I haven't been able to nail it down. People seem to be using the term in some places to refer to a different species, and other people seem to be trying to get the term into popular use as a replacement word for "bat pony" - Is there a divide on this?

Cuz I gotta say, when I think Thestral, I think of the rather disgusting looking things from Harry Potter. Bat pony, instead, just makes me think of Luna's guards, as well as the rather adorable fan art like we see in this group's image. It's hard for me to reconcile these things, so I am actually a bit put off by the idea of trying to call the bat ponies "Thestrals", despite that it seems appropriate. Horse, bat wings, I get that, but it doesn't click in my head.

So, is there a divide? Or just everyone is doing whatever they prefer?

3836937
I haven't seen a divide on it. It mostly seems to be people just doing what they want to do.

for what it's worth Thestral / Bat Pony, same thing to me.

3836937 I encountered the term 'thestral' well before Harry Potter but I can't for the life of me remember where (probably Dungeons and Dragons).

Usually Thestral refers to some kind of bat winged horse, sometimes undead sometimes not. I think they where also interchangable with Nightmares from DnD as a mount for Undead knights.

For the most part people in the fandom use both terms interchangably.

3836937 I'll try to clear it up for you. If I remember correctly from Harry Potter, Thestrals were skeletal horses with bat wings that were completely invisible to most. The only people who could actually see them were those who were pained by the death of someone close to them. Maybe that's not entirely accurate but that's just what I got from it.

3836952
Right, and I'm like "How is that undead thing at all similar to a species of ponies other than having bat wings?" The skeletal bodies is what really creeps me the heck out. Luna's guards didn't seem so undead.

3836959 IKR? It gets really annoying IMO when people keep trying to pass Bat Ponies and Thestrals off as synonymous when they clearly aren't.

3836937 I say Bat Pony, Thestral, Noctral, or Negasus

3836937
My favourite explanation comes from the story "Of Lilies and Chestnuts", where it is explained that the 'bat pony' is a 'nigger'-type word: thestrals can use it freely among themselves, but is offensive to use if you aren't a thestral.

Besides, if you think that a creature is creepy just because it looks bony and is rather expressionless, you may wish to avoid retirement homes. I guess you must live a very sheltered life, too.

3836937
Etymology-wise, Thestral doesn't hold up well with how the other species of ponies are named.
Pegasus: A winged horse from greek mythology. Fits, because it's been used heavily in pop-culture for an incredibly long time.
Unicorn: A horned horse from greek mythology. Fits for the same reasons as pegasus.
Earth-pony: Ponies are miniature horses. Earth-ponies have no specialized body-part. Their specialty is being more in tune with the earth and nature. Earth-pony makes sense in that aspect.
Crystal-pony: Ponies made of crystal.
Sea-ponies: Ponies made of fish.
Bat-ponies: Ponies made of screeching fluff.
Alicorns: Also known as an Equalacorn (DnD) or Pegacorn, Alicorn is actually the name of the horn of a unicorn. It fits because Faust said so.

There are also characters in the show itself that have more horse-like traits than Equestrian ponies. Saddle-arabians.

TL;DR: Kiddies trying to come up with a term for a race of ponies, already named in the same way as other races of ponies.

Thestral is a fucking shitty term, and anyone that uses it should feel bad. Fuck, even Stygian is a better term for them, since that has actual root in mythology, and isn't taken from entry-level books.

3836959 My guess is people just wanted something other than "Bat Pony" for referring to them, so they started using "thestral" since the creatures from Harry Potter had bat wings and (as far as I know) there aren't really many creatures with anything similar (this is just my wild ass guess of course, I'm sure I could find out where it started if I looked hard enough, but a mix of my lack of major interest in the subject lack of an idea where to start kind of hinders that)

I do think just calling them bat ponies is a bit bland, so I will normally just use thestral since it was the what I usually hear when they are brought up, though I've seen "Sarosian" used before, which I think originated from End of Ponies, but I honestly have no idea.

I like to use thestral as well as bat pony etc. I don't have a problem with any and it helps to have multiple names for them when writing, so it doesn't sound like your using thestral or bat pony repeatedly.

3837031

WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA

I have no real response to your assumptions but that.

As for "bat pony" being a racial slur? It's an interesting explanation!

BTW, this little guy is ADORABLE!

3837056
Someone gave you the thumbs down. Your spoiler text, of course, is a little inflammatory, but so was the response that said I was sheltered right after insulting the elderly, so hey, I guess that's the sort of thread this is becoming?

But yes, it doesn't sit well with me. For similar reasons. I came into creating this thread in hopes that most people would be like "Oh yeah, they are two different types. We have the ones like Luna's guards or the bat ponies we see in fan art, and then we have Thestrals that are sort of a separate branch with different features, abilities, etc..." - But no, I was disappointed.

3837089
>Thumbs down
Literally a sugar pill.

You won't get an efficient debate, because there are people that want them to have their own super special snowflake word for the race, and people that keep to the show's theme.
Good luck getting show-staff to call them anything other than Bat-pony.

