Jan
6th
2018
Points of Canon: S5x11 - Party Pooped · 5:52pm Jan 6th, 2018
Pinkie, yaks and yetis, oh my.
- Chronology markers: Friendship Castle exists, and there’s a shot prominently showing the roots in the throne room. Mark-less CMC are present at the party in the end.
- The topology of the entry hall of the Friendship Castle is not very stable between episodes. This time, the entry hall is much bigger than in most other cases.
- “You’ve been plannin’ this shindig for weeks. You know everything about these fellers. It’s gonna be dandy.” Preparations for the arrival of the yaks were never shown on screen, but I’m pretty sure they would be incompatible with the preparations for the Pony Summit in Princess Spike, so one or the other episode needs to move aside. Also, since the contact with the yaks would have been reestablished soon after the reappearance of the Crystal Empire, the earlier this happened, the better.
- “Remember, Equestria and Yakyakistan haven’t opened their borders for hundreds of moons.” See RTAC #11. Usages of “moons” in this episode solidly preclude a week-scale moon.
- “In fact, Yakyakistan is so far north of the Crystal Mountains, nopony’s even been there!” Twilight later mentions a “seven-volume cross-indexed history of Yakyakistan”, which she recommended to Mane 5, which implies it’s a widely available book, and presumably, was in circulation well before the beginning of the series, if nopony who has ever been to Yakyakistan is currently alive.
- “Imagine the look on Princess Celestia’s face when she finds out we made friends with a yak prince!” Wait, so is that an assignment from Celestia, or Twilight’s own initiative? This phrase seems to solidly lock out the former. Later, Twilight even says, “I wanted to surprise Princess Celestia. Now the only surprise is that I may have just started a war.” Which implies that this meeting is entirely on her own initiative and authority. Twilight finally has some authority!
- Spike blows the trumpet before the door has opened. So exactly how did he know the yaks are on the other side? Was he standing there peeking through the mail slot all that time?
- “Prince Rutherford, your Majesty.” See the discussion on Not Asking For Trouble, wherein the evolved opinion is that Rutherford is not the supreme ruler of all yaks, despite this form of address…
- “Friends for a thousand moons!” And more moons.
- “We’ve prepared a banquet of traditional yak foods.” The literature on yak culture has been quite extensive, if it managed to describe traditional yak foods in enough detail to make a passable facsimile. I can’t identify most of the foods except the manti.
- Yaks are stupid strong if they can smash a stone slab 25-30 cm thick, which is the apparent thickness of the shards of that bench. I doubt this is physically possible without a variation on earth pony magic.
- Rarity uses a white glue to fix a vase, which has to be PVA glue, and even comes in an identical-looking bottle. See chemical industry.
- “I think they broke my record for most stuff broken in under a minute. I mean, they even broke the trophy.” Rainbow actually had a trophy for most stuff broken in under a minute. I want the story of how she got it and who gave it to her.
- “Did you know they live so far north of the Crystal Empire that it’s cold all the time?” We know that at least occasionally, the Crystal Empire experiences periods of total absence of snow in the vicinity, so that has to be pretty far. Also, I think that’s the only time Pinkie admitted to reading a book in its entirety…
- “We know y’all are noble warriors who avoid the so-called finer things,” i.e. Klingons… Actually, ponies very rarely use the word “warrior” on screen at all, except in context of ancient history (Hearth’s Warming Eve) and fantasy (Dungeons and Discord).
- “Well, we didn’t have actual hay from Yakyakistan, but we tried our best to make it just like yours.” Actually, how does Yakyakistan have any hay at all, if it’s cold all the time?
- “Wait. These antlers lie! These not Yakyakistani animals!” Notice we haven’t seen any Yakyakistan animals with antlers subsequently. Also notice he calls them “antlers” rather than “horns”. The physiological difference is substantial.
“These are some of my favorite materials. Very rare, imported from the Crystal Empire to match your northern sensibilities.”
- Crystal Empire exports cloth.
- Crystal Empire is still at least nominally independent from Equestria at this point, see RTAC #12. Notice that being invited to the GEPS in Princess Spike would imply that it’s less so.
- “This no taste like yak fabric!” Do yaks even manufacture any?…
- Rainbow can acquire or produce a snow cloud on a short notice, good enough for at least half a metric ton of snow.
- “This not yak snow!” So are the yaks actually capable of distinguishing pegasus-produced snow from natural snow of the Frozen North, or Rutherford is simply being an idiot?
