Dehumanizing Ponies, Part Four - Cutie Marks · 2:22am Jan 24th, 2014
Even if we throw aside everything discussed in the past three parts, there is something that would make ponies completely distinct from humans. Their cutie marks.
We may not have a precise definition of what a cutie mark is and does despite the explaining the show does, but we can total up the things we do know.
Cutie marks seem to act as a powerful force multiplier for basic skills, or even narrative permission to exercise them. When the various cutie marks were swapped, Rarity was able to affect the weather despite it being normally entirely out of her purview, and AJ was able to sew clothes, albeit hideous ones, at a higher level of competence than would be expected. It's likely that it's Pinkie's cutie mark is what grants her 'narrative permission' to break basic physics - something that is even pointed out in-universe. Cutie marks, in the normal course of things, seem to grant a massive boon to competence and ability in the appropriate area.
They're also compulsory. They compel. To the point where a pony unable to perform in accordance with their cutie mark suffers extreme mental anguish. Of course Twilight is a Student archetype: her cutie mark is pushing her to learn all magic. That's probably actually impossible, and the only way to satisfy it would be to be a student all her life, in deed if not in title. Now, Cutie Marks might undergo senescence in some sort of magical menopause type of process (magicpause?) but that would occur after the bulk of a pony's life was behind them.
So ponies have a biological/psychological drive to act in accord with their Cutie Marks. It's not all they do (witness Fluttershy's 'freaky knowledge of sewing'), but it does power the core of their life choices and personality. So for ponies there's never any doubt about what they should do with their life, the nature of their career, or the nature of their competence. All of a sudden their stable society seems more reasonable, when you've essentially got a guarantee of whether someone is good at a thing or not. Of course there are people who are competent at nothing useful, witness Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, competent at being classists.
Of course that means that ponies are in a way far more limited in choice than we are. I went to college to be a materials engineer, got a job doing patent analysis, and now I'm a programmer and a writer. Essentially I've dealt with four careers and I'm only thirty. A pony wouldn't have that. That isn't to say they couldn't change jobs somewhat - there's a bit of wriggle room inside AJ's "Apple Farm" cutie mark, for example. There's field worker, administrator, businesspony...AJ does it all, but if there were more hands on the Apple farm I doubt she'd feel particularly put out by specializing. (Plus there was that time she bucked cherries but I'm going to assume that it wasn't Apple season)
However I don't really believe in fate. Ponies aren't born destined to be Pinkie Pies or Fluttershys.
Acquisition of cutie marks seems composed of two parts - action and understanding. For Rarity and Twilight, the understanding came first. For Applejack and Pinkie Pie, the action came first. For RD and FS, it seemed to be bundled together. But this means that ponies cannot get a cutie mark they don't want - if it's something they don't like or are indifferent about, they'll never reach the 'understanding' part. And if they're trying to do something that's frankly out of their abilities, they'll never hit the action part. Presumably, that's all it takes to satisfy the Cutie Mark requirements (since it's internal rather than external) so the potential is pretty broad. But, once realized, it narrows considerably.
So every pony carries within them a significant confidence and self-awareness of their place in society and what goals they should have. There are going to be very few ponies who are unhappy with their jobs (which is not the same thing as being unhappy with their lives; heartbreak and politics, disease and death know no cutie marks), but at the same time the ability for the society as a whole to adopt to changes is going to be significantly retarded by cutie marks. A general mechanic cutie mark pony might come up with a steam engine, but it'll only be after it's around and part of the public consciousness that you'll get steam-engine-oriented cutie marks.
A lack of cutie mark in an adult pony would be a symptom of an incredibly diseased mind. You have a pony that has not found their understanding of "I like to do this and will be good at it," a biologically mandated emotion. It's probably indicative of some severe and chronic dissociative state, even worse than poor Screw Loose.
As an aside, we've seen that every pony has a pretty darn appropriate name. If we aren't going to use nominative determinism, it's probably reasonable that ponies get a new name when they get their cutie mark that matches what they've decided they are. Before then, they'd have some diminuitive/nickname sort of thing, or at least a more fluid name. It would make more sense than prescience on the part of parents.
