Points of Canon: S608 - A Hearth’s Warming Tail · 6:35pm May 14th, 2016
Stories related to Hearth’s Warming even tangentially have a history of supplying far-reaching worldbuilding elements. Unfortunately, everything far-reaching about ponies also has a history of not being very continuous… Well, let’s go pick this one apart.
- This episode is the third Hearth’s Warming Eve shown on screen. The previous one, Hearthbreakers, occurred in Season 5, which messes up the episode ordering dramatically, not that anyone’s surprised. Twilight also says that this is Starlight’s first Hearth’s Warming Eve in Ponyville, which gives an upper bound on the date and condenses all the other episodes since Hearth’s Warming Eve into two years. Yes, it’s been two and a half years since Twilight came to Ponyville.
- We are treated to one of the rare instances of Rarity and Sweetie Belle’s parents actually showing up.
1. And Derpy taking the position of the angel on the top of the tree reminds me of a very rude joke, based on the idea of where the angel may stick his tree…
Two ponies kiss (on the cheek, pfft) under a mistletoe, which is, apparently, a thing. It’s notable that one of the two is Lemon Hearts, and she is initiating the kiss. Caroling is, likewise, a thing.1
- In general, Twilight’s castle has apparently become a social venue for events that would previously be held in the town hall.
- Twilight once again reiterates that the celebration refers to an important historical event. Starlight explicitly refers to windigoes as “mythical,” however.
2. Lyra, Bon-Bon, Twinkleshine, and numerous other notable background ponies are present in this story as well. Since Snowfall Frost is also represented as Starlight Glimmer, we can safely say this can be discounted. Sherlock Holmes and Watson, previously seen in Rarity Investigates also make an appearance…
3. In the background, an aurora makes an appearance and quickly vanishes, suggesting that this story may be dated to the period when the Crystal Empire was still around. But at the same time, within the story, professor Flintheart refers to windigoes as mythical, which makes this pretty nonsensical, so we have to attribute the aurora to spirit’s magic instead.“Many moons ago” (argh) Canterlot was not built primarily out of white stone, which seems to date the story told to before the founding of Ponyville, since in Family Appreciation Day, Canterlot already has the current, white look.2 It’s not unlikely that Canterlot has been rebuilt once or twice before that, but more importantly, this Canterlot is clearly not located on top of a mountain.3 Could it be that at some point, the word “Canterlot” was used to refer not just to the city of Canterlot, but to other settlements within the kingdom of Canterlot?…
- Twilight fangirls over the list of magical disciplines Star Swirl was supposedly an expert in, listing “Transfiguration, Dimensional Calibration, Teleportation” and finally giving us some clear magi-scientific terms to use.
- Snowfall Frost’s lab contains a globe, which is inexplicably grey. Is it, perchance, a globe of the Moon? For a globe of the Moon to exist, the moon would need to rotate, which makes the whole Mare in the Moon image a bit troublesome… For a globe of the Earth to be grey is more than a bit odd.
- Snowfall Frost performs a really significant feat of magic – a mass, potentially continent-wide memory erasure/alteration spell! – using numerous alchemical techniques in the process, which is about as uncommon as it gets. Once again, ponies continue the trend of thinking that this sort of means can be justified by a suitably noble goal.
- Spirit summoning spells exist, at least in fiction. Discord is now officially not the only being referred to as “spirit of.”
- Once again, Pinkie, as the Spirit of Hearth’s Warming Presents, refers to songs being sung diegetically, reinforcing the idea that they were, which started all the way back in Friendship is Magic. Take that, unbelievers. :)
- Phonograph technology existed, not like vinyl is a huge step up, all it does is enable Vinyl… er. Oh whatever.
- Eggnog is explicitly referred to in speech. If you had any doubt ponies eat eggs, they’re out to taunt you again.
- Luna, as the spirit of Hearth’s Warming Yet To Come, declares that not celebrating will eventually cause the return of the windigoes.
- In the closing song, Rainbow Blaze appears for the first time since forever.
