S07:E20 - A Health of Information

[Jeric 46,850]

1 hour ago, CypherHoof said:

Maybe. They could just ignore it though - just because Twi once read in a book that MM was a unicorn, that doesn't mean it's true.

This is an issue and one that can easily be addressed. Especially with a joke. Twilight trusts books -- book is wrong -- Twilight discovers book is wrong -- cue Twilight reaction face that says "my life is a lie".

There is a famous line in Trek when Worf says "we don't speak of that with outsiders" when we are presented with the curious look of the original series Klingons and the disbelief of the other characters that the old series Klingons are are Klingons. 

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

The second best 'Legend of Magic' episode of the season, there are many things you could talk about this ep more than any 'Legend' episodes but i have to point out something bugged me so much during the whole episode, it's Twilight, yes, Twilight . Maybe it's just me but i think Twilight is very odd in this ep, she is just there, i would enjoy this ep more without her.

Twilight tired reading BOOKS, WTF IS THAT!?  Come on, Zecora is sick very badly, this is not a poison joke, its a disease can turn you into A TREE, technical lethal, and Twilight just make it look like her friend just being a normal flu or something? Its like life or death situation, Twilight should be the one read books better and longer than Fluttershy herself. What i mean is, Fluttershy is only one who take this shit seriously, look at her face concerning all the time, she read books, she found the place, she took the honey herself, WTF, Twilight, use your spell to help her plz (yeah, she cant use spell to calm the bees, but take the honey away by magic or create a protective shield to protect Fluttershy from PHYSICAL attack is NOT THAT HARD . Meadowbrook is not a unicorn and no reaction from Twilight? The writer forgot Cutie Map exists? The writer didnt know how to do with Twilight in this ep and still include her, Twilight is better than this (she is the leader of the mane 6 for reasons), same writer who wrote Flurry of Emotions, i can feel the same vibe, they dumbed down Twilight. Am i overthinking?

.................

Fluttershy, on the other hand, is amazing, she care so much for her friend that she forgot to take care of herself, which is not the right way but understandable (Kindness). She spend the whole episode worried about Zecora, she didnt have enough time to joke or laid back, she forced Twilight to skip the unnessary parts of the journals, she is the one who found the solution, i never thought she is dumb or sth but she's smarter than i think ( or Twilight is just too slow in this ep ). I dont know what more to say, Fluttershy is just amazing, right now, she is the second best mane 6, i dont know why it take me too long to place her at the second best, maybe because Pinkie is my favorite character but now the ranking is Rarity>Fluttershy>Pinkie>AJ>RD>Twilight.

The plague, even the episode didnt take it seriously enough, is really danger, i never take Everfree forest seriously before but now, i can understand why Everfree is so frightning. Grimdark writers will have a lot of source material this time (cant wait to check Fimfiction.net). This ep is really dark if you think too hard about it, a fever can slowly turn you into a tree, i dont know how many victims in the last 1000 years... are the trees in Everfree are actually ponies? Maybe some trees you chop down are actual people, it could be [    ]... Grimdark writers, what are you waiting for? Come to fill the gap.

That doctor pony is an ass, he knew this plague is dangerous and incurable and he was just like  'You are screwed. My job is done, bye' (wtf!?)

Spike talks again, yay. He ATE ALL THE MUFFINS. 

That my first impression, this ep is a decent episode with a few BIG problems that drag it far away from greatness, the Legend itself served it purposed to have some connection with our mane character, i wonder why 3 first legend didnt do the same, why dont they make each legend per episode for better build-up like what they did with the keys in S4? Mlp isnt very good at story arcs, no big suprise here. 

Edited September 23, 2017 by Lambdadelta

[Dark Qiviut 22,379]

46 minutes ago, Ryanmahaffe said:

Twilight said "I haven't studied eastern unicorns as much as I should have"  Meaning Twilight wasn't really all that aware of Meadowbrook, Not really a continuity screw up, very possible shes was simply called a sorceress and Twilight assumed that meant Unicorn 

You left out the rest of the line:

Quote

Twilight Sparkle: Something odd about that staff. I haven't studied Eastern unicorns as much as I should have, but I'm pretty sure Meadowbrook only had eight magical items, not nine. And I don't remember any of them being a staff.

She didn't study Eastern unicorns much, but is aware of Meadowbrook and her magical items. Point about the continuity error remains.

