Pony Philosophy

by Persona22

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony Comic, Equestria Girls, Starlight Glimmer, Random, Princess Celestia, Pinkie Pie, Discord, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 5239

The philosophy found in Friendship is Magic

From existencialism, to personality deconstruction and so on, we try to overanalize episodes and characters of Friendship is Magic to get answers of diferent philosophical questions.

Published 2018-01-30 12:10:06 UTC
Last updated 2018-01-30 12:10:06 UTC

Discord is the main force of change in Equestria

Discord is the Spirit of Chaos, to put it simply he is Chaos personified. And because of this, he is the driving force of every important change we ever see happening in Equestria simply by existing. That he is aware of this or not is debatable.

He is not, however, aware in any way of what change will result from his actions. But change there will be. He is Chaos, and without Chaos, no major change can ever occur.

Now, some people, myself included, have a head cannon that Discord was responsible for the creation of Poison Joke, and the Zap Apples, or both. And said idea can be supported further by the events we see in the two first episodes of Season 4 “Princess Twilight Sparkle”, when Discord created the Plunder Seeds. Sure the Tree of Harmony kept them at bay, but what if they still somehow had an effect on the Everfree Forest and the Poison Joke flowers, or the Zap Apple Trees, or both, were a result. After all, the Posion Joke’s effect are something Discord would do, and the nonsensical rules behind making Zap Apple Jam also has a very distinct Discord tone about them.

If Discord was responsible for this two things, then that means that Ponyville never would have existed, since the only reason it became a major trading spot that helped turn it into an actual town was Granny Smith finding the Zap Apples, planting them at Sweet Apple Acres and then producing and selling the Zap Apple Jam. Since Ponyville is basically where 90% of the series take place, and where the main characters live, I would say this is pretty important.

Poison Joke, on the other hand, is the reason Twilight and the rest ended up befriending Zecora. And therefore, every event that resulted in Zecora doing something, like helping Twilight a way to defeat Trixie and free the blue unicorn of the Alicorn Amulet’s influence, or making the potion Twilight used to see into the past on the Season 4 premiere. No Posion Joke, means Zecora remains an outcast to the rest of Ponyville, living alone in the Everfree Forest.

But, of course, this is just based on the assumptions that Zap Apples and Posion Joke were created, directly or indirectly, by Discord.

And so, here are the reasons I use to support my theory, by analyzing the events we see on all four seasons.

Now, chronologically speaking, the first time Discord appeared was 1000 years ago, when he was finally turned to stone by the Elements of Harmony wielded by Celestia and Luna.

To defeat him, something that Celestia and Luna were unable to do on their own from what we see in the flashback Twilight sees after drinking the potion, Celestia and Luna find the Tree of Harmony, and remove the six Elements of Harmony from it. Then use them to turn Discord into stone. (And him leaving a little parting gift in the form of the Plunder Seeds.)

Later, Luna finally succumbs to her dark side and turns into Nightmare Moon, with her goal to bring eternal night and to destroy Celestia. After a short fight, Celestia understands that the only way for her to beat Luna is by using the Elements of Harmony on her, which ends up with Luna being banished to the Moon for 1000 years.

But the only reason Celestia had access to the Elements of Harmony in the first place was because she and Luna had removed them from the Tree of Harmony before to use them to beat Discord. No Discord, no retrieving the Elements of Harmony from the Tree of Harmony, which means that Celestia would not have had the means to banish Nightmare Moon (Luna) to the Moon. By existing, Discord has caused already one major event, indirectly.

Let’s jump a millennia ahead, and we have the events that happened in the very first episode of the show, where Twilight and the rest of the cast restore the Elements of Harmony, become bonded with them, and finally are able to turn Nightmare Moon back into Princess Luna. Thus restoring the rule of both royal pony sisters, instead of leaving Princess Celestia to rule Equestria on her own. Again, a major event caused, indirectly, by Discord by simply existing.

