Points of Canon: My Little Pony #42 · 9:05am May 14th, 2016
The answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Also the number of a main series comic issue, which I’m going to pick apart today while I’m waiting for the new episode to come around.
1. The trouble with recursion in fiction is that stories don’t get tail call elimination and we have very short stack depths…
The entire comic starts with “Pinkie Pie in cooperation with Pinkamena Publications proudly presents A Pinkie Pie Story that Pinkie Pie kinda sorta remembers,” establishing Pinkie as the narrator for this comic and making any continuity it establishes suspect, except the one inside Pinkie’s brain. Or what passes for it. It does sort of cement the idea of Pinkie both enjoying and telling stories a lot, though, and I have been using that. In the primary canon, Pinkie didn’t get to do much of it since Season 1.1
2. Which probably dates this to after The Gift of the Maud Pie – not that this matters much, as this one story could happen at any moment.
Pinkie says she is “Equestria’s third-best gift-giver” and that she doesn’t know what to give as a present “for the second time in my life,”2 and cites Rarity for being the “37th best gift-giver”.
- Pinkie uses the expression “birthday suit.” The connotations of having this at all invite numerous interpretations. Rarity confirms that this expression refers to the story titled “The Princess’ New Dress,” which seems to be a very close equivalent of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and was one of Rarity’s favorite stories in her childhood.
3. I can’t help but wonder what one would look like, and more importantly, what sort of cutie mark skill it would result in…
In a flashback, Sweetie Belle attempts to get a cutie mark in thermodynamics.3 “My Tiny Gecko” posters make an appearance again, as they did on Twilight’s wall in Neigh Anything, as well as an “I WANT TO BELIEVE” poster.
- When Rarity takes the time to draw, the results are photorealistic to the limit of comics’ resolution. Not like this was unexpected.
4. Notice the “love poison Princess” from Hearts and Hooves Day is also an alicorn, yet it’s pretty clear no historical alicorns beyond Celestia and Luna existed.
Rarity portrays the titular princess as an alicorn version of herself.4 When Pinkie takes over the role, she is likewise portrayed as an alicorn.
- Pinkie lampshades the fairytale’s ending by noticing that it’s perfectly normal for ponies not to wear clothing, even though Rarity insists that isn’t the real ending. They don’t get to elaborate on what the real ending was.
This is yet another “special snowflake” comic story which is endearing, and yet offers little for my grand unified canon theory… Except for the idea of an alicorn princess being a typical, common fairytale archetype, which is a puzzle. I can imagine how it would happen, and the connotations produce a rather peculiar shape for the pony culture to take…
I wonder, did the alicorn princess motif appear in fairy tales before or after Celestia and Luna took the throne? Even in your blogcanon, I could see it working either way.
3952369
My guess would be after, because as far as I can tell, prior to that most princesses were unicorns. Only when Celestia started eclipsing them, the motif started growing into the public consciousness.
3952794 That's possible, but I could also imagine that the pre-alicorn ponies still had a mythical conception of an Ultimate Princess who would have all Kinds' talents, whether or not there were any actual previous alicorns. Stories could spin it either way.
[Citation. NEEDED.]
4237764
Take a look at the picture on the page. The unnamed princess has a horn and wings are peeking out. As for historical alicorns other than Celestia and Luna, nobody ever names one unambiguously.
Well, except maybe the zebra one... gah.
4238056
The "no historical alicorns" is the part I'm disputing. And yes, we have the zebra alicorn now, so I'm going to take that as a massive vindication and smugly lord it over you for the rest of all time.
wait, I thought you'd mentioned a source that had Cadance (possibly just as "love") as coexisting as historical.
4238056
Where's this zebralicorn from? Is it pictured, or just mentioned?
4307406
Secondary canon firmly places Cadance into Shining Armor’s generation.
Pictured, presumably as part of Fluttershy imagining what Daring Do is talking about. Neither wings nor a horn are mentioned in the text of what Daring Do is actually saying.