3837099

Good luck getting show-staff to call them anything other than Bat-pony.

Good luck getting the show staff to call them anything. Hasbro is notoriously racist against bats.

3836937

But to answer your question- doesn't really matter. Bat pony is the most popular, though some people have different preferences. Bat ponies are ultimately fanon so just call them whatever you want and give them whatever back story you want.

Also we're all forgetting the important "Vampony" label.

3837112
Well, Hasbro can't really touch bat-ponies anymore, since the fandom took them over completely. Not like they needed the money anyway.

3837121 Bat pony, thestral, sarosian, moori, tulpar (last two I got from looking through the older threads), there's really no shortage of names for them, just that bat pony and thestral have become the two more popular.

Vampony... I'd classify that as it's own thing, as most people do, but imagine it can be used to refer to batponies based one one's headcanon, certainly would be interesting (never seen a story that's done it, though I haven't read that many bat pony stories and I've really cut down on reading lately)

3837089
Do you still have the same objection to the term if Luna's guard are undead? Not 'ugly' or rotten or what have you, but corpses nonetheless?

Also, for the sake of general debate, consider the rhyming term for a water-horse spirit, called a 'kestrel' (quite possibly Rowling's inspiration?).

3837128

They could totally do bat ponies. As long as they didn't put Echo in or something they'd be fine.

3837137

Vampony would totally make sense as a slur against bats.

3837141
I think I am not 100% comfortable with that concept in general, but if done right in a story, I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with them calling themselves thestrals. That said, it's still pulling a name from something already established that is vastly different than what we are seeing.

3837155 ...Huh, never thought of that, only racial slur I've seen for them is Nightcrawler (not counting Of Lilies and Chestnuts, which used bat pony as a mildly racist term for them), that would actually be kind of interesting to see.

3837137
tulpar sounds a bit too close to tulpa for my comfort...

3837112

Hasbro is notoriously racist against bats.

I would love to hear the story behind that statement! I am dead serious, too. I totally want to hear about it.

3837163 Yyyyyeah, does sound kind of weird, only know of it (and Moori) from this thread, apparently it's from a creature of Turkish myth similar to pegasus, so it does make a tiny bit of sense

3837165

Well they had this episode called "bats". Basically Applejack was trotting through town talking about how great it was how homogenous everypony was, then the bats come in and mess everything up by devouring fruit (stereotype!). Then the ponies all sing a song about how much they hate bats... and then Fluttershy dresses up in "bat face"

(seriously?! Bat face in 2014?!) and flies around hissing at everyone and sucking up every apple in sight with no self control (more stereotypes). The whole thing ends with Twilight "curing" Fluttershy of her bat-hood and they write a letter to Celestia about how filthy bats are.

(Before anyone freaks out I am joking by the way.)

3837184
This is the best response I have ever read. I am literally in tears. I read this aloud to some friends from BerryTube on Teamspeak, and they are all dying. Thank you a million times.

3837184 I'm with Littlecolt, that was glorious.

3837056

Bat-ponies: Ponies made of screeching fluff

Gotta love dat sentance

3836937

I allowed myself to call the species "noctrali" in my work, from the words "noc" and "tral". In their language, their name could be translated to "night-dwellers". "Thestral" would mean "cave-dweller" which can be counted as offensive, while "batpony" is but a descriptive term, neutral in its sounding.

I mostly did that because I grew tired of the word "thestral", which I am afraid screams "Harry Potter!" in many minds and, I think, is quite overused... We, as fandom, prove to be a lot more creative than borrowing names from other universes, so let us avoid this when it can be done so.

3837184
Seriously. RIP my sides.

3836937

Looks like this is answered, but I'm still throwing my two cents in.

Yeah, thestrals are that ugly thing from Harry Potter, the thing that can only be seen after witnessing death. Since they're a super bad omen, I think of "Thestral" as a way to insult bat ponies. To me it's basically a racial slur since you're telling them that they only exist as an omen of death, bad things, whatnot.

Really can't get more insulting than that, it's the definition of a demon/hellspawn/ whatever.

Personally, I went with lunar ponies (inspired by lunar stallions from Aegis Shield) with their ancient language as thestran.

3837427

noctrali

…I'm stealing this.

3838577

Feel free to, friend. Glad it makes sense to you.

3837766 Personally I think it's gotten to the point where people don't care that much where the name came from (I'm not a huge fan of Harry Potter myself, movies where okay but had no major lasting effect and I wasn't even aware the origin of the name until I looked it up last year), and the name has just ended up sticking with bat ponies.

Thestral as a slur is interesting, could be something the other tribes came up with following Luna's banishment and ended up sticking (or even long before that), maybe after a thousand years they more or less forgot their original name, (though unless you can explain it properly, might not make much sense).

3836937
As far as I am aware, "thestral" is a term invented by J.K. Rowling and they are completely unique to the Harry Potter series. However, they do have some similarities to Nightmares, demons akin to succubi that "ride" on people's chests while they sleep, causing bad dreams, waking fatigue, and sleep paralysis. They are also similar to the horses that the Irish fairies known as dullahan, the harbingers of death, were said to have ridden.