Then we have Discord’s return in the Season 2 premiere episodes. This one is pretty straight forward, by beating Discord, Twilight and the rest came to an even deeper understanding of their friendship. Sure, friends can have differences and fights, but in the end if their friendship is true, it will prevail and become stronger. It’s impossible for THIS realization to be what Discord was going for all along when he did what he did.

Now let’s jump ahead to Season 3’s episode “Keep Calm and Flutter On” in which Fluttershy is able to reform Discord by befriending him. The most important thing on this episode, regarding this theory, is not the reformation of Discord (which is important, of course) but what Celestia tells Twilight at the end: That she will leave the Elements of Harmony with her in Ponyville, just in case.

This is important in the Season 3’s finale, “Magical Mystery Cure”. In that episode, Twilight receives a book from Princess Celestia, which contains an unfinished spell by Starswirl the Bearded. Twilight carelessly casts this spell, which in turn jumbles up the Elements of Harmony, with a terrible effect on her friends, who all end up switching their cutie marks with one another. But Twilight is able to fix her mistake, by using the Elements of Harmony and restoring her friend’s true selves again. And at the end of this, Twilight becomes an Alicorn Princess.

But, you see, none of this would have been possible if the Elements of Harmony had been in Canterlot, like they used to be, instead of Twilight’s Library. And the only reason they were there in the first place is because Celestia left them there “just in case” after Discord was reformed. No Discord, means no Alicorn Twilight.

In the season 4 premiere episodes, besides the things we already discussed, Twilight and her friends must return the Elements of Harmony to their original place, the Tree of Harmony, so as to restore balance to the Everfree Forest, and free the two royal pony sisters. But the only reason they had to do this was from the vines growing all over the place, which in turn were caused by the Plunder Seeds Discord had planted 1000 years ago. Not only Discord’s actions ended up being the reason why the Elements of Harmony were removed form the Tree of Harmony, but he is also responsible for them being returned to it again. No Discord means no Plunder Seeds, no Plunder Seeds mean no vines, and no vines means that Princess Clelestia and Princess Luna never go missing, which means that the Elements of Harmony are never returned to the Tree of Harmony.

And then there is the Season 4 finale “Twilight’s Kingdom” where we have the return of Lord Tirek/Tirac (or however you spell his name). Discord is given the mission to track him down and put him back in Tartarus. And after forgetting what made him give up his evil ways and befriending Fluttershy and the rest in the first place, Discord ends up helping Tirek.

You all would think this was a bad thing, but in the end it did more good than if Discord had just locked down Tirek back in Tartarus like he was supposed to.

Princess Twilight was in doubt about her role as a Princess, and in the end of the episode she finally sees what her role is supposed to be. But this is only possible through Discord’s actions and “momentary” betrayal.

By the time Discord finds Tirek, he had still a long way to come from attaining his full power. It wasn’t until Discord helps him that Princess Celestia, Luna and Cadence realize that to keep their magic from being taken by Tirek, they must give it to Princess Twilight. No Discord helping Tirek mean that Twilight is never given the magic of the other three Alicorns. Also, before this happens, we must not forget that is Discord the one that encourages Twilight to deepen her research on the mystery box that appeared from the Tree of Harmony at the end of the Season 4 premiere episodes.

Finally, Discord betrays the Mane 6 by helping Lord Tirek consuming their magic as well, and then is betrayed by him and his magic is taken away too.

After a fight with Lord Tirek, Princess Twilight is made to choose between giving up her magic or giving up her friends. And she chooses her friends. Yes, even Discord.

Discord then gives her the amulet which ends up becoming the final key to open the locked box, which then ends up in the defeat and imprisonment of Lord Tirek once again.

As you can see, every major event in Equestria was a result, directly or indirectly, of Discord’s actions. He is unaware of what would result from said actions, but something important always comes from them. He is Chaos personified, he is the driving force of change.

Author's Note

Here's a small explanation behind a theory I have that Discord, just by his mere presence, is the main reason behind every single change and important event in the history of Equestria

Why do fans like Luna over Celestia?