 

[Music Chart Fan 819]

Since @Jeric's comment to me in the topic about the synopsis for the finale, I've been anticipating this episode a little more than usual, waiting to figure out what good point I unintentionally made about this episode while commenting on the finale. And now that I've seen the episode, I can think of a couple of possibilities.

One thing is when Fluttershy talks about how she figured out who the Mystical Mask is; she says "All I had to do was cross-reference a book about masks with another book on ancient Equestrian healers, then use a third book to translate it all from Olde Ponish and there it was!". I have an inkling that translating perhaps centuries-old books might be a bit more complex than pulling out a handy dandy "Olde Ponish to Modern Ponish" book to translate.

Furthermore, later in the episode, Fluttershy and Twilight appear to be reading directly from journals that Mage Meadowbrook wrote herself. But if Mage Meadowbrook lived 1000+ years ago, then we would probably expect that she would have written in Olde Ponish or some other language that would need to be translated, but we don't see Fluttershy and Twilight doing that.

This line of thinking might also implicate, for example, Twilight's vision of the night Nightmare Moon was banished back in the episode "Princess Twilight Sparkle". Twilight was able to understand Celestia and Luna perfectly well, even as those events occurred more than 1000 years ago. (I also noted some other discrepancies I noticed in Twilight's vision in this topic at the time.) Did the written language evolve while the spoken language stayed largely the same? Did the potion Twilight drank to enter the vision also translate for her?

I'll mention, though, that these things didn't really detract from the episode or anything; it's just speculation for fun.

[Thrond 3,263]

4 minutes ago, Oleks said:

So, people are saying that this episode has a bit of grimdark feel because of that curse turning ponies into trees (and then furniture and houses are built from them).

What, was slowly being turned into a toxic tree for the rest of your life, hopefully losing all sapience in the process, not dark enough? 

[Drunkfrank 1,125]

Just now, Dark Qiviut said:

You left out the rest of the line:

She didn't study Eastern unicorns much, but is aware of Meadowbrook and her magical items. Point about the continuity error remains.

 

Doesn't really change anything...Meadowbrook had 8 magical items, doesn't say anything about them not calling her a sorceress and calling her a Unicorn. Very possible when Twilight read abour Meadowbrook she though "Mage" and "Sorceress" meant unicorn, I would, I think most people would.

[Midnight Blaze 98 1,138]

Spoiler

Unfortunately despite trying to stay off finale spoilers I've heard that MeadowBrook is going to feature imsome way, but please don't tell me anymore!

Loved it. It's about time we had a Zecora episode and although Flutters and Twi probably had more screen time, it was still a great episode. 

Best part was obviously the Fluttershy wants to be a tree callback!

The only part that annoyed me was when Zecora got confused and stopped rhyming, as it killed my head-cannon that she and the tribe of zebras Luna finds in the Journal of the two sisters had been cursed to talk in rhyme.

Edited September 23, 2017 by Midnight Blaze 98

[Jeric 46,850]

2 minutes ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Since @Jeric's comment to me in the topic about the synopsis for the finale, I've been anticipating this episode a little more than usual, waiting to figure out what good point I unintentionally made about this episode while commenting on the finale. And now that I've seen the episode, I can think of a couple of possibilities.

One thing is when Fluttershy talks about how she figured out who the Mystical Mask is; she says "All I had to do was cross-reference a book about masks with another book on ancient Equestrian healers, then use a third book to translate it all from Olde Ponish and there it was!". I have an inkling that translating perhaps centuries-old books might be a bit more complex than pulling out a handy dandy "Olde Ponish to Modern Ponish" book to translate.

Furthermore, later in the episode, Fluttershy and Twilight appear to be reading directly from journals that Mage Meadowbrook wrote herself. But if Mage Meadowbrook lived 1000+ years ago, then we would probably expect that she would have written in Olde Ponish or some other language that would need to be translated, but we don't see Fluttershy and Twilight doing that.

This line of thinking might also implicate, for example, Twilight's vision of the night Nightmare Moon was banished back in the episode "Princess Twilight Sparkle". Twilight was able to understand Celestia and Luna perfectly well, even as those events occurred more than 1000 years ago. (I also noted some other discrepancies I noticed in Twilight's vision in this topic at the time.) Did the written language evolve while the spoken language stayed largely the same? Did the potion Twilight drank to enter the vision also translate for her?

I'll mention, though, that these things didn't really detract from the episode or anything; it's just speculation for fun.

That little thing about the Olde Ponish actually had my wheels turning like mad when I read it. It does open up some inconsistencies while being a nice addition to the lore in that Ponies have had different languages and that Ponish is likely a name for a current language. 