3837031
How is "thestral" any better than "bat pony" if the former means "undead cursed horse spirits with patagius wings"? That seems pretty offensive to me.

3837056

Alicorns: Also known as an Equalacorn (DnD) or Pegacorn, Alicorn is actually the name of the horn of a unicorn. It fits because Faust said so.

This may come as somewhat of a surprise, but "alicorn" doesn't come directly from Latin—it's actually derived from Italian. It is derived from "alicorno", a regional variation of the word "liocorno" from Northern Italy (Emilia-Romagna). This is a folk etymology based on "lione" ("lion", modern form "leone") and "[uni]corno", from older 13th century "lunicorno", itself due to the fusion of "il-" ("the") and "unicorno". Similarly, the 14th century medieval byform "alicorno" was from a similar fusion of "al-" ("to the") and "liocorno".

So why did they decide to use "alicorn" to describe a winged pegasus?
...Because it sounds fittingly "officious"? I don't think they had any real specific reasons for choosing the term. "Alicorn" has never meant "winged unicorn" outside a handful of obscure sources, who used the term for the same arbitrary reason of feeling like it fits.

3838967

How is "thestral" any better than "bat pony" if the former means "undead cursed horse spirits with patagius wings"?

Unless the setting has anything to do with Harry Potter outside of the origin of the name, in most stories it's only used to refer to batponies

As for how the term "bat pony is offense" in Of Lilies and Chestnuts, here's a excerpt from when it comes up:

“We don’t like being called names,” Chestnut repeated. “Our species is called thestrals. Or noctrals, depends on who you ask. I guess it makes sense to call us the way you called us because of all the things we share with batsies. Ears, fangs, wings… but on the other hoof it’s weird. You don’t see anyone calling unicorns ‘hornponies’ or pegasi ‘wingponies’.”

For what you’d expect from an uneducated filly these points were surprisingly sound. In fact, earth ponies in Equestria were sometimes called ‘mudponies’ which was neither kind nor elegant – just one of the words you weren’t suppose to say in public. The bat-word had to be a similar case, but one thing was bugging Fleur nevertheless.

They find it offensive since the name bat pony is basically just going by their defining features, they'd rather be called by their proper name (though as it was pointed out by NachoTheBrony, they don't mind as much if somepony of their tribe calls them that)

3838967
I don't know were you got that definition from.

The word "Thestral" is defined as "(Adjective): dark and dim," according to the Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Words.

So, as linguistics go, it would be quite normal for thestral ponies to one day start be called thestrals for short.

3839066 Did not know that, does kind of fit in that context since most stories about them have them working in the night guard, and it seems to be a common theme to have them be nocturnal.

3839066
While it may be true that the word appears in the Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Words... it is also apparently true that "thestral" was completely made up by author John Gardener, admitted in the introduction of one of his own books (apparently he first made that admission in an interview). Also of note is that the only places that I have seen "thestral" used outside of Harry Potter (and Rowling herself apparently got the word from Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Words) is a single mention from John Gardener's Jason and Medeia, the Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Words, and a band named THESTRAL (who got their name from Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Words as well).

So honestly, the definition in Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Words is only slightly more "legitimate" than the one in Harry Potter, since the word was completely made-up and isn't used outside of extremely limited circumstances anyways. Either way, "thestral" has connections to death and despair even in its "original" usage, so my point still stands—calling bat-ponies "thestrals" is still something negative.

3839015
See above. Calling bat-ponies "thestrals" is negative regardless of where you got the definition.

3839166 I'll admit it is a good point, though I still imagine most people that use the term don't really care where it came from overall (I'll likely stick to using it, mostly out of habit since it's the most common term for them I've seen, but to each their own).

However, thank you for pointing this out, is nice to get some more information on the word beyond "It's a name for a creature in Harry Potter".

3839143

{…}calling bat-ponies "thestrals" is still something negative.

My own name, Ignatius, literarily means "idiot" in Latin.

The word gay was a word of abuse… until the gay community embraced it proudly.

The word "Yucatan" is actually is actually something very stupid in Mayan (something like "I don't understand you" or "Repeat your question"), yet the Mayans tried to become independent from Mexico by naming their nation "The Republic of Yucatan".

Americans seem to be so proud of being independent from the British Crown, yet they continue to measure the world under the British Imperial System of Measurements, rather than the science-derived (and scientific standard) metric system.

So, I really don't see your point.

3839260
If you are using "thestral" to describe bat-ponies based on the usage of the word in the series Harry Potter to describe undead cursed horse spirits with patagius wings, you are directly comparing them to said creatures.

If you are using "thestral" to describe bat-ponies based on the original definition of the word made up by author John Gardener, you are calling them dark, grim, desolate, and death-like.

—So which is it?

Hey, guys; what's going on in this thr-?
…
Never mind

3839313

3839286
Besides gay literarily meaning "carefree sexual deviant"?

Besides modern girls being VERY proud of calling themselves bitches?

3839313
3839338
Don't mind me, guys: just trolling Temporary Permanence here.