In different episodes of Friendship is Magic we have seen plenty of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna to understand that they are both equal when it comes to how powerful they are, they both have a lot of magical powers, they both are ancient alicorns and they can both move celestial bodies at will. However, most fans of the show would say that, of the two, they like Pirncess Luna more than Princess Celestia. Let's analyze why with this three points:

1. The Superman Dilemma.

Anyone ever read The Illiad? If you didn't then it's almost entirely about Achilles being really, really angry and killing a lot of people. The son of a goddess and destined for glory, Homer won't shut up about how awesome Achilles is and how he has no equal. Achilles is, in all respects, a superhero before superheroes existed. But unless you're a person that enjoys every single little detail of every work of literature, you probably don't remember that there's one other Greek warrior who consistently and quietly proves throughout the entire epic poem to be just as great if not greater than Achilles. His name is Diomedes, and understanding why he's so forgettable is crucial to understanding why fans don't really care about Princess Celestia.

Diomedes is essentially Achilles without the existential crisis. He is younger, smarter, and more consistent. He defeats everyone he faces, and when he runs out of Trojans to kill because the war is over, he starts fighting and injuring gods instead. Not even Achilles can make that claim, because he dies right at the end of the Trojan war. When talking about Diomedes, the Trojans say, "He fights with fury and fills men's souls with panic. I hold him mightiest of them all; we did not fear even their great champion Achilles, son of a goddess though he be, as we do this man: His rage is beyond all bounds."

And while you may have never heard of him before now, you can still see the Diomedes archetype pop up again and again in pop culture: Legolas in The Lord of the Rings, Snake Eyes in G.I. Joe, and especially Superman in the DC universe. And of course, Princess Celestia in My Little Pony. They are the people (and pony) who are reliable, morally uncomplicated, and generally superior to all the other characters. While we love them, we will never be willing to watch an entire movie, an entire comic book, or an entire TV show made about them and only them.

Why? Because those characters are pillars of solidarity, they are ideals, but unfortunately they have nowhere left to go. For an audience, at least an adult audience, we want the central character to change for the better by the end of a story. We want someone who is deeply broken, who is struggling to keep himself or herself together in the face of adversity, and most importantly, we want a character who isn't invincible. We love Princess Luna and Batman because they are driven by complicated, selfish emotions like guilt and revenge to do extraordinary things under the constant looming threat of them being less than perfect. Superman is what each of those characters would look like divorced of any such threat or ugly motivation. Is it still heroism to leap into a burning building when you know it can't hurt you? That is the Superman Dillema. True with Diomedes in ancient Greece, and true now.

We aren't nearly as interested in acts of heroism as we are in the madness it takes for vulnerable people, or pony, to become heroes. The only way to fit Princess Celestia into that mold is to strip away some of her perfect traits, but the problem with that is ...

2. Princess Celestia stops being Princess Celestia as soon as she slips up.

The moment Princess Celestia is no longer a paragon of absolute virtue and wisdom, it negates everything she stands for as a character.

Quick, what are Princess Celestia's special abilities? Flight, magic, solar power (we suppose), moving the sun around, but what about the intangible power she possesses? Arguably the biggest part of what makes Princess Celestia Princess Celestia is that she maintains an incorruptible moral fiber and an urge to help and guide ponies despite her overwhelming superiority over all of them. Like standing on top of an ant hill while they all bite you and each other, Princess Celestia has the patience to try to help them every day. It is the one thing separating her from other super powerful characters like Princess Luna or Discord: Given the potential to control the world, Princess Celestia never succumbs to ego, or entitlement, or even objective detachment, because she has a sort of super humility. Despite everything she's seen (and being over 1000 years old, she must have seen some really heavy stuff), she stays compassionate towards mortal, non-alicorn ponies, but that compassion only means something as long as she possesses the power to destroy everyone on a whim if she felt like it.

