Free and Open Debates on the Nature of Ponykind

Pinkie Pie, suicide is unrealistic. She tends to be the most positive, unless she starts getting huge doubts about the others of the mane 6, her best friends. Even then, she can easily be distracted.

Twilight, yea... stress induced heartattack or something. I agree with Slag, she is more likely to cause death by magical/scientific experiment rather then killing in a fit of madness. Though, if she does go crazy, it is probably going to be more along the lines of creepy/war crime-like experiments then murder.

Applejack, she has family and clan to look out for her. Plus friends. They'll give her a good smacking when she actually does need the help. Work related death is highest on the list, but old age ain't too far stretched either. Though, it seems that the finances of Sweet Apple Acres can be precarious at times. If her home were to be shut down and confiscated, she is more then likely to pick herself back up by working on odd-jobs and trying to support Applebloom/family, while saving up to try to buy back Sweet Apple Acres.

Rarity, I believe Slag is spot-on.

Fluttershy, I don't think she will go hermit as soon as one of em dies. She'll stay with the others... Death by animal most likely, be it rabies or accident.
I would think that she is skilled at scavenging and ain't too bad with a garden. Plus, she can fish. The forest or some other wilderness place teaming with life, I think she would make do. Its not like the fully recovered animals she has helped in the past would totally abandon her in times of need.

Rainbow Dash, permanent flying accident injury/paralysis. She'll hold on, since Twilight and the others won't stay idle and let RD go off and commit suicide. Twilight is the most likely to find a way to fix the permanent injury...


Perhaps my analysis would be different, given time in the universe where the mane 6 would have to go their separate ways for various reasons. Twilight, Rarity and Rainbow are the most likely to have business outside of Ponyville to advance their dreams/ambitions. (Well, it is already kinda is for RD now.)

Zangi wrote:Though, if she does go crazy, it is probably going to be more along the lines of creepy/war crime-like experiments then murder.

I wasn't picturing Columbine or axemurdering, I was picturing her capturing someone then doing Mendele-esque stuff. Kinda wanna write a fanfiction, but I'll never get around to it.

Zangi wrote:Pinkie Pie, suicide is unrealistic. She tends to be the most positive, unless she starts getting huge doubts about the others of the mane 6, her best friends. Even then, she can easily be distracted.

Pinkie shut out the world and started talking to rocks and flour after she thought her friends simply didn't like her parties. She's really dependent on others for her own happiness. In the "Smile Smile Smile" song she says that smiles make her whole life worth-while. I wouldn't find it too far off for her to kick the chair.
Also, drugs if there's such thing in Equestria. Pinkie Sheen

Zangi wrote:Rainbow Dash, permanent flying accident injury/paralysis. She'll hold on, since Twilight and the others won't stay idle and let RD go off and commit suicide. Twilight is the most likely to find a way to fix the permanent injury...

>implying she's on 24/7 guard
Twilight might have to do something risky to even try to fix a severe spinal injury, like spine/brain surgery. That might be what does RD in.

Necro910 wrote:

Spoiler:

So.... ummm... when did Applejack get feathers? Or is that her fur/hide fashioned to look like wings?

Unsure of where the black parts and not-RD blue feathers/wings come from. The middle horn could signify Celestia, but its way too small.

Zangi wrote:So.... ummm... when did Applejack get feathers? Or is that her fur/hide fashioned to look like wings?

Scootaloo.

Zangi wrote:Unsure of where the black parts and not-RD blue feathers/wings come from. The middle horn could signify Celestia, but its way too small.

There's more ponies around than the mane six.

The CMC then... I still don't recall any black ponies.

Zangi wrote:The CMC then... I still don't recall any black ponies.

Thunderlane.

Only named one I can think of off the top of my head at the moment.

My apologies if you folks have already hashed this out until it's tired, but...

Do cutie marks imply some kind of predestination? What happens to the little foal who wants to be a star magician, and then ends up with a cutie mark for rock farming?

I think the show just uses them to represent when ponies are the best at what they're doing. Generally, that pony wouldn't get a rock farming cutie mark unless she perhaps becomes a star magician that researches the best way to rock farm.

Semi-related:
I viewed the cutie-mark switching in the finale to be simply a side effect of the destiny switching that happened; and the ponies simply believed completely that what they were doing was what they had always done; and were simply confuzzled as to why they were all of a sudden failing at their special talents.

