Sep
2nd
2018
Points of Canon: S8x23 - Sounds of Silence · 7:13am Sep 2nd, 2018
A spoiler, but what isn’t these days.
- Chronology markers: School of Friendship does not feature in the plot, but turns up on screen first thing in the morning. Spike does not turn up, and neither do his wings. Same about other in-Season-8 markers. Since kirin don’t turn up and aren’t mentioned in subsequent episodes of Season 8, this could have happened more or less at any time between the bookends.
- Lemon Hearts is in town again. Alone.
- “Exactly! This is the first time the map has teamed up the same ponies for a second quest!” Good to know and might cause chronological problems. Certainly causes problems for fanfiction that wishes to stay close to canon: No map mission pairings or N-ings may repeat until this point, including a full-party mission.
- “You’re going to the Peaks of Peril.” A location we’ve never heard about before, which, if the Map is making any sense, is somewhere on the Eastern seaboard of Equestria’s continent. Which is quite densely populated otherwise, to the best of our knowledge.
“Only what Rockhoof told me. Back in his day, nopony knew much about the Peaks of Peril except for the legend on this ancient shield. It says a group called the Kirin used to live there, known for their kindness and truth-speaking. … Unfortunately, other creatures also lived there. The Nirik, fearsome beasts of pure fire.”
- Kirin lived in the region at least a thousand years ago.
- Contact with other settlements was limited and is still limited – so much that Twilight doesn’t know anything about the location.
- That said, contact did exist, otherwise there’s nowhere for the shield to come from.
- The word chosen for the kirin, “a group,” sounds strange. Are they believed to be a distinct species, a separate tribe of pony, or what? The subsequent episode doesn’t exactly make it clear what ponies think of them.
- Needless to say, this episode shuts down the fanon that kirin draw anime, but you knew that was an idea too good to be true, right?
“Guess nopony else is goin’ out as far as we are.”
- They still have a ticket booth at this dead-end station, never mind that the station itself exists, so there’s no way the area is entirely unpopulated.
- The ticket booth has a characteristic corrugated fibre cement roof. Whether any asbestos is involved is anyone’s guess.
- “Nothing but uncharted terrain and wild beasts out that way.” To be honest, there’s no way this section of the Eastern seaboard is actually uncharted: Either Baltimare of Fillydelphia or both should be very, very close. Ponyville ⟺ Canterlot kind of close. While the peaks appear to be very tall – potentially taller than the Canterlot mountain – we know that pegasi do fly that high up easily. But this guy is allowed to have his fun.
- “There. That should be enough flowers to keep your tree cozy.” Uhh… what?… Why?… The Doylist reason for having the flowers here is obvious, but the Watsonian rationale given for their presence is a non sequitur.
- “Applejack! Can you please listen to me?!” While characterization is not normally the focus of this analysis, I can’t help but notice Fluttershy doing this – this is extremely rare.
- Fluttershy tilts a stone that should weigh multiple metric tons – eyeballing, at least five – which implies it’s either artificial (like empty) or at the very least, artificially balanced in a position where tilting it and pushing it back is easy. Someone has deliberately built this exit.
- Kirin have a lot of tree houses, and yet, only one obvious set of stairs to the upper level, and no wings. Mythological kirin used to fly by standing on clouds, but we never see these ones doing anything of the sort, or climb trees for that matter.
- “We’re from Equestria, and we’re plumb tickled to meet y’all.” Considering the location should by any stretch be in Equestria, that’s a strange statement.
“Do. You. Un-der-stand. Ponish?”
- Ponies call their primary language “Ponish.” Dunno about you, but I’m going to ignore that, “Equish” sounds way better.
- The kirin do speak it, which means the isolation is not as strong as otherwise implied.
- “Not exactly. I can always tell what Angel is feeling. But these Kirin don’t show anything.” I have previously observed that while Fluttershy understands most animals as if they speak, even when we hear nothing – i.e. has a full two-way universal translator ability – Angel Bunny exclusively communicates through pantomime despite that. Looks like, in addition to having acquired the ability to understand spoken pony language, which many animals in Equestria seem to have to a degree anyway, in rabbit terms he is simply mute, isn’t he?