That would make a lot of sense, actually. It always annoyed me how names perfectly matched cutie marks. I think I'll be adopting this into my personal headcanon.
1751696
And they'd use the same name in retrospect, too. It'd be part of their self-identity so...
I Like this, close to my thinking on cutie marks.
Here is how I had Twilight describe them to a human:
"A special talent is what you are best at, what you most enjoy doing. It’s an integral part of your personality, you shape it and it shapes your life. That’s not everything it is, but until I study your language more thats probably as close to a definition I can come to."
Damn, that's really good.
1751729
Hrm, Twist was Twist even before we knew she had found her cutie mark. Translation convention? Freak coincidence? Retroactive continuity?
1751819
I'd suggest narrative convention, if you want to explain it away (the real explanation being that ponies are conceived as characters, rather than being organic individuals, but...). If this is all post facto, then Twist was always Twist, even when she wasn't Twist.
I've been thoroughly enjoying this series of blog posts. It really is very interesting (and important) to really LOOK and THINK at how Equestria is necessarily different from our own world, how these ponies are different from humans. It's far too easy to fall into the trap of writing the world as if they were just brightly-colored humans (i.e. Equestria Girls) instead of sapient animals.
I particularly like this bit on cutie marks, and how they work. it makes a lot of sense and aligns very closely (probably why I like it) to the way I've theorized they work/behave, especially with regards to name changing.
Looking forward to more of this, if you've got more waiting in the wings.
To be honest, the CMC episodes may be annoying, but it's there you learn the most about what Cutie Marks aren't,
I wonder about this, because while names are always appropriate, they don't always relate to the person's cutie mark. Sapphire Shores is not a name related to singing. Pinkie Pie is a pink baker, but her talent relates to parties and laughter represented by yellow and blue balloons. Also, she was born pink, so that part of her name is neatly explained in a way unrelated to cutie marks. Twilight Sparkle sounds like an astronomer (and actually is quite fond of astronomy) more than a wizard. Rarity's name might match her personality but doesn't really relate specifically to tailoring.
Of course, it's possible that if ponies can take a new name when they get their mark, some ponies either don't bother taking one or when they take a new name don't bother relating it to their cutie mark very well.
I like thinking that there is some sort of elaborate divining ritual that is performed shortly after birth that determines a pony's name.
That naming system is really close to how Indians name themselves back in the day, when they found something that makes them stand out; They adopt it into their existing name or modify it to make sense name wise.
How I See it is that family adds more names to a ponies name. At birth the foal is given a first name and a family name, lets use Twilight Sparkle as a example. Twilight is her birth name and Sparkle is her family name. When Twilight gain her cutie mark, a family or herd meeting would be call. Here they would discuss if Twilight needs to have either a new name added to her. This could be a new first name making her previous first name a middle name, a new middle name, or maybe both but the foal will always keep her original name.
But because Twilight was so awesome at her entrance exam that she gets to keep her generic family name and her family name with no additional names; this is to promote their family to be more known.
But what if her cutie mark wasn't her magic cutie mark? What if it was say a blue sparkly apple, well her name would of been "Twilight Apple" Sparkle, "Apple Twilight" Sparkle, Twilight "Apple Blue" Sparkle,or Twilight "Apple Sparkler" Sparkle. Both birth name and family name stay, but get moved around to prevent the foal from getting confuse as to why it lost its original name.
This new name(s) would be presented to them at the foals cutecinera/ tattoo party (colts version)
Also genders would have different names for it females would call them "cutie-marks" and males would call them Life Mark, Mark, colt-mark,or tattoo; I'm leaning more to just Mark
On the subject of names, that gives an in universe explanation for why many ponies have two names. Before they got their marks Minuette was Colgate (or other way around if you prefer) and Carrottop was Golden Harvest. Since ponyville is a small town some ponies might call each other by their foalhood names, a sort of pet name between friends.
This whole discussion on names, taking new ones as one comes of age, and having secret names among friends reminds me strongly of Dune.
Paul Atreides, (Paul) Muad'dib, and Usul to his heart of hearts. Names are important, and sometimes you need different names for different contexts.