The moment Princess Celestia starts being a jerk that power of character that makes Princess Celestia a symbol of greatness is suddenly gone. A story writer forcing her to falter is actually ruining the best part of who Princess Celestia is. And the worst part is that she not only has power in the form of her being an Alicorn, she also has power in the form of her being a Princess. Which brings us to the third point...

3. She must never have a defect.

I mentioned Superman before because he is basically a character that shares a lot of traits with Princess Celestia, but even Superman has an interesting side: Is he doing the right thing? Can he solve every problem?

Superman has super powers, but a man who can travel faster than a speeding bullet still can't be everywhere at once, which suggests that somewhere there are people dying in warehouse explosions and mass murders and roofing accidents every single day because he's busy stopping a giant meteor from hitting Earth or fighting Lex Luthor. For every person he saves, there are hundreds more, some of them children, taking their last breath while staring hopefully at empty skies waiting for Superman to show up. Superman can't help but set a precedent he can never live up to. From the first time he stopped a bridge from collapsing or diverted a tornado from a town, he instilled a false hope among people: That Superman will save them. That means that every day, even if he never bothered to put on glasses and go to work again at The Daily Planet, Superman is still letting down hundreds if not thousands of people. Add on top of that everyone who is dying of societal problems that are beyond his capacity to fix: homelessness, diseases, hunger...

There's no way Superman can stop homelessness, disease, teen suicide, or domestic abuse. How could he? One of his powers isn't lobbying local politicians. He holds no political power. He can't give homeless people a home.

Princess Celestia rules Equestria, she can totally do that. In fact she did, when she gave land to the Apple family and they settled and started making Zap Apple Jam and helped found Ponyville in the process. She runs the place. If there is hunger, she can divert state funds to plant more crops and provide food to the hungry. If there is disease she can divert state funds to build more hospitals. If there is homelessness she can grant state owned land to build more houses.

There is no problem Princess Celestia cannot resolve if she wanted to. She has all the magical power she needs, all the political power she needs, and all the time she needs (because she's immortal) to solve every single problem of every single pony living in Equestria, all the time. And she does.

Princess Luna couldn't handle that, she wanted more attention and turned into Nightmare Moon. Now she's back, she understands her mistakes, and tries to make amends all the time of her past actions. Discord was a villain, he has so much magic that he can do whatever he wants, he eventually realized that there are more important things in life and reformed with the help of Fluttershy, and now is starting to learn what it actually means to be a good friend and a good character.

Princess Celestia needs to be free of defects, because the moment she starts having one, then she simply becomes like Princess Luna or Discord. Princess Celestia is what characters that also have all the power of magic, and immortality, aspire to be like. She is a role model, and cannot stop being one, because when she does the whole thing falls apart.

Princess Luna doesn't have that kind of "pressue". She has the same power of Celestia, both magical and political, but she is struggling to become good, to improve herself, to be like her sister. She has a road to travel, and we like seeing her traveling it, we relate to that. Princess Celestia is already at the end of that road, she has no more growth to have.

By design, Luna is relatable and therefore more likable. And by design, Celestia is unrelatable, and therefore less likable.

Author's Note

A little 3-points analysis of why most fans of the show have Princess Luna over Princess Celestia as their favorite Royal Pony sister.

Pinkie Pie, a modern Epicurus.

Throughout the TV series, movies and comic books, Pinkie Pie (both Pony and Human versions of her) have shown proficiency and talents at many tasks. In fact, Pinkie Pie seems to have the skills and potential to be the greatest at any task or endeavor she would ever want to take.

In one of the early comic issues, we see that Human Pinkie Pie did try outs for every single club at Canterlot High and was so good that each and every one of them wanted her to join AND be their most important member.

Pony Pinkie Pie has ran as fast as Rainbow Dash can fly, can play any musical instrument, or all of them at once, has knowledge of creatures that not even Twilight knows (like the Parasprites)... the list could go on forever.

So, the question is, why isn’t Pinkie Pie, either human or pony, interested in using her hidden potential to its maximum? Why isn’t she inventing new things, discovering new things, etc? Instead of any of this, Pinkie Pie in any of her versions, seems to seek only one thing: having fun, being happy, and making everyone else around her have fun and be happy as well.