Considering it, pony population in the world should be relatively small, if ponies are to have unique-ish cutie marks... even then, there is now quite a number of overlapping cutie marks. It could be the ponies in other towns/cities/villages further away have basically the same cutie marks and/or do the same sort of things.

Though, the need for low skill workforce is a constant in any society. Many ponies cutie marks do not amount to much in job skills. For example, Derpy Hooves, mailmare and doer of odd jobs.
Also, the oversaturation of some job markets, probably having to do with flowers/gardens... among others, so they are regulated to hobbies while they take part in the low skill job market. There is also the fact that some jobs require more then 1 pony, even if it is that 1 pony's special talent/cutie mark. For example, Apple Clan and the Stuff Moving Guy(Moving Company) that Derpy Hooves worked with for a bit. (Come to think of it, where is Big Mac working when Applejack is apple bucking? I can get that it could be explained by Big Mac breaking those trees or something...)

Anyways, even if ponies don't have any job related cutie mark skills... there are supplementary skills that could be useful on the job, sometimes. I can't think of any good examples right now. Maybe something to do with morale.

Oh, telemarketing and customer support, once they develop that stuff... lotta ponies would be working there. Technically, many of them would have the skill for it.


'Destiny' could be downright awful... Ponies are hard-coded to like the lot given to them, therefore it is ok that it is all preordained...
Take for example, Screwball... crazy, but happy with it... can you be satisfied with that? The universe would hand such a card to somepony that you knew as a filly? Destined to be a loony that does not contribute to society?
But... pony society right now, it just shrugs it off? Screwball is 'happy' about it, at the expense of the ponies around her,he ones who have to clean up after her.

Is there no cure to this madness? What card will fate pass on to the next pony?
Will it be a good one that allows them to advance in status? Destined for great things right?
Will it be a mediocre one, where you are destined to be nothing more in life then what your cutie mark tells you that you are? Are you satisfied... can you be satisfied with this?
Or will it just shaft you as it did Screwball? Doomed to the cruel joke that destiny has given you for the rest of your days.


I totally need to get back to building my dystopian pony world... because I must.

Cutie marks arise from what a pony is good at, and ponies are probably generally molded by their genetics, behavior, and environment to be geared toward one or several particular tasks they're best at (most humans are the same way, honestly, though we're a bit less restricted in our capabilities). Naturally, most ponies are going to be 'best' at things that aren't always going to be the highest-paying jobs. You can't deny that there are some people in real life who have amazing talents but can't use them to make much money because society has no need of them.

What we can't ascertain about the ponies is how effective their education system is at taking these ponies, who have more specific and less broad personal ability than humans, and making them effective producers.

You mean contributing to society and/or being able to hold down a low skill job? SomeMany ponies will end up in jobs they don't even like. Stuff like being seasonal farmhands, office jobs, shipping & delivery, post office, gem mining and tons of others.
Defining low skill jobs as jobs that do not require talent in it to do it. Though, some of em, you probably would want a pony with talent for the job or something in managing to oversee the unskilled labor. On a technicality, they are still 'producers'. Effective? *shrug* I don't believe that can be achieved with so large a population. Unless pony population is insulated and separated... even then, there is a population limit before you get ponies with no jobs what-so-ever.

And the edumacation system, it is probably uneven across Equestria.
City/Canterlot is closer to what it is today in America, without the massive cost cutting.
Villages/Ponyville seems more like it only edumacates the young, due to limited teachers and probably funding. Teaches reading and writing, the very basics of math, history and science. Enough to land you jobs in unskilled labor. (Not enough ponies that can deal with the shite of annoying young children who don't want to be there. Nearly everyday and for +6 hours?)
The Flight Academy is probably big. Servicing/teaching flying sapients of all kinds. Perhaps its the Cloudsdale/Pegasi-Griffin flagship public edumacation system.

For further edumacation, ponies probably have to go to Universities or the city. Actually, for most pony-kind... they probably are not that well educated. Grade school, maybe high school level.
Those with labor talents probably ain't interested in finishing school, since they probably do better with on the job training. Though, if there is no on the job training or anyone to teach em... There still probably isn't a lot that an edumacation system can offer em anyways... cause 'huzzah! natural talent!' and edumacation isn't trade school. (But... I guess it don't mean they have any financial or business sense if they try to start one themselves... Trade School for that or just winging it with help from others.) [Don't seem like Applejack/Apple Clan is edumacated in finances.]
The unskilled labor who don't have cutie marks related to edumacated things probably have little reason to go further... (And in a better world, like Equestria, companies would train their potential employees in doing the job, if it is needed.)

