Hearthbreakers: The Episode About Class Warfare and Unicorn Privilage · 1:04am Oct 25th, 2015
Yeah, I'm serious. If you haven't seen the episode yet, be warned, spoilers below.
So, Hearthbreakers came out this weekend! Overall, I would call it an average episode. The world-building, characterization of Pinkie Pie's family, and writing were all quite good -- plus as an engineer, I loved hearing Maud crack a Mohs Hardness Scale joke. This isn't new for MLP, but it's nice to know that Futurama doesn't have a monopoly on intelligent humor in cartoons. Sadly, the actual story was a bit weak, and Applejack's characterization wasn't the best, but I would still call it enjoyable and well worth watching.
Plus, this happened.
But as Pav and I were shooting the breeze about the episode afterwards, a question arose as to what the episode was actually about. Sure, it talks about respecting other's traditions in the general sense, but what's the best real-life analogue to the pony story? Is this an episode about how integrating into a group takes time, or respecting others' quaint family traditions, or about respecting other cultures? You could even make an argument that its about respecting religion, with AJ's "Christmas is about the presents and dinner" family running into a family who spends the holiday in humble togetherness and observance of their lord and savior Jesus "I Would Have Been Okay With Ponies" Christ.
Shown: A compelling argument for Equestria to switch to monotheism.
And yet, none of those really clicked for me. If it was about how integration takes time, it should have had a theme of impatience, which it didn't until the very end. Both sides took the conflict really intensely if it was just about petty family traditions, and if it was about visiting a totally different culture, then the real blame was on Pinkie Pie for not explaining her family's foreign ways so that AJ would know she had to be understanding. The religion thing sort-of fits, but it's a weak fit, as the conflict between the two families isn't about the meaning of the holiday and that hardly comes up except at the start and end. But after a bit of talking, one real-life analogue did occur to us that fits the story remarkably well.
A rich family spending the holidays with a poor family.
Seems legit.
We can see a lot of this in the little ways that the Pie's traditions are structured. Their food is thin and made from undesirable ingredients (rocks). Their traditions are based entirely around using waste materials that they would already have on hand -- stonecutting tools, mine tailings, rock, etc. In fact, other than raising the flag, nothing they do for the holiday involves expending any resources or special preparation. Even the gifts (rocks) are made from things that would already be lying around. As an allegory for a family that has little to spare and so has to make-do when they celebrate, this is pretty rock solid.
Get it? Do you see what I did there? Yeah. You see what I did there.
Probably the best example of this is the dinner scene. Applejack, having been served the family's traditional Hearthswarming meal, is trying to be a good guest and enjoy it. But as she chokes it down, it's perfectly clear on her face that she thinks it tastes terrible, and she can't conceal that fact. And the other ponies react:
Shown: Figure 1
In order, from left to right:
> "For Celestia's sake, Applejack. Please stop making us look like snobby jerks."
> "Yeah, this is about what I expected from you lot."
> "Are these really the sorts of ponies my daughter is making friends with? Maybe I didn't hug her enough."
> "Oh, gosh. I hope they don't dislike us just because they think our food is bad."
> "That's right, hoity-toity. Choke on it."
As someone who has actually been in this situation in both directions (I have played host to people much richer than me, and been a guest of people much poorer), that's about the full spectrum of reactions you get. Applejack isn't trying to be snobby in this scene. She's not turning her nose or being superior, she wants to show proper gratitude and how much she enjoys the food. But she can't because it tastes so bad she's struggling to keep it down.
In its own way, Applejack's reaction is far more insulting than simple snobbery would be. When somepony is a snob, you can at least console yourself that they are the problem. When somebody is trying to be nice, it's crystal clear that they don't hate you: they pity you. And that burns deep.
Which brings us to what Applejack did to the farm.
How did she do this without waking everypony up?
