The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

The latest pony episode, Hearth’s Warming Eve, really just brings up more questions than it answers about society in Equestria. Sure, we learn some things. Equestria being an actual country, as opposed to a planet or plane of existence for instance. There’s also some silly, obviously incorrect bits in there, like Equestria’s original flag having Celestia and Luna on it before they existed, but I can give that one to the nature of the play being put on with little trouble. What really makes me interested, though, is that this episode takes my general idea about the caste system inherent in Equestrian society that I formed back when I was first watching season one and makes it canon.

The episode basically clearly states that, in the past, this caste system was in place: earth ponies were farmers and laborers, pegasi were warriors and controlled the weather, and unicorns were aristocrats and sorcerers. This… hasn’t changed much, even though the play that was put on would like to suggest it is. Pegasi are still in control of the weather and are the soldiers, I’ve never seen anything but earth ponies working on farms and such, and unicorns are mostly still the representation of high society and the elite. There is some level of social mobility, of course. Example off the top of my head is Photo Finish, representing high society and being an earth pony. But because you can’t practice magic without being a unicorn, and non-Pegasi can’t even get to and stand on Cloudsdale to help with the weather stuff, it just doesn’t allow for as much movement as one would want, realistically. You are severely hindered by your birth, and the talents granted by it, and that’s that.

In any case, even though these systems are still basically in place from back then, it caused a civil war, basically, back in the day, which the play depicts. While we learn that it is friendship that keeps a society together, it’s really unclear how Equestria was rebuilt so that the same ire wasn’t simply recreated in everypony. Clearly the founding of Equestria brought with it a proper economy, as ponies do have money, called bits. This would certainly alleviate some of the issues involved with demanding food from earth ponies that the play depicts, but does it really completely diffuse the situation? I’m not really sure.

One thing I am sure of is that Hearth’s Warming Eve is a propaganda holiday that works to make sure that everyone THINKS these sorts of pressures have been resolved, even if they haven’t. It’s an interesting comparison to Christmas, as they’re clearly meant to be compared, since both holidays use similar decoration and the like. Our Christmas tends to use a holiday that’s supposedly based in togetherness and generosity (outside of the obvious potential religious angle, which I’m not counting here) to power consumerism. It’s exploiting those nice feelings for greed’s sake, which is certainly something I think our society understands, even if we think it’s shitty to do. We can recognize it happening. Their Hearth’s Warming Eve is using a holiday based in togetherness to power some sort of political agenda. It comes off as a bit more sinister, I guess, which is something that kind of struck me throughout the episode. It seemed a little off for this world for this play to be done basically every year, everywhere in Equestria, that everyone went to see. To keep these ideas so firmly in the mind just seems… it’s strange. Because while it’s a reminder that we should be friends, it’s also a huge, huge reminder of the big gaps and issues plaguing their society. I don’t know why a different heart-warming story wouldn’t be told unless that was all part of the message. Songs are sung about how friendship keeps everyone together. Everyone learns the lesson they are required to learn, and nopony seems to question that this is something being fed to them for some reason, although what reason is unclear.

Or maybe I just think about a children’s television show too much.