Nov
5th
2018
Points of Canon: Dance Magic · 11:26am Nov 5th, 2018
And the last one of the X-Magic series of Equestria Girls specials. I end up doing these things in reverse order rather often.
Chronology markers:
- This obviously follows Friendship Games, since Twilight is there, and must precede Mirror Magic, because it is referenced within indirectly, as clips from the resulting music video are shown, but we can’t directly position it relative to Movie Magic.
- Sugarcoat says that “It’s only been a few months since the Friendship Games.” which is not very helpful.
- I can’t seem to position it relative to Legends of Everfree with any certainty: no magic use occurs, the geodes do not make an appearance, and it’s perfectly possible for them to raise money for Camp Everfree repairs before actually going to said camp, since the movie starts with Celestia congratulating the students on raising enough.
Plotwise, you’d think this precedes the Legends of Everfree rather than follows, but there is no solid marker.
- Rarity is using a hair dryer with the cable eaten by cartoon resolution: There’s no way in hell a hair dryer of this size is battery powered, they consume electricity on par with an electric teapot.
- Big Mac’s pickup truck has some obvious fender dents, in addition to strange discoloration. I wonder where did he get those.
- “All of this sunshine and suds are doing a number on my hair.” Something Rarity wouldn’t say if it wasn’t late spring or early summer, I expect.
“Have we raised enough to make all the repairs to Camp Everfree?” “We’ve only raised half.” “But we’re running out of time! The camp fundraising deadline is next week. And Pinkie Pie’s already hosted a bake sale, Twilight and Fluttershy had that doggie day care, and Sunset Shimmer and I planned this car wash.”
- Have they already saved Camp Everfree at this point, or haven’t they? If they have, it’s a bit strange they still need to pump money into it, and it’s stranger still there’s a deadline. It works best if they have not even been to the place yet.
- I wonder what sort of repairs are going on: Just how much do you have to ask for a car wash to raise enough?
- “It will be the most profitable of all of our fundraising events! The pièce de résistance!” Which would be the first time on record when the Pedestrian Rarity uses French.
“Then enter the Canterlot Mall Chance to Prance Competition! All you need is a music video of your own original song and dance. Then you could be prancing your way to first prize! Sign up now at the booth near the Aunt Orange smoothie kiosk.”
- The mall is named “Canterlot Mall.” It follows there aren’t any other major malls in the vicinity, or at least that this is the biggest one, right?
- “Aunt Orange” is an interesting brand name to have, I wonder if Applejack is related to that one too.
- Notice that a music video of original song and dance is a pretty high bar to clear, only available to teams, not individuals: It requires numerous specialized skills. (The bar for the equipment have been steadily dropping down throughout XXI century, but skills are skills.) I wonder how many entrants did this competition have in total? The only ones we see are the Humane 7 and the CPA team.
“It’s only been a few months since the Friendship Games.”
- So it was, but how many is a few?
- Notice that Rarity remembers the names of at least Sour Sweet and Sunny Flare, and in general the scene implies tighter contact between them than observed during Friendship Games.
- “Oh, things at CPA have never been better since Principal Cadance took over.” Whatever happened to Cinch remains entirely unknown. Also notice that Sunny Flare is wearing a Pip-Boy for some reason – and it migrates between her left and right arms between scenes. Which vault did she crawl out of?…
- “She’s going to let us have the spring dance on a yacht, if we raise the money.” Notice that CPA also has a spring dance.
“Well, each member of the Rainbooms is going to dance in a different style—like flamenco, hip-hop, or street ballet—and we’ll wear costumes to match each genre.”
- Flamenco and hip-hop are things, dragging in a large amount of cultural baggage. We knew about hip-hop back in Rainbow Rocks, but not flamenco…
- As far as I’ve been able to determine, the term street ballet is original to Pedestria: Googling turns up nothing that could help me identify it as a dancing genre, just lots of dance troupes named “X Street Ballet” where “X Street” is obviously a location.
- “See? It’s a wonderful plan. We’ll write some lyrics for our new song, and we’ll choreograph some dance moves.” Notice the green drum kit in the music room rather than the Pinkie drum kit.
- “Just haven’t heard much about my old school since I left, I guess.” Twilight certifies that she has already completed the transfer between schools – apparently, well before the end of the school year.
- “How much is the grand prize worth?” “More than double what we need to fix up Camp Everfree!” I’d still love to know the exact number, but of course they aren’t going to give it to me.
- “According to my calculations, if we lend Rarity the funds we’ve already raised, we stand to gain four times as much money as we have now.” Which means that they have exactly half of the required money at the moment, something that Twilight can determine even without knowing the value of the cash prize exactly – Rarity never voiced it. Since everybody knew that they only have half the money already, Twilight’s statement serves no purpose whatsoever but to present her as good with numbers.
