S02:E20 - It's About Time.

[JudoXeno 1]

i really enjoyed this episode it was funny to see twilight freak out again, but i do want to see pinkie pie lose it again XD

[hawkflame 3,308]

Just saw the episode, I liked it.

 

 

But I can't shake a certain paradox... if other Twilight didn't say where the time travel spells are located, how would she know where to look for them? She would have had to get the location from somewhere, she learned it from herself. Other Twilight said where the spells are...

 

Such is the nature of a time loop. The information doesn't have to come from anywhere.

[Eenohay 318]

Just saw the episode, I liked it.

 

 

But I can't shake a certain paradox... if other Twilight didn't say where the time travel spells are located, how would she know where to look for them? She would have had to get the location from somewhere, she learned it from herself. Other Twilight said where the spells are...

 

I've been thinking the same. But it's even more than that, if future twilight only did go to the past because future future twilight had done it before. The reason for the loop is the loop itself. Wich simply doesn't make sense

[Yellow Diamond 7,561]

Just saw the episode, I liked it.

 

 

But I can't shake a certain paradox... if other Twilight didn't say where the time travel spells are located, how would she know where to look for them? She would have had to get the location from somewhere, she learned it from herself. Other Twilight said where the spells are...

 

Predestination paradox. Finding the point of origin is an almost entirely fruitless endeavor.

[hwrogers 168]

so i gotta ask because it hasn't been answered, anyone found derpy in this episode?

[DrOphthalmos 497]

so i gotta ask because it hasn't been answered, anyone found derpy in this episode?

 

I asked this awhile ago too. I guess the answer is "nope."

[hwrogers 168]

I asked this awhile ago too. I guess the answer is "nope."

 

[83awsm 234]

Yet another great episode xD DHX definitely threw in a twist with the time travel and the plot deviations like Cerberus. Who doesn’t love a Twi episode Also, was I the only one that thought it was weird when Celestia just went happy Tuesday and walked away? The meme I made explains...

 

Edited March 14, 2012 by 83awsm

[hwrogers 168]

but what about derpy?

[Ra1nbowCrasH 271]

Future Twilight looks a bit like Snake from Metal Gear Solid.

 

Predestination paradox. Finding the point of origin is an almost entirely fruitless endeavor.

 

Actually, later on somepony tells her where they are. I think it was Spike...

[Ert 0]

Future Twilight looks a bit like Snake from Metal Gear Solid.

 

 

 

Actually, later on somepony tells her where they are. I think it was Spike...

 

He got the information from Twilight, and she got it from... herself?

She wouldn't have met anybody who knew without being told from herself, so it really is a paradox.

[Ra1nbowCrasH 271]

He got the information from Twilight, and she got it from... herself?

She wouldn't have met anybody who knew without being told from herself, so it really is a paradox.

 

About halfway through the episode somepony tells her about the spells, and it wasn't future twilight. I'll have to watch the episode again just to double check.

[tejntanga 42]

Pretty sure the Flowerpot incident was Derpy at work again.

 

But no, no airtime for everyone's favorite walleyed pony this week.

[Queen Cassie 3,057]

So, I know I said I would come up with more in-depth analysis after watching it a second time, but honestly there wasn't much more that can be pointed out that hasn't already been pointed out by others. Still, I may be able to provide at least some elaboration on a few choice bits.

 

For instance, not only do we have a stable timeloop created, but we also have a fairly bog-standard bootstrap paradox. Specifically, the information about where to find the time travel spells comes out of nowhere. Twilight found out about it because her future self told her, but her future self only knew about it as a result of the visitation. Twilight clearly declares that she's never heard of time travel spells before, so how did she originally find out?

 

Princess Celestia's appearance in the library strikes me as odder and odder each time I think about it or see it. It's not just the fact that she was in the library for no apparent reason early in the morning--that in and of itself isn't much of an issue. Her failure to react to what may have been a serious injury on Twilight's part--the eye-patch--is an issue. Why didn't she react? Well, probably from a writing perspective her noticing would cut into the last few moments of the episode and would interrupt the intended delivery of the moral of the episode. From an in-universe perspective, however, it could simply be that she could tell just at a glance that Twilight wasn't badly hurt, despite her overall lackluster appearance.

