Mar
5th
2018
Points of Canon: S5x13 - Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? · 12:02am Mar 5th, 2018
I only have a few episodes left before the TV canon compendium is complete. That is, before the new season starts, so I better get going. And this is a …questionable one.
This will be difficult to get anything useful from, because most of it occurs in the dream realms, and as such does not apply elsewhere. But I’ll see what I can do.
- Chronology markers: Friendship Castle exists. The CMC turn up inside the dream, but don’t have their cutie marks even there. Absence of Starlight implies this stays within the Season 5 bookends, but there’s no throne room, so we don’t know if there are roots or not.
- And right off, we’re marking off a dream sequence:
Luna’s dream
- Luna’s dream starts within the Castle of the Two Sisters. Notice, however, that it does not match the scene shown by the Potion of Plot-Relevant Flashback in Princess Twilight Sparkle: At the very beginning of that flashback, the window behind the two thrones explodes, leaving a rectangular hole. In Luna’s dream, the window starts out broken, but there is no hole. There is no identifiable moment in history when the throne room looked exactly like that, because as of Power Ponies, the hole remained untouched and still rectangular. And yet, the tapestries are damaged in exactly the same way they were on all other occasions, and the rest of the dream is set in the present day, judging by the appearance of Twilight and Rainbow Power. The tarp the Mane 6 put up to patch up the hole in the glass roof is likewise missing. The holes left by Luna’s hooves in the barrier between the thrones match the ones seen in present day, rather than the flashback. What exactly is up with that? It was quite a memorable detail.
- For a change, torches on the walls are lit. We’ve seen them lit in the flashback, but never otherwise.
- “Greetings, Tantabus. I am ready. Do your worst.” Actually, one the strangest singular phrases of the entire episode. I can’t quite put my finger on why is it strange, but it rings off entirely to me. Probably, because I don’t feel it matches the strange statement Luna concludes the episode with.
- “Princess Luna’s turning into Nightmare Moon. Again!” The transformation depicted matches the one in the Plot-Relevant Flashback very closely, though in the flashback, there were no hints whatsoever that it’s hurting Luna, while in this dream, she obviously appears in pain as the transformation starts.
- If Luna’s dream is any indication, she at least believes that it’s possible for the Mane 6 to use the Rainbow Power at will. No clue if that belief is true, of course.
Back to the waking world
- “What? My dream ended… happily? That. Cannot. Happen!” Notice, not “shouldn’t,” for some reason.
- That’s the only case we ever see Luna’s bedroom on screen. It is impossible to determine if it’s day or night outside, as all the windows are covered. We never know where exactly is this bedroom, either.
- Luna, evidently, sleeps in her silver horseshoes, peytral and crown, just like Celestia does in Twilight’s Kingdom. That despite the four moon-adorned slippers next to the bed.
- Luna does own an alarm clock.
In Ponyville
- Remember those buckets before the mirrors in Carousel Boutique? I finally figured out what those are: They’re chairs. The dark brown fill is some manner of cushion rather than the inside of the bucket.
- “Yeah, Rarity. Thanks for setting all this up.” Pet grooming day was Rarity’s idea.
- “I didn’t sleep well either.” Notice that Twilight is inconsistent about how long she can go without sleep post-apotheosis: In Princess Spike it takes her three sleepless nights for her to be noticeably incapacitated, and yet, here she is just as out of it as everypony else. I expect encountering an actual nightmare entity is responsible for this.
- “So what? Probably just a coincidence.” Rainbow seamlessly transitions to flying upside down while saying that.
- “Spike, could you send a scroll to Princess Luna?” This is the only time, ever, that I can remember, where Twilight directs dragonfire mail to an individual other than Celestia. This is not the first time she receives dragonfire mail from an individual other than Celestia: The original missive from The Ticket Master is not signed by Celestia and presumably not written by her either. But in any case, such instances are few and far between. Careful study of the “show bible” implies that originally, Celestia’s fireplace was supposed to be the other endpoint of dragonfire mail, by the way…
- “Which of you saw the creature of blue smoke in your nightmare?!” Luna reacts to the letter instantly. This is impossible even if the message transit time is instant and if she teleported straight to Ponyville, because that would leave no time to actually read the letter. Even Fluttershy comments on that. It follows that Luna was actually seeking to talk to the Mane 6 before this scene started, and has never actually received the letter. Therefore, Luna already knew where to look for a potential destination Tantabus escaped to.
- “The Tantabus is a creature of my nightmares. It escaped from my slumbers yesterday.” Upon reflection, this only works if Luna sleeps during the day: Tantabus escapes, enters the dreams of the Mane 6, who only sleep during the night, and in the morning, Luna trails it to Ponyville. A Royal Problem concurs. However, the whole issue of how exactly did Luna track the thing is interesting.