It’s an excellent episode, if only because they templated it on a classic story that survived no end of adaptations and is still kicking, but I’ll leave the praise and criticism to others. My particular task here is to see what it means in terms of studying ponies, and the conclusions seem to be like this:
- The story told by Twilight is explicitly fiction, and more likely than not, authored by a specific pony just like the one it is patterned on. It is also written sometime within the past couple hundred years, in the time when scientific hubris eclipsed traditional morality at least for a certain period – it is a reaffirmation of the original values of the Hearth’s Warming, culminating in the same message. (“Be nice to each other, or the windigoes will eat you, even if you believe they’re mythical.”)
- The reconciliation of the three pony tribes is seen as a definite historical event, while the magical underpinnings of it are primarily believed to be metaphorical. I.e. windigoes are not thought to be real by anyone knowledgeable, but normal ponies feel that’s no reason to dismiss Hearth’s Warming, and less knowledgeable ponies are probably a bit superstitious.
- We probably can assume that spirits are not a significant part of pony magic, either. Even Dickens did not employ them as part of any specific religious framework, and there’s no other trace of any other spirits that could be interested in pony dealings anywhere in canon.
- The idea of a continent-wide targeted memory erasure spell is at least believable, if not actually possible. Using primarily alchemical techniques, which unicorns seem to never employ, implies that it is more likely than not also fictional.
This tells us more about pony mentality than about the actual attributes of their civilization or their history, but what it does tell is quite significant.
I’m still wondering about the brown-stone Canterlot though…
It could be that Canterlot is the name for the series of cities that have been the seat of government. This could be the settlement that might have surrounded the castle in the Everfree, or an interm city that dates between Nightmare Moon and the city on the mountain. Were there any shots of the moon that would give us a hint if the made in the moon was there?
Or that we just don't see every holiday episode, and more time has passed.
(Sorry, absurdly short timeline for the show is probably my biggest hot button when it comes to canonicity, and I will blankly refuse to accept that everything has been crammed together for no good reason.
)
3944233
If you take it together with Journal of the Two Sisters, that's probably not it, because no settlement has surrounded the castle in Everfree, ever, and that castle was never the seat of an actual government either -- because the sisters made a point not to govern per se. You can also see that in the flashback in Princess Twilight Sparkle the castle stands alone. According to the Journal, Canterlot is the name of an area, -- otherwise the phrase "hills of Canterlot" makes no sense -- and if my memory serves me right, the city of Canterlot existed since before the coronation, the Grand Galloping Gala is an anniversary of its founding. So I think the safest bet is saying that "Canterlot," used exactly once in this case, refers to the kingdom in general and a previously unknown city within it, and not to the particular city of Canterlot that is on the mountain as it has always been.
And no, there are no shots with the Moon in them that I caught, the sky is conveniently overcast.
3944267
Have fun explaining why the Cutie Mark Crusaders have had no growth spurts, then. :)
3944290
Clearly their trouble in getting cutie marks has delayed their puberty!
3944295
...and Twist, who gets her cutie mark on screen right as the CMC start worrying about theirs, is just a dwarf pony, right. :)
3944299
It's well known that overindulgence in peppermint has disastrous results for a young pony's growth rate!
3944360
...As well as overindulgence in, I dunno, tiaras, I presume? :)
3944365
Nah, Cadence f*cking loves tiaras, and she's pretty tall. Presumably Diamond is just expressing her stunted emotional growth in a physical manner, and Silver Spoon doesn't dare to grow past her.
3944366
Well, after some further meditation, I have a more detailed theory. The story clearly predates railroads.
So the idea is like this: Canterlot has always existed as the "upper city" (on top of the mountain) and "lower city" (right below and maybe a bit off to the side). Both were called and were "Canterlot." Upper city was the province of unicorn wizards, noble and idle rich families, and generally only the ponies who could pay for the transportation, because hauling stuff up the mountain is expensive. With the introduction of cheap railroad freight, the lower city was abandoned, as population migrated upwards, closer to the movers and shakers, and eventually bulldozed altogether to make way for nature. The difference in color is explained by primarily local stone being used.