- “But if we lose the video contest, we’ll be completely back to square one and zero dollars.” Yes, pedestrians use dollars pretty consistently.
“Let’s take it from the top one more time.”
- Rarity has a personalized director’s chair.
- How did they rope in Photo Finish, but not her assistants, I have no idea.
- The camera used is a pro-grade video camera, which would have to be rented for the purpose. Generally, these days you can get away with consumer equipment and skip the expense, and videos shot with phones were a thing in the industry at least since Nokia 5800XM – but that would typically involve more skill…
- “Well, I can fix it, but I’ll have to run to the fabric store before it closes.” Which is actually pretty strange: Rarity designed and made these outfits herself, right? The tear actually shown on screen would not involve a lot of fabric to patch up enough that it’s impossible to tell it was there on video. Rarity should have had this much left over.
- Pedestrian Rarity doesn’t just also keep an Opal, she has a cat tower for her.
- “No, n-no, seriously, who is with me? I have no idea how to get to Crystal Prep.” Something to keep in mind: As of this moment, Rarity has no knowledge regarding the location of Crystal Prep. Notice that beside Twilight, Pinkie and Rainbow would have to know: They were there in Pinkie Spy. They never offer, though.
- Once again, a school is infiltrated with no sign of door guards checking those who come in. Notice also that just a bit later, none of the CPA girls are surprised to see outsiders in school: This is normal.
- “There’s a dance studio?” Twilight doesn’t know where a dance project might be situated. Which is actually rather strange: Earlier, she knew well that her ex-classmates are excellent dancers.
- “Don’t change the subject, Sour Sweet!” As Rarity says that, in the background we can see yet another iPod dock boombox. I never thought they are actually quite so common…
- “I mean, look at Pinkie Pie. She just built that castle made entirely out of chocolate bars while we were talking.” That’s a lot of chocolate bars. And cakes. And a bit expensive. And probably, making these to order is a better source of income than risky ventures like music videos. Not to mention reality-warping further than the Pedestrian Pinkie is usually seen doing.
- “Yeah! I-I got somethin’! Okay, so we’re in home-ec class…” This is actually the kitchen Pinkie started her drummer career during Pinkie on the One, so at least that explains the three batter mixers the room has, as well as the unusual size.
- “Wait a second! Isn’t this a scene from the latest Daring Do book?” As of this moment, Pedestrian Rainbow Dash is already a Daring Do fan, which is important in determining how exactly did that happen: She hasn’t had that much exposure to Sci-Twi just yet, has she?…
- “We can still come up with an original song to replace the Sapphire Shores one we’ve been practicing our choreography with.” Pedestria also has a Sapphire Shores. I hope for her sake nobody’s calling her “the pony of pop.”
- “Why did we tell Rarity that we already submitted our video?” Actually, they didn’t: In the earlier scene when Rarity and Twilight intrude on their practice, Sour Sweet says “And we will, because we’re just about to submit our video.” – emphasis mine. Is there a missing scene somewhere?
- “So what’s the big plan you were excited about?” That’s a big set. I’d say, half a grand USD in plywood alone, never mind the paint and all the other trinkets, or the work. And the deadline for the video was “tomorrow” even before Rarity arranged for their cooperation… Did this set exist prior to the video idea for some reason?
- The video includes a ponied-up Sci-Twi, which, if my chronology guesses are correct, is actually the only occasion where she does pony-up before Legends of Everfree, I think. Which might be important for any theories explaining Pedestrian use of magic.
This gives us very little in terms of characterization or insights into the events not shown on screen, but Sci-Twi ponying up when singing even before Camp Everfree is an interesting possibility.
“Aunt Orange” is an interesting brand name to have, I wonder if Applejack is related to that one too.
Probably a throwoff to the Orange Julius stands that used to be in every mall in the US also.
Celestia praised them for raising enough money to go on the class trip, not repair the place. I'd say this has to be post-Everfree. It's really unlikely students would be willing to put in a ton of time earning money to repair a place they'd never visited.
They saved the camp from foreclosure by making the immediate payment to Filthy Rich in that movie. The place is still a dump that probably needs more money to start repairs before the next batch of campers get there. Summer Camps are basically a financial black hole unless they are really expensive.
It's a pretty good explanation for why she's working there instead of just earning money for her family by working on the farm.
That's a very good point. Probably a few other, but they were made by 2-3 people on home cameras. If either the Shadowbolts or Rainbooms had dropped out, the other team would still probably have won.
This seems to be a pretty low bar for "good with numbers."
I could see Photo Finish owning one.
If CHS has a dedicated dance studio, perhaps they also have the studio camera and the dance set was created for a previous student project.
I'd say that's another chronology marker, a big sub-plot of Everfree was Sci-Twi doing everything possible to avoid using magic because she was afraid of Midnight Twilight until the events of that movie taught her she could use her magic for good.
