Luna, and then mysteriously found the photos in the library trash. But Luna would have called for Twilight immediately, he only had minutes. He knew where to look already.
So what actually happened here? I would suggest that it was Flash who actually got the job of doctoring the photos, and did it properly, with Photoshop – and then, faked the cutout to dunk Sunset in the dirt and get out of being potentially implicated in the backlash. And then invited Twilight to the dance, being guaranteed a favorable reaction.
However, since he dumped Sunset previously, it’s quite unlikely she would make such a request of him. Did he know the hypothetical hacker well enough to quickly get two printouts and make a cutout to produce “proof” of forgery? That… was done in a flash, if so. In any case, it paints Flash as far more devious than he appears.
- “I am afraid enough damage has been done to the gym that we will have to postpone the dance until tomorrow night.” Wait. Wasn’t the dance already “tomorrow night?!” I’ve been keeping track! So did, or didn’t the day change between the Sugarcube Corner scene and the lunch break singing scene? Because there’s no direct evidence this happened, but everyone behaves as if it did – Twilight is extremely worried about attending the actual dance, and this is the only reason she rejects Flash.
- “The Fall Formal isn’t happening tonight.” Yep, it’s an off by one. Whoever edited the script needs a slap with a newspaper. Wet newspaper.
- “You’re from an alternate world and you’re a pony princess there…” “Just a hunch.” …and Pinkie is just trolling, never mind.
- So through the heroic efforts of the Humane 5 and volunteers, the gym is cleaned up and re-decorated before the original appointed time for the dance. I wonder how did that work? “The dance is postponed until tomorrow night!” “No, wait, the dance is not postponed until tomorrow night!” That’s a surefire recipe to get half the attendees to miss it. It’s a bit less silly in a school during the normal lessons, because you could get teachers to announce the changes to a captive audience, but I’m sure someone still got caught in the mess, because the final re-announcement goes out comparatively late.
“Oh, and don’t forget to cast your ballots for the Fall Formal Princess on your way out!”
- The ballot box is conspicuously locked, but not sealed. And if anyone has a key, that would be Luna, wouldn’t it?
- I am pretty sure that this extra call for voters after everyone had a chance to see Twilight in action is what got Twilight the crown: They’re the swing voters who wouldn’t vote otherwise.
- “I need this Formal to go on tonight just as much as she does.” Well, now Sunset does.
- Rarity’s jewelry box contains Pinkie’s cutie mark earrings. How did these get in there? Or is the design not unique?
- All the Humane 5 and Twilight are wearing boots. The CMC too, as well as pretty much every girl at the dance. I’m not sure there was a period in 2010s when boots were in fashion to such an extent…
- Hiring that limo was a stretch. I wonder, which of the Humane 5 paid for it?
- Flash drives a rather fancy-looking car which sounds and looks like it has at least 200hp under the hood or more. But the paint job makes me think of Pikachu…
- “I’m not a monster, Twilight.” 🎵I’m not a monster, Tom… Well, technically, I am.🎵
- “Tick-tock, Twilight. We haven’t got all night. The portal will be closing on its own in less than an hour.” Sunset knows exactly when the portal will close. How exactly did she come by that information? For that matter, is that hammer really dangerous to the portal, or just a fakeout?
- “More power than I could ever imagine!” For the record, Twilight has never gotten any actual power out of the thing, barring the incidents of orbital friendship laser, which were few and far between. Sunset, the moment she touches it, is immediately able to tap the Element for whatever energy the singular jewel can get her, as well as bestow power on her minions.
- The demonic transformations appear to be the property of Equestrian magic itself, rather than anything else. Compare particularly to Legends of Everfree. Since back in Equestria, nothing of the sort happens, and even overdosing on magic seems more likely to turn ponies alicorn-like than anything else (see Shadow Play, My Little Pony #57) this has to be an adverse reaction specific to human physiology. But that’s a subject for its own post. See also Hypothesis #3 where I touched on this subject. Interesting minor detail: Pedestrians have five fingers, but the demonic forms have four. So do all the Equestrian species with hands that I can remember.
- Sunset’s demonic form powers include flight without even flapping the wings, telekinesis on the scale of 10-20 metric tons, and mass mind control.
- “I want Equestria! And with my own little teenage army behind me, I am going to get it!” Notice that there is no evidence whatsoever that this was what Sunset originally planned. In fact, I am not sure she predicted her demonic transformation at all, even though every step before that does make sense. I’m pretty sure she had something smarter in mind…
- What Twilight does, essentially, is the direct application of the magic of friendship to produce regular magic, with no obvious tools. Also notice that Tirek is exactly the wrong opponent to use this trick against – see Twilight’s Kingdom. Additionally, it’s probably the most complex chain of events caused by the Elements so far…
- “Tonight, you’ve shown everyone who you really are. You’ve shown them what is in your heart.” More evidence for the whole “Equestrian magic is corruptive to humans in high dosages” argument.