3944386
Speaking of timing, something I just noticed: In the ending shot, the Cake twins show up in public without diapers, which I think is a first.
Your attention to detail exceeds my attention span.
The contrast between the perfection of pony society and the imperfection of its members is striking.
3944465
EDIT: ...Wait, you edited that after I replied to it? Sneaky. :)
Dangit, this episode forces me to admit you're right Oliver, the episodes swing wildly back and forth in the timeline like a drunken Doctor Who. I'd like to assume that at least they're all in the same season, but I can't make that a guarantee. Still not sure how that establishes only 2 and half years since the start of the show, however.
I'm not sold on the whole "Windigos are myths, though." Starlight, who doesn't really have a formal education, calls them myths, and antagonists set up to be incorrect by the author of a story do as well, but this was probably the period when they said Nightmare Moon was a myth to represent fear of the night or something. Also, I like evil professor faux-Snape.
3944290 Are you kidding? No one but Twilight seem to go through a growth spurt, and that's because of alicornification!
3944560
Twilight arrives to Ponyville on the day of Summer Sun Celebration, which is more likely than not exactly half a year away from Hearth's Warming Eve. Then she has her first Hearthwarming with Ponyville friends participating in the holiday play, that's 0.5 years. Exactly a year later, Pinkie Pie and Applejack visit the Pie family for Hearthwarming - in the meantime, Twilight became a princess, and was a princess by the time the Summer Sun Celebration rolled in again, and there are statements that it's the first Summer Sun Celebration since the previous one.
The Hearth's Warming Tail cannot occur less than a year after Hearthbreakers if yearly cycles even exist, so 2.5 years is the minimum. But it's also Starlight's first Hearthswarming in Ponyville, and her tenure as Twilight's student starts with the Crystalling of Flurry Heart, and the more years you stick on between the last two Hearthswarmings, the odder the CMC and the entire child population of Ponyville looks, because any more years than that and they become teenagers. The Cake twins are out of diapers, and yet, the CMC are still not teenagers, so I don't think there's a gap between the second and third Hearth's Warming. Hence, 2.5 years is also probably the maximum -- these points establish yearly increments.
The chronology of episodes in general is magnitudes more sensible if it's shuffled all over and tightly compressed, alas. In many cases, this involves backdating episodes into the previous season. Ponies of the main cast live very eventful lives, with an event presented as an episode occurring, on average, every week. Dangerous, Equestria-spanning crises occur, in certain cases, monthly.
The Sisters even allude to that. :)
3944600 That whole "S4 opener is 1 year from the S1 opener" has been retconned to heck and back, and was always a flaky way of interpreting the fact that Luna is finally coming out of her shell long enough to celebrate the holiday after however many ones hiding in her room. And that was before we knew that the S5 finale and the S1 opener were "years" plural apart.
I see your point about the Hearth's Warmings, we've only seen three. But we've also only seen 1 Hearts and Hooves Day Celebration, we can guess more happened that we didn't see, just like we can guess more Hearth's Warming Celebrations happened that we didn't see.
In a larger point, it's not realistic to think every episode comes once a week. There's just no time for the Mane 6 to run their businesses and earn money in between each episode, especially when half the episodes take place over multiple days (and some take place over several weeks, like the time Fluttershy was a super-model or a dozen different editions of the Foal Free Press came out).
Also, I think you missed a big one here: Pegasi conduct electricity! The wire was not connected directly to the star, it was touching the top light of the tree, touching Muffins, who was touching the star! Could Equestrian wiring be made of Pegasi fur/feathers instead of copper?
Oh, and more a minor callback than a point of canon: I feel like Spike's love of marshmallows in hot coco is a shoutout to #40 of the comics.
3944620
Citation needed. :) Mind you, that's not the only statement to base this on -- there's Spike's first birthday since coming to Ponyville, etc, etc. It all comes together if you hammer it enough. I just don't want to post a huge spreadsheet based on somebody else's work here, not at least until I have time to fit seasons 5 and 6 in and sort them out, too.
Which is why, at least some events occur in parallel, obviously. Mind you, none of them are exactly working 9-to-5 jobs, and all of them can set their own schedule for one reason or another.
