The Great and Analyzing Whammy!

[Trixie Lulamoon]

As I'm always mentioning in the Cbox, I'm really interested in trying and do some deep analyzing of our wonderful world of colorful ponies. Unfortunately I got memory worse than a goldfish so I need to keep a place where I can list some of the ideas on topics that I want to discuss. And when I actually write those ideas down? I can post them here too! Then, if I'm lucky, you all will write back, get a dialogue going, get more ideas, etc etc.

Or I get tired and bored and stop. Preferably the former.

Anyway, lists time:


Series Analysis:

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[*]What My Cutie Mark is Telling Me: Cutie Marks and Self-Actualization
[*]The Equestrian Polis: My Little Pony and Aristotle's Politics
[*]Eudaimonia and Equestria: Part I[/ul]

Episode Analysis:

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[*]Equestria Girls Review (Spoilers)
[*]"Lesson Zero" and the Importance of Sympathy and Empathy
[*]Nightmare Night and Utilitarianism
[*]John Stuart Mill and Pinkie Pie: A Crisis of Moral Unfreedom[/ul]

Episode Reaction Rambles:

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[*]Daring Don't
[*]Flight to the Finish
[*]Rainbow Falls
[*]Three's a Crowd
[*]Pinkie Pride
[*]Filli Vanilli
[*]Equestria Games
[*]Twilight's Kingdom
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Headcanon:

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Character Discussion:

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[*]Pinkie Pie and Ethical Hedonism: Round Two
[*]Is Pinkie PIe an Ethical Hedonist?-Video Version
[*]Transcendence and Princess Celestia: Humanistic Psychology and Alicorns
[*]Half Ponies Hedonistic Headache: The Cutie Mark Crusaders and the Paradox of Happiness
[*]CMC and the Paradox of Happiness (Video Version)
[*]Fluttershy and Peter Singer: Equal Consideration of Animal Interests[/ul]

Miscellaneous:

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[*]How I Do Analysis
[*]What I Value in Analysis
[*]The Question of Free Will
[*]100 Subscriber Special[/ul]

[Whammy]

On What "Friendship is Magic" Means

“Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.” -Epicurus, A Guide To Happiness

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To say that friendship is an important theme in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is probably one of the greatest understatements I have ever made. After all, “friendship” is right there in the title. It’s what comes after that word, however, that has been a perplexing problem for me. The phrase “Friendship is Magic” at first glance just seems to be a catchy phrase that seems short on any real substance. So, wanting to understand exactly what this phrase means, I decided to take a deeper look into what the show says, any kind of symbolism I could find, and even a quick jaunt into philosophical discussion on what friendship could mean. So, let’s get to sharing what exactly I’ve come up with.

The first question, of course, is where exactly do we begin to find out what exactly “Friendship is Magic” means within the context of the show? This was, honestly, the easiest part of the whole thing for me to answer; The Elements of Harmony. They are a magical artifact that is powered by friendship after all, so if there is any way to pull out a meaning to the phrase a look at the Elements is probably the best place to start. But not just any Element. Oh no, we got to go straight for the big dog itself: The Element of Magic. To understand the phrase “Friendship is Magic”, I think, we got to understand the Element of Magic. The others are important too, but we’ll get to them later.

So that makes the second question then a variation on our starting question; what does magic got to do with friendship? And this is where I think the problems can start. It is very easy to take “Element of Magic” very literally and treat it as simply being about raw, magical skill and talent. After all, Twilight Sparkle is the Element of Magic, and one of her defining traits is her powerful and skillful use of magic. She’s probably the most powerful unicorn in existence even.

Sorry Trixie

But, there’s something wrong with viewing it like that. The Element of Magic plays an important role in the Elements that makes it somehow even larger than the others. As Twilight says in the second episode, “when the five are present, a spark will cause the sixth Element to be revealed.” It’s also the only Element that is not a necklace but instead a tiara, further signifying it’s uniqueness among the others. Finally, the imagery surrounding the Elements, has always seems to have it in the center of the others. Whether this imagery is Twilight’s Cutie Mark (magic is the giant sparkle and the other 5 the smaller sparkles):

The Story book from episode 1:

When being used:

Heck, even when they temporarily blow up Twilight, it’s front and center. Twice in fact since Twilight’s cutie mark is represented on the floor there.

The Element of Magic is literally in the center of the Elements when it is presented. But why? If it only appears when the others are present, and we can easily conclude the others represent important virtues in friendship, then the Element of Magic has to represent something central to the concept of friendship itself if it’s being given such importance. But if the Element is simply just a representation of magical power and skill, what would that say about friendship? That it is all based upon power? That seems completely off. So what, then, does it mean?

The best articulation I have ever found of a meaning to the Element of Magic comes from a fanfiction. In particular, it comes from chapter 4 the fic “Boast Busted,” an AU-fic that is centered in a universe where Trixie is the apprentice to Princess Luna while Celestia was the one banished. I won’t get into the entire fic and will simply link it at the end (and highly recommend it because the Lunaverse, which this fic is a part of, is just awesome). The important thing to note is that in this fic Twilight, having not been a student of the princess and is basically what we saw her in that first episode, has that idea that the Element of Magic represents magical power and believes Trixie is either holding back her magic or is a complete fraud. Trixie’s attempt to explain the element I think bring forth a much more plausible meaning:

“And that’s when I earned the Element of Magic. Not because I knew so many spells, not because I had some kind of deep reservoir of magic to draw on. But because I had a…a connection with those ponies. My friends.” She scuffed a hoof on the wooden floor of Twilight’s wagon in slight embarrassment. “That’s what magic is. It’s connections. Unicorn spell-casting is the most obvious kind of connection, when we take our inner power and cast it out to the world around us and shape it by making connections with whatever we touch. But magic is also how a pegasus has a connection to the air and the clouds and the seasons. Or how an earth pony has a connection to the land, to growing things.