But yes translation of old variants doesn't exactly work like the episode suggests, though perhaps Fluttershy has a latent linguistic ability -- or it's connected to her gift with speaking to animals. 

The other inconsistency with Twilight being able to easily read older books is curious, as well as any other instances of characters reading books from antiquity ... like Rarity and the book from Inspiration Manifestation. Though perhaps it wasn't as old, or was magically translating. 

This is a fun topic that came out of just a casual line in this episode, no doubt

[CypherHoof 26,482]

13 minutes ago, Music Chart Fan said:

This line of thinking might also implicate, for example, Twilight's vision of the night Nightmare Moon was banished back in the episode "Princess Twilight Sparkle". Twilight was able to understand Celestia and Luna perfectly well, even as those events occurred more than 1000 years ago. (I also noted some other discrepancies I noticed in Twilight's vision in this topic at the time.) Did the written language evolve while the spoken language stayed largely the same? Did the potion Twilight drank to enter the vision also translate for her?

Perhaps if you think of "old Ponish" as "latin" things might become clearer?

[Jeric 46,850]

1 hour ago, Ryanmahaffe said:

Doesn't really change anything...Meadowbrook had 8 magical items, doesn't say anything about them not calling her a sorceress and calling her a Unicorn. Very possible when Twilight read abour Meadowbrook she though "Mage" and "Sorceress" meant unicorn, I would, I think most people would.

I don't think most people would read it that way. For instance .. 

"I don't study US Presidents much, but I always thought Santa Clause had 8 Magical Reindeer"

You see how that is a bit unusual. 

The word unicorn does not fit. The inconsistency can also easily be fixed. They have until the finale to address it or it becomes an artifact of really lazy writing. It doesn't impact how great this episode was for me, or the coolness of the legends in general, but I can't not look at that and point and go, "Yo. You guys done goofed up there." Everyone does it in every franchise, Pony is not special -- and it's fair to say it's a dumb mistake when you see it. 

1 hour ago, CypherHoof said:

Perhaps if you think of "old Ponish" as "latin" things might become clearer?

No. We call Latin Latin. We don't call dead languages 'Old' in the normal vernacular. We do modify current languages with era and usage modifiers such as Old, Middle, High ... 

[Drunkfrank 1,125]

4 minutes ago, Jeric said:

I don't think most people would read it that way. For instance .. 

"I don't study US Presidents much, but I'm I always thought Santa Clause had 8 Magical Reindeer"

The word unicorn does not fit. The inconsistency can also easily be fixed. They have until the finale to address it or it becomes an artifact of really lazy writing. It doesn't impact how great this episode was for me, or the coolness of the legends in general, but I can't not look at that and point and go, "Yo. You guys done goofed up there." Everyone does it in every franchise, Pony is not special -- and it's fair to say it's a dumb mistake when you see it. 

No. We call Latin Latin. We don't call dead languages 'Old' in the normal vernacular. We do modify current languages with era and usage modifiers such as Old, Middle, High ... 

Er, what you said is different, for most ponies, the only race that they know of that can efficiently practice magic and create magical items are unicorns, at least in an obvious way. No one would expect to read about somepony named Mage meadowbrook who was a Sorceress and go "wow, sounds like a a pegasi" the natural conclusion twilight would come to is that this "mage" is a unicorn, as going off our term to mage, fits Unicorn pretty much completely.

Yeah it is clearly a retcon and something they forgot, but it can be easily explained.

Edited September 23, 2017 by Ryanmahaffe

[Jeric 46,850]

Just now, Ryanmahaffe said:

Er, what you said is different, for most ponies, the only race that they know of that can efficiently practice magic and create magical items are unicorns, at least in an obvious way. No one would expect to read about somepony named Mage meadowbrook who was a Sorceress and go "wow, sounds like a a pegasi" the natural conclusion twilight would come to is that this "mage" is a unicorn, as going off our term to mage, fits Unicorn pretty much completely.

Magic Duel aired before Cutie Map, so I have to suggest that isn't how Twilight views magic anymore. 

[Drunkfrank 1,125]

Just now, Jeric said:

Magic Duel aired before Cutie Map, so I have to suggest that isn't how Twilight views magic anymore. 

Is that because Zecora taught magic to Twilight? Zecora seems like an outlier because as far as Twilight goes, Zecora is the only Zebra in Equestria, maybe the whole planet, I would think anything on Meadowbrook could at least mention shes a pony or have it be obvious

[CypherHoof 26,482]

3 minutes ago, Jeric said:

No. We call Latin Latin. We don't call dead languages 'Old' in the normal vernacular. We do modify current languages with era and usage modifiers such as Old, Middle, High ... 