“Police.”Police who?" Police say somethin’!"
- This is a pun that works in the pony language.
- It’s funny, but the only time the word “police” came up before was during Sisterhooves Social and it was fashion police.
- Kirin use horn-based magic to grow things and for telekinesis. Notice that there are at least three distinct types of horn, though no obvious difference in function can be seen.
- “Gesundheit.” Fluttershy would have picked this word up from Rainbow, who uses it more often than anyone else, but I still don’t know where did Rainbow pick it up.
- “Oh, for the love of Celestia! Can’t ya just say somethin’?!” Applejack takes Celestia’s name in vain, something she doesn’t do often.
- “Hi, I’m Autumn Blaze.” Kirin use the pony naming conventions. What is even stranger is that she also uses a ponitive to refer to herself and other kirin: “Oh, I haven’t been able to share all of this with anypony in forever! Since they all took that vow of silence.” If anything, this implies that kirin are a tribe of pony, or at least, the kirin think so, which, given the major physiological differences, (never mind the absence of cutie marks) would be very weird.
- “Flaring tempers were inflamed” According to the flashback provided, nirik are kirin, which isn’t unexpected at all, but I wonder about the basis of the transformation involved, and in fact, the whole species. Notably, nirik have fangs, while kirin do not.
- While Autumn Blaze says “vow of silence,” this is not at all a vow: she requires a herbal remedy to break it, while subsequent events imply dumping anyone in that particular stream will cause the effect regardless of their intent or personal integrity. That said, it’s a very interesting stream to have flowing smack next to your village, with no other obvious sources of water except the fountain. With foal’s-breath flowers, being the only known antidote, not being on hand, especially so. Was going silent a common accident, so that they simply ate the flowers to extinction?
- “And daily dose of news” So where did Autumn Blaze get this newspaper?! Never mind the subsequent leaflets. Did this actually happen, or do we have to apply the flashback filter here? Or do the kirin have a printing press squirreled away somewhere?
- “Wrote a story about the Kirin who hid below an opera stage” Kirin know what opera is.
- “Did you name your shadow? Mine’s called ‘Silhouette Gloom of the Sundown Lands.’” It’s a safe bet normal kirin don’t do that.
- “Fluttershy, meet Autumn Blaze.” Kirin can flip at will if they maintain enough self-control, but notably, they are not historically aware of it and require an outside stimulus to realize that.
- “Autumn Blaze never would’ve made it past the Peaks to search here.” She would have, if she thought to search outside the sealed off area, but for whatever reason didn’t. That reason is certainly something to think about.
Some analysis
- The strangest thing about this episode is the Kirin’s almost-uncontacted status, despite familiarity with modern pony language, access to technology that implies an industrialized society, and literacy. This is particularly strange because of where their secluded village appears to be located – smack between Equestria’s major cities, rather than, say, in the Undisclosed West. The only way I can imagine this working is that kirin, being well aware of the danger they might pose to ponies should they flip, secluded themselves intentionally while maintaining contact clandestinely – but that would imply an ability to disguise themselves as ponies, which is not something we actually see them doing.
- At the same time Autumn Blaze was not aware of the practice, otherwise, she would have thought to search for the foal’s breath flower outside kirin territory, but did not. Which would imply that contact was broken off more than a generation ago for an undisclosed reason.
Considering that the mass silence happens on the direct orders (!) of the village leader, who is, like an alicorn princess, nearly two times taller than a regular kirin, I wonder what her deal exactly is.
Possibly, the most fanon-damaging aspect of this episode is that now that kirin exist, it’s quite definite that they have never actually mattered.
P.S. Kirin? Looks a lot more like sibuxiang to me…
She's Photo Finish's body double, she had to learn her German.
How can you tell that the ticket booth roof is fibre cement and not metal?
4929992
I can’t be certain, of course, but it’s thicker than a metal one would be. Which could be an artifact of cartoon resolution, but – most of the roofs I’ve seen made from a corrugated material like that were fibre cement rather than metal. The brown on it could be rust, though, but it’s possible for the rust to come from other sources.
So what's the alternative for Olde Ponish and Pony Latin.