- “Would now be a completely awkward time to ask you for that dance?” For the record, Twilight has at most 50 minutes to party, and probably less. Any Equestria Girls shorts laying claim to that time had better make sense.
- “You’ll look out for her, won’t you?” “Of course we will. Although I do expect some sort of apology for last spring’s debacle.” Further evidence that the latest photo of Sunset on that wall is for a Spring, rather than Fall dance.
- “I have a feeling she’ll be handing out a lot of apologies.” I’m also pretty sure she wouldn’t be allowed to touch this wall in any sensible world, and the use of bricks to repair a concrete wall is purely symbolic.
Back in Equestria
- Everyone is in the mirror room, Rainbow Dash is pacing. You would expect that she, of all ponies, would be taking a nap. So how much time did really pass in Equestria?
- “Sunset Shimmer, is she alright?” That’s the only indication that Celestia cares about Sunset’s fate at all, so far.
- “I left her in good hands.” “What are hands?” Rainbow Dash is so bored she isn’t thinking straight. Back in Sonic Rainboom, she used the word herself. That said, apparently, nobody told her or Rarity that Pedestrians have them.
- “Where did you stay?” I’d love to know the answer to that question – particularly, where did Twilight stay the second night.
- “I wanna tell you all everything, I do, but I’m just so exhausted from all the dancing.” She had at most 50 minutes for said dancing, why would she be exhausted.
- “He’s a new member of the castle guard. Flash Sentry, I think.” As of this moment in the timeline, Flash Sentry is new to guarding the Crystal Castle.
Some analysis
Conclusion #1: In a Flash
The only way the stupidest scenes in the movie make sense at all is if Flash is more devious than we give him credit for. We misunderestimated him, surely.
Despite everything, Sunset’s behavior is quite rational, all the way up until the transformation, when sense goes out the window.
Conclusion #2: Open Sesame
As far as I can tell, there’s a very good chance that Sunset Shimmer could have returned at any point she wanted! Here’s why:
- Sunset clearly arrives already knowing where Twilight is, and that there will be an opportunity to acquire the Element of Magic. Just where did Sunset come by this piece of intel at all? She also brought the replica Element. Even though she definitely used the Princess of the Fall Formal crown, she would require detailed knowledge of what the Element looks like before leaving, to conclude that she needs to acquire this replica – and that would involve breaking and entering on the Pedestrian side too.
2. See RTAC #11
According to Luna, the mirror takes 30 moons to cycle. At the lowest possible estimates for the length of the moon, that’s ~90 days, and this value of a moon produces numerous difficulties in primary TV canon.2 The more reasonable moon values of ~40 days (total of 1200 days, 3.2 years) and the default of ~30 days most people assume (total of 900 days, 2.4 years) result in multiple years. Sunset returning during any prior cycle, and finding out from, say, a newspaper, that a new princess has been crowned, and what exactly she was crowned with, is a possibility, however slim. Finding the room she is staying in could be a lucky guess. Barely.
- But this event had to have happened after Twilight’s coronation. Equestria Girls has to fit strictly between two episodes, both of which are bounded by the May The Best Pet Win / Tanks For The Memories loop, which is known not to exceed 9 months. There simply isn’t any space remaining to put more than 30 days between Twilight’s coronation and Equestria Girls, while the shortest cycle we can even imagine is 90 days.
Therefore, either the statement regarding the length of the cycle or the statement regarding the length of time the mirror stays open are wrong. Was Luna lying? This seems unlikely, considering that I can’t think of any motivation for her to do so. But Luna might be mistaken. This gives us four possibilities:
- The statement about the duration the mirror remains open is wrong.
- The statement about the cycle length is wrong.
- We’re wrong to assume that the mirror stays open for three days: Luna actually said that the mirror will close in three days – saying nothing about whether today was the first day it opened or not.
- The cycle is not ironclad and can be broken.
Notice that these options are not really mutually exclusive, all four can be true at the same time.
Option #1 is off the table, because as far as we can tell, Luna is exactly correct about the time when the portal will close, and Twilight explicitly goes through in the last minute.
#2 requires much shorter cycles to fit other constraints – between 30 and 300 times shorter, depending on the length of a moon – permitting numerous opportunities for Sunset to return.
#4 likewise, permits numerous opportunities for Sunset to return and implies she has some means to activate the portal from her end. Notice that from Rainbow Rocks, we already know this is true, anyway – the only new discovery in that case is that Sunset has the means to control it from the Pedestrian side.
Option #3 is the only one that doesn’t imply Sunset had as many opportunities to return as she liked, but instead, it implies that the mirror actually opens for periods as long as a week, if not longer, and Sunset has been sneaking around the castle for more than a few days.