Same principle applies though. Scholars might use a "high" or "classical" mode of the written language in serious works, either in a limited sense (names for things, short phrases) or write the entire work in that mode. The former would make more sense for Fluttershy to be able to translate in a single evening with a reference work (looking up the "old ponish" names for things and places for example) rather than having to locate and cross-reference two books both entirely written in a language she couldn't read.

[Dark Qiviut 22,379]

2 hours ago, Jeric said:

Yes but you are ignoring the quality that precedes it. His deliver up until that moment was characteristic of the situation and they did a good job from the music to the facial characterizations. Perhaps it is just me, but when I eat something that is delicious yet has an odd aftertaste, I still acknowledge its initial taste was fine for my pallet. It takes someone at a level of atrociousness to wipe away everything else, and the chipper exit by the doctor wasn't that bad. At least not enough to do that. I agree that it was a flubbed moment, but not to the degree of impacting the urgency and gravity of the scene overall. 

I have to disagree with you here. The aftertaste is a pretty big deal to me when I eat food. I can't eat Sabra hummus, even though it tastes good, because the aftertaste is horrible.

For the joke, it's the same. The rest of the scene is really good, but the way Dr. Horse delivered the "I'll leave you two to discuss" line was inappropriate and in poor taste that it soured it. Changing the tone of that moment would really make a difference.

Edited September 23, 2017 by Dark Qiviut

[Jeric 46,850]

Just now, CypherHoof said:

Same principle applies though. Scholars might use a "high" or "classical" mode of the written language in serious works, either in a limited sense (names for things, short phrases) or write the entire work in that mode. The former would make more sense for Fluttershy to be able to translate in a single evening with a reference work (looking up the "old ponish" names for things and places for example) rather than having to locate and cross-reference two books both entirely written in a language she couldn't read.

I agree, I was just suggesting that Latin was a bad example. Old English or Old French would be a better analog. 

[CypherHoof 26,482]

Just now, Jeric said:

I agree, I was just suggesting that Latin was a bad example. Old English or Old French would be a better analog. 

better for the "old" bit, but for the "language of scholars" thing, not so much (although German was the defacto language of science at one point, so maybe Old German?)

[Jeric 46,850]

1 minute ago, Dark Qiviut said:

I have to disagree with you here. The aftertaste is a pretty big deal to me when I eat food. I can't eat Sabra hummus, even though it tastes good, because the aftertaste is horrible.

For the joke, it's the same. The rest of the scene is really good, but that "I'll leave you two to discuss" delivery was poorly timed and in poor taste that it soured the scene. Changing the tone of that moment would really make a difference.

But you just acknowledged it does taste good

See the difference in presentation? One invokes the feeling in the reader that the author is cutting their nose off to spite their face, the other does not. 

I agree the scene would have been better if the delivery was somber, but it would be disingenuous for me to ignore and not comment on what preceded it. 

[Ganondorf8 11,287]

I feel as though Zecora was given the shaft in this episode seeing as she appeared at the beginning, at the end, and one or two scenes in the middle. I mean, it's nice getting to see her for the second episode in a row but I feel she needed to play more of a role rather than what the episode ended up doing. I was surprised that they brought in the story of Meadowbrook but then they had to at some point which made me think about it.

These stories of the six legends--excluding Starswirl as we've had plenty of that over the years--should have come much sooner in the season instead of the second half. It feels like they are being shoehorned in at the last minute just to give the finale that much more presence. I've nothing against the legends as their stories add so much lore in addition to characters, locations, artefacts, and more, but they should have been told over the course of the season and not so close to the end.

Swamp Fever... Such a terrifying disease especially that last part where you are turned into a tree. I wouldn't that to happen to anyone, even if they were the worst character in the show. On another note, Brenda Crinchlow got to voice Meadowbrook's mother. I bring it up as Crinchlow usually only gets to voice Zecora so its nice hearing her speaking without the rhymes--getting sick prevents Zecora from doing that. Also liked the character of Cattail and he definitely made his mark by scaring Twilight and Fluttershy. Speaking of which, Twilight still talks in her sleep and utters sheer nonsense which she gets woken up all of a sudden.