So, this is the central point of conflict of the episode -- Applejack oversteps her bounds and it starts a fight that ultimately gets her thrown out of the house. The way the episode portrays this is as a matter of presumption, that AJ overstepped her bounds and was disrespectful. Which may well be true, but I think the Pie family having such an extreme reaction makes a lot more sense in this new context.
Consider, that's a lot of decorations AJ put up. Decorations that the Pie family obviously didn't have on hand, and that AJ certainly didn't weave out of the thin air. That implies a trip to town, probably quite a bit of work during the night, and the expenditure of resources that the Pie family can't afford, all to... give them a proper Hearthswarming. Because they've never had one before. Imagine a rich guest in a poor person's home redecorating their house (or buying a tree, or a ton of gifts, or otherwise making a big production out of it) because these poor dears have never even had a proper holiday and it's the least I can do.
Now picture the Pie family's reaction of "Oh my god, you patronizing bitch" and this scene suddenly makes a lot more sense to me.
As does Pinkie's adorable awkwardness about the whole thing. Just adorable.
It even fits well with Applejack's character and identity as a person. Remember how, in the start of the episode, Applejack sees Twilight's Hearths Warming Eve traditions and doesn't bat an eye? Twilight's traditions are her traditions. And Twilight is royalty from Canterlot. Even removing Twilight from the picture, Applejack is good friends with a famous model, an influential socialite and successful business pony, and an officer in the Blue Angels Wonderbolts. Imagine if, in real life, someone introduced themselves as a humble farmer, and over the course of the conversation it comes up that they're best friends with Pamela Anderson, the Kardashians, Lieutenant Matt Suyderhoud, and the President's daughter.
Also, her family has ties to Filthy Rich that go back a generation, and in this extended metaphor he's like, Jeff Bezos or something. Or at the least, any number of wealthy locals you could name in your area.
I'm not saying that Applejack isn't a farm pony -- she clearly is and it's a huge part of her identity -- but she isn't a typical farm pony. Her family is successful, possibly very successful, and she doesn't move in the same circles as the typical farmer. The strong vibe I get from this episode is that AJ is New Money. Poverty is in her family in living memory. Two generations ago, they were poor, and what resources they have didn't come suddenly. They were humble farm ponies once, and they earned their place in the world through many decades of hard, slow work, so they still think of themselves as humble farm ponies. But, they aren't. They're successful and influential farm ponies. What they are isn't bad, but it is different.
And Applejack didn't realize that until she sat at the same table with genuine salt-of-the-earth farmers, and realized she had a bit of difficulty stomaching their food.
Perhaps more than a bit.
Of course, this interpretation is all headcanon. Take with a grain of rock salt, etc. But I think it adds a bit of depth to the episode, and in a way, gives AJ a little character development. She's an earth pony and a farm pony and a lot of her pride is in her identity as a humble earth pony farmer, but it's not that simple. The town she lives in is multicultural, she's welcome in Canterlot, and while she can be a bit stubborn at times, she's smarter and more worldly than she'll admit.
Plus, on a more personal note, I feel this interpretation avoids having to toss Applejack the idiot ball. If AJ just took control of the festivities because our traditions are better, then the conflict feels artificial -- the only reason there's a fight is because AJ is a jerk. But if it happened because of a genuine disconnect, and because AJs image of herself doesn't quite line up with reality, then that's a chance for real character growth to occur. It means she messed up with the best of intentions, and that she can learn about Pinkie's family, and learn about herself, and the two can grow as they become more comfortable together. So, I like it.
Also, shipping.
Equestria Girls proved that bumping into each-other == love.
Excellent analysis.
Wonderful! I love reading stuff like this! So much more engaging to me than the OC-riddled analysis on YouTube.