Unless there's that one lucky bastard who's a Jack of Trades.
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You mean like Twilight "my talent is magic!" Sparkle?
I imagine they're about as common as Einsteins/Mozarts/etc. Which is to say, really rare. Since it takes both understanding and action, you have to be virtuoso indeed (and at a young age) to get a very generalized cutie mark.
1752245
Is this scenario possible:
Kid was a really late bloomer, and ended up having to take a bunch of short term jobs all the time. It takes a while, but he finds out he can reasonably back someone up if they need help if he focuses a bit to learn what said job entails. This may be when kid gets Jack of Trades, or an average human. Can adapt, but won't be better than a pony who is that talent.
Which in retrospect, would kinda suck since theres always someone better.
In the original My Little Pony series, foals had copies of their mother's cutie marks and were named "Baby [Mother's Name]"; probably when they became fillies and colts (and went with the appropriate sexually-segregated herds, which is how they lived back in those days) it went "Little [Mother's or Father's Name based on Sex]" and when their actual adult cutie mark surfaced they got their adult names. We never saw the transition, but what has seemed to have happened in the millennia in between is that foals and young colts/fillies are now blank-flanks, acquiring their cutie marks in very early adolescence (the equivalent of older human children).
I haven't seen enough of My Little Pony Tales to see how the transition went in that series. In the third series, there was neither birth nor ageing, so everyone just presumably had their cutie marks forever.
1751830
Also possibly Translation Convention.
1752188
Cutie marks seem like one of the ultimate expressions of benvolent order. And if babylon 5 has taught me anything, the ultimate question of order is "who are you?"
Chaos is "what do you want?"
Seems to fit
TVTropes has a fancy name for it - Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome.
Speaking of Screw Loose, which one of following statements do you think is true:
1. Her special talent is being insane
2. Her (real) special talent is involving screws
3. An extreme psychological stress and fundamental changes to one's psyche can cause a cutie mark change
The Cutie Pox was a very interesting episode for the understanding of cutie marks. It implied that marks could be changed and with their change, the pony receives an ability to perform previously impossible feats.
Do you think there's a stigma associated with ponies who decide to forego their cutie mark and decide to do something different with their life? Cheerilee's story about her cutie mark representing 'helping foals grow' didn't seem very plausible to me.
I had similar thoughts about pony name change. My personal interpretation is that a pony receives her name after birth and has an opportunity to change it after receiving her cutie mark. While some ponies we've seen in the show have suspiciously contrived names, it is understandable that members of families who have been in the same trade for generations are more likely to receive thematic cutie marks.
Cutie marks and their placement also impact fashion designs. If a cutie mark represents your identity, covering it should be an equivalent of wearing a full face mask. I think this is the most important reason why most ponies prefer not to wear clothes and why does Canterlot/Manehatten high society loves them so much.
I pity the members of other races in pony-verse, as they are 'by design' inferior when performing a specific task when compared to a pony buffed with a cutie mark for performing the same task.
My own headcanon for the cutie mark shape is that it's what the pony would unconsciously use to represent the actual talent he or she has. This has a few side-effects that, IMHO, help explain some of the inconsistencies:
- The cutie mark depends as much on the pony's upbringing as on his actual talent. This includes family, name, personality, etc; this helps explain cutie marks matching names, since if the pony likes his name, and a cutie mark that matches his name could be used to represent his special talent, then his or her cutie mark will likely end as that. It would also explain why Apple family ponies get Apple related cutie marks.
- The pony intuitively knows what his cutie mark means.
- It partially explain stock cutie marks; if a pony grows imagining a given cutie mark as the representation of a talent, and he or she has that same talent, then chances are good he or she will get that stock cutie mark.
- It allows for the same, or very similar, cutie marks representing wildly different talents. A pony that does tasks very fast, a pony that is always on time, and a time lord reborn as a pony might all get the same hourglass shaped cutie mark, since for each one the same shape represents different things.
- It allows for different cutie marks representing the same, or very similar, talent. For example, an Apple family pony whose talent is cooking would get an apple-related dish as his or her cutie mark, while a Cake family pony would get some kind of cake instead for the same ability.