- “Vanilla extract balance very tricky.” Well, I did mention that there’s no way to grow vanilla beans that far north without magic when picking apart Not Asking For Trouble…
- Twilight teleports straight from the street into Pinkie’s room on top of Sugarcube Corner, which requires her to teleport blind to a place she can’t see.
- “Aerial recon turned up nothing either.” Notice Rainbow using an explicitly military word.
- “Piano play itself?! Music a lie!” Previously, Spike played the piano himself just fine, in Over A Barrel. I expect that this time he opted to use a pianola because of the expected stress.
- “Yak go to train, return with more yaks! We declare war!” Does he seriously expect to win, I wonder?
- “And Princess Celestia will be here any minute and see that I haven’t made new friends. I’ve made new enemies.” Notice that there was no mention of Celestia being scheduled to appear until now.
- To fall into Pinkie’s party planning cave, Twilight and company would have to fall from the first floor of Sugarcube Corner, which establishes that Pinkie’s two-story room takes up the entire height of the building.
Pinkie’s adventure
Let’s separate this part out. Because much of it is physically impossible and it’s all Pinkie, and notice that for the rest of the episode, it does not matter if it did actually happen or not – Pinkie comes back empty-hoofed anyway, and doesn’t even tell the others how far did she get, only that “at the last second, I made a mistake.” It was a major adventure that took most of the afternoon. Know what I mean?
- “Next stop, Crystal Empire!” Pinkie’s going to the Crystal Empire by train and managed, somehow, to cover the distance in just a few hours, but end up in Dodge City anyway. But that’s Pinkie, at this point, space stops making sense entirely.
- “Sheep decided to sit on the tracks.” It’s strange that there’s no apparent effort to remove the sheep.
- “Mark your calendar, missy, ‘cause this right here’s your lucky day! I’m headin’ north to the Crystal Empire myself for a delivery.” It’s strange that Cherry Jubilee even knows where Yakyakistan is. It’s even more strange that she is not using a train for her cherry delivery.
“Counting cherries? How many?” “Four hundred and seventeen thousand, two hundred and thirty-four.”
- A cherry weighs between 3 and 7 grams. 417234 cherries would weigh about 2 metric tons, which, I think, would exceed the limits of this cart, even if it would pose no problem to the earth ponies pulling it.
- Notice that it makes sense to count cherries individually. See Putting Your Hoof Down: Cherries are ridiculously expensive in Equestria for some reason.
- “Wake up! Wake up!” When Pinkie is yelling that, the shot looks like the cart has just crossed a ravine, right before approaching the next one.
- “We were rescued mid-air by the Wonderbolts!” These are Wonderbolt cadets, giving this episode a redundant hard lock against Wonderbolts Academy.
“I joined a traveling band, we played some shows here and there” See pony Beatles and Pinkie joining them as Ringo Starr.
- See electric guitars. Notice that all three are 6-string guitars and none of them is a bass.
- Also notice that all microphones have wires.
- The pony Lennon’s cutie mark is a peace sign, which, if this flash-sideways is to be taken seriously in any way, has meaning for ponies.
- Pony McCartney has the Yellow Submarine on his cutie mark. Which, likewise, would imply ponies know what submarines are, and knew for a while, if…
- “This is it. The northern boundary of the Crystal Empire. Beyond lies Yakyakistan. Nopony who’s attempted this climb has ever returned.” Which would imply that, at least now, Crystal Empire lays claim to lands further north than its shield can reach, and also, that everything ponies know about the yaks was learned from yak explorers rather than the other way round.
- Pinkie uses her mane as a periscope. I hope for her sake that the cartoon resolution ate a mirror. Otherwise, the yeti – or whoever that is, but Dungeons and Discord implies that this is, in fact, what ponies call a yeti – chopping off a section of her mane would hurt.
And then the plot drags her back through Equestria at speeds that would get her burned to a crisp.
Back to the Party Planning Cave
- “Pinkie Pie’s made files for everypony in town!” Applejack has to be assuming, because at that point there is no way she knows just how complete Pinkie’s database is.
- “With exactly what kind of parties we like.” This is actually the first ever admission that Pinkie’s parties are tailored to the likes of specific ponies, rather than all look like a six year old’s birthday party.
“Twilight Sparkle likes vanilla ice cream, red balloons, dancing, but she’s afraid of quesadillas.”
- Which Twilight confirms, even the quesadillas. Good to know.
- Ponies have quesadillas.