I leaning towards option #4, if only because it also explains why would Sunset think that trashing the party beforehand is a good idea: Let us assume that Sunset did get the majority of votes, and Luna knew that. Twilight would get under serious investigation and eventually end up in custody and out of Sunset’s hair, and Sunset’s triumphant return with the Element would become a complete surprise. Should she have actually wished to use it on the Pedestria side, she would likewise remain unimpeded.
Conclusion #3: Temporal gradient
The temporal gradient between Equestria and Pedestria is not stable and not linear even while the mirror is open, based on this movie alone.
- The Element of Magic bounced into the mirror just ten seconds before Sunset, but Sunset definitely arrived later than ten seconds afterwards – otherwise she would immediately notice the crown and Fluttershy would have never had a chance to hand it over to Celestia.
- The Element bounced into the mirror in early night, but arrives to Pedestria in the morning.
- Twilight leaves Equestria during the day following the night of Sunset’s arrival, and arrives during the day, before the school day ends, and in fact, before the lunch break.
- Twilight leaves Pedestria during the night, but as far as I can tell, it’s daylight when she returns. In any case, nobody talks like I would expect them to after they have spent three bloody days staring at a mirror.
How exactly did Luna predict the time before the portal closes is anyone’s guess, but notice that while she was indeed correct, she listed the Pedestrian time for it – whether because that would be the only one Twilight would have access to, or because it’s the only time scale in which the portal opens at stable intervals and for stable durations, we don’t know. At least for Luna, it was indeed predictable, even if it isn’t linear or stable.
Notice another interesting thing: Luna says “30 moons,” but explicitly phrases it as “it will be another thirty moons before you will be able to use it to return” – which means that for Twilight to even know when she could return, it would have to be Pedestrian, rather than Equestrian moon cycles.
Unit tests? You have unit test? Luxury! I've had to edit code on the production server as it was being used by clients and just pray I didn't miss a semicolon when I hit save, all over a double Remote Desktop connection that's laggy and could randomly drop at any moment...
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I don’t have unit tests… well, I wrote a few, but far less than I should have. I have to interface to code and adapt code that has unit tests, usually breaking those tests in the process, usually in places where unit tests are impossible to run. There’s a difference.
I had to do that on a 5.4" phone with no keyboard. That’s why I have so many keyboards now.
Subverting doctrine is pretty much a fantasy trope now: "The ancient laws of magic say the sword can only be drawn on the twelfth night of the nineteenth month after the coronation by a maiden whose maternal grandfather drank of the..." "Screw the rules, I use it anyway."
He assumed (correctly) that they don't, because dogs in Equestria don't talk. He could have been wrong.
I always called it a Headmaster - it's not universal. The word “principal” means a lot of other things though.
Or carbonated. Which would be horrific, but Americans do weird things to food.
Yes, but in a different sense. If you know what I mean.
Or just that looked like it when taken out of context.
My schools didn't have yearbooks, but had a photo day on which they took a really big picture of the entire student body in one. All smartly lined up, uniforms tidy, no smiling...
Yeah, in hindsight, it was a weird school.
Edit: a bit like this only bigger.
Simplest solution: grab their phone for a few minutes. Most likely when they're out doing sports or something.
Yeah, they didn't even bother to include EqG!Stygian in the film, he's so overlooked. Poor lad.
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The word “Headmaster” is specifically British, at that.
<insert clopfic>
No, mine was like that for the first few years. The resolution of the resulting mess left so much to be desired that eventually the idea was abandoned, nobody wanted to have one.
…wait, scratch that, my school was pretty weird too.
Works very well once. Multiple incidents are cited in most cases, and all the bond-breaking has been done through intercepting digital communications.
Does sound like a possibility.
Now imagine Flash putting the squeeze on him to get the source photos for his own plot.
An alternative to the time dilation theory: maybe travel time is inconsistent? When Twi goes through, it looks a bit like the long-distance Stargate wormhole effect (or Dr Who opening): zooming along a corridor.
In fact, if travel time is unpredictable, Sunset could even have arrived first, assumed the crown was gone because she didn't see it, and hurried off before the crown actually came through.
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Maybe, but there are reasons to conclude that the time gradient is not stable or linear outside this movie as well – for example, the Sirens.
That's actually an interesting thought. I wonder if anyone's written a detailed alt-PoV of the whole thing from Flash's perspective?
I'm always assumed that there is some big time difference between Sunset and Twilight. Mostly because Twilight know nothing about another Celestia student. IMO if Sunset happens right before Twilight then even if Celestia put total information ban on Sunset some of serving staff most likely will slip up something about Sunset.
The whole "Reflection" shtick? Where dimensions start to fuse together or break?
Wild guesses time! Maybe she finds the evidence that Sunset regularly used portal but never ever try to make contact with Celestia? If Sunset doesn't have any legal means to make money in Mirror World there is also a chance that she steal stuff in Equestria... Although if portal only opens every three years...