4929996
Rust, paint, or a coating; the metal roof on my parents' house is blue. But good point about the thickness; I don't remember the thickness one way or the other, but it sounds like you looked at it more closely than I did. (I didn't know about fibre cement roofing before this blog post, so I just assumed corrugated metal on seeing it, particularly given how it seemed to fit the context.)
4930000
Old Ponish, Old Equish, Pony Latin, Griffon Latin, and the actual Latin that belonged to the long lost culture of the ancient Roam – built by cheetahs, I suppose.
Lots of options here.
We had an extended argument in the #spoilers channel of your discord server pushing back and forth over whether the Peaks are on the east or west sides of the continent. The visual evidence is art salad, and seems to change depending on the shot.
4930059
Western seaboard is pretty occupied too, though.
4930062
There's a closeup with the skull-mountain of Arimaspi Territory inland from the floaty marks. The Peaks may be that region, flat out.
4930062
4930063
I spent some time with the official map and all the screenshots that showed the Peaks of Peril, and (allowing for some funky and contradictory perspective on the map table shots) I think I have a pretty good candidate for the location:
i63.tinypic.com/5fj5n9.jpg
Isolated, even considering its "Shangrila" sort of nature. Though why anypony would build a rail spur out there is still a mystery... maybe for mines that have played out?
Interestingly enough, the earliest version of the official map had a location, just across the Celestial Sea and a bit to the south, labeled Kirin Grove. Maybe the Peaks of Peril group is a colony?
4930243
This is a good location, however, the further away you place it, the more difficult it becomes to explain why do kirin speak pony at all, and how do they have access to a printing press.
I still say there must be a decently sized pony town nearby, and the citizens there are either unaware kirin visit them from time to time, or are colluding to keep them hidden.
The rail spur can then be explained: It actually goes to this town, and the dead end is a few miles past the town, kept around for potential future expansion and/or to service isolated farmers/miners in the area or something.
It could be, but it wouldn’t actually explain much of anything except that map label…
4930248
Well... there's the temple in the nearby Forbidden Jungle, and as the primitive tribesponies don't seem to have much contact with the rest of Equestria... but they probably don't have printing presses either. The nearest towns by rail are quite distant. Appleoosa to the north or the unnamed town on the West coast... that may well be Saddle Arabia, or the port where one takes ship for Saddle Arabia if the latest episode is any guide.
4930243
That looks like a new version of the map - do they have an update I'm not finding? The fall 2017 expanded map doesn't have a rail line or that feature on the coast: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8G_8ikPxIOc/maxresdefault.jpg
4930259
No, that's from my personal version that I keep updating, adding in locations from this season like Sire's Hollow. I've also put in a couple from official books when the location description is specific enough.
Also they have a train that goes there for no discernible reason.
The guy is bored because Kirins don't talk to him.
Applejack is the one she butts heads with some regularity.
Their jumps seem kind of floaty. I think they can just jump that high.
The train goes there.
I got nothing on the leaflets though, but then again Autumn had a lot of time on her hooves.
The Peaks is probably a split-off enclave created specifically for the purpose of isolation, also from the rest of the Kirin species. Possibly the Wendigo ate the rest of them.
Also, we after Griffinstone and the Hippogriffs, we really can't take the Mane 6 being ignorant of a nation as evidence of their nation being unknown to ponykind. If they were entirely uncontacted, why does the train line go there? With what appears to be a manned ticket booth?
Oh and also:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/11/28/1031460__safe_screencap_twilight+sparkle_feeling+pinkie+keen_mane+of+fire_outfit+catalog_rapidash_rapidash+twilight_solo.png
Kirin heritage?
4930059
In the first shot showing AJ's and FS's cutie marks hovering over the peaks, at about timestamp 00:08 they are on the east side of the continent, but farther south of Horseshoe Bay (and the southernmost pony city on that coast, Baltimare) than Horseshoe Bay is south of the edge of the Map. There isn't an obvious corresponding point on the pre-Movie map, because that map has the continent tapering to a point south of Equestria, while the Cutie Map has it bulging out, but if I had to put the Peaks of Peril somewhere on that map, I'd put them between the Badlands and the Kludgetown desert, almost directly south of Scorchero (or whatever the valley in Daring Don't is called, represented by a Mesoamerican-style pyramid on the pre-Movie map).
