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Luna Eclipsed (October 22nd 2011, 22 minutes)

Summary: Can Luna escape the reputation of Nightmare Moon?

Is Spike wearing a Barney costume?

Ponyville Retirement Village. An odd detail, but an interesting one. Retirement villages are not the same thing as retirement homes. Retirement villages is an age-restricted community, and has shared resources that are restricted to the residents use only. They may have assisted living facilities like a retirement home, but that's not guaranteed. This points out several things. One, ponies have the concept of 'retirement', which is relatively modern idea. Two, they are also familiar with segregated populations and gated communities within a town the size of Ponyville.

Starswirl the Bearded, father of the Amniomorphic Spell. This is a weird one, as there's multiple different ideas as to what 'Amniomorphic' could mean. Morphic is easy, it means 'shape', but the modern usage has it as short for polymorph (multiple shape, or shape changer). Amnio is trickier. Amnion is the innermost membrane around a fetus, but originally in Greek it was a bowl used to catch the blood of a sacrificial lamb (the amnos). So... what exactly would such a spell do? Change the shape of a fetus? Use sacrificial blood to shapechange? Change one type of bowl into another?

Cute version of the Halloween chant. This plus the costumes means that we're to treat Nightmare Night as an expy of Halloween. All Hallow's Eve is a standard 'death of the year' harvest festival.

Interesting that Granny Smith is escorting these three, no four, little ponies around. We've got a classic fairy tale princess on one end, a ladybug on the other and... what looks like a sci-fi spaceman helmet? It might be some form of sport helmet, but it really resembles the standard Russian cosmonaut helmets from the late 1960's.

Pipsqueak. Lots of things interesting about this character. He's pied, or 'pinto' with a multi-colored coat, which we've not seen on any other character. He's from Trottingham, mentioned once before by Rarity, but not seen on the official Equestria map. And he speaks with a slightly off Cockney accent. Pip is an English nickname for Phillip. Which is from the Greek Philippos (friend of horses).

Oh, I *like* Big Mac's costume. Very Baron Samedi (from the Haitian variation of the Vodun religion).

And a smattering of other costumes, including knights, demons, a raggedy Anne and Andy (the Cakes, of course), etc. Quite a cross-section.

Rainbow Dash is using a lighting storm cloud for pranks. So the lightning generated by the cloud isn't powerful enough to actually be hurtful the ponies. Either they can turn the power output down, or lighting just isn't as dangerous to ponies as it is to us.

Derpy being cute and silly, as always.

And Mayor Mare not wearing a costume at all, surprisingly. (just kidding).

You know, there are cosmetic company executives that would sell their souls for the recipe for the conditioner that can turn a stiff zebra mane into those flowing locks.

Okay, here's some interesting cultural things. This is all for Nightmare Moon, with sacrificing food (re: candy) for safety. Pretty standard for a harvest festival, destroying some of the food to ensure the spirit of the harvest is satisfied and will become the spirit of growth in the next year. Using costumes to hide from an avenging spirit is also a pretty common concept. However in this case Nightmare Moon is a real, physical creature that existed a thousand years ago. As such these practices may have grown out of events that took place when Nightmare Moon was an actual threat.

Luna has got a flair for the dramatic. I so wish the batponies are a real variation rather than costumes, as it opens up so many possibilities.

Luna seems to be offering her hoof to be kissed. Technically it's usually a decoration on the hand, like a ring, that is a symbol of authority that is being kissed. However, the art style is simplified enough that the sparkly hoof covering is all that can be seen.

Luna recognizes the Starswirl costume, and comments on the accuracy. This indicates that either she knew Starswirl in the 'pre-classical' era, or has studied Starswirl in a similar way that Twilight did.

You know, in a way I wonder if Luna is more referring to her being locked away for a thousand years as meaning she's too amped up to tone it down.

Luna's quite strong, actually, pony-handling Fluttershy like that.

And Luna not knowing what 'fun' is, is actually not that unreasonable. The word 'fun' only recently took on the connetations of amusing play. In the 1700's, to fun was to cheat, trick, or hoax someone. Basically to prank them. Further back that that, the word may have meant 'virgin' believe it or not, which would confuse the heck out of Luna.

Luna's got a temper on her. Celestia really didn't brief Luna on *anything* that has happened in these last thousand years.

Zecora's obviously in on the gag ahead of time, either that or she's got a more refined version of Pinkie's premonition abilities.

And Luna demonstrates illusion or shapeshifting.

Pipsqueak's accent shifts away from the heavy Mockney (mock Cockney, for those not in the know), but there's still a vague hint of it in there.

The bobbing for apple water must be died or something, because it's actually green on the ground and in the tub.