Genuinely unsure on this one, but do we actually know that the door Sunset goes through when we first see her is the one to the mirror room? I interpreted that as a completely different door and the magic we see being an unlocking spell. It could make sense that the wing of the castle where Twilight and her friends are sleeping could be locked as a security measure.
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That was supposed to be dependent on the number of consecutive visits rather than the number of visitors, though.
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Just double checked: Yes. If you stop the frame just right as the door opens and turn the brightness up, you can observe the same pictures on the wall and parts of the mirror’s frame. The latter are very distinctive.
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There a possibility that they don't know how exactly that work and just being careful? Plus I don't remember - do M6 have their elements with them in "Reflection"? If not, maybe this also a factor?
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Actually, yes, they do have the Elements on hand and use them to fix the merging.
Which is actually a huge problem with Reflections that I haven’t noticed previously: It requires Twilight to be a princess, but must fit into the same hole Equestria Girls does – after the movie, because the movie is referenced inside.
No, not really. Perhaps young Celestia and Luna liked giving their meetings official titles. Or, perhaps Princess Platinum was originally invited. Either way, this'd be the first Princess Summit in a thousand years - unless Luna decided to revive that name for her first meeting with Cadance.
Several people have postulated that was an after-effect of the Harmony magic from her ascension, or the heartsong at her coronation. Either way, it makes sense.
Magic. Either way, though, they're advanced in magitech.
Perhaps she found a book with thousand-year-old pictures of the original? I've read at least one fanfic that postulated she got the school to design the fake as the tiara for the competition.
Perhaps Principal Celestia is also an attendee of the Princess Summits?
Ask Starswirl. From the comics, this isn't the only such mirror he was involved with.
Nice idea. That'd explain a lot.
Alternatively, though, remember Photo Finish. Maybe cutie marks aren't quite as unique as fanon would have us think. Still, it should've at least occurred to Sunset...
Not that Hasbro will ever let them graduate, grumble grumble...
AFAIK, no. But, I could imagine carbonated apple cider; I think it'd actually be pretty good.
She has a better relationship with her father? Perhaps it's related to not getting her cutie mark at the rainboom?
Would it be normal in Pedestria, though? Perhaps high school students are presumed to be responsible for themselves, even if they might technically still be minors? That'd go a long way to explain how Sunset's able to enroll herself in school, too.
4731290 Well, if we go by your theory that Sunset frequently goes back, then there have been a lot of visits, so...
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Actually, exactly this is impossible: A thousand years ago, the Element of Magic was never part of a crown, and we know this because we see it on screen multiple times.
So that’s why she’s so tired when Twilight turns up in her office!
If I could ask Star Swirl anything, I would ask him why is he not white.
Possible, though we never see any Pedestrian family of the Humane 5 except Maud, IIRC.
Actually, it mostly depends on how long did Sunset actually spend in Pedestria. There are four possible options of Sunset’s origin, and they all produce divergent variations…
I’ll write that all up in its own RTAC.
This statement, this statement, it has always annoyed me.
First, what does she mean when she says "sending all of you could upset the balance of this alternate world, creating havoc"? When I first read it in the transcript, I assumed that she had metaphysical knowledge of other worlds that is never explained in the movie. When I actually watched the movie, I thought that she was trying to minimize as much disruption of that world as possible. Now, I just don't know what she actually means anymore.
Second, don't send all of them. Send Sparkles with either one or two of her friends like Applejack or Rainbow Dash. They don't all need to go and Sparkles will need help. You know nothing about this world you're sending her into so having as much help as possible would be a good idea.
Actually, there is a line that implies that conquering Equesteria was her plan all along.
Sunset Shimmer: I want you to follow her. Bring me something I can use just like I did with that last girl who thought she could challenge me.
Snips: You got it, Sunset Shimmer.
Sunset Shimmer: When the crown and its power are mine, Twilight Sparkle will be sorry she ever set hoof into this world. Not that she would've been much safer if she'd stayed in Equestria.
The emphasis is mine.
I'll admit, becoming whatever she became was most likely not part of the plan.
I've always preferred this Luna explanation of the magic mirror:
"Your mission on this adventure is to establish minute basis of contact about difference Bluebell fighting with sterile into numerous times and making start the great curtains of changes into and from within different complex alfalfa mainframe and eventually to save the world the hell."
Princess Luna
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What?
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It's from Friendship is Witchcraft.
A link to my set of notes. Let's see…begin the Devil's Advocacy.
Of note: I thought Snips did the photo-manipulation, given his scissors-related talent. This makes Flash knowing where the evidence was harder, unless he's looking for revenge on Sunset.
If you're designing any kind of multiworld transit system with this, you'd want "original" to be default and have "[de]localize to/from native" at the exit, though this is more important when there are more than two exits than "home" and "other".
Possibly service animal, but those usually have fairly prominent regalia identifying them as such.
Normally at least an ID-swipe is involved.
When is she even that long?