I'd had similar thoughts as I watched the episode, myself. I've been in this exact type off situation. I'm not a rich person, but my family has money in it. My parents and I aren't well-off, but my mother's parents are. Whenever we visit them for the holidays, it feels very strange. The neighborhood is fancy, the house is big, the food is a bit extravagant. It almost feels alien to the lower middle class that I am used to. (And I have to give it to my grandparents, they believe in letting their kids make a living on their own, which I respect a lot. None of us have it easy just because we have these somewhat wealthy relatives.)
However, I do have friends who are even poorer than me, and maybe hanging with my rich grandparents sort of spoiled me on Christmas and Thanksgiving traditions. I remember one year spending a holiday, I can't actually remember which, with the relatives of my then girlfriend, and it was much different. I had all these little thoughts in my head about what was missing, or what was strange to me. In the end, I kept it all to myself, but the level of discomfort was higher than I'd expected.
So, I guess you could say I sympathize with poor Applejack here, in a way. She meant well, but her efforts were met with disdain. Indeed, her efforts probably should have been.
I personally think this episode is more about respecting other families and their traditions, but the idea of it also being about the difference in the means of others is really interesting. When I watch this episode again tonight with my friends on BerryTube, I will definitely keep this in mind and try to see the episode in a whole new light.
Thanks for the perspective!
This is disturbingly logical. Headcanon reluctantly accepted.
"...genuine salt-of-the-earth farmers, "
Don't you mean rock-salt-of-the-earth farmers? (sorry, couldn't resist)
Also worth noting; while the children's books aren't precisely canon, the Pinkie Pie one does establish that the Pie's aren't really doing all that well and that Pinkie's high-rolling friends have already had to bail them out once.
This makes a lot of sense. You know who got on with the Pie's best when things were all awkward? It was Granny Smith. Granny Smith is the apple who actually remembers back when the clan were itinerant seed-gatherers and didn't own a thing other than the wagons they pulled until the Equestrian State (in the form of Celestia) homesteaded them.
I don't think the apple's have ever been humble farm ponies, although they no doubt like to think of themselves as such. But it's faux-humility, like Minnesota nice and southern gentility. If the apple family has one flaw underneath their cornpone lifestyle, it's pride. They're proud as fuck, of their farm, of their enormous sprawling family, of their traditions, of everything. Her pride has bitten AJ right in the flank a whole ton of times, this episode included, and it will again.
Completely unrelated sidebar: MAN does that flag still bother me. Why the fuck did the pre-diarchy ponies have a flag with Celestia and Luna on it?
3494640
After the original Hearthswarming, the image of the ancient mythical alicorn was put on the flag as a symbol of tribal unity. There's two of them because you can say they symbolize anything that comes in two aspects or in cycles, which is very useful.
Everypony was very surprised when Celestia and Luna showed up.
This is one of the most intriguing and insightful reviews of any episode I have ever read.
I got a slightly different vibe from it. Having spent every other christmas with my in-laws for the past few years I could identify with Applejack and with the Pies pretty much right off the bat: it's a hell of a thing to experience something so familiar in such an alien and even contradictory way.
Ok here's the thing. I'm English. Not even British; English. We do Christmas in a particular way. We have traditions. There's a lot of food involved, a lot of drinking and a lot of being generally merry and loud and a bit squiffy. For one day of the year we stuff ouerselves stupid, sit around stewing in our own fat, listen to the Queen talking and then spend the rest of the day playing with whatever toys we got, eating leftovers and drinking even more. That's Christmas in my family. That's Christmas for most families where I come from.
My wife is Swedish. Every other year since we married I've gone over to her family to spend christmas in Sweden, the Swedish waym, and let me tell you it is weird. No turkey. No carousing and drinking and stuffing yourself until you're fit to burst. They have a buffet. A fucking buffet. There's a lot of fish and pork, and weird things that I can't quite stomach. When I spend christmas with my side of the family I go to bed drunk and fat. When I spend it with hers I go to bed hungry and sober.