Everything conducts electricity, and I've got scars to prove it. :) Pegasi just don't appear to care about mains voltages running through them, but since they survive lightning strikes, I think that's par for the course.
Actually, he does this all the way back in The Best Night Ever.
One of Charleyhorse Dicken's better works, I think. Certainly more enjoyable that Whickerles Whickerby or Bleak Horse
3944659
Nightmare Moon banished her sister to the moon for years, plural. Years usually refers to at least 3 years, though it can technically encompass only 2 years.
Spike's first birthday since coming to Ponyville was in season 2, which doesn't really compress a timeline that much. And with the whole "episodes are out of chronological order" thing, it's even less helpful. (That's a big part of why I hate this fact, it gives us less canon rules to work with).
That can make sense for a few episodes, but so many episodes in the first 2 seasons had a large portion of town destroyed. And there are like 10-15 episodes where we see the town decorated for various festivals. But I can't think of a single episode where they are rebuilding the town or ignoring decorations for a festival that recently started or just ended. I get that they can rebuilt things quickly, since it would take probably a year for a non-magical populace to rebuild after the Parasprite invasion, say. But they must have had at least a few weeks rebuilding after that, or the Ursa attack, or the Bugbear attack, or the Spike attack, etc.
Ehhhh. Twilight sure, going on friendship adventures is her main job. I think Spike does 90% of the librarian duties anyway.
But Applejack works on a farm that requires the full time labor of two working age adults to function, as we see in S1. If Big Mac is covering for her every other day, then that farm would have gone bankrupt by now.
Rainbow Dash is the weather manager, even if she can clear the skies in 10 seconds flat, she has to be there to do it every day, or get someone to cover for her in a cinch. How many days can she miss in a row before the Mayor replaces her?
If Rarity doesn't make dresses, she doesn't eat. The self-employed take very few days off as a rule.
Fluttershy its unclear if she's just a random hermit, or has a job as Animal Control/Park Ranger of some kind. If she is, I could see her having a lot of independence on her schedule. But who does she trust to feed all her animals, and also give them health checkups, and also be ready to help care for any animal that stumbles, bleeding, out of the Everfree Forest.
Pinkie has a retail job with shifts, and very understanding employers who are also her landlord and probably make her rent a portion of her salary. The Cakes are a very kind and understanding couple who also have 2 young foals to feed, and can't pay a freeloader who doesn't work enough money to buy party supplies and fill up emergency caches around town. And of course, any day Pinkie is not in town on someone's birthday/event, she can't cater/set up their party.
You could argue that Celestia and Luna write the Mane 6 a check from the treasury to cover lost wages each time they adventure off to save Equestria, but that's not going to solve the labor shortages at their various positions. Rarity is probably the single best example, if she's sewing dresses 1 or 2 days a week and going on friendship adventures the rest of the time, is she really going to build up the client base, reputation and capital to open 3 stores in 3 cities in a few years? And now she plans to sew enough dresses to fill those 3 stores?
Personally, I would guess each adventure comes around once 2-3 weeks or so on average, with a few overlapping when they have time skips, but most occurring at least a week or so apart.
I have a globe of Earth's moon. It rotates for ease of use, not because it's mimicking actual motion.
3945386
You basically only know what's on the other side because of space exploration, not counting the thin slivers you can see because it librates. If you did not, the other side of the globe would be blank, and the actual purpose of having a globe at all would be in question, since a map would be sufficient for every practical purpose. Unless the globe is turned exactly right to the camera, we would see that part of it is completely blank, like it was on our lunar globes -- which we don't.
So either ponies think that artist's conception of the other side of the moon is acceptable, or they somehow have been able to observe the opposite side of the moon, and both are kind of problematic ideas.
3944969
Actually, only two involve really significant destruction – Secret of My Excess and Swarm of the Century. In other cases destruction is quite localized, and for those two, there’s a few months worth of rebuilding time remaining.
