Whether it be for the use of comedic effect or to
increase the stakes at hand, in
animation we push physics well beyond what is considered scientifically
accurate in order to drive the story forward through a means that provides
entertainment for the animation's audiences. The Hub's My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, is no stranger to bending the
rules of physics in order to achieve this. Time and time again the ponies break
rules of motion, defy gravity, and of course perform feats of magic.
My Little Pony:
Friendship is Magic, is the Hub's widely successful newest reimagining of
their franchise, My Little Pony, and was developed for television by Lauren
Faust. Now right from the start of the show we are given some ground rules on
how this world of Equestria works. For starters the ponies (and other hoofed
creatures) that inhabit the world are sentient and can also produce magic.
Unfortunately what is not explained are the physics that work in this world,
however we are shown hints at physics equations every now and then like this
example which (after some digging around) would appear to be formula describing
time dilation at constant acceleration.
So for all intents and purposes, we shall assume that the
physics that exist in this world is to similar to that of our own world. Now
enough with back stories, let's get on with identifying physic anomalies!
For starters, let's look
at how our ponies move in this world. And what better way to examine this first
than taking a look at one of the most iconic ideas in the world of Equestria,
the Sonic Rainboom.
The sonic rainboom both as it is sounds and described in
the show is occurs when a pegasus (a flying pony) is flying fast enough that
they break both the sound and color spectrum barriers, thereby producing an
explosion of color and sound. The properties of a sonic rainboom are relatively
similar to that of a sonic boom in our world. Though one notable misrepresentations
is that a mach cone appears prior to the sonic rainboom rather than after.
This demonstration of super speed isn't just demonstrated
through the sonic rainboom, several other incidents occur where characters will
exit from screen right and enter from screen left only a mere several frames
later. Here are a couple images describing this kind of motion including a shot
of the ponies path of action described in the snow.
Though these kinds of bursts of speed should at least
include some kind of stretching that should appear right? At the very least the
animators would put in some stretch to help create a feel a realism of speed.
Well, thanks to one gravity defying character name known as Pinkie Pie, we tend
to see her bend out of shape a little more than what is physically possible. Not only does she bend out of shape noticeably, but in a very cartoon-y manner she keeps this stretchy pose for far longer than only a couple of frames. Ever wanted to see what a pony would look like if they were a giraffe?
It should be noted that this character proceeds to
walking off in mid-air, completely defying the rules of gravity.
Speaking of defying the
rules of gravity, let's take a look at some incidences where these ponies seem
to be made of dark matter but more importantly pay little to no heed to the
rules of gravity. A case that is commonly seen throughout the show is the pony
characters falling, and they fall quite often. There was an incident where one
of the characters, Fluttershy, is falling from the cloud layer all the way down
to the ground, only to be saved by a swarm of butterflies.
Now, at this point Fluttershy has been in free fall for
about 13 seconds meaning that (with a bit of calculations) assuming she was in
a vacuum and discounting air resistance, she fell from a height of about 828.1
meters, and by some miracle this kaleidoscope of butterflies were able to
produce an equal and opposite force and slow her down gradually enough so as
not to exert too much force on her all in a span of about a second. These
butterflies aren't exactly very high off the ground mind you, height wise, the
highest butterfly in the swarm is probably about the height of a female pony in
the show, let's assume the height is 5 feet based off of the average height of
a pony in our world.
The most common "mistake" that is commonly used
(I believe this is true with many animations as well) is the rules of conservation
of mass, where one character launches another to extraordinary distance and/or
height with little to know effort. Take these next shots for example.
Off Rainbow Dash goes...
In these images, Applejack launches her friend (Rainbow Dash) off into
the distance after only jumping off a ledge that would not be able to provide
the amount of energy to launch a pony in equal weight to such a great distance.
If anything, Rainbow Dash should have a relatively equal
transfer of energy from Applejack and should have at the very least gone up to
about Applejack's initial starting point. That is unless we speculate that
pegasi weigh significantly less than regular ponies. Though since this is never
explicitly stated, we'll have to conclude that this is indeed a gravity defying
moment in the show and say that the two ponies weigh roughly the same.
The last point that I would like to make about
gravitational discrepancies in the realm of My
Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, is that the Sun and Moon are raised and
lowered everyday by pony deities (not to mention that one of these deities was
imprisoned in the Moon for a thousand years). This only raises questions about
how this world functions outside of the planet's surface. For instance, it
would appear that no other none deity takes control of the Sun or Moon once
they fall under the horizon, so does this mean that this world exists on a flat
surface? What does this mean for their tides? What does this mean about other
gravitational forces? What if the deities decided to screw with the citizens
and not raise or lower the celestial bodies in an orderly fashion? It has been
shown that unless one of the deities moves the Moon or Sun it will stay there
until a greater force acts on it.
However, while manipulation
of large celestial bodies is reserved for these deities, there is still magic
all around this world and flows from the ponies that inhabit it. Magic is the
last anomaly that exists in this world that vastly differs from our world. I'm
not talking about magic where you pull rabbits out of hats or other illusions,
I'm talking about things like unicorns using levitation, blowing up mountains
and tree houses, walking on clouds, and pegasi having the power to manipulate
the weather.
That kind of magic.
Not only that but there are even several magical
abilities that can completely change a character's body structure (such as
turning flesh to stone and vice versa), to things like changing a character's
personality. You can thank the quick "get out of jail free card"
magic known as the Elements of Harmony. However, while these elements do not
change the physics of the world to outrageous nonsense, their opposite, Chaos,
certainly can. What's more is that this chaos is embodied in a creature known
as Discord who can change the rules of physics with a snap of his fingers. He
can change clouds into great clouds of pink cotton candy that rain chocolate
milk, or have buildings float on their own, make characters float off in
mid-air, switch day to night, cups fill up from the top down, any kind of
chaotic thing that comes to his mind, he could certainly do it. Can you imagine
the implications of this? Like the deities previously mentioned, what if
Discord suddenly didn't like the Sun being up and made it so that it was
immediately night?
Though while these are all powerful and physic breaking,
there is one power that only appears every once in a while. The power to
realize the fourth wall. One character in particular, Pinkie Pie, seems to
knowingly break this barrier more often than not, interacting with transitions
and such to get the audience's attention.
In the end, what we gain from all these pieces
of discrepancies in physics, is a performance that keeps the audience engaged
with the story, taking us deeper by wowing and challenging us. Logic would
suggest that we should be disturbed by all these issues, questioning how any of
these feats could even be possible. How in the world could a pony break the
sound and spectrum barrier without any protection or bodily harm to boot? How
can a swarm of butterflies catch a pony that was falling from such a great
height? How in the world could a creature change the laws of physics with a
snap of his fingers? But we don't ask these questions, because all of these
amazing displays push the story forward and entertain us with satisfying visual
displays. Perhaps we allow leniency towards animation because we know it isn't
real, and all these amazing displays only let the audience fall further into
the magical animated worlds before us, because in the end the audience wants to
be entertained. The pay off of something drastic is the reward of something
completely fantastic and out of this world. In conclusion, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic pushes and breaks the
boundaries that are set by our natural laws of physics engage the audience in
order to tell the story in an entertaining way, whether it be for the use of
comedic effect or to increase the stakes at hand.