They aren't poor - if anything their income is higher than my side of the family. The difference is in their culture. Sweden is Lutheran to the core; they are the very epitome of self-denial (I know, the stereotypes aren't true after all, I was as shocked as anyone). They live an almost ascetic lifestyle compared to what I'm used to and it's a culture shock every time I'm over there. It's nothing to do with money and everything to do with differing priorities. Their culture is ascetic; ours is verging on bacchanalian. Simple as that.
Of course our traditions are mixing a little. When I spend christmas with my folks I try and get enough julmust in to last out the day and we have that weird salty rice porridge that seems so popular in Sweden. When I spend it with theirs I try and get a little bit of an English christmas injected into all the preserved food and dourness, but I like my steak and I like my fat turkey and little sausages wrapped in bacon, and they like their suckling pig, headcheese and a dozen different kinds of fish that I can't even hope to stomach. Much as I might enjoy spending my time with them, I'll never get used to that, and I doubt they'll ever get used to a table overflowing with booze and snoozing relatives either.
Money might be the thing for some, but when I saw this episode all I could think about was culture.
But where's the Unicorn Privilage here? And what exactly does that mean?
Anyway, seriously tho. I have to pretty much agree with your analysis here. I felt that AJ was disconnected, and it was brought up very clearly by Granny Smith (who probably remembers when they weren't well-off) in the train.
3494614
Thanks!
3494619
Oh man, why didn't I think of that? I should totally start having my OC review things.
This is similar to my situation. I am personally at the high end of middle class (top 5%), but my family is solidly wealthy (top 1%). So visiting home or family friends, everything is always extravagant and, to my eyes, a bit wasteful and overdone. But I also have a few friends who are below the poverty line, and I'll admit, I've been in AJ's exact situation with the soup. In my case, it was meat, cooked Well Done and covered in sauce to hide the fact that it was not the highest quality meat. I had trouble choking it down, but I knew for my friend, heaving meat at all was actually a special-occasion sort of thing.
I'm happy to say I dealt with it better than AJ did, but yeah, I'm also sympathetic to her mistake.
Feel free to watch my new series: Spite, Lust, and Greed: GaPJaxie Cynically Ruins Everything.
3494635
No I already made that joke elsewhere in the post.
3494640
Oh, crap. That makes a lot of sense. I didn't even notice that.
Oh, crap. That makes too much sense. Now I can't stop picturing AJ as a southern plantation owner.
She even has all those sheep!
3494812 Does it matter?
(No, not the rocks! Put it down! Ow! Don't throw so hard! Ouch! Mercy!)
3494725
images.sodahead.com/polls/003871687/102667765_MLP___Luna___You_Make_Luna_Happy_n1297486947649_answer_1_xlarge.jpeg
3494820
Next season: Flim and Flam and the return of the
Apple GinSuper Speedy Cider Squeezy.3494751
That's legitimate! But the reason I shied away from that interpretation is that with a cultural difference, you need to lay the groundwork. Like, if Pinkie Pie knew that her family was from Rockistan and that the Rockistanian way of celebrating Hearth's Warming was very different from the Equestrian way, she really needed to let Applejack know in advance! Or at least, explain it to her once it started to become a problem. The fact that she doesn't do this throughout the episode leads me to believe that the Pies aren't actually from another culture, they just occupy a different place in Equestrian culture.
3494640
You're forgetting one thing the Pies might also be humble but also too proud. Considering Pinkie Pie has connections that even farmers as wealthy as the Apples would died twice over to have they shouldn't have to be bailed out twice. It reminds me about an excerpt from Redwall between Abbot Moritmer and Friar Hugo.
It seems to me that outside of business or shopping for what they need the Pies appear that they don't normally socialize with any pony outside themselves which would explain as to why the Pie's rock farm appears to be in the middle of nowhere. I wouldn't be surprise if any of their neighbors (who also might be a similar financial state) have tried to help them in the past, even a little bit, only to get blasted because the Pies see themselves as being pitied.