Applejack’s work is nevertheless primarily seasonal and otherwise, time-flexible, though. Most of these counterarguments are based on the idea that an adventure takes the Mane 6 away from town for an extended period. I haven’t collated the data on that myself just yet, but I’m betting that should I do that, I will find that this isn’t what’s really happening most of the time, and usually, it takes away a few hours throughout a week for some of them but not all. Trips to Crystal Empire would be an exception, of course, but there aren’t that many of them.
A couple years worth, seeing as how she’s a Wonderbolt now and probably had to quit that? :) Rainbow’s working conditions are even more of a blank than anypony else’s, so not sure.
Rarity can’t eat at all unless you posit very specific business conditions.
Rarity’s business is selling dresses, which ponies seldom wear, and things she shows off is formal wear, which is worn even less often. Ponyville population is at most ~4000 ponies, many of them farmers, which don’t wear anything, and certainly feel content with one Sunday dress for all occasions. If Rarity’s business relied on volume, she’d starve no matter how much she worked. Evidently she does not.
I’ve spent quite some time wondering about that, and eventually concluded that Ponyville is actually a vacation town. I.e. it is the preferred summer locale for Canterlot upper middle class, who, on sunnier days, or during festivals, spend their weekend out in the country, and at least some have a permanent home in Ponyville for that purpose. This explains a lot of other things, like Minuette citing constant travels to and from Ponyville, occasional appearance of Canterlot idle rich in Ponyville eatieries, etc, etc. Ponyville is a cross between a farming community and a tourist town. That, by the way, is why Applejack treats cider sales as so important – large influx of transients out for fresh cider trumps any other sort of business she might hope for. This is also why Twilight treats Winter Wrap-Up as such a big thing when in Canterlot, seasons are changed by magic: It’s a local festival, far more of a social activity than an actual necessity.
The actual volume of Rarity’s work is therefore also seasonal, and sometimes she will whip up a dress while you wait, while at other times, she has a backlog of three weeks that she cites to Starlight. Making unique items to order is her particular selling point, and most of it is expensive, but the volume is typically low.
See my post about the Cake being a Pie. I’m pretty sure no rent is involved. Otherwise, Pinkie’s whole party financing is subject I’ve spent time wondering about, and my only conclusion was that stationary party ponies are essentially an institution – Pinkie runs a donation-based side business, where ponies who like parties chip in for them, and those who don’t chip in don’t get invited to the next one. The first one is free, it’s the one you get when you show up. As such, Pinkie probably handles larger amounts of money than all the rest of the Mane 6 except Applejack, and spends most of it. :) Almost all of it is, likewise, very sporadic work.
It all comes together in the end, but the amount of data you have to consider to make it work is massive.
3945404
Pre 1967 moon globe:
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15337940/mun.jpg
Yep, they just left it blank.
3946239
I've actually tried to find a pre-1960 globe and couldn't. The first photographs of the invisible side were made by Luna-3 mission in 1959, so I suspect that before 1959 nobody even bothered to make a globe. Post-Lunar Orbiter globes made after 1967 are complete.
Hence, one out of five:
1. It's an Earth globe that is for some reason grey.
2. The other side is blank and she has it turned blank side away from view exactly.
3. Ponies think that artistic rendition of the invisible side of the moon based on no data whatsoever is perfectly ok.
4. Ponies have a capability to create an accurate map of the moon anyway.
5. The moon actually rotates enough to make a globe.
All of these have problems, but 1 and 3 have the least, I think, if only because they're cultural quirks. :)
Looking at it again, it's the same globe they used in Secrets of My Excess, only grayed out. I think it's supposed to be that way because it's on top of a bookcase in shadow. Everything else up there is also desaturated.
3946289
Well, if it is an Earth globe, that's one more statement of Earth being a sphere -- and the fact being known at least a hundred years before present time.
3945430 Hmmm. I think you have a point on the destruction of the town, though we do see the town decorated in festivals only in festival episodes and no where else.