4930342
So did the Crystal Empire, and then it turned out to be the middle of the line that goes to the Rainbow Falls. See my other comments above.
Very probable. See my other comments above again.
…With furniture?
4930410
The valley in Daring Don’t can actually only be located near Vanhoover. See the PoC for that episode. The Mesoamerican-style pyramid on the pre-Movie map matches the temple from Read It and Weep, but the Fortress of Talacon in Daring Don’t does not look anything like it.
They have magic for that.
Needed to catch up on this one. Rachel Bloom is amazing!
The Equestrian eastern seaboard looks like it's civilized only between Manehatten and Horeshoe Bay. South of that is the Hayseed Swamps which turns into dense jungle, and it looks like the Peak is on the eastern edge of that jungle, near the sea. Looking at the Equestrian map, it looks like this peak is part of the big wild zone between Equestria and Southern Equestria. From another angle we can tell it's fairly close to that floating Arimaspi skull, probably on the same latitude.
I think that train stop is supposed to be the Hayseed Swamp section, and it looks like the ticket conductor lives in his station, so he might be the only pony around for miles (why was he even stationed there? One of Celestia's job-creating programs for ponies with train-related cutie marks).
It's closer to that weird temple than Baltimare. North of this jungle is the Hayseed Swamp, north of that is Horseshoe Bay, and north of that is Baltimare.
Well they had some limited contact with the ponies of Helm, and there's a similar weighted boulder in their village.
I know they use it interchangeably, but in this case they probably mean the nation-state to the north of this place. I'd take it as more evidence the Equestrian border stops north of here.
Weird. We've definitely heard him squeak and chitter, but that may mean nothing even to other rabbits.
Have either of them ever been seen using it before Photo Finish? Maybe Fluttershy learned it from her and taught it to Rainbow Dash.
Has anybody started speculating that Twilight Sparkle is part kirin, given her tendency to burst into flames when angered?
I mean, this can't be the first time in a thousand years the flaming creatures have wrecked their wooden village. I think this entire saga has played out many times before, it only took longer to resolve because the flowers were mostly eaten at this point. This may even be why the kirin live here: They regularly go through periods where their angriest citizens are dunked.
Probably they've become dependent on the stream to do that for them.
Given what we've seen of Plainity, disguising oneself to ponies seems fairly easy. A cloak and a hat and you're a funny looking earth pony coming out to the nearby train station to buy newspapers.
Good episode, great guest star.
4930243 You nailed it! I thought it was a bit north of that, but that's pretty darn close. I think there are more rail lines than are actually shown on the map, same as we know there are some settlements that aren't shown.
4930059 Forget the longitude, the latitude based on that eastern tip suggests they are probably south of the nation of Equestria anyway.
Two more?! I just can't stay on top of it! I thought we were up to the season finale already.
I honestly can't remember what these two were paired together for.
But it's NOT AN EMPIRE, Oliver's definition aside.
WOAH WOAH WHAT? New intelligent race? Now I'm excited!
I've never heard of these before! I wonder if they're original or just based on a more obscure myth?
But seriously, miss scientist, have you actually STUDIED the map and gained any idea why it should be trusted? Also remember a few episodes ago when you found out it could be faked?
D'aww I just noticed Flurry Heart is in the intro now!
Seems that wherever the Peaks of Peril are (Looked close to the center of the map) it's the end of a train line and has no station. I wonder why there are tracks to it at all, then...
Wasn't it near the center of the map? That's hardly uncharted territory. It's not up north, there'd be snow. Ponies inhabit the east coast of their continent. Do they inhabit the west too? Suppose it could also be in the south...
Does this guy sit in that little ticket booth all day? No wonder he's nuts.
Wow, Fluttershy needs a friendship lesson too! This is kind of an interesting flaw we haven't seen in her before, though, getting so sidetracked helping animals she can't stay on task. Come to think of it though, how the hell did Applejack not notice Fluttershy was gone that whole time?
How the hell is a pegasus able to move that huge boulder, with only her wings to generate pushing force? Then again, if it's a regularly-used secret entrance door, maybe it's connected to a counterweight out of sight, or is actually made of wood painted to look like a rock, or something.