So only 'the few' who have cutie marks related to higher learning stuff would have the passion and drive to get more edumacation.

Applejack's generally been shown to just plain be less smart than the rest of her family. Even Applebloom seems to show a little more intellect than her in matters of business. The fact she's trying to run the show as, essentially, chief executive officer, is probably why the (I think canonically) biggest single farm in Equestria manages to run a chronic deficit.

I do agree with you on the point of education, although we can't exactly be entirely sure. I will say poor Cheerilee seems to be underequipped to teach the entire child population of Ponyville, since the schoolhouse seems to be too small for them to wedge every foal we've seen living in Equestria in.

It does beg the question of how their society functions. Are there just hundreds of behind the scenes ponies with management cutie marks? What would a bureaucracy cutie mark even look like?

Flying Dice wrote:What would a bureaucracy cutie mark even look like?

Probably a piece of paper or something.

Flying Dice wrote:It does beg the question of how their society functions. Are there just hundreds of behind the scenes ponies with management cutie marks? What would a bureaucracy cutie mark even look like?

A scroll or an ink & bottle. There have been a few seen with the Mayor in some of the background scenes.

So there are really a bunch of ponies that truly enjoy or are talented at shuffling papers more than anything else? And they have no real desire or hope to ever be different? That's equal parts incredibly depressing and completely perfect, like thousands of copies of Sisyphus who loved nothing more than rolling boulders up hills.

twi.png

Flying Dice wrote:So there are really a bunch of ponies that truly enjoy or are talented at shuffling papers more than anything else? And they have no real desire or hope to ever be different? That's equal parts incredibly depressing and completely perfect, like thousands of copies of Sisyphus who loved nothing more than rolling boulders up hills.

Indeed, it is a happy yet bleak world... where the majority of pony-kind 'Never wanted nothing more'.

Spoiler:

Notable exceptions may be somepony(non-Alicorn/pony) having a king/warlord/dictator/empress aka 'royal' cutie mark....

I want to opinionate out of all the other races, Griffins are probably the most human-like... and that ponies would most likely be ruled by non-ponies, if not for the Alicorns and maybe the very few 'royal' cutie mark ponies in its history, if any. Cause ya know, ponies are hard-coded to be content with the pursuit of their cutie marks. So it'd only go tits up if there is some huge mismanagement of the pony society.

I've always imagined that in the past, ponies were always ruled by some other group. They might have been kept as pets, companions, and slaves (or paid workers, depending how nice the leading races were) by a number of races. It was Discord's take-over and rule that forced the ponies to find a way to become independent, since none of the other races had much interest in actually protecting them.

Speaking of Discord:

Twilight: I don't get it, Discord - I've looked all over the world for all my life and I never found the Elements! Where did you hide them?
Discord: Didn't you get it from the riddle? Back where you began? I hid them in your mother's uterus.
*Twilight dies from shock*

EDIT: Also, I know this probably isn't going to happen, but my headcanon for the newest Discord development (him 'being good', submitting to Orwellian ponies rule, etc) is that he's pulling a Sauron. If that doesn't make sense, read on:
In the gigantic backstory thing for the LOTRverse, the Sillimarillon or however it's spelt, the king of Nümenor, basically Atlantis, decides to kick Sauron's ass because he said that he was king of the world. The Nümenoreans, actually being pretty badass, defeated Sauron's armies and captured him to bring back as a prisoner. Once there, Sauron pretty much conned his way into being an evil vizier that convinced the king to rebel against the gods, who promptly sunk the continent. Sauron then roflcoptered back to his house.
I can see Discord doing all this - he's shown before that he knows how to manipulate ponies, so instead of going for the direct route of breaking their minds like he did the first time, he plays the fool, lets them have their little victory, and goes off to Canterlot scot-free, with Fluttershy having sworn to not use her Element against him; he's essentially been given free reign. Of course, he can't use it yet. If he did, they'd gang up on him and Elementize him; instead I imagine he's going to insinuate himself into the social order of the place (Celestia, Blueblood, royals, industrialists like Fancypants) and either get them on his side or dissatisfied with the way things are currently going. ---> rebellion, him subsequently taking advantage of this to neutralize the threat of the Elements, and boom: ultimate freedom established, Equestria's government has completely collapsed, and he is victorious! He technically does have the patience to do this; not only is it fun to manipulate ponies, he's been alive for eons.