They may be assuming it was Flash's action, from the personalities involved, if the breakup was not public.
There are a few reasons one might want those; small children playing dress-up, Nghtmare Nght, adults…
suborned-nerd is a trad-photography fan, or Sunset did it herself using what she knew, which did not include image-editing software?
"Flash" does imply photo-related skills, hah.
given the parallel with Pony Pinkie at the end, disagree.
Managed to lay a hidden subtle divination on the Mirror that's only active when it's open to convey "the Magc element s nearby"-and made inference from the Fall Formal crown of the EoM's shape, by dimensional parallelism.
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# of visitors is a lower bound on number of visits. I suspect the connection to the Regalia of Harmony and thereby the Tree that the Mane6 have means they're more mystically-significant than most.
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Trouble is that she is also present at Canterlot High…but the real reason, I think, that Sunset doesn't realize the features line up so nicely is that all of the people in Pedestria but Celestia (and possibly Luna) are Twilight's contemporaries, so Celestia may be fairly-safely written off as an outlier by Sunset instead of assuming that every similar-looking human is analogous to a pony. (See also: Pedestrian Big Mac isn't red-skinned.) But insofar as your point is that cutie marks aren't unique, yes.
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When would she be able to do that?
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Prior to leaving, or on an earlier return visit. If she cannot control the mirror, then she would likely have had to wait. If she can control the mirror, she need not have been in a hurry. Regardless, the Element of Magic being a thing Sunset wanted prior to leaving [and that Celestia refused her] is highly-likely, and Sunset is quite capable and forward-thinking in many ways.
Oh man this movie is a mess. I enjoyed it, but canonically it is a hot mess.
I wonder if ordindary ponies would play it cool while Spike is around alicorn princesses, and only begin fangirling him when he is in a more approachable state. At least, until he did something even more heroic live saving the entire empire from an ice cloud in front of everyone.
However Sunset was gaining information on Equestria, she used it to gain a description of the Crown, then used her pull in the student body to make the crown look like a replica. Only $19.99 at Pedestria's Hobby Lobby isn't quite as good as the ancient forces of Harmony.
It also makes the whole fake crown thing a useless waste of time from a doylist perspective.
I think we can pretty clearly assume that such a time period did not exist or Twilight would have recognized Sunset, or at least her name.
That could be contradicting the comics, or Celestia could just be twisting the facts a bit out of shame.
But if Sunset hadn't used a crown at all, would they really have figured out the thief came from the mirror portal and not anywhere else before Sunset could unlock the magic in the crown and return?
General scientific exploration by Star Swirl, and to steal more advanced technology.
Theory: Cadance and Sunset had a not-completely terrible relationship, and Celestia figured Cadance would be the best person to confront Sunset and talk sense into her.
This is still valuable information: It tells us that as far as Celestia knows, all 6 are needed at once. So from this we can assume, for example, that Celestia and Luna never went off on their own and used their 3 pack of EOH against monsters back in the day.
I have often wondered, unless Pedestria is radically different from earth, if no one thought about just solving some of their Equestrian monster problems with a gun.
*Steps up to the plate* So Celestia knows that magic-eating creatures like the sirens are somewhere on Pedestria. Maybe she thinks all 6 ponies at once will have such a strong magical energy signature that it will draw those monsters in immediately?
....wait, what? WHAT?
Service animals on Pedestria have less strict labelling requirements. Also, how many animals really want to sit in a backpack for ten hours at a time and not poop? Kind of mean of Fluttershy.
Hmmm. Like the equivalent of thinking cutie marks on a list are cartoon resolutions of written names?
They don't see skin colors man, they just see people!
Or break into her office at night since you're sleeping in the school anyway and steal it.
Is it habitual? Rarity ran for Spring Fling Princess. This is problematic. On the one hand, faculty would sure notice if the same girl won every contest unopposed over and over again, that's a huge red flag someone is being a bully. On the other hand, Sunset seems to put no effort into being liked by anyone except Snips and Snails. How many people actually write in a name in these contests? Are Snips and Snails ballot stuffing for her? And if Sunset doesn't care about popularity, why was she dating Flash Sentry?
She's gotten lazy in her lying because she's doing it to teenagers.
Rock farming pays mad cheddar!
I'd assume Snips or Snails is some kind of hacking savant. They might not seem like it, but you would have said the same thing about Buckball, wouldn't you? They also know how to edit videos. Also, perhaps Sunset sent the video in some kind of snapchat-like version of Youtube where only the people with the link see it and it erases a few days later.
This is a good point, and probably an important thing to remember about these two characters long-term.
Perhaps Friday was a school holiday, which is why it was chosen for a dance.
Well, if Snips or Snails is the hacker, then Flash would know that and probably have some kind of reasonably friendly acquaintance with them, and have a pretty good idea of how to manipulate them as well. I'm intrigued by devious Flash. Perhaps he dumped Sunset after he found out she had been ruining some other students life, and decided to atone for his complicity by actively sabotaging her future actions?