1751830
There's toy naming conventions also, given that a large number of named background ponies, and a few not so background ones (such as Cheerilee), were created (or named) first as toys and then imported into the show. I believe most of the ponies whose name is just a description of their cutie marks fall into this category.
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Cherilee is a special case. She was a previous generation popular toy that Hasbro insisted on being added to the show as more than just a background pony, so the show staff were forced to find an explanation for what a cutie mark of three smiling flowers would actually mean. Given the constraints they were working with, I actually think Cheerilee's background turned rather well.
1752883
Come on, outside of context explanations are an easy way out. The whole point of this discussion is to build an internally consistent world without resorting to using Hasbro, toys or marketing as excuses.
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Which is why I answered your post after pointing my own headcanon about how cutie mark shapes are chosen. IMHO if a pony imagines some shape as the representation of his/her talent, even if it's a long shot or if the pony him/herself can't put it into words, then that is what the pony gets as a cutie mark.
As far as which benefits the cutie mark give, my own interpretation is that the talent itself is not part of it's benefits; the cutie mark represents the talent, not the other way around.
The cutie pox would appear to be an exception, of course, but Apple Bloom got that after drinking a potion she made to wake hidden talents; her competency, and likely the compulsion to practice them, might be the result of the potion, and the cutie marks appearing just a symptom. The previous outbreak wasn't explained, so there is nothing to confirm or discard this interpretation.
The benefit that I see the cutie mark providing is a kind of magical affinity; the cutie mark would, then, shape the inherent race talents of the pony, making it easier - or even possible in the first place - for the pony to perform his or her special talent. That is what I believe happened to the mane 6 in Magic Mystery Cure; they got the magical affinity to perform the task - allowing, for example, Rarity to manipulate the climate - but none of the actual talent in doing that, resulting in the disasters that we saw.
As a side note, I don't think the cutie mark limits what the pony can be competent at in any shape or way. It provides a (often small) benefit for performing what the pony is already very good at, but - just like a human - the pony could choose to learn other abilities and get really good at those too.
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I don't actually think of Twilight as a jack of all trades. She can do magic very well, and apparently copy other unicorn's magic after seeing it used a few times (or even just once), but when attempting things that don't involve magic, organization, or research she is usually more adorkable than competent.
It's entirely possible that having a cutie mark doesn't represent what a pony's special talent is, but rather that they have a special talent. An adult pony without a cutie mark could be considered a "drifter" of sorts. Ideally the mark may conjure images of a pony's talent, or even depict it directly, but it's possible that it may have meaning only to the pony who bears it. What matters isn't that others can identify a pony's talent with a quick glance at their flanks, but that the bearer of a mark knows that they've discovered their talent and knows what it is.
Consider this exchange from the Star Trek: TNG episode "Darmok":
TROI: It's as if I were to say to you, "Juliet on her balcony."
CRUSHER: An image of romance.
TROI: Exactly. Imagery is everything to the Tamarians. It embodies their emotional states, their very thought processes. It's how they communicate, and it's how they think.
RIKER: If we know how they think, shouldn't we be able to get something across to them?
DATA: No, sir. The situation is analogous to understanding the grammar of a language but none of the vocabulary.
CRUSHER: If I didn't know who Juliet was or what she was doing on that balcony, the image alone wouldn't have any meaning.
Just beacuse we can identify the picture on a pony's flank doesn't mean we know anything at all about their talent. What's important is that they do.
Side note: Twilight's name and cutie mark have nothing to do with magic. My headcanon says the stars on her butt may have more to do with "the stars will aid in her escape" than with her actual talent. I tried to address the role of Twilight's cutie mark in prophecy, if briefly.
1752253
You mean as if someone's talent was to be another person's number one assistant?
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Relative to other marks she's a Jack-of-all-trades. A complete 'Rennaisance Man' cutie mark (good at everything) would be pretty silly.
And while they may not explicitly limit competence, remember a pony has to both compete with cute-mark-enabled ponies within other areas of competence while at the same time fulfilling their own mark's requirements. The economics for spending too much time outside of the area of competence start to become prohibitive.
