Jul
20th
2018
Points of Canon: S8x18 - Yakity-Sax · 8:10pm Jul 20th, 2018
Meet episode 14. Which was, as the rumors say, supposed to be episode 18. Chronology be damned.
I’ll come clean and say I didn’t expect to like this one, and I found I was justified. It may make this list of notes more sarcastic than usual.
- Chronology markers: School of Friendship does not appear on screen, and neither does the Friendship Castle. Applejack comments that she has never seen or heard a yovidaphone before, but in Marks for Effort, there’s a very similar instrument on the wall of Pinkie’s classroom, which would actually require this episode to predate Season 8 if these instruments are even a little similar. Unfortunately, this is impossible: Spike’s wings require Molt Down to have completed, and Applejack and Rainbow directly reference Horse Play. We’ll just have to settle for Applejack having a very selective memory. Fluttershy’s shelter from Fluttershy Leans In appears. A remark by Rarity requires this episode to happen in summer or autumn.
- Fluttershy is picking flowers, only, she’s picking them from bushes for some reason, and I can’t figure out why. She supplements this with a whole branch of leaves from a tree, so I am inclined to suspect a herbal tea of some kind.
“It sounds like a herd of injured chimerae! Or, it’s Cerberus with sniffleitis in two of its heads and kennel cough in its third.” Oh boy.
- Fluttershy would rush to help a herd of injured chimerae. Good to know.
- For that matter, the collective noun for chimerae is “herd.”
- Sniffleitis is a disease of dogs in Equestria. See “pony sniffles”. Kennel cough also is, though that one’s an actual disease even here.
- Cerberus is an “it,” not “he,” even though originally Fluttershy called him “a good boy.” Yes, I was surprised too.
- We probably don’t need to wonder why isn’t Fluttershy concerned that Cerberus leaving his post, but why would Fluttershy expect to meet Cerberus at all?
- “At least no animal’s suffering…” Considering that historically, bagpipes were made with an animal’s stomach, and Yakyakistan appears to have far less in the way of modern technology than Equestria, I imagine the only reason it’s not suffering is because it’s long dead.
- “What is that thing?” “It’s called a yovidaphone. It’s from Yakyakistan, where it’s actually quite popular.” Applejack has never seen a yovidaphone before, and has never heard anything like it as she later admits. This requires her to have never seen any other bagpipe-class instrument – otherwise, that’s what she would call this one.
- Pinkie continues doing physically impossible things with the instrument and with its absence throughout the episode, which we will obviously have to ignore – there’s no way to hit the resonant frequency of more than one apple at a time. They’re actually too soft to even do this to one apple.
- “Anypony else think that sounded like an apple core cut up in a pulp grinder?” Sweet Apple Acres presumably has a pulp grinder, which is a machine we haven’t seen before.
- For some strange reason, Fluttershy’s house proper is full of sleeping critters, including a giraffe, which aren’t at her animal shelter (which turns up later) or in their own nests elsewhere. The only reason I can think of for this to happen is that Pinkie managed to scare up most of the nearby forest and displace them before coming to play at Fluttershy herself.
- Bon-Bon and Lyra are attending a Wonderbolt performance together, next to Octavia, at the same stadium where the Wonderbolt derby was held in Sweet and Elite. Thought I’d point that out. For that matter, Amethyst Star is also there, and so is Twinkleshine. Rainbow’s statement that there was a trophy involved – and for a second place, at that – implies it was some kind of competition, however, no competitors other than the Wonderbolts turn up, so I’m not sure what’s going on.
- Applejack bucks apples. But she always bucks apples…
- “You’re absolutely right, Spike. Sometimes it is nice to get out of the library and be in the sun.” And you would expect she would go out on the balcony of the Friendship Castle, instead of finding the only bench in Ponyville, but no.
- “Especially when you take the library with you.” Spike opens up his wings and flutters up onto the bench, requiring Molt Down to have completed.
- “Like, now!” It’s interesting that Rainbow is still in her flight suit, which implies she has just returned from the above competition. In Canterlot. And yet Pinkie still came back first and had the time to harass Applejack and Rarity too.
- “And I wanted to turn heads with my new fall line, but not like this!” This actually sets the season for this episode to summer or autumn: There’s no way Rarity would be working on a fall line in spring.
- “And thanks to her fruit-blastin’ melodies, I got an orchard full of nothin’ but applesauce, and it ain’t even saucin’ season!” Wait, there’s also a saucing season?… Saucy.
- Fluttershy is sleeping standing up, which we know horses can do, and there’s no reason ponies wouldn’t be able to. But Rainbow wakes her up with a buck to the head. No comments.