One fan theory I've heard that explains a lot of this scene: Luna and Celestia have begun drinking heavily on the job.
Heck, why didn't Sunset steal the crown? As far as Luna and Celestia knows it is a $20 piece of junk. Do they have a bank vault in the Principal's office or something?
Considering the statue was wrecked and got rebuilt, the hammer can't be really dangerous to the portal. Sunset may not know it though.
Twilight has never actually tried using the power of the Element on its own. Sunset was quite possibly planning this even before she was banished, on the assumption that hacking the Element of Harmony with an outside spell was the best way to become an alicorn (not like she's wrong).
Ehhhhhh. I would argue that the Pony of Shadows looks a lot like the Equine version of a demon form, perhaps the same could even be said for Nightmare Moon.
Totally agree. No reason to go over the many ways a teenage human army would be dumb. I think, as with Trixie, Sunset was doing this to prove a point. Right up until she transformed, she thought she would turn into a regular alicorn (or the human equivalent), then pass through the portal where she would be a regular alicorn, Celestia would be like "well you're an alicorn, guess I have to crown you Princess and treat you
like a daughterwith respect."It's the magical equivalent of Aikido, turning an enemy's magic against them. This is actually probably the most magically impressive thing Twilight has done herself ever, since she had a lot less hand-holding than she usually does.
[quoteOption #3 is the only one that doesn’t imply Sunset had as many opportunities to return as she liked, but instead, it implies that the mirror actually opens for periods as long as a week, if not longer, and Sunset has been sneaking around the castle for more than a few days.] This could actually be a great side fic. Like right after the end of this movie, a comedy of Twilight remembering all the times she was in the Canterlot Castle library over the years growing up and an older unicorn wandered in at night, grabbed some books, newspapers and spare gems from the take a gem/leave a gem tray, and wandered out.
I have generally worked on the assumption that about 4 days passes in Equestria for every day that passes in Pedestria, but I'm not totally sure about it. Perhaps after Twilight hooks the portal up to her machine in the 2nd movie it stabilizes the gradient?
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I noticed. A major technical quibble to the whole thing:
Cutting out a hole in the original where the foreign object in the manipulated photo is from is an excellent way to demonstrate that forgery took place. Actually copy-pasting paper is a very ineffective method of such forgery – easy to detect, and requires an extra scan-print cycle to even try to hide.
In practice, pre-Photoshop, such photo manipulation was typically done by multiple exposure of photographic paper, precisely because that way the edges of the images are naturally blurred. In movie-making, multiple exposure of the negative was the preferred method.
Which is precisely why I believe that the cutouts were deliberately created to show that forgery happened, intended to do so while confusing Luna regarding who and how did the forgery itself, while the actual forgery was done properly.
If the breakup was not public, exactly how would Fluttershy know this happened at all?
She is trolling us in the sense that it is impossible to make solid conclusions about Pinkie in the first place: Even the other characters admit she doesn’t make sense. :)
Even assuming she had the foresight to do so when she was leaving, which is highly suspect, she would have only had minutes to act upon it if the mirror does not stay open for more than the three days cited. “Quick, I must race to the school, break into Celestia’s office for the crown, and use it to swap for the real one!” Not to mention evade the guards, locate Twilight’s bedroom…
Notice that she runs easily throughout this sequence, on four legs, and compare it to how she walks during Mirror Magic.
Actually, notice another thing: Pedestrian Photo Finish has the distinct dress the Equestrian Photo Finish does, but no cutie mark on it.
If she can control the mirror, she doesn’t need a divination spell.
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Not necessarily at all, considering Amending Fences. Especially if they were tutored separately and never intentionally brought together.
That said, while Celestia doesn’t make it clear, Sunset’s statement is that there was no overlapping time period: “And you’re supposed to be Princess Celestia’s star student? Then again, what were the chances she’d find somepony as bright as me to take under her wing after I decided to leave Equestria?”
At the same time, even that statement does not permit us to estimate how big the gap was.
Amending Fences josses The Fall of Sunset Shimmer so hard that you really should take it with a grain of salt.
If, as I outline above, Sunset could have returned whenever she wanted, it would make a difference, and Sunset could have had a proper plan in mind – like, subjugate Pedestria by weaseling her way into controlling the power structures and then come over with an actual army. That would be 30 moons well spent.
Notice that Rainbow Rocks does not indicate that Star Swirl used a mirror to banish them either, that idea comes from FIENDship is Magic #3 exclusively.
I’m wondering if the mirror is associated with Star Swirl at all, by now.
Notice also that Reflections has other problems – like, for example, there’s no place in the timeline remaining for it to happen: Twilight is a princess, uses the Element of Magic, and they know about Pedestria. So it has to follow Equestria Girls, predate Princes Twilight Sparkle, and keep Celestia free of duties and back in Canterlot for a week…
Good one!
