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Sweet and Elite (December 3rd 2011, 22 minutes)

Summary: Rarity wades into the Canterlot life, will she still be a Ponyville pony at the end?

This is showing how much influence Twilight actually has. Even as Celestia's student, being able to pull strings like that is pretty impressive.

The general dress of the Canterlot ponies is reminiscent of the Edwardian period. Colorful, elaborate cuts, and less restrictive than Victorian fashions. Plus an emphasis on big-brim hats for the ladies. One of the odd fashion statements of the time doesn't translate well to ponies, unfortunately. Not entirely sure why, but when at sporting events like horse racing, ladies would regularly use tall walking sticks that would come up to just below the shoulder line. I've not been able to find a good reference explaining that one.

Fleur is fascinating here. The animators seem to have used a custom puppet for her, using the alicorn base without the wings. Why put that much effort into a secondary character for use in just one scene? She's the one that recognized the materials that Rarity dropped. With the reaction to the reference to the Princess, it's almost like she's *recognized* Rarity. Which is odd because nobody else ever seems to recognize the Bearers of the Elements at all no matter how famous they have to be. Past that point she's hanging all over Fancy Pants, but not in a possessive way. She's posing, like she's auditioning for a modelling job.

Fancy Pants is 'the most important pony in Canterlot'. Okay, viewed through Rarity's perspective what does this mean? He's a trendsetter, obviously, but not a critic or a creative on his own. Rarity never mentions a title for him, and Rarity would make a point of that kind of thing. He's physically imposing being at least half a head taller than the other stallions in the crowd, and his personality is equally forceful. He's definitely money, but he's not living in that isolated, entitled head-space that so many inheritors of wealth seem to fall into. Culturally, he seems to be sitting in that half-way point between old money and new money. Someone that has actively expanded his inheritance (both in money and influence), and walked deep into the ranks of the nobs in a way they can't ignore or denigrate.

The nobs' accents are the exaggerated Received Pronunciation and Mid-Atlantic accents commonly used to represent the 'idle rich' in media. Yes, there were (and maybe still are) people who talk like that 'naturally', but they're hamming it up here.

Paintings done in styles replicating actual real-life artists, like Dali.

Wait, that's Photo Finish there. Photo Finish knows Rarity already, as does Hoity Toity and Sapphire Shores. Weird.

Airship! Built like an actual ship below an airbag, which was never done in real life, but what the heck.

Blueblood? Really? I mean, he's daft but his memory can't be that bad. And there he is again, when Rarity is presiding over an airship launching ceremony. There's huge amounts of story potential just in this montage.

Party Cannon. Just so many questions.

The Grand Galloping Gala is coming up again. So nearly a year has passed since the last season finale.

You get the feeling Fancy Pants knows exactly who the Mane 6 actually are, and is playing it for his own purposes.