Did I enjoy this episode? I did though I wished Zecora had been given more of a presence. Finally, Fluttershy has truly come out of her shell but maybe she should make a mental note to get some sleep. Ignoring sleep has a tendency to make one do strange things.

[Dark Qiviut 22,379]

1 minute ago, Jeric said:

But you just acknowledged it does taste good

See the difference in presentation? One invokes the feeling in the reader that the author is cutting their nose off to spite their face, the other does not. 

I agree the scene would have been better if the delivery was somber, but it would be disingenuous for me to ignore and not comment on what preceded it. 

Yeah, you do have a point here. I should've worded my complaint better.

[Jeric 46,850]

4 minutes ago, CypherHoof said:

better for the "old" bit, but for the "language of scholars" thing, not so much (although German was the defacto language of science at one point, so maybe Old German?)

Aye, or perhaps Old Greek or Old Aramaic?

I also have to say that this episode is certainly generating some of the most interesting branches of conversation. 

[Music Chart Fan 819]

28 minutes ago, CypherHoof said:

Scholars might use a "high" or "classical" mode of the written language in serious works, either in a limited sense (names for things, short phrases) or write the entire work in that mode. The former would make more sense for Fluttershy to be able to translate in a single evening with a reference work (looking up the "old ponish" names for things and places for example) rather than having to locate and cross-reference two books both entirely written in a language she couldn't read.

Fluttershy says that she used a third book to "translate it all from Olde Ponish", which would imply that more than sporadic names or phrases needed to be translated.

Your posts do make me think, though, that Twilight could have learned Olde Ponish in the course of her studies, perhaps in order to read the writings of ancient magicians or such. In that case, though, your point about modes of language makes me wonder whether there would be significant differences in the dialect of old scholarly books or writings, which Twilight might have learned to read, and the dialect (or even the language itself) that Mage Meadowbrook would have used to write her journals.

[Dark Qiviut 22,379]

Enough complete negativity from me! Although I complained a bit here, I like this episode, and it's a lot better than the original script laid it out.

The subtitles for the Russian dub actually come from a leaked script released on Pastebin. It's more rough compared to the released product, and the polish makes a really big difference in its quality.

The biggest difference comes from the difference between Fluttershy and Mage Meadowbrook. Meadowbrook understood how to help take care of not only others around her until she vanished *wink-wink*, but also herself. Fluttershy was so focused on finding a cure for Zecora that she sacrificed her own health and put her life in the danger. From the beginning of Act 2, she didn't look so good. The sleepy eyes, clumsiness, and being completely unaware of the door handle all foreshadowed the swamp fever she got from Zecora. Twilight never got sick at any point, even when FS was out, because she's well-rested. Fluttershy's symptoms got more and more dangerous to the point of passing out. When she was well enough to wake up, she was able to understand the clues that put everything together and was able to retrieve the cure.

Additionally, the moral is much more clearly expressed, too. Twilight warned her that going for the flash bee honey was extremely dangerous, because the swamp fever progressively worsened. When she was rested, she realized her mistake and stated this in the ending.

[Thrond 3,263]

I had a really good time with this. The moral is really sympathetic and relatable, the plot moves at a high speed, and the episode is super funny from start to finish. I even kinda liked the "legends" stuff! There's some expository dialogue, and the characters all act like they had too much caffeine, but there's also a lot of intelligent character details which give this some surprising depth, some of which I only stumbled upon by writing my review.

Full review at my blog. 

Additional thoughts:

This is also the most fun I've had live-tweeting this show in a long time. Copying one of my favourite jokes:

FLUTTERSHY: "I cross-referenced books and discovered that ancient thing is real."

TWILIGHT: "Suddenly I am very attracted to you."

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,330]

Very interesting episode. The beginning of it was actually kinda scary. o_o Zecora essentially was given news that she was going to die, not exactly something I expected. The Swamp Fever thing, while being very unoriginal in name, sounds terrifying. I wasn't expecting it to be a duo episode between Flutters and Twilight but they had good chemistry. It is strange that Fluttershy was so determined that she was able to do all of that research though, all while Twilight wasn't exactly motivated herself. It ties into the moral, a good one in fact, but damn, Zecora was on her way to death. :| This also makes me wonder just how smart Fluttershy is. She could potentially be the 2nd smartest of the mane 6. Zecora's heartbeat was apparently drums as well. That made me laugh.

Regardless, I liked it. Introduced a disease of all things which is different, Zecora had some good lines, decent chemistry between the two main stars, and had some backstory stuff that I guess might tie into the finale? Others have said so, but I don't know all of the details.