Thought history, philosophers have tried to answer several questions, like what “is” and what “is not”, what does it mean to be “good” or “evil”, and other questions regarding the meaning of life and the universe. But then we have Epicurus, a greek philosopher from 341 B.C.

Unlike other philosophers, Epicurus didn’t focus his philosophy on existentialisms, or good and evil, he focused on what was fun, on what made a person be happy. A question that he spent all his life trying to answer as good as possible.
Unfortunately, even back then the world was a bitter place always trying to bring people down, and when people heard that Epicurus had set up a SCHOOL to study happiness, there were all kind of rumors about it.

Some rumors said that the school would have orgies every night, or feasts where people would eat until they were full and even more, or both. One of his critics even said that Epicurus had orgasmed 18 times in a single night in a room full of virgins. Of course, none of this things were true.

Epicurus, and the rest of the staff in his school of happiness, were indeed studying happiness, but were very serious about it. Epicurus only owned two pieces of clothing, and would eat only bread, olives and an occasional slice of cheese every now and then. As for his sexual habits, he usually answered that philosophy was his only love.

Having patiently studied happiness for several years, Epicurus finally came to a conclusion of what exactly a person needs in order to be happy. He first concluded that everyone usually made three mistakes when thinking about happiness.

First, people usually think that being happy means having a romantic, sexual relationship. But Epicurus only had to look around to notice that there were many unhappy couples, who had their unions tainted by jealously, misunderstanding, cheating and bitterness. At the same time, he noticed how much nicer friendships are, how people tended to be so decent and unpossessive with their friends. Friendship, he concluded, was where human nature was at its sweetest. The only problem with that, according to Epicurus, was that we don’t hang out with our friends enough.

The second thing that people usually think is that happiness means having a lot of money. But, again, Epicurus noticed the big flaw here: that people tend to miscalculate the tremendous amounts of sacrifices we need to do in order to obtain said money. To get money we have to endure a lot of jealously, backstabbing, long hours of hard working effort, and so on. Epicurus concluded that what made work really satisfying wasn’t money, but it was when we were able to work alone, or in small groups, like a bakery, or a repair shop (ancient Greece had plenty of repair shops for merchant ships, for example), and also when we feel that our work is truly helping others, and in our own, small way, making the world a better, happier, place. Deep down we don’t really desire wealth or status, what we desire is feeling like we are making a difference.

And third, Epicurus saw how people seemed to be obsessed with luxury and having a lot of things, especially houses in great locations, the bigger and better looking the better. But beneath our desire for luxury, what we really want is to be calm, we want our minds pure and free, free of all the bother and chaos of the rest of the world. So, did luxury actually make us calm? Epicurus wasn’t convinced about that. And so, his studies on happiness concluded that a person only needed three things to be happy.

First, you needed to have your friends around you. No sex, no orgies, just your buddies, and not only seeing them every now and then, it had to be regular contact. So Epicurus purchased one big house and moved in with all of his friends. Everyone had their own bedrooms, but there were also big shared areas, like the kitchen, there was always someone nice that you could talk to.

Second, everyone started to take it easy or take it down a couple of gears, or however you want to call it. They stopped working for someone else, they took big paycuts so they could have more time to do their own things, some took up farming, some took up cooking, or crafting, or writing.

And third, Epicurus stopped thinking one could be calm just by having a beautiful scenery around you, and focused on trying to find calmness in their own minds, spending some time by themselves, reflecting on things, writing things down, reading, meditating about things.

Epicurus little experiment was so successful and the members of his little commune were so happy, that his ideas spread like fire. Communities just like the one Epicurus had formed started to appear all around the world (which, back then, was basically all the land around the Mediterranean sea). At the height of the movement, there was an estimate of 400 thousand people living in communes from modern day Spain to Lebanon.