One more thing: if Pies are so poor then why do they have a mine filled with valuable crystals on their land?
3494805
Don't do it! I only considered it once, and only as a drunk PARODY of MLP analysis people.
Though I have been thinking of doing a YouTube series called "Drunk Equestrian History" that's a parody of Drunk History and features drunk people from BerryTube telling the history of Equestria or recapping episodes and talking about them.
And I am drunk RIGHT NOW so now I am like "Damn, I should still do that..."
3494755
A side thought of mine. Applejack thinks of herself, culturally, as a farm pony, but a lot of her friends are unicorns, she spends time in a unicorn city, she has easy access to magic if she ever needs it, and she's in with the nobility. She has all of the cultural perks of being a unicorn without actually having to be one.
It's not directly related to wealth, but the real-life analogue I thought of was a black guy in a three-piece suit working for a major Manhattan legal firm, vs a black guy in cargo pants and a tank-top working in the bad part of Queens. They might have a shared cultural identity as black-people-in-NYC. They might both face a lot of common issues and concerns. They might even have a strong shared cultural or family background! But the first guy gets a lot of (for lack of a better word, apologies if I give offense) white-by-proxy benefits the guy in the slums can't get.
Applejack is Unicorn-by-Proxy. And she needs to check her Unicorn Privilege.
3494823
NO NOW YOU DIE.
Very Interesting. I wish I had the time to put this much thought into ponies. The most I've actually done is a one-sentence head scratcher. Instead, I have to write lab reports. Yay.
It's so cute how you think there are gifts. As Pinkie Pie noted in the episode, they HIDE the gifts for other ponies to find them...
...but no one ever does find them. In fact, the only gift we see from any member of the Pie family is Pinkie Pie.
I'm pretty sure there aren't any gifts at all, and they all just say they hide them to pretend like they actually give each other stuff. And Pinkie Pie hasn't figured that out yet, and so she's the only one who hides gifts... and the Pies never look for them because, well, no one actually hides gifts, right?
She hugged Pinkie Pie once, wasn't that enough?
Also, she looked kind of distainful there.
I don't think Pinkie Pie really understands, to be honest. To Pinkie Pie, everyone is her friend! (Even though they're not.) And everything is normal! (Even though it isn't.) I doubt Pinkie's family would ever bring up their problems with Pinkie, and quite frankly, Pinkie is probably better off than they are - Maud going off to get her degree is probably the first university-bound pony in the family, Limestone Quarry is a jealous psycho (this is HER farm!), and Marble is... well, super shy and introverted.
I actually agree that this was totally the subtext of the episode, though; Pinkie Pie's family are literal dirt farmers (well, rock farmers, but same difference) and the Apple family is quite successful, even if they're constantly worried about money. Though it is worth noting that Pinkie's family are also not!Puritans/Quakers/Pilgrims, so... yeah.
Canonically, Pinkie is a very poor communicator. My explanation for why, given her overall high level of intelligence and powerful charisma, is that she has a very alien mode of cognition and problem-solving (precognition and reality warping) and she often forgets that other Ponies can't reason the way she can.
I'm not sure that it's so much that the Apples are richer than the Pies (though I do think they're rich as farmers go) as they farm a food source, while the Pies are miners / refiners. The Apples can more easily convert their farm's produce into edible treats than can the Pies; the Pies have to sell their metals and crystals in return for monies which they then use to purchase food. And the Pies are, very obviously, rather ascetic. They probably consider it sinful to waste too much money on luxuries.
I think you're mostly right about the cultural differences, though. Ponyville, whle a small town, is an exurb of Canterlot -- there are a lot of part-time to full-time Canterlot elite types (such as Twilight herself, Lyra, Octavia and Vinyl Scratch) resident there. In contrast, the area which Sketcha-holic calls "Nickerlite" and I further subdivide as "South-Dunnich" is genuinely rural; none of the inhabitants simply commute into Canterlot on a daily or weekly basis. Without money coming in from extensive trade with the capital, the populace is considerably poorer.
