Discontinuities, etc. in the Apple Family Reunion Timeline

[Music Chart Fan 818]

After this most recent episode about the Apple family reunion, I thought of a few discontinuities and other points of interest regarding the timeline of Apple family reunions and the ponies that attended them.

 

First, here's what we know:

 

(1): "We've been hosting these things at Sweet Apple Acres every hundred moons since we first planted roots here in Ponyville." This ambiguous statement leaves open the possibility that reunions have been hosted elsewhere prior to any of the family moving to Ponyville. We also don't know how long "100 moons" is.

 

(2): First family reunion photo at Sweet Apple Acres: 3 ponies, looks like child Granny Smith and her parents. This is presumably the first one at Sweet Apple Acres, since Granny Smith has said previously that she moved to Ponyville when she was little. I'm not sure how much of a "reunion" this is with only Granny Smith's immediate family there.

 

(3): Next family reunion photo at Sweet Apple Acres: 6 ponies, including teenage (?) Granny Smith.

 

(4): Next family reunion photo at Sweet Apple Acres: 13 ponies, including Granny Smith, Big Mac, Applejack, and Apple Bloom. These four look pretty close to their current age, so this picture MAY be the most recent reunion prior to the current one.

 

(5): Current family reunion photo: 39 ponies. Granny Smith states that the whole family is coming to the reunion, and just before everyone raises the barn, she says that everyone is still there. Therefore, I think we can presume that the current photo is of the entire family.

 

Given these points that we know, how can we reconcile the following things?

 

Granny Smith says near the beginning of the episode "Looks like the family has grown tenfold since the last reunion!" This means that the current family has ten times as many members as the family at the last reunion. Per point (5) above, the current family photo (which presumably is the whole family) has 39 ponies, which would mean that the previous family reunion had 4 ponies! Something doesn't add up here. If the family photo of point (4) is the most recent previous reunion, then there should be 130 ponies in the family.

 

Auntie Applesauce also references Granny Smith and Apple Roll using her parasol six reunions ago, yet only 3 previous reunion photos are shown, the earliest of which shows Granny Smith as a small child. There is also no family photo with Applejack as a baby, yet there is an anecdote of her as a baby eating a large number of apple fritters at a reunion. Therefore, there must have been reunions other than the 3 whose family photos are shown.

 

That raises some other questions. When were these reunions for which a family photo wasn't shown? Was a family photo taken at all the reunions? If so, is there a copy of all of the family photos in the scrapbook? If so, why skip certain reunion photos when showing the progression of photos? It wouldn't have taken more than an additional few seconds at best, and would have shown a greater sense of regularity to the family reunions. As they are now, the three photos shown seem to skip around in time quite a bit.

 

Finally, did any of the three photos shown have Applejack's parents in them? That seems unlikely, given that the photo of point (3) shows a teenage (?) Granny Smith and no small children, and the next photo of point (4) shows old, looks-near-current-age Granny Smith. Did the show's creators deliberately avoid showing any photos which would have had Applejack's parents in them? If so, for what reason? The show's creators would not have had to mention anything about Applejack's parents or their presumed death, and it could have been a nice subtle addition for the bronies, who could try to find Applejack's parents in the family photo progression.

 

Thanks for reading!

[Tall_But_Short_37 233]

Granny Smith hid or destroyed any photos with Applejack and Applebloom's parents in them after they both died in order to prevent either of them from relapsing into the shock and trauma they went through in those times.

[Silverwisp the Bard 2,353]

-100 moons would be one hundred months ~8 years

-Granny Smith's statement shouldn't be taken literal, such statements are rarely meant to be.

-There most likely were reunions which (for some reason or another) didn't make it into the scrapbook

[Dusty Soul 2,611]

Tenfold is just not meant to be taken literally, my guess is that she means it grew ALOT since the last one.  She probably lost the other pictures.  

[Psych Ward 377]

-100 moons would be one hundred months ~8 years

-Granny Smith's statement shouldn't be taken literal, such statements are rarely meant to be.

-There most likely were reunions which (for some reason or another) didn't make it into the scrapbook

 

 

I always thought of 13 moons equals a year because there are 13 full moons a year.  That's the way it was explained to me in a book series.  That would make it a little over 7 1/2 years.

[Music Chart Fan 818]

-100 moons would be one hundred months ~8 years

 

I always thought of 13 moons equals a year because there are 13 full moons a year.  That's the way it was explained to me in a book series.  That would make it a little over 7 1/2 years.

 

The thing with these explanations is that those are based on the lunar cycle of our Earth's moon, and we don't know whether Equestria's moon follows the same lunar cycle.

 

Granny Smith hid or destroyed any photos with Applejack and Applebloom's parents in them after they both died in order to prevent either of them from relapsing into the shock and trauma they went through in those times.

 

-There most likely were reunions which (for some reason or another) didn't make it into the scrapbook

 

If this is what happened, I wonder how Granny Smith explained it to the others. "We always take a family photo at every reunion, BUT I just happened to lose/not have every family photo in a 50-year (or however old Applejack's parents were) time period which coincidentally coincides with the time that your parents were alive." Nothing fishy about that!

[Silverwisp the Bard 2,353]

The thing with these explanations is that those are based on the lunar cycle of our Earth's moon, and we don't know whether Equestria's moon follows the same lunar cycle.

Considering, that Equestria uses the seven day week (Lesson Zero) and the Equestrian year has 365 days (Friend in Deed), I'd say its a pretty good bet that their month's match ours.

 

Also, this is a cartoon show. The purpose of the scrapbook scene was supposed to show that the family had grown over the years. That's all there is to it.