 

The armor of the guards strikes me as rather peculiar...clearly Luna's armor is in use, which may be why they all look alike, if the armor is enchanted, but why are Luna's guards guarding the archives? Or rather, why isn't it a mixture of Luna and Celestia's guards? I don't think this is a real issue or anything, just food for thought and possible insight.

 

Incidentally those guards were carrying spears:

 

 

Apart from that, I note that the scroll Pinkie found specifically works only once, based upon what she said. This isn't surprising, but it does have me wondering if perhaps this isn't the only copy of the time travel spell. That is, this was just one of possibly many copies of one-time-use scrolls. Given how much else FIM tends to borrow from D&D, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this turned out to be the case.

 

Tartaros continues to bother me...a subject that needs significant elaboration. Is it just a prison, or is it truly Pony Hell? And if there's a Pony Hell, then is there a Pony Heaven? The Elysium Fields, perhaps? Or might it take some other form?

 

On the whole, after a second viewing several days later, my positive impressions of the episode remain. It has plenty of laughs, carries itself well with only a modicum of strange or seemingly out of place ideas--I'm still not sure where Madame Pinkie Pie came from, exactly--and everypony acting perfectly in character. The entire cast showed up, even if in an odd way--Applejack and Rarity literally appear out of nowhere because they were nowhere to be seen until Applejack spoke--or only to say one or two lines. While we didn't get the song I might have wanted to hear, we did receive plenty of world-building, including a city that I maintain is a pun on Los Angeles and not Las Vegas. It's not one of the best episodes, but it's also definitely not one of the worst. Fairly average all around, but considering that an average episode of FIM is miles ahead of the best of a lot of other shows, that's still a compliment.

[tejntanga 42]

Good points there Kyronea! You brought up something that reminds me of a thought I had watching the episode, yet escaped me up until now.

 

Guards in Luna-themed armor... Makes perfect thematic sense that the Night Watch armor be themed after the Princess of the night while the Day Watch armor is themed after Celestia!

 

Even if this has not been the case before, it could be just a case of Luna re-integrating herself into the role as ruling royalty alongside her big sis. Honestly, Luna needs more love, so even if you consider this a bit of a stretch, I'm taking my wins where I can get them

 

Why am I posting about ponies at 5 in the morning...? I need to go to sleep!

Edited March 16, 2012 by tejntanga

[Ra1nbowCrasH 271]

My bad, I watched the episode again and nopony told Twilight where the time spells were except for her future self. She simply created a loop; kinda like if you built a time machine and gave it to yourself in the past: you would end up never building the time machine in the first place because you already had it. I'm going to lie down, time travel gives me a headache.

[hwrogers 168]

....

The armor of the guards strikes me as rather peculiar...clearly Luna's armor is in use, which may be why they all look alike, if the armor is enchanted, but why are Luna's guards guarding the archives? Or rather, why isn't it a mixture of Luna and Celestia's guards? I don't think this is a real issue or anything, just food for thought and possible insight.

....

 

shift change, night/day lol. for once you have a point which requires little explanation, at least in my thinking.

[Eenohay 318]

 

Princess Celestia's appearance in the library strikes me as odder and odder each time I think about it or see it. It's not just the fact that she was in the library for no apparent reason early in the morning--that in and of itself isn't much of an issue. Her failure to react to what may have been a serious injury on Twilight's part--the eye-patch--is an issue. Why didn't she react? Well, probably from a writing perspective her noticing would cut into the last few moments of the episode and would interrupt the intended delivery of the moral of the episode. From an in-universe perspective, however, it could simply be that she could tell just at a glance that Twilight wasn't badly hurt, despite her overall lackluster appearance.

 

About this point I like to think that Celestia just knew what had happened. She knew somepony was messing around with the archives/timeline. Maybe she was just told by the guard, but given that little time happens between those events that pretty unlikely.