1752883
Yeah, as both action and understanding are required, ponies who find themselves slotting into a 'known' job are going to probably end up with similar cutie marks, or just being aware of certain marks will influence theirs.
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I'd suggest that's not actually possible, any more than it's possible I can decide to give up on that annoying eating thing.
1752937
Twilight's abstract cutie mark is pretty unusual, but given that we see the same starburst on Shining Armor's shield (and he's no magical slouch), it's probably either a family crest or a symbol historically associated with power (your Darmok example). It being purple might just reflect the color of Twi's magic.
Really the symbol of the cutie mark is secondary to the meaning, which as I noted is an internal revelation, so the connection can be fairly arbitrary (I'm looking at you, Snails).
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I don't really see Twilight as a jack of all trades, neither as somepony with a wider array of skills than the other mane 6.
You pointed yourself how Applejack has a wide array of skills. She manages the Sweet Apple Acres, can do all farm tasks quite well (including ones not related to apples, such as livestock handling, building, fixing things, etc), sells her apples herself, is a great cook (when not sleep deprived, at least), and is really competent in everything rodeo-related (she didn't win first place in anything in The Last Roundup, but she was among the best in about every competition, apparently being the single pony that won the largest number of ribbons). It's a different specialty, sure, but I see her skills as being just as broad as Twilight's.
The same seems to be true of the other mane 6, with each of them being quite competent in anything even tangentially related to their "core" talent. Rarity, for example, seems to be quite proficient in anything that involves making things more beautiful, whether that involve cooking, topiary, repairing things, decorating, or otherwise creating objects out of a wide range of materials. We get some sampling bias in this because not all skills are as exciting, so not all of them get a fair share of screen time.
The mane 6 might be exceptions, of course, but I don't think that is the case, or at least not by much.
1752938
Living your whole life doing the same thing, never ever wanting to try anything different? That's probably one of the most depressingly dehumanized ideas in this whole blog series.
On the other hand, we have Cheerilee's teenage rebellion as an example. She was clearly shown as a teen who has already received her cutie mark doing something which is completely different from present day Cheerilee-teacher. So we cannot just say that ponies' whole life is completely defined by their cutie marks.
1752937
It's a solid theory, but I prefer an explanation that Twilight's mark represents not magic, but Element of Magic. When ponies activated the Elements, their gems have changed their shape to match the ponies' cutie marks. Only the Element of Magic looks exactly the same as it looked when Celestia has banished Nightmare moon thousand years ago, and the same as the central starburst on Twilight's cutie mark. Five smaller stars represent Twilight's friends.
1752975
Except that's not how I've presented cutie marks working? There's a broad range between "unable to reject cutie mark" and "unable to do anything but single task."
Edit: Besides, why would it be depressing? Prior to the information age most people spent their lives doing one thing (plus hobbies), so the only real difference is that ponies are guaranteed to enjoy it.
1752992
"Unable to reject cutie mark" implies "unable to consider rejecting cutie mark", otherwise ponies wouldn't have been so happy about their marks every time they are mentioned. And having such mental blind spots sounds pretty alien and depressing for me.
1752975
The bit about the Element (and Daetrin's earlier comment about the same mark on Shining Armor's shield) is interesting. Remember, though, that she had that mark well before she met her friends, which goes back to Twilight's role as the Mare of Prophecy. Also, her mark is a pinkish star over a white star, surrounded by five smaller stars. Her mark, then, is seven stars total. Mane6 + Spike? Twi + 6 Elements? Twi + Celestia, Luna, Nightmare, Discord, Cadance, Chrysalis? All we can do is speculate because again, we only know she has her mark - not what it represents. I think that's all any pony can know when looking at another.
1752942
Which is why a pony might not be locked into a role once they're marked: if their understanding of that meaning changes over time then their career, life direction, and self-concept can change with it.
1753002
Alien morality. To a pony, humans having no direction in life would sound alien and depressing too.