Oh, and remember that they're putting Maud through an advanced education. That's gotta cost them a mint.
3494640
They didn't. The flag is ananchronistic; indeed, they might not even have had flags back then (remember, the idea of national flags IRL only arose in the last few centuries; the American flag is actually one of the oldest national flags - the oldest continuously used national flag dates from only 1748, or the mid-1600s, depending on whether or not you count the shape changing).
The idea of the flag was probably a later invention added to the tradition, and/or the flag they fly is the modern national flag, and they had a different one way back in the day, and everyone just flies the modern one because of patriotism - remember, in real life, we fly the MODERN American flag on the 4th of July.
3494820
You already wrote that story.
3494855
I actually thought the clop parody was cleverly handled.
3494809
I was actually gonna say "no this doesn't fit, what about the time we reviewed the Tree Hugger episode" but you included Lust in there so yep that still fits.
3494840
To be fair, her family are blatantly Quakers/Puritans. I dunno if you saw my blog post, but the speech patterns of Pinkie's parents were very Quaker/Puritan.
The Puritans were both into self-denial AND poor, joyless fucks who everyone hated because they were, well, jerks.
3494852
The thing is, a lot of that has to do with class. Poor black people just aren't the same as wealthy black people. It is like poor white trash vs plantation owners; the idea of "white privilege" is a flawed paradigm, because it isn't actually about being white, it is about not being "trash".
In the old Slave South, some slaves actually looked down on poor whites. And just look at the way people treat the homeless.
Equestria seems to be more classist than racist, judging by who hangs out in rich people parties. The Grand Galloping Gala had members of all three races present in force.
Incidentally, one other odd note about class that my brother brought up a couple years ago:
My mother is very unhappy with the idea of throwing out food and encouraging people to eat everything. Now, we're pretty well-off (top 2%), but not super rich, but my mom's father was a union machinist, and HIS family was poor as dirt (as in, hunt-for-food-or-you-go-hungry - literally hunting, like going out and shooting animals for nourishment).
My brother wondered if maybe a lot of Americans' newfound prosperity was a major cause of the obesity epidemic - our parents and grandparents all said YOU GOTTA FINISH YOUR FOOD because throwing out food was terribly wasteful and you'd go hungry. But we're all not in the situation where food is scarce, so finishing off every scrap of food is unnecessary, and indeed, kind of wasteful because it just goes to our waistline.
Pinkie Pie's obsession with eating everything might be caused by that mentality. Seconds? That's crazy! Of course you want seconds! And thirds!
3494852
Pointing out stuff that makes you smack your forehead is my stock in trade! Ask Skywriter how annoying yet sometimes useful it can be sometimes. :)
Of course Applejack has easy access to magic. She's a pony. All ponies are magical. The fact that Earth Ponies can't make zappy-zappy lightning bolts doesn't change that.
(It would be nice if the show showcased that a little bit more, in the way that unicorn and pegasus magic is showcased, but that's a different thing.)
I've always questioned the notion of Canterlot as a "unicorn city." The only city we've seen so far that seems exclusive to a single pony type is Cloudsdale, owing to the fact you need specifically arcane unicorn magic to hang out there if you aren't a pegasus or alicorn.
Honestly, really, I've always questioned the strong fanon notion that Equestria has a racial hierarchy that unicorns are at the top of and earth ponies are at the bottom of. It's excellent for storytelling purposes because it introduces conflict and you need conflict to drive stories, but the show itself usually presents Equestria as sort of a semi-utopia whose greatest threats come from without rather than being riven with conflict from within. That was supposed to be something they worked past as a society back when, you know, it almost got them all froze to death.
Equestria does seem to have classism, though. In the real world it is impossible to separate that from racism but in Equestria that doesn't seem to be the case.