Finally, a new flaw for Applejack besides lying! Maybe she can learn a new friendship lesson instead of having to forget the same one over and over again!
Applejack, the great wise map sent two elements of harmony to deal with this problem, pulling two worldsaving heroes away from their duties, did you think it would be easy?
And here we see someone using horn-based magic to grow plants again! I have so many questions about kirin magic now!
Applejack has taken sitting lessons from Lyra!
NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY! Seriously, is the buddy system not part of the School of Friendship curriculum?
It really is! Rainbows don't work that way, is it magic? Is there a pot of gold at the end? We've only seen magic rainbows created by the elements of harmony, is it related? Actually I guess maybe weather magic could do it too...
Is this village all the kirin in existence? It did not look large enough to sustain a population. Are they dying out? Are we going to learn WHY they took a vow of silence? And why one of them didn't?
We sure are! Surprise song, yay!
Oh, nirik is kirin backwards.
I laughed out loud. This poor lonely pony (do kirins count as a type of pony?)
NOW you say that!
Hey, the kirin are showing emotion finally! After just making Maud-eyes the whole episode.
Autumn Blaze has learned to control the transformation at will? I guess that's the answer, then. Now that all the kirin have seen that... but then, if it was possible, how the heck did they not know? What did they do before, banish or kill anyone who became a nirek until it happened to the whole village at once?
How is that fountain powered?
Or it's been their language for a very long time -- notice that Starswirl and the others don't have problems conversing with people, so apparently Ponish hasn't changed much in a thousand years among ponies. Not sure why, but perhaps the same reason applies to the kirin.
I guess Luna's just always been weird. Or maybe that's just how nobles used to talk.
Not that I think the writers thought it out this thoroughly, but perhaps 1000+ years ago, ponish supplanted any other language the kirin had. And since ponies use 'anypony' and the like to refer to themselves, the kirin do too.
Thinking about this, though, why do all the other species speak ponish too...
Well, it was a conscious choice, they just happened to have the magic to make sure they couldn't renege. Weird that they knew what the stream did but had no cure. I feel really sorry for the poor kirin that discovered that... Then again, the fact that an entire village of them did it willingly, perhaps the original victim didn't live that unhappy a life. I suppose they were physically incapable of unhappiness, after all.
The words don't actually describe it, so I'm going to chalk it up to Applejack imagining it when she heard the lyrics.
I'm not taking the newspapers literally, but even if you do... Maybe they did have a few pony friends sworn to secrecy? But either something happened to them at some point, or they abandoned the kirin when they all stopped speaking. Or perhaps they do still visit occasionally, but lacked the patience to seek out Autumn Blaze... wait, no, that wouldn't work -- Autumn would be checking the secret entrance constantly waiting for them.
Overall, I liked this episode! We got worldbuilding (even if it presents problems), we got a song, and we got an actual challenge for the heroes to solve that didn't require anyone holding an idiot ball. 👍
4931567
Photo Finish herself has never used this word on camera.
Yes, lots of people.
4931582
In case you forgot, in Games Ponies Play, Harshwhinny says, among other things, “Every city and empire wants to host the Equestria Games.” So Equestria contains multiple empires – you have little choice but to accept the definition of the word is different. Same about “kingdom,” which is the word they appear to use for any kind of polity.
Kirin is a more western-type spelling of Qilin, a Chinese mythical animal. Although I maintain these look more like sibuxiang.
Due to Spike not showing up, it could have happened afterwards. In fact, it probably did.
What about the Rainbow Factory in Sonic Rainboom though?
My guess would be there’s a natural spring coming out of the ground somewhere nearby and piped into that pool.
Yes, and yes, but variety reviews? There’s no way pre-Nightmare pony language had those.
Journal of the Two Sisters seems to agree with you. Mostly. But see my synopsis of it.
Once again, “variety reviews?”
I’m currently suspecting the train ticket guy of being one of those. He certainly sounds like he’s having fun at the visitors’ expense – but given visitors who didn’t have a mission, how many would go on to poke their noses around the kirin habitat?