- “Remember how well it worked out when you weren’t honest with Celestia about her acting ability?” This is a callback to Horse Play.
- “In all honesty, Rarity has something to say!” Applejack has chickened out. She’s having more problems with being honest in this episode than usual.
- “Well, lunch break’s over. Gotta get back to the bakery.” That day is a workday for Pinkie and she gets lunch breaks. Good to know.
- Ponyville employs at least one uniformed garbage pony. Good to know. Notably, he’s a pegasus.
- Twilight passes Lemon Hearts without even acknowledging her. She circles around and crosses Twilight’s field of vision again, but Twilight ignores her anyway. Canterlot Friends aren’t even really her friends anymore, are they?…
- We can see a rather uncommon instance of Bon-Bon ponying a stand.
The montage of things attempted as part of cheering up Pinkie includes:
- A tea party in Fluttershy’s animal shelter from Fluttershy Leans In. Notable snacks include a honeyed toast.
- A children’s party at Sweet Apple Acres with no obvious context, which Lemon Hearts attends with a gift. That would imply a birthday, but we have no idea whose. Unfortunately for her, Twilight doesn’t show up. This is all actually quite strange, considering Applejack’s later admission that the idea was to get Pinkie to fire her party cannon.
- Rainbow attempting to bake cupcakes with Pinkie. Rainbow can’t bake worth a damn, no surprise there.
- Rarity attempting to makeover Pinkie backwards into her normal poofy state. Notice the use of powder to change Pinkie’s color, and applying the powder to her entire body, which weakly implies that Pinkie going gray is not merely a visual device. Which would actually imply pony coats change color by magical means.
- “Instead of trying to remind her what she’s good at, we’ll remind her what she’s best at. And that’s being our friend.” To be honest, that phrase strikes me as extremely nonsensical.
- “Then I hereby officially declare today Pinkie Pie Appreciation Day!” Is that officially officially or just officially?… The amount of decoration is tremendous but not conclusive as such.
- “Uh, Gummy? You were supposed to bring Pinkie Pie. What happened?” Now, it’s easy to expect that Gummy would understand Equish, because all the other pets seem to. However, did he confirm that he would bring Pinkie? How?… Or did Twilight just order him to do so and expect him to fulfill that order?
- Mysteriously, Cranky Doodle is attending in his orange wig. Compare to his appearance in The Break Up Break Down. What gives?!
- Twilight teleports four ponies into a room the inside of which she is unable to see.
- “Lots of times. I grew up with her.” Maud is being passive-aggressive today. Which is not that surprising, considering that Pinkie just moved away from all of her friends, including Maud herself – remember she lives in a cave nearby, now? – without even telling them, and all over them not appreciating some stupid musical instrument. That’s how much that friendship is worth to Pinkie. Just sayin’. Notice that the destination for Pinkie’s things is not Yakyakistan, but her family rock farm, so the move isn’t temporary, and even if Pinkie suddenly decides she doesn’t like Yakyakistan all that much, she does not expect to return to Ponyville.
- For some mysterious reason, the balloon bumps the basket against clouds. Which wouldn’t be too unexpected next to Cloudsdale, but this happens right before seeing the gates of Yakyakistan. My best idea so far is that somepony let an enchanted construction cloud float away and it floated off too far. Notice that this would make high speed fixed wing aircraft pretty hazardous to fly. The balloon also flies entirely unlike balloons normally do, which is only explainable through magic.
- “But pony already have twenty-five ice—” Which would exceed the capacity of pony stomach, but that’s Pinkie. Notice the icecream includes a banana. How do these get to Yakyakistan is anyone’s guess.
- “So say we all!” Oh Rarity…
- “Ladies and gentleyaks!” I expect Rainbow simply doesn’t know what female yaks are supposed to be called, and neither does the episode writer.
I guess from then on, Pinkie will just have to commute.
This was a chore, the continuity nods are contradictory, the characterization of Pinkie is really fucking strange, and it’s a waste of good title. There, I said it.
Go watch something else.
Ooh. Harsh.
But completely true.
Eh, I liked... most of it. But everyone knows I'm a cheap date where the show is concerned.
Would have preferred a less broken aesop, though.
It pushes a bad lesson there at the end. I could completely see ponies overlooking the fact that practice makes perfect, but right at the end the yaks could have simply applauded and congratulated a new and inexperienced player at starting the long road to perfecting a difficult instrument. It even would have been a good lesson for the children watching.
The Pinkieisms were heavy in this, with a lot of physics bending under the mass of her presence (both her regular self and sad), but I agree that there were some odd continuity ties that just didn't work.