This movement was actually ended by the Christian church in the 5th century, but they must have had some respect for said communities, because all of them were converted into monasteries. In fact, what we today know as monasteries were really “Epicurian” communes, with a Christian topping. Another little tidbit is that Karl Marx did his college thesis on Epicurus, and what we call Communism, that joyless and failed system is actually just an unsuccessful, and corrupt, version of Epicurus’ ideas.

The real legacy of Epicurus is that people aren’t very good at making themselves happy, mostly because we believe that being happy its easy, we all believe happiness is having lots of sex, lots of money, lots of luxury, and all we have to do is find a way to secure all of this things.

Epicurus says no to all that, and ask that we reflect in the moments that really made you happy, and they have nothing to do with these things, and to have the courage to change one’s life in accordance to the moments that actually gave us satisfaction, this means that you might end up living in a very different way, in a very different place, with just a couple of cloaks, some cake, some nice books, and all your friends.

This is basically how Pinkie Pie lives her life, she doesn’t seek to use her talents to become rich and famous. All she cares about is being with her friends, be it baking a cake, having a party, playing games, or anything else they might want to do together. Sure, she could become the best whatever in the world, with customers and/or fans coming from far and wide, willing to pay her a lot of money for whatever it is she does. But she just doesn’t want that, because she’s not after money, wealth or fame, she wants to play music with her friends, not be on tour all over the world and be rich and famous. She wants to make cupcakes for her friends and eat them together, she doesn’t want to have a five star restaurant with thousands of clients and her own reality cook show. She’s not even seeking a romantic relationship, all she is looking for is more friends, to have more fun moments.

Pinkie Pie is, basically, the best student Epicurus could ever hope to have. A pony (or person) that simply understood that what she wanted from life was to be happy, and understood what she really had to do in order to be happy.

Author's Note

So, what do you think? Is Pinkie Pie's way of life what we should all strive for? Or is she a fool for wasting her talents on banal things?

What was the two part episode "Cutie Map" really about?

I was re-watching the episode "The Cutie Map" (both part 1 and 2) when something came to my mind.

Despite of the huge fandom this show has, the show is made, in esscence, for little kids. The show is to adress issues that little kids may face in their lives growing up, and tries to present them with a solution, or at least have them confront said problem.

Now, regardless of what you might think, communism, or even the idea of what communism is, is not something that might affect little kids. So, what was the episode about then?

Then I remembered an old news article I read a few years ago, which you can read here: CLICK LINK

We live in a society that, more and more often, has our youth trying to be the same in all aspects so nobody would feel left behind.

A coach that has a team that wins 100 to 0 is fired. Kids get "participant" trophies all the time.

Then this survey conducted recently in Europe that shows that over a quarter of children have stopped doing activities they loved, and almost half have hidden a talent, all for the same reason. They feared being bullied for their talent and enthusiasm.

You can read the news of that here: CLICK LINK

So, maybe, the episode was not about communism, or anything of that nature.

Starlight Glimmer is the society that sees excellence as a bad thing, being talented is frowned upon, being proud of your achievements is bad. You must comform, you must become less of what you are so the rest of society is happy, so they will accept you.

Then comes Twilight, saying that no, it's not wrong to be talented, its okay to be good at something as long as you don't bully others or try to push them down in your quest to reach the top. To be great at something is amazing and it should be celebrated and cultivated. Being proven wrong, or being beaten at something, is not bad, because it provides you with an opportunity of growth.

But when Starlight Glimmer is confronted by this, she shuts Twilight up. She will not change her mind.

The episode (well, episodes since its a two part season premiere) are not about communism. They are a critisims on our educational system and society as a whole that pushes down kids so the other, less talented kids will not feel left behind, instead of encouraging those other kids to do better so as to reach or even surpass those that are great at things. And to bullies that make some other children be quiet and hide their talents and dreams in fear.

This little philosophy video kind of explains it better:

So, what do you think?

Author's Note

The pictures of Starlight Glimmer as some sort of overlord in a repressive communist system can be found in many places online. But, is the episode really about communism, or about a much deeper problem that today's youth have to face every day?