 

Still, I believe she could somehow sense not only Twilight's prescense, but also her motives to be there. We are talking about an inmortal superpowerful alicorn that has led a country succesfully for over a thousand years. She certanly knows a thing or two about Ponies and magic. And she also likes messing around a little with her subjects. I believe it's quite possible that she concluded that Twilight was freaking out once again, and that she was probably going to cause a huge mess using the scrolls, so she just dropped by to check on her. She saw her, realized she was acting freaky and looked quite terrible, but wasn't actually hurt, made fun of it, and then left to observe quietly. She then noticed the spell she was gonna use, and knew that it infact cannot affect the timeline at all, and lets say she stayed there watching quietly while Twilight learned the episode's lesson.

[Queen Cassie 3,057]

Good points there Kyronea! You brought up something that reminds me of a thought I had watching the episode, yet escaped me up until now.

 

Guards in Luna-themed armor... Makes perfect thematic sense that the Night Watch armor be themed after the Princess of the night while the Day Watch armor is themed after Celestia!

 

Even if this has not been the case before, it could be just a case of Luna re-integrating herself into the role as ruling royalty alongside her big sis. Honestly, Luna needs more love, so even if you consider this a bit of a stretch, I'm taking my wins where I can get them

 

Why am I posting about ponies at 5 in the morning...? I need to go to sleep!

 

Actually, that makes perfect sense to me. It's a simple, sensible answer that makes sense given the setting. Luna needs to be involved in government, after all.

 

shift change, night/day lol. for once you have a point which requires little explanation, at least in my thinking.

 

Well they can't all be winners.

 

About this point I like to think that Celestia just knew what had happened. She knew somepony was messing around with the archives/timeline. Maybe she was just told by the guard, but given that little time happens between those events that pretty unlikely.

 

Still, I believe she could somehow sense not only Twilight's prescense, but also her motives to be there. We are talking about an inmortal superpowerful alicorn that has led a country succesfully for over a thousand years. She certanly knows a thing or two about Ponies and magic. And she also likes messing around a little with her subjects. I believe it's quite possible that she concluded that Twilight was freaking out once again, and that she was probably going to cause a huge mess using the scrolls, so she just dropped by to check on her. She saw her, realized she was acting freaky and looked quite terrible, but wasn't actually hurt, made fun of it, and then left to observe quietly. She then noticed the spell she was gonna use, and knew that it infact cannot affect the timeline at all, and lets say she stayed there watching quietly while Twilight learned the episode's lesson.

 

Although I am not one of those who believes Celestia is actually an immortal goddess, addressing that would be missing the point of your post and I shall therefore not go into it at this time.

 

The truth is, though, I wouldn't be surprised if you were correct that Celestia would have found out about what was going on...odds are that Twilight had reported directly to her about the supposed upcoming disaster, so Celestia was probably monitoring Twilight anyway, and was fully aware she'd come to Canterlot Monday night. In addition, I refuse to believe time travel spells wouldn't be under heavy watch by Celestia herself through some kind of monitoring enchantment, so Celestia likely knew that Twilight was there as soon as Twilight gained access to the archives.

 

Or, in other words, I agree with you, but for different reasons.

[Lupus 127]

This episode was epic. Twilight was fantastic apart from her anal behaviour at the beginning bit once her future self appeared she had a quest and nopony was going to stop her.

[Dreadmallon 353]

Remember when I said we needed an "Escape from Ponyville" movie poster? Well, I was close:

 

 

[Breakfast 21]

Probably my pic for the funniest episode of the series thus far thanks in large part to the TwiSpiPi comedy trio.

 

I also liked that Spike returned to his season 1 cynical, semi-bratty, butt monkey self. M.A. Larson seems to get Spike better than the other writers. His personality hs been changing throughout the current season, from an ego-driven goody two shoes to a very sensitive stereotypical little boy. It was nice to see the Spike back as I remembered him.

[thesilence23 46]

this is one of my favorite episodes it combines 2 of my favorite things time travel and ponys

[CaptainAron 4]

future twilight looks like old snake lol

[Crystal Sparkle 344]

This one is probably my third or fourth favorite episode, Twi was just so adorbs when she's freaking out, and I actually find Solid Sparkle rather...hot!