Guns wouldn’t be very useful against most monsters, if only because you’d need a pretty high caliber to do much. A trench mortar, on the other hand, would come in very handy.
Best explanation so far!
Luna obviously counts a day as “a day and a night.”
That’s not a thing a polite purple pony princess would presume to perpetrate!
I don’t think there’s any ballot stuffing going on here, if only because the only time we see the ballot box at all, it’s literally in Luna’s hands. But we don’t see any evidence of Sunset being actually popular either – Snips and Snails hang around her, she accosts Twilight in a dark corner with no witnesses, she scares up Fluttershy, and once again, the only witness is Twilight…
Sunset appears sure of her power, but the only people she actually asserts it over are Fluttershy, who successfully resisted it by interacting with authority – and never appealed to said authority, she just handed the crown over – Twilight, who really has no support whatsoever and no official standing, and potentially, Rarity, who may or may not have been Sunset’s opponent at the Spring Fling. And during Rainbow Rocks, everyone explicitly refers to her actions during the Fall Formal as the reason to hate her, rather than just about anything else.
It’s almost like being crowned princess is something that Sunset values much higher than anyone in the student body, only Rarity even cared enough about it to run, and only a small proportion of the students vote. That’s kinda really sad.
She does say “I was only dating him for…” in Rainbow Rocks. However, notice that it does not contradict him breaking up with her, and to be honest, considering the faces she makes through that scene, it looks to me like she’s deliberately trying to convince herself that to get over him, and only upon saying that she realizes that it just swapped one problem for another.
Considering the very obvious YouTube UI on screen? Nah. Well, you can make an unlisted video and spam the link through a snapchat-like service, and then you take it down. Mind you, I suspect that Sunset only chose that method because she knew Twilight can’t call the cops on her.
Possible. Notice, by the way, that the hypothetical devious Flash saved the world, perhaps unknowingly:
If he did not disavow the “evidence,” Twilight not having any paperwork or parents would be discovered and she would be with the CPS before the day is out. Then, with a psychiatrist, regardless of whether she tried to explain she’s a princess or not. Sunset would acquire the crown unopposed, if a day later, and there would be nobody to stop her demon rampage.
No, the script editor just cut out the second night scenes, leaving nothing to replace them. Even the simple title “the next day” on the lunch hour song scene would solve it, and a few other trivial shots to show the passage of time would solve it better, but no, someone had to be stupid today.
Bank vault, probably no. A safe, definitely. Most of these store documents rather than valuables, but regulations in many places require at least some kinds of documents to be kept in a safe. If they found that the crown mysteriously vacated whatever place they kept it in, the safe is where it would go subsequently.
That’s not to say that Sunset couldn’t possibly crack the safe, but it’s much riskier than anything she pulled to that moment in terms of retaining her ability to act freely.
If my interpretation is correct and the constitution says “executive power belongs to the alicorns,” that would be quite the constitutional crisis, too.
Someone should write that!
I haven’t gotten to that yet, but considering that our only anchor point would be the 3rd movie – the 4th movie contains no pony at all – and the entirely self-contained Mirror Magic, even if it did stabilize, it doesn’t really matter.
4731946
It is badly jossed in specific parts (and Cadance is inexplicably absent) but overall it is still the best guide we have for the time period in question... rather like the JotTS!
Wait... it's a plot point in Rainbow Rocks that they can't control the mirror from the Equestrian side. If the mirror is only controllable from the Pedestrian side, wouldn't that mean it was built by Pedestrians?
What if, after the Sirens were banished in like 900 AD, they tried building a magic portal in a clearing somewhere targeting a fancy mirror they remember in Equestria, but it didn't work because no one ever tried stepping through the mirror on the Equestrian side to activate before?
I kind of figured that was her real plan for a while. But the only way a real human army would be any kind of threat is if weapons could be built that could be chucked through the portal and used as ponies, right? (Man, how come no one who writes those angry human vs pony war stories for TCB used that as a starting point?)
Poor reflections. It got Jossed at Stars Wars EU levels.
Well that depends, really. Does eating a bunch of magic actually make you physically more durable, or do you have to have specific magical functions like earth pony magic to do it? All the tough MLP creatures we've seen take a lot of physical abuse and get up again are filled to the gills with earth pony magic, one way or another.
That's extremely sad. Sunset's like a combination of the high-school bully and the high school student government treasurer.
Yeah, I've always suspected that. I mean, at this point in Rainbow Rocks Sunset feels worthless, and she owes Princess Twilight everything, and she knows Twilight has a crush on Flash, so she can at least gracefully clear the path. I can also see an incredibly lonely person on some kind of revenge mission telling themselves they were only dating someone to further their mission.