- “The Tantabus is like a parasite. My dreams must no longer be enough for it. Now it seeks others to infect and corrupt. It must have learned of you six from seeing you in my dream.” See above: If she knew from the outset that Tantabus is only capable of perceiving ponies she saw in her dream, she could have intercepted it before it turned up in the Mane 6 dreams. Therefore she didn’t. How did she figure it out?
- For that matter, for how long did Luna have Tantabus? It would have remembered all the potentially numerous other ponies that turned up in her dreams at one time or another, wouldn’t it?
- “I saw that the Tantabus had grown more powerful, but I did not realize that power was enough to enable it to escape my dreams. If its power grows, it could very well find a way to escape into the real world. It could turn all of Equestria into a living nightmare!” Big canon point: Dream entities can traverse between dreams if sufficiently strong. Dream entities can eventually manifest physically.
- “We’ve prepared everything exactly as you requested.” We can presume this room isn’t Twilight’s usual bedroom, however, or at least, became her bedroom very recently: It’s the room Amending Fences starts in, and the bookshelves and the photos on the wall remain unchanged from that episode, with the exception of the photo in the top right. That was a photo with Rarity, which is now moved to the left. The couch is replaced with the large double bed. Notice that in later episodes, this room remains Twilight’s bedroom: In To Where And Back Again, we see it again. The large photo in the middle becomes a mirror, but the bed hasn’t moved since the time of this episode. The extra beds are, obviously, gone. Interestingly, in that latter episode we also see that it has two doors – the one everyone enters from, and another one opposite. I don’t know where that one goes. A balcony?…
- “There is nothing my sister can do. She has no power in the realm of sleep. Only I can move from dream to dream. I am afraid nopony can help me tonight.” Solid statements that Celestia does not do dream magic have been with us since Season 5, jossing in particular every comic in which Celestia does.
- The way Luna’s magic is depicted in this episode is radically different from every other portrayal of magic pretty much ever. Including the use of dream magic in A Royal Problem. Granted, it seems to be a special case…
Dream hopping
- “Forget avant garde! I should have said en garde!” Gratuitous français.
- Rarity dispatches the rabid dresses using bolt spells, something we don’t usually see her do in the waking world.
- “It was such a pretty little chiffon…!” Ponies have chiffon. Not a given.
- “Mmm, it’s so nice to be the pet for once.” <insert clopfic>… which I’m sure someone wrote already.
- “Oh, thank you, princess!” This phrase marks the only wide shot of the entirety of Fluttershy’s back yard, take note. Mind you, I have no idea how the fence around the entire property is not visible from the front.
- “What are you talking about? This is my favorite dream!” Rainbow has no compunctions whatsoever beating up random changelings. More importantly, she has had this or a very similar dream before.
- “Watch me solo on jazz flute” Ponies have jazz flutes, if not jazz itself. And Rainbow doesn’t like it. Notice that regardless of which model of hoof-as-hand behavior you pick, playing this kind of flute with a hoof has to be really bloody hard: While some of the holes are keyed, others are not, and require closing the hole off with a finger.
- Upon encountering Tantabus in Twilight’s dream, Luna applies a spell to it that is very similar to the one Cadance used in Princess Spike to stop the exploded water pipe, down to the colors of the resulting crystal. So who taught it to whom and when?
Back to the waking world
- Notice that while Luna crossed all of the dreams sequentially, all of the Mane 6 woke up simultaneously. I wonder, how exactly did that work.
- “After what I did as Nightmare Moon, the fact that I am once again responsible for harming others is more than I can bear.” We still don’t know what harm exactly, if any at all, did Luna cause as Nightmare Moon to “others” other than Celestia. See Princess Twilight Sparkle.
- “Although after you left, I did happen to dream that I was eating a giant ice-cream cone with all of Ponyville while taking a test we hadn’t studied for.” It’s ridiculously lucky that Pinkie didn’t see anyone in her dream yesterday, isn’t it? For that matter, Luna chased Tantabus out of that dream by that point, what are the temporal rules here anyway?
- “I… can create shared dreams, yes, but for so many ponies at once? I have never done anything like that.” Luna can.
- “The amount of power it would take…” Canon rarely makes any mentions of amounts of power regarding magic at all, but here is one of those cases.
Shared dream
- Lyra and Bon-Bon are not at all dismayed at being joined below the waist, but you already knew that, of course. What you might not have noticed is that they’re capable of running like that.
- Cherry Berry dreams of a flying boat. See spaceships.
- Much has been speculated on Big Mac’s dream of being a unicorn and subsequently an alicorn prince, so I won’t say anything at all. Conclude whatever you will.
- Notice the Canterlot Friends in the shared dream, Minuette and Twinkleshine in particular. I wonder, if they are here because they were sleeping in Ponyville on that day, or because Pinkie included them in her ice-cream dream, and they’re actually in Canterlot? What other non-locals have ended up here?
- Notice that Luna, at least within the dream, is casting two spells at once: A bolt and whatever magic is required to hold the dream together.
- Spike snaps his fingers. This is an exceedingly rare gesture, but at least occasionally Spike does it.