1753003
Well, since cutie marks compel, I imagine that feedback settles down fairly early in their lives. I wouldn't say it ever completely stops, but barring rapid environmental change it doesn't seem likely they're going to reinterpret their self-determined competencies.
1753008
I agree that we shouldn't judge alien culture and psychology with human standards. It's just that only after reading this comment it truly hit me, how different are ponies from us. Not herd mentality, not lack of hands or different military tactics, not even their innate magic. The cutie marks and acceptance of them as a part of natural order is what makes ponies truly alien.
Theory somewhere that Snails is a mathematician. Fibonacci spiral and stuff
1753012
Think about a life were about the 8th grade, *poof* you're marked with your life's ambition. There's no "finding yourself", it's right there.
High school would be a wasted effort, no sense in taking 4 more years of general educatio. So off you go to tech school, or an apprenticeship. No one questions you if your doing the right thing. No one suggests that you should do anything else. You work that skill for your entire life, never thinking to do otherwise.
The only human culture that has anything even similar was Japan's Bushido culture. And I have to put on some rose-colored glasses to even start that comparison.
1753128
As someone who works in a field that didn't even exist when I was of an equivalent age to the ponies earning their cutie marks mobile app development, I can understand your point very well.
Unless there are ponies out there who have very broadly defined cutie marks ("engineer", "scientist", "inventor"), this social structure seems to be completely incompatible with rapid technological progress. Ponies simply cannot develop whole new fields of science and technology, like we did in the last century. Their research speed would be limited by necessity of waiting for a new generation of foals to get interested in the new subject, receive their cutie marks, learn basic knowledge and reach working age. It could work for farmers, craftsmen, even artists, but you cannot instantly get thousands of foals with cutie marks in nuclear physics, spacecraft engineering or programming out of nowhere.
There could actually be an effective way to jumpstart equestrian science and technological development, but it requires us to dive into grimdark territory. Remember those complicated math formulas Apple Bloom was solving in Cutie Pox? The ones she had no reasonable way of knowing as a filly? Scientific-revolution-in-a-box recipe: infect a hundred or thousand of foals who have yet to receive their marks with cutie pox, lock them inside research facility and carefully analyze their output. For science and progress!
Do you think that some ponies could get their cutie marks' meaning mixed up?
Like, this pony here.
th09.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2012/179/b/6/_co__dewdrop_dazzle_by_thedarkestdaydream-d557svk.png
Her cutie mark supposedly hints at rain but its real meaning refers to matchmaking since the symbol is actually an Ai Ai Gasa.
1753954
Since the causation is forward rather than backward, "mislabeled" cutie marks probably come either from artists that don't know what's up, or, in-universe, a common misconception or symbolic shorthand (like, the floppy disc being a save icon despite the fact that floppies are obsolete).
1753972
I see.
Say, you think a pony trying to pass his talent for a different interpretation could work long enough for him to convince other ponies of him having the fake talent?
1754043
No pony would do that, other than genuine sociopaths. Or someone already afflicted by a dissociative disorder. Remember Cutie Marks are a biological compulsion, like eating or breathing.
1754253
Oh yeah. That's the good stuff.
1754043
Ever read this one? http://www.fimfiction.net/story/29902/smiling-flowers
If I remember correctly, there's a chapter of Xenophile's Guide to Equestria that has some interesting theories on cutie marks.
" Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, competent at being classists. "
Of course now we know that Diamond Tiara's true talent is leadership.
One concept I could see playing into Cutie Marks is the 'boxing lessons for Superman' sort of thing.
IE, a pony with a talent can learn other things to broaden and improve that talent that do not directly relate to it.
A good example of this would be Rainbow Dash, actually. For all intents and purposes, her flying skills is her special talent, but she works as a Weather Manager and is DANG GOOD at it.
So why does a pony who's talent and passion relates to professional flying know weather manipulation to an advanced degree?
Well, simple answer: it adds on to her special talent. We've seen both Rainbow and the Wonderbolts incorporate weather manipulation into their acts, so while probably not directly connected to her Cutie Mark (which kind of explains why Rarity could DO it but not exceptionally well), it's a secondary skill that increases the capabilities they have in their primary skill.