3494842
Interestingly enough, the Pinkie Pie children's book (which, again, not precisely canon) answers that: the Crystal Empire re-appearing caused the bottom to drop out of their market. The Empire can provide enormous amounts of crystals and gems of all sorts that are both of higher quality and of lower cost than what traditional Equestrian rock farmers like the Pies can produce.
3494916
There's 2 paradigms at work there. Rich-poor and White-black.
You can be rich and black and benefit more than poor and white, yes, but that doesn't mean there also isn't a race filter occurring at the same time; driving while black, to cite the most obvious example, is a well-known phenomenon, and that's not getting into things like unconscious bias.
Man, remember back when the Apples needed severely misguided extra sales strategies to afford a hip operation for Granny Smith, or cider season revenues to get them through the year, to the extent that losing their cider monopoly was almost enough to get them to need to abandon the farm? That sure got dropped quickly after season two. Granted, by then it didn't even make sense, what with the revelation even before SSCS that they got the farm in a royal land grant, and it not being like they need to hire labor.
There's definitely an income gap here, and the Apples are certainly richer than the Pies. But I think the cultural differences are way bigger. The Pie family is clearly supposed to be Amish, Igneous and his wife have an arranged marriage. You could say Pinkie Pie is on rump-springa.
I also question the idea that the Apple family is that wealthy, given the excellent point 3494989 made, though all those concerns were in season 1. Maybe since season 2 the royal palaces have been sourcing their apples from Sweet Apple Acres, giving the Apple family the income boost to afford all those fancy outfits and equipment Apple Bloom used for Crusader adventures? On the other hand, Sweet Apple Acres is the closest apple farm to Canterlot, once the trains were built by season 2, that probably helped their business.
3494916
3494875
3494937 All three of you make great points about how the geographic location seems to be a much bigger predication of wealth than tribe. During the course of the show we've seen Ponyville rapidly gentrify, from the town most famous for its hoedowns in season 2, to a town that hosts the "Small Town Chic" festival and gets positive write-ups by hipster travel writers. It does seem like wealth is spread out evenly between the tribes, if anything earth ponies seem to be the richest tribe, we see more of them as big business owners, and the earth pony elite of Manehatten could probably buy and sell Fancypants and his friends ten times over.
Wow. This was an excellent analysis. I find the shipping thing (which I noticed in the episode itself as well) profoundly weird considering all the "we might be cousins" talk between AJ and Pinkie. That strikes me as either sloppy writing or deep, deep dig on the farming class.
Bleh, not going to derail this into an irrelevant discussion. PM me if you're interested in my response, Morning Sun.
3495059
To be fair, we have no idea what Fancy Pants does for a living. Or really, a lot of the Canterlot ponies, for that matter. They may, for instance, own large amounts of land.
3495077 They may have owned large tracts of land hundreds of years ago, but these days I'm fairly sure they are basically bureaucrats. Canterlot seems to be a lot like Washington DC, with less tourists. Nothing really gets produced here, but its the central government, so tax dollars flow in and then the local businesses cater to the tastes of the elites. Doesn't help that its on top of a mountain, and trains were recently invented.
3495070
A good thing to remember is that she uses the term cousins loosely. I think they're relation goes back ten generations or something. Half the ponies in Ponyville must be closer relations then them.
3495211
That's an excellent point.
3495075
I think we both know it'll likely fly in circles, so I'm content to let it lay at rest as well
3494937
But in every episode set in Caterlot, (Aside from at gatherings where ponies can be expected to have come into the city from elsewhere) the vast majority of characters are unicorns. All of Twilights old friends? Unicorns. All of the Canterlot Boutique customers save for one? Unicorns. All of the snooty crowd around Fancy Pants? Unicorns. The evidence seems to support the idea that Canterlot is a city primarily inhabited by unicorns.
Hm, very interesting; thanks.