Not really. Most of the slice of life episodes where a character has a significant role (not just a cameo) they spend all day helping a friend with a friendship problem of some sort, rather than working on their own thing. Take Ticket Master, for example. Nobody left Ponyville, but the Mane 6 spent their day sucking up to Twilight/avoiding others, rather than getting any real work done. That's a day lost right there. There are other montage-style episodes like Filly Vanilli where the Mane 6 probably didn't lose any work (I could argue that Rarity and Fluttershy spent large portions of each day during a two-week period that probably cost them at least a day of labor each) but those are rarer.
For Applejack, I think she's not really a seasonal worker except for during winter, because I think earth pony magic means it's harvest time like 9 months a year. There are always ripe juicy apples on display in the orchard, except during winter time.
You're right about Rainbow Dash now, of course. I wouldn't be surprised if, since she's technically a soldier, she's listed as Twilight's guard or something. But that doesn't clear up the earlier seasons.
On Rarity, I agree with you 80%. I think you are absolutely right about Ponyville being the Hamptons for Canterlot, for all the reasons you listed, plus that's basically the entire point of the "Small Town Chic" festival. But between mining the actual gems, and coming up with a bunch of designs for each dress she goes through, I feel like the amount of backlog versus the amount of time off she's shown doesn't quite add up, especially now that she's planning to pump out 3 stores worth of output while still being summoned randomly by the Friendship Map, unless there are fairly lengthy durations in between adventures where she can work.
On Pinkie, I agree with the substance of your argument, she is a family member who is indulged, and she has been basically raised by the Cakes since she was like 12. But I also think at some point Pinkie herself, even with her difficulty seeing things from other people's perspectives, would eventually start feeling guilty if she was living in Sugarcube Corner, taking up the attic and the basement, and not substantially contributing by working shifts there most days. On the other hand, I like your idea for how parties are financed, and Pinkie probably does funnel a large portion of that money into Sugarcube Corner. (I once had an idea for a story where the Cakes do an annual contract renegotiation, where they spend most of the time offering Pinkie more and more elaborate benefits to get her to give up her employee discount).
If we both had a ton of time, it would be fantastic to make some kind of episode-by-episode list of how long we estimate each episode to have taken, but that sounds like way too big a project.
❧Ghost("spirit") passing through a person generates shivers, in myth if not in reality, much as ours do.
(yet, neither Pinkie nor Luna do the ghostly bit. hm.)
She does start by turning (unk. rock) into gold, but getting interrupted, which is, of course, a sign of grandmastery of Alchemy.
I want more of *that* Luna, please.
3945430
3944969
Her gem-finding plus having Spike on-call suggest she can just sell gems…depending on the Rarity of Diamonds (insert playing card here). This also means she can have Really-Big-Ticket items; I suspect Sapphire Shores was a good nest-egg. Twilight's quiick learning of her Specialty-Talent Spell does cause some problems with this and so many other things.
But Pinkie?
actually I'm gonna just post this bit on my own page, it's so long.
4507130
Because…
4507130
I completely agree. How do you think Rarity raised the money to buy Carousel Boutique and all the fancy materials and machinery she needed to open her own dress shop in the first place? There's a reason most 20 year old fashion designers don't own their own stores.
I think Rarity went out mining to dig up enough gems to generate startup capital. I also think Rarity did this whenever she didn't sell enough dresses in a month to pay for expenses. (That and manecuts, Rarity had that elaborate salon setup in season one). Of course, Rarity goes to great pains to keep this secret, because she wants to be known as a designer, not a miner.
We know that gems are worth a lot less on earth, but based on the variety of goods we've seen Spike use them to buy things with, we know they are worth something. A gem that is worth $50,000 on earth maybe worth $50 on Equestria, but if Rarity can dig up 50 or 100 of those a day, that keeps her in business.
Also agree. I think Rarity only did mining for cash and manecuts in season 1 and maybe early season 2, after that her business took off enough that she only gathers gems to adorn her dresses, and Saphire Shores has probably paid her as much or more as all her other business combined.
Twilight and Starlight are these apex unicorns in their own category, I think of them like Pinkie; interesting data points but not really useful in speculating details about the abilities of the average unicorn/earth pony.
Gonna respond to your Pinkie Post on your own blog.