Autumn Blaze didn’t think to look right outside the secret entrance, which implies she probably didn’t know where it is. Either she wasn’t one of those kirin who ventured outside to interact with ponies (colluding or not) or the interaction was for whatever reason broken off before she could find out about the secret entrance. Both are possibilities.
And yes, she’s the one wielding the newspaper and the leaflets, but there’s no reason a population of kirin couldn’t import a printing press, these have to be available for whatever kind of sellable resource their village can scrounge up.
4931595
I think you're on to something. My guess is that the Kirin in disguise make up 99% of passengers to and from that station, so at this point the train ticket guy has figured things out and befriended them. He goes out of his way to scare Fluttershy and Applejack off, remember?
I think Autumn was almost more imprisoned than exhiled. She was sent away by their giant leader in a specific direction, and the village lies between her and the exit. The kirin were probably afraid she would reveal their secret if she went to the outside world.
4931595
Okay, I'm sold, but now it seems a really weird choice on the part of the writers. I wonder what happened there?
I am aware of the qilin (although I usually see it written ki-rin); I meant that I wondered if there was any particular basis for the nirik as a seperate creature.
They don't really look like deer to me -- I'm familiar with the idea of a ki-rin depicted as a unicorn with a lion's tail, with or without scales; although I couldn't say where I first saw such a depiction. Probably D&D.
I count that as a kind of weather magic -- creating rainbows as a physical, sometimes-liquid substance seems beyond the realm of purely technology, but maybe it is. Either way, this rainbow isn't natural.
I missed that in the lyrics! I don't know. Cue fanfics about Autumn Blaze or kirins in general having a touch of chaos in them for the Discord-like reference!
Only those who can talk to animals to learn about the secret passage, or perhaps "archaeologists" like Daring Do who'd know to look for that sort of thing. Have to wonder what kind of traffic this guy gets otherwise, though; It's not exactly a tourist destination. Geologists examining the (theorized) abandoned mine? Wanderlust-stricken ponies who just wanted to see what the last stop was? Maybe there is a small town of ponies nearby, but if the train station is this abandoned it must be pretty isolationist too...
4931609
The usual thing, I’d wager – they have no idea what’s going on in Equestria either.
Not that I remember.
I have an easier solution for you – there is a town of ponies nearby, just a few kilometers further up the line, and it has a proper station. This auxiliary station exists at the dead end because right next to it is a loop the train uses to reverse, and there are a few support buildings for repairs and such, but they’re out of the frame so we can’t see them. Very few ponies come here except people who need to work on the trains, so the ticket booth is literally an afterthought.
Ah, but that's where you're wrong. :V Now that they can talk and have contact with Equestria, a few years of trading and improving their technology means they will.
You, sir, have summed up this episode handily. :B
4945486
But currently do not, which leaves the cardboard figures first observed in Scare Master unexplained.
Which is precisely the point of this series in general, though occasionally I can get away with a oneliner like this one.
4945530
Oh-ho-ho, I had forgotten about those. :O
Must be Fluttershy's own fanart. :B (But fanart of what? I hear you ask. Okay, it's just art, then. >:B)
We do see Autumn Blaze skip across the surface of the pond, though. If kirin can magically walk on water, walking on clouds doesn’t strike me as that outlandish.
4945773
The cardboard cutouts of Ranma and Sailor Moon showed up again at the Daring Do Con in “Stranger than Fan Fiction”. Either they’re from various series that Fluttershy’s a fan of—or Fluttershy is secretly a manga author/artist.
I'd have to agree with 4930243 in terms of the Peaks' location -- going by their location on the crystal map, the Peaks seem to be a considerable way south of Equestria, at the tail end of the jungle area. Just look at all the coastline between them and Horseshoe Bay -- I'd peg them as being as far away from Baltimare as Baltimare is from the Crystal Empire.
4945530
well this can be a elpxen a few i mean the wheel was made in South America but it was just use as a toy and not a means to carry stuff around, Just like the natvia of America who kingdoms rarely gone to war. (they still did but from what we learn so fair it was rarely done out of needing more food or land, but i could be wrong so take a hit of slat with that.)
being cut off from the world dose not mean you get to behind everyone elsa in the world at times, heres a video of it, while in the end they still open up to trade or just up and left the world