Typo here. Sorry - I was posting this somewhere else, and after the browser spellchecker flagged this I can't unsee it anymore
3495286
This is true of Cloudsdale as well, though that one is a bit more obvious - very few non-pegasi (and non-griffons, I suppose) can even go there, let alone live there.
Though Lyra managed to make it up there.
This puts her time spent with the Oranges in an interesting light because it places her as the "poor" one.
I think you may be on the right track...
i.imgur.com/tD2NU3W.png
Get it? Track? Because horses run on tracks. And they are horses. And you are a horse. Do you get it? Do you get my joke about the track?
... Sorry, I couldn't resist.
3494875
She's getting a rockterate, which is presumably like a doctorate in some kind of geology. It's probably paid for by research grants.
3495327
You can see at least five earth ponies and a unicorn standing on
sunshine whoa ohsmall clouds during Rainbow's cutie mark story. I remember seeing an earth pony filly there alone as well, though I can't remember when now. There's also Wonderbolt Academy, where they have grass and pavement in the clouds, and where four non-pegasus horses are sent springing into the sky by a tightly-wound cloud. Maybe it's just a myth that only pegasūs can stand onsunshine whoa ohclouds, or a heuristic that prevents cloud-disabled ponies from finding out the hard way.You know, this makes a ton of sense. Both in regards of this episode, and with AJ's character in general. (Also, remember the Oranges? Applejack's mother was an Orange, it's implied, and they're clearly wealthy ponies.) A lot of things in the show come off differently when you look at things from the perspective that AJ sees herself and her family as being one bad apple crop away from disaster, when they actually aren't. For example, the whole episode Bats: why is Applejack so aggressive? Why does she ignore and outright contradict the points raised by Fluttershy, who has been established as the critter expert among the Mane Six? It all makes sense if she's massively overreacting to the threat the bats actually present to her farm.
I also like this explanation, because it really resonates with my personal experiences. See, I'm from a farming family, and I'm two generations removed from poverty myself. I belong to the first generation in my family that got university education, too. And while a lot of our family's rise from poverty was due to the general improvement of Finnish economy and the growth of the welfare state since WW2, there's been a lot of hard work and serious risk-taking too. I've been living in a big city (by Finnish standards) for fifteen years, and I'm a lot better off than many of my friends, yet deep down I still think of myself as a rural person from a family of "humble farmers".
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I'm having trouble seeing the traditional Scandinavian Christmas table as anything close to "ascetic"... but then again, if you don't like root vegetables and several different sorts of pickled fish, it's going to be a grim experience!
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The most likely explanation is that Twilight already cast the cloudwalking spell on her friends on their way up to the training facility; she likely didn't know that it wasn't actually made out of clouds. She did the same thing on their trip to Cloudsdale. Given that Twilight found the cloudwalking spell in a book, it is likely that other unicorns can cast it as well.
We have seen non-pegasi pass straight through clouds previously - Pinkie Pie has done so on at least a couple occasions.
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It may well be now, that she's had the chance to demonstrate her great intellect and talent. But do you think that it's likely that the expenses of Maud's education were 100% paid for by other Ponies?
To begin with, one of these expenses would have been the withdrawal of (part of) her labor to let her complete primary and secondary school. (Given Maud's great physical strength, this would have constituted a real sacrifice on the part of her family -- most farm families in a c. 1900 tech level culture have their children help work the farm and do not have them complete secondary school). Then, somepony must have paid for her to go for the equivalent of her bachelors and masters degrees. Only then would she have gotten to the point of going for her doctorate.
In my fanon, actually, it was expensive enough that it was only possible because her rich uncle (Cloudy's elder brother) paid for part of it.
Though I think the Pies are actually less poor than they are ascetic. Igneous and Cloudy may actually have a sizable bank account -- which is earmarked to support the farm. Why would they do this? Partially because of an aescetic religion, and partly because they are wise enough to realize that one must plan for the worst year, not the best, if one wishes to survive long-term.