- The dream mysteriously includes the charred remains of the Golden Oak library back in its original location. So who dreamed of that?
- One important thing to notice is that eventually, Rarity’s contribution to the battle is sewing shut the holes Tantabus opens. Which, unlike everything else done within this dream, directly affects the dream-matter interface and would probably qualify as dream magic if Rarity knew what she’s doing.
The most dubious dialog in the episode and the real problem with it:
Princess Luna: I created the Tantabus to give myself the same nightmare every night… (pants) …to punish myself for the evil I caused as Nightmare Moon!
Fluttershy: But why would you do that?!
Princess Luna: To make sure I never forgave myself for how much Equestria suffered because of me! But it seems I have not learned my lesson, for now I have only made you suffer more!And then, she sucks the Tantabus into her peytral.
Waking world
- Haven’t heard roosters in a while, but here’s one.
- “Luna created the Tantabus to punish herself! The worse she felt, the more power it had! But once she finally forgave herself for what Nightmare Moon did…” Well, that’s Twilight’s interpretation right here.
The interpretation of what actually happened here eludes me to this day. Because the naive interpretation does not match the other available evidence: We never know just what did Luna do to feel guilty beyond what we have been shown. There has to be more to it.
Or, you could just say it’s a bad episode and move on, but come on.
Don’t <insert clopfic>, I’m sure there are a lot.
Oh so that's what it says. I've never been able to figure out this line when I've watched it :)
Is it possible that Luna looked at the past millennium of history and extrapolated how things might have turned out if she'd never gone crazy? Perhaps she feels bad for denying a better world to all and sundry. This may tie in with the "Celestia deliberately held back technological progress to lessen Luna's eventual culture shock" hypothesis, but that has its own issues.
(Also, I'm just going to sit here and be tickled by how Best Pony dreams of being so tremendous that no one can overlook her. And being allowed to speak, if only in cat noises.)
4810126
I always thought it was "this flute," but the transcript supports Oliver.
Did the episode contain any actual evidence that the Tantabus could escape to the real world? Because all I remember seeing is evidence that everypony believed it could. Since it's in Luna's head, it wouldn't be so hard for it to trick her; and everypony else believes Luna, the resident authority on the subject of dreams and dream magic. The belief that it's about to escape then feeds back into Luna's guilt, granting the Tantabus more power.
I conclude P&~P, therefore everything. I optimistically suspect the intended takeaway is that M. Apple does what he can, and is content with what he can, but understands that he can do more here, so does, enjoying the ride?
cf. the climax of "Boast Busters"?
hmm. Did Shiny cast anything (incl. TK) during "A Canterlot Wedding" besides shield renewal, or would that not count? Same with Cadence in "The Crystal Empire"?
Was there a shielded teleport at some point out of Twi?
Not a lot of points to make. Yeah, this does line up with the idea that Luna sleeps during the day. Since we know she's in the dream realm helping ponies at night, either she is somehow able to do that while awake, or she is in that bed like 18 hours out of the day.
To clarify, I think before this episode the Tantabus was confined to Luna's actual dreams, and didn't get to see her actions in the dream realm that take place during night time.
4810207
Shiny wouldn't count, he's periodically renewing the shield rather than continuously holding it like e.g. Cadence in Crystal Empire.
The first instance of this was A Dog And Pony Show, where Rarity casts her finding spell while levitating a stick.
4810138
It’s possible, but there’s a world of dissonance I feel about Luna’s statements regarding what the Tantabus is.
And that phrase in the beginning. “Do your worst.” Suppose that you did, for some stupid reason, create a machine to torture yourself.
And then let’s follow this chain to its logical conclusion. So Tantabus is normally confined to Luna’s personal dreams, and is potentially capable of escaping into the dreams of ponies it has observed in those personal dreams. Okay.
Something is seriously off. Which is a sign of bad writing, but this post is not a work of criticism, it’s at best a ninja edit. :)
Hypothesis: Tantabus is actually a very recent phenomenon, created not in the wake of Luna’s Return, but in the wake of Tirek almost destroying Equestria. Luna blames herself not for doing evil as “Nightmare Moon” – she blames herself for still being Nightmare Moon in her heart, not being the pure and strong protector of the land she wanted to be, when the land needed it. Actual evils committed by the Nightmare or lack thereof are entirely irrelevant. Notice also that Luna never says she created it consciously, but she does detail it’s purpose. This is just how Luna normally works through her neuroses. Usually it’s safe and is over much faster.
4810184
Not as such. Transition between dreams is represented by cutting holes in space for the entire episode, which Tantabus evidently does. In the shared dream, the holes get particularly huge, and evidently exist, though we have no idea where do they lead, if anywhere at all, except Luna’s statements.
That said, Luna is the only authority presented by canon at all, so if we can’t trust her regarding mechanics of dreams, this just means we don’t know anything about how dreams work in Equestria.
4810292
Yes, yes it was. But see above.