Nice synopsis.
This was terrible episode for many reasons. Let's get to it!
What do you want to bet these are made from the donated bodies of deceased yaks?
It's really hard to ignore Pinkie's randomness this episode. Applejack references her apples splattering, and we repeatedely see that plucked bird, still featherless moons later. (I checked it takes a year for a bird to regrow is feathers). This is an episode that really supports the theory that Pinkie radiates a field of chaos magic around her.
The Wonderbolts race each other on that race track. Apparently they have races as well as stunt shows, but this is the only place we've ever seen them race.
I too, like the idea of saucin' season.
Also notably, his cutie mark is a broom! Cutie marks for mundane jobs confirmed. Probably lots of implications from this.
It's prepping for the Season 9 Episode Amending Fences 2, Electric Boogaloo, where Twilight realizes she has forgotten all her Canterlot friends again, and this time Moondancer has stopped leaving her house.
I think Applejack threw a party on SWA for the kids, just so Pinkie would help show up and plan it.
Why didn't they invite Maud to try and cheer Pinkie up in the first place?
Also remember everybody in town was invited. Then when the Mane 5 found out Pinkie left, they just took off while everyone else kind of stood around like idiots (probably).
Now Oliver, Pinkie states like 5 times in this episode that the yovidiphone is the most important thing in the world to her. And therefore, the writers have implicitly promised we will see Pinkie playing this instrument in every episode for the rest of the show...right?
A common issue in bad writing is that a 1st act problem is never resolved. In this case, Pinkie's yovidiphone playing is so awful that everyone else in Ponyville is miserable. At the end of the episode, I guess everyone else in town will just have to walk around with earplugs forever?
And where the heck was Yona?! I was expecting Yona the entire episode!
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No bet, that’s about the only place one can come from other than the bodies of defeated enemies. The only species likely to be yak enemies are ponies and griffons, and neither’s intestines are likely to be suitable.
And that is precisely what I meant by “ignore” – it’s chaos magic, we can’t draw conclusions valid for anyone but Pinkie based on it.
Wouldn’t be the first. Remember the hotel in Stranger Than Fan Fiction?
I thought so too, but then noticed Lemon Hearts with a gift-wrapped box and decided it needs to be more complex than that: If Applejack was throwing a party for random kids on Sweet Apple Acres, even if gifts to multiple random attendees were involved, Lemon Hearts wouldn’t be handling gift-wrapped boxes, only the Apples would be.
I.e. it’s someone’s birthday, for one reason or another held at Sweet Apple Acres, and Applejack called Pinkie in to do her animator job, which Pinkie failed miserably.
Because Maud is not associated in their minds with being cheerful, with good reason.
That wouldn’t be the first time something of the sort happens, so I suspect they found something to entertain themselves with.
Uh-huh.
I did mention this episode would be a lot better off if it happened pre-School of Friendship, didn’t I?
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Oh, totally forgot, thanks.
Yeah, that's the only explanation.
Thinking about it, it's really surprising we haven't seen any episodes pairing up one or two of the Mane 6 and one or two of the student six. It seems like an obvious pairing for a good episode.
I hope you aren't burning out on this season! Are the idiotballs getting too hard to drink down. Dear Oliver? Maybe some vodka or hard liquor of choice might help.
I am super happy you linked that. FiO's one of my favorite -verses and that video is a gem in storytelling
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For the record, I have consumed more hard cider in the past month than in the past five years.
Not helping, surprisingly.
The yovidaphone looks more like bagpipes than anything else, but it sounded to me like an accordion (or other squeezebox) accompanied a tuba.
Not necessarily. In that same scene:
Ambiguity over “moons” aside, it’s clear from context that AJ’s saying that Pinkie’s been playing her instrument long enough that one could reasonably expect her to improve. So this is another episode with a significant time skip in the middle, and that montage of Pinkie annoying everyone with her music is supposed to represent much longer than a few days. We can’t assume that any scene from that montage immediately preceded the scene with Twilight on the bench.
Minor nitpick you didn't know about when you originally wrote this: In "The End in Friend", Rarity is working on her Winter line during Spring. If we accept that line as indicative of her normal schedule, that indicates that she works on her lines about 7-9 months in advance, so Rarity working on her Fall line places this episode in early Spring (since it can't happen in Winter due to dumb pony weather), and "The End in Friend" a couple months later in late Spring.
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I doubt this line is indicative of Rarity’s normal schedule, because on one occasion a dress from Rarity involves a waiting list, while on others it materializes nearly instantly. If anything, this removes a seasonal lock for this episode, but it does not really introduce better constraints for others.