Help! My Heart is Full of Pony! - Identity (Pinkie Pride) · 7:12am Oct 9th, 2020
If you were to say, "there's an episode of My Little Pony where one of the Mane Six has difficulty accepting the fact that she came in second place," you would almost certainly guess that it was all about Rainbow Dash. One of the most universally beloved stories in the entire series, however, takes this premise, and applies it to Pinkie Pie.
Pinkie Pride is an amazing episode. For starters, it made such excellent use of Weird Al, that it's almost unfair to compare it to other episodes that didn't have the advantage of having, well...WEIRD AL YANKOVIC in it.
However, what's really special about this story is the fact that it explores Pinkie Pie in a way that you'd not have thought possible or necessary until you actually saw it.
She has always been both fragile and resilient. Her sensitivity - her need for inclusion - was thoroughly covered in Party of One, (along with the consequences of her not feeling validated), but here, that insecurity is taken to a very different place.
For those who don't remember, it starts with a wandering stranger, Cheese Sandwich, and his rubber chicken companion, Boneless, feeling a call to visit Ponyville. He shows up just in time to get in on the opening stages of planning a party for Rainbow Dash's birtheversary, (a combination celebration of her birthday, and the day she moved to Ponyville). Everypony gets swept up in the excitement, sucked in by Cheese Sandwich's charisma, and superior party skills, leaving Pinkie feeling like a third wheel.
This story is, at its core, a thesis on identity. Pinkie Pie has constructed a sense of self based on her role in Ponyville as premiere party pony, and this episode is all about her feelings when that position is threatened.
At first, she gets jealous. Then defeatist.
Once she realizes that Cheese outshines her, Pinkie Pie actually gives up on all of her dreams, figuring that, if she isn't the best, then she's not the pony she'd thought she was - that she's not special at all. Ready to pack up and leave town forever (there are no gray areas with Pinkie), she only stops herself when she happens to glance on photographs from her past. Those memories help her understand and appreciate all the joy that she's spread throughout the years. Her sad ballad turns into a stirring musical number of triumph, hope, and glory.
...And then Pinkie misses the point yet again.
She challenges Cheese Sandwich to a clowning competition - a Goof Off. Tensions grow pretty fierce pretty quickly. To Pinkie, everything she thinks she knows - everything she believes in - is on the line, and Cheese, of course, gets carried away by his own momentum. Their polka-medley-style musical number accelerates into a bombastic catastrophe that actually puts Rainbow Dash on the spot, and makes her feel uncomfortable.
Pinkie Pie, in a moment of clarity, forfeits the competition. The whole reason that she wanted to get into the party business in the first place was to make everypony smile. The very idea that her actions - her performance - was, in reality, making somepony frown?
That was an earth-shattering thing.
It's easy to lose ourselves in the heat of the moment - to forget who we are, and where we came from, and what we care about. But Pinkie here, in this single decision, makes a gigantic personal sacrifice. For her, forfeiting the goof off wasn't merely a matter of winning and losing. It was about identity. It meant surrendering everything that she thought she was - her entire world - her entire self - in order to preserve everything that she believed in.
Who'd have thought that a clowning competition over a birthaversary party could be so deep?
Discuss.
-Sprocket
P.S.
Of course, Cheese and Pinkie become friends in the end. That was a given. But it's how they get there that's truly beautiful. The icing on the cake is that Cheese Sandwich would never have turned to the party pony lifestyle if he hadn't seen one of Pinkie's parties as a colt. Try not to cry in that moment. I dare you.
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There's a reason "Pinkie Pride" is one of my favorite episodes of the entire series. It understands Pinkie to a degree that's sadly rare to see on the show. Plus, Cheese is well integrated into the story and world. Not as seamlessly as William Shatner in "The Perfect Pear," but he still feels less "Look, celebrity guest voice!" than Patton Oswalt. (Quibble Pants can be entertaining, but he never quite fits into the world.)
And, again, you look into something more deeply than I remember doing, and cast a light on it for us; again, thank you. :)