- Of course, we never find out why is Twilight afraid of them.
- Why exactly does Twilight like dancing, though?…
- “It’s notes for the party she wants to throw for her folks’ fiftieth anniversary. But they ain’t nearly that old! Huh. She’s already plannin’ their one-hundredth too. And their five-hundredth?” Jury is out on whether the Igneous and Cloudy can even live that long, Applejack, at least, doubts it. But now we know that they haven’t been married for 50 years yet, not that it does us any good.
- “The yaks left on the last train.” “Um, no, they didn’t. Trust me! There are a whole lot of sheep out there!” Wait, weren’t the sheep in Dodge City?… In any case, the train didn’t even arrive to Ponyville.
- “So, um, do we walk back up the slide or… or what?” Fluttershy acknowledges Pinkie’s antics, which ponies don’t do all that often.
- “Now yaks happy. No declare war.” Celestia’s face at this phrase kinda makes me suspect she wanted them to. Despite the phrase “I am very impressed, princess.”
What can I say, yaks?
The best I can do with Pinkie's side trip to Yakyakistan and back is that it's something like a Gloranthan heroquest: half play-acting, half real, and definitely not literal.
Instantly remember this :).
Unfortunately, probably just one from her parents.
Pinkie "being a friend everypony in Ponyville" (note systematization of new-ponyville-immigrant mentioned in "A Friend in Deed") and planning their parties, including knowing everypony's birthday, give good reason to conclude this level of completeness.
Pinkie breaks time as well as space.
Also, the PPC's extent of filing would create a formidable indexing problem, surmounted by how Pinkie is uncannily good at being an index (see: stunts in the library).
Turophobia?
I just realized: the castle is quite possibly a living magic tree as well. Perhaps it's not animation error, but rooms really are shifting around in size and location? I mean, I suspect Castle Friendship is probably more magical and sentient than Hogwarts.
Not sure about that. Couldn't 5 of the Mane 6 plus Spike have been working on the Yak visit? In fact, it would explain why Spike was so out of the loop initially on the Summit.
It definitely makes Twilight Equestria's Secretary of State/Foreign Office. Though when Blueblood finds out about a near-war with the Yaks he probably read Twilight the riot act after this episode.
Just want to point out how adorable the idea of Spike hanging around the mail slot peeking out so he can blow a trumpet is.
I hate to add another layer of moon complexity, but given Yakyakistan's position, is it possible the moon can be measured differently because it is effectively the Land of the Midnight Moon?
Don't know how, but I would wager the who is Pinkie.
I think the word "import" is commonly used in a domestic context, even if that's not correct usage.
Good point. There has to be some back tube of Sugar Cube corner that is entirely Pinkie's living area. I think this is also shown in 5x03 during the song.
My guess is this is some sort of protest and no one wants to cross a picket line.
I think a pony's frog, looked at really closely, vaguely resembles a peace sign.
Interesting. That means Twilight's books must have either been written by a Yak, or effectively dicated by one.
Ultra-powerful party pony magic.
I suspect the Yak's are at least as tough as vines or clouds, so I hope Celestia's face isn't writing checks her magic can't cast.
One big question for me: Why were the Yak so surprised ponies didn't have authentic yak things? Are they just that stupid? The current balance of evidence suggests this, but I'd love to hear less demeaning theories.
4768347
Oooh, that sounds even more likely than Pinkie.
4768419
G.M. Berrow thinks so too and wrote this much in Starlight’s chapter book. See relevant PoC.
Mmmm… No, I doubt this: Apparently, nobody but Twilight and Pinkie had read the seven volumes of yak history. But someone knew how the yak dishes at least look, and importantly, at least one of these ponies is Mrs. Cake, who cooked the cake and overdid the vanilla extract. So who explained to her how this cake is supposed to look? I don’t think that would be Pinkie, who has never explained anything satisfactorily in her life.
Nope. No matter how the moon phases are effectively accomplished, they would be the same all over the world.
Or Pinkie’s story is exaggerating Cadance’s lines, which contain more pathos than Cadance’s speech usually does.
My guess is, for whatever reason, Rutherford was itching to go to war…
4768419
Wouldn't that be the Land of the Mid-day Moon?
4768430
That makes him even dumber. I mean, the moment they got on a train they should have realized they were no threat to Equestria.
Unless he was really sure the ponies would throw some kind of gift or offer to him to avoid war, which is probably true. But that seems a bit more cunning than Rutherford is.