However, there's a larger question we missed: Why the heck does Sunset care if she's popular? She's literally an undocumented alien at CHS on false pretenses, why put an enormous amount of effort into dating a guy and bullying people and winning class contests instead of just like, joining the ROTC and reading Pedestrian military strategy books or something?
That's what you do on earth, but close enough.
I noticed. He's the Savior of the Universe.
I've often wondered if Sunset just did the simple thing and turned herself in to CPS as a teenager with amnesia. I guess the question is if she would be allowed to live alone now, as we know she has her own place.
We agree someone started daydrinking on their job, the question is whether it was Celestia, Luna, or one of the writers.
It is, but only if your theory is correct and she can open the portal whenever she wants. Otherwise there's so little margin for error with that deadline at the end of the party. What if Luna had say, had to drive a sick kid home in the middle of the dance, and driven off with the crown in her car for a couple of hours? It's better to take a moderately risky action early than wait until right before the deadline for the "safe" choice.
Dangit, how I wish Stygian had shown up in Canterlot Castle in the middle of the S7 Finale and requested his throne.
4731946 Oh, one more thing:
How messed up is it that Celestia actually calls Twilight "My Most Faithful Student?" It's like calling your younger child "the non-disappointment."
4731961
That is an option.
Depends on when exactly did the sirens emerge. I kind of doubt they turned up in 900 AD in the middle of Native American territories, largely unpopulated, and didn’t even attempt to travel anywhere else while seeking an audience… Like I said, the time gradient is nonlinear and unstable, so they could have turned up anywhen.
I think it’s the 80s, actually. Their outfits do resemble the 80s at least…
It’s pretty trivial to put a high caliber machine gun on the back of an earth pony, load it up with more rounds than an airplane carries for its gun, and set up an electric trigger for teeth. The expectation being that the soldier doesn’t shoot precisely so much as they spray in the enemy’s general direction. An automatic grenade launcher is also an option. A squad of those would be utterly devastating. An adequately supplied army mostly built up of units like that would be really difficult to stop, considering that pegasi can be countered with flak.
Supply would be the weak point, but it is with any modern army anyway.
They’re not trying to be clever, they’re trying to be awesome – and using the path of least resistance while at it.
The answer to that question would be in whatever actually happened between her and Celestia before she left. And the fact that The Fall of Sunset Shimmer does not provide an adequate answer is on my list of reasons not to trust it.
Emancipated minors exist. However, this entire part of the story remains a mystery, and probably will forever, because any possible answer that can be given to that is rife with fridge horrors.
Actually, not really: If Sunset is in Pedestria, has the crown, and Twilight is stranded and under lock and key, that just means Sunset has at least 30 moons to enact whatever her plan is before the mirror opens naturally.
I’m sure there’s a constitutional amendment that turned up somewhere after Cadance became an alicorn, defining age of majority and other restrictions – like a definition of what does it mean to be an alicorn exactly. :) Stygian probably wouldn’t fit that definition, but an alicorn Sunset definitely would.
Or an archaism. But it does sound like that. :)
4731920
I writ precisely: If the breakup (event communicating transition from being a couple to not) were not public, they have only biased secondary reports (ncluding what the ex-couple themselves say, highly unlikely to be true); the change-in-couple-status is going to be far more obvious, but hard to hide (especially when they also stop being friends).
Nice analysis, as usual.
Regarding the Element of Magic and Sunset's plan, I think that the key here is the presence or absence of the Tree of Harmony. I can only speculate on this, of course, since we have no hard evidence about the exact functionality of the Elements in regards to the Tree, but it makes sense. In Equestria, the Element of Magic would be useless for anybody but a true bearer, and an uncorrupted one at that, because the Tree probably needs to in some way authorise their use. However, if one takes the Tree of Harmony out of the equation, such as by travelling to a world outside its reach, then there's nothing to stop a person from brute-forcing any Elements of Harmony they might have.
This interpretation requires one major thing, which is for Sunset to have a deep understanding of the Tree of Harmony, and probably time to have studied it. However, she already seems to have knowledge of how the Elements of Harmony would function in an alternate universe, which as you point out, is entirely unprecedented as far as we know, so she already knows more about the Elements than Twilight. I think assuming knowledge/study of the Tree isn't much of a leap.
The real question is when she would've learned all this, because it has implications for Sunset's plans and affects when she could've come up with the plan she had here. In fact, if she conducted this study while still under Celestia's tutelage, and knew from her that the Elements of Harmony would eventually return, then stealing the Element of Magic might've even been her plan from the very start.
She still wouldn't have known what the Crown looks like until it actually exists, but it allows Sunset more time to come up with all the details of the plan, and gives her motives in leaving Equestria some more sense. After all, if she knew the Elements would return in a few years time, then skipping over the intervening decade due to the unstable time gradient would be very helpful; it would accelerate her plans massively. Suddenly, hanging around for two years in an alien high school starts to look less like a curious waste of time, and more like an actually rational move.
That's my take, at least.