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But what if repairing the place was the prerequisite to going there?
Only she’s not working there, but at a completely different fruit salad stand.
Others don’t voice even that much, so finders keepers.
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Wait what? That's such a waste!
Fair enough. It's just that the mathematics to build working robots is so much more impressive than being able to multiply by 4.
Speaking of Twilight building robots, do you have a plan yet for the Choose Your Own Adventure series of shorts? They have a fairly coherent overview of the "the Rainbooms help put on a school play" but the nature of the beast seems like it would make extracting canonicity impossible.
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As I said in yet another comment, I will say that these stories are set in the actual world, but do not refer to actual events until and unless a subsequent story collapses the wave function by referring to them.
It’s not like they have any consequences, anyway, do they?
4963816 Depends on the version. In some versions Twilight builds an amazing robot, in some versions Rarity is loaded enough to drive around in a limo, in one version Fluttershy now pictures a horde of supportive Applejacks whenever she gets nervous.
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And something I just thought of now, after covering Better Together series and Rollercoaster:
I think this all points towards the money being needed before the field trip so that the trip may happen, not after.
4964893 Interesting. In general, if Camp Everfree is about to be foreclosed on at the start of the movie, they have almost certainly needed money for a long time, years before this movie started. And the movie ends with the camp being pretty trashed and then repaired by a bunch of teenagers, and the money pays for Filthy Rich to go away.
But the problem with this underlying trope of "business/organization is short of money, creditor wants to shut down the business, plucky protagonists have one big sale/fundraiser/find pirate gold on the premises" is that it doesn't solve the underlying issue that the organization/business isn't profitable in the first place, and without major changes to the organizations business model, even if all debts are paid off new debts will just accrue.
In this case, Gloriosa would never have taken a loan from Filthy with the camp as collateral unless Camp Everfree LLC was not a profitable business. (I mean, she could have taken out a loan with the goal of investing the funds into making the camp a profitable business, but that does not appear to have happened). At the end of Camp Everfree, the students hold a fundraiser with alumni, and Gloriosa raises enough donations to pay off Filthy Rich. But the underlying issue that Camp Everfree LLC isn't profitable has not been solved.
To keep from just needing another loan, the Camp's business model needs to change. One way, and I think it's the most likely way, is for Gloriosa to stick with what she now knows works: Fundraising from alumni. Theaters and opera houses and museums do similar things, they are not financially sustainable except with donations from alumni on top of whatever fees they charge. So I could see Gloriosa now holding another fundraising gala every few months.
Another method is for the camp to be open more often. We don't know how often Camp Everfree is open during the year besides just summer, but if it was only operating a few weeks out of the year, inviting hikers and running it as a resort in the spring/fall might make a big difference (note that this is basically what Filthy was going to do with his "spa.")
A third option is, now that Timber is old enough, for Gloriosa to stay at the Camp year round as caretaker, while Timber works other jobs 9 months out of the year to support himself (and maybe his sister). Might explain why we see him as a lifeguard, and then he disappears. He needs to be where the jobs are, or maybe he gets pulled back to camp for their new fall season.
All of this is very long-winded, but what I'm trying to say is that Camp Everfree has always needed money, and will probably always need money. I think it's a little unlikely high school students would devote this much time and energy to "repairs" of a camp if they haven't yet visited it and aren't friends with Gloriosa or Timber, but it's quite possible.
I could see Gloriosa sending out mailers to those kids even before camp starts, saying "this quarter we are trying to raise money to fix our busted docks for the 4th time, $10,000 or the kids won't be able to paddleboat."
Another thing about deadlines is that certain times of year are extremely hard to do construction on in the wilderness. I could see them having a deadline in the fall or even the summer because repairs need to be completed on something before winter.
And of course, the final issue, any video where the girls use their superpowers or we see a geode has to be post-Everfree.
Don't know if this is the same thing but searching for "street ballet" in Russian give some results. Although in general it's just peoples performing ballet in street clothes on streets.
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Whatever Rarity actually meant definitely involved special clothes, though.
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Something I missed in this whole argument that I only noticed much later…
CPA students are collecting money for their spring dance.
I.e. whenever they have their spring dance exactly, it’s not time for it yet. If Legends of Everfree happens in a summer, there’s no way Dance Magic can happen afterwards, and if it happens in a spring, it has to be tightly sandwiched between Legends of Everfree, and that spring dance, if it’s to happen after Legends.
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Maybe you could make another chronology tracker for the big movies/episodes of EQG.
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At least some of them are interdependent with the Equestrian side, no matter what the temporal gradient looks like, it can’t affect the order. So I’ve added a few of them to the existing tracker already.
I think I’m going to add most of those that have any clear constraints or interdependencies, and mark pure-Pedestria event cards with a different background color…