“But it’s more than just that, too. It’s the connection between friends, or family, or lovers. It’s the connection a teacher has with her students. The connection a musician has with her instrument, or a weather pony with her job, a farmer and her business, a mother and her daughter. Or a magician with her audience. It doesn’t matter what the connection is. If it’s there, it’s a kind of magic.” Trixie looked to Twilight hopefully. “Is any of this making any sense?”

-Boast Busted, Chapter 4: www.fimfiction.net/story/13204/4/boast-busted/4-run-runaway

I went ahead and bolded the most relevant part; the idea that magic is connections. For a more in-show source for this idea, we just have to go back to when Twilight and her friends first use the Elements to defeat Nightmare Moon and the small exchange she had:

Twilight Sparkle: The spirits of these five ponies got us through every challenge you threw at us.
Nightmare Moon: You still don't have the sixth Element! The spark didn't work!
Twilight Sparkle: But it did! A different kind of spark. I felt it the very moment I realized how happy I was to hear you, to see you, how much I cared about you. The spark ignited inside me when I realized that you all... are my friends! You see, Nightmare Moon, when those Elements are ignited by the... the spark, that resides in the heart of us all, it creates the sixth element: the element of... magic!

The spark that activated the Element of Magic came not from using magic (in fact that was Twilight’s first attempt and that failed completely) but when she realized that she felt happy and joyful at sound of these ponies that she had just gone through a perilous journey with and developed a special bond with. It was the realization of that bond, and not raw power, which caused the Element to be activated.

Need a little more proof? Think to when the other times the Elements were used or invoked: Twilight’s story in “Cutie Mark Chronicles” and “Return of Harmony Pt 2” (I wish to address “Magical Mystery Cure” in another article).

In the former, Twilight’s magical abilities were jumpstarted upon Rainbow Dash’s successful doing of a Sonic Rainboom. As we later find out, everypony’s cutie mark story can be traced back to that event. As the characters themselves point out, they had a bond before they even met. Cheesy? Maybe a little, but the idea that some friendships can transcend time and space is not necessarily new or foreign. Best example of modern use of it would probably be from Avatar: The Last Airbender S3ep6 “The Avatar and the Firelord”. Long story short, the friendship between Avatar Roku and Fire Lord Sozin was playing itself out again among Roku’s reincarnation (The Avatar Aang) and the Firelord’s son Zuko (a descendant of both Roku and Sozin). Point of the matter is that Twilight’s sort of “revealing” as a potential bearer of the Element of Harmony is because of this bond she shares with the others.

As for “Return of Harmony”, Twilight is able to successfully use the Elements against Discord once she has cured her friends of their state of being “discorded” by reminding them of the bonds they shared and learning the lesson that “friendship is worth fighting for”. Pretty straightforward I think.

So if the Element of Magic is a representation of the bond between people, or ponies, who are friends, a bond that is not a literal one but a sort of strong feeling of connectedness that just seems inexplicable, then what are the other Elements? Well, like I said, the other Elements work well enough in the role of simply being representations of what is needed for such strong bonds to form. I think I can even break down a little, drawing a bit on from some of the various philosophies discussing what exactly a friend is. Here we go:

A friend is a person who we are able to find pleasure and enjoyment in being with, someone that is makes us laugh and be joyful. A friend is a person who we can be honest with not just about our feelings but our entire existence and trust they will sincerely listen to us. A friend is a person who will be loyal and stand by us instead of simply blowing us off when we are in need. A friend is a person who is generous not in materialistic terms but something greater, that they are willing to give their all for us without expectations of reciprocity. And they do this because they are kind, acting not out of selfish motivations but because they truly love and care for you as a person*.

And when you find yourself with a person who you are able to make such a connection with, well, isn’t that just magical?

So, I think that pretty much wraps up my thoughts on the whole meaning of “Friendship is Magic”. Instead of being a simple, catchy phrase, it can be instead thought of as an understanding that friendship is a truly unique and powerful connection between persons. If you’re interested in some of the larger philosophical discussion on friendship, please visit the page below as a pretty good starting place. I myself am interested in looking into this topic further. If you have any insights yourself, please, feel free to share.

plato.stanford.edu/entries/friendship/
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*If you read that and almost feel like you just read a description of a lover, don’t be so surprised. I was surprised to find that one of the things philosophers have had a hard time figuring out is just what is the difference between true friends and lovers is beyond, well, sex with the latter.

[Whammy]

Is Pinkie Pie an Ethical Hedonist?

Element of Laughter. Crazy. True Party Pony. Just being Pinkie Pie. These things, and more, have been said about everyone’s favorite pink party pony, Pinkie Pie. But can we add ethical hedonist to that list?

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“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain, and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do” –Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

If there is anything that Pinkie Pie is known for, it’s for throwing parties. We all know, however, that there is a lot more to her than just being a party-freak. As established in “Cutie Mark Chronicles”, and reinforced by a certain song, Pinkie Pie seems to have the goal of trying to make everypony happy as the purpose of her life. While it is a rather nice sentiment, is it possible this goal of part of a larger philosophy of life? Well, if it is, then Pinkie Pie is in rather good company, because it sounds rather similar to the idea of ethical hedonism.

What is hedonism?

The first thing that people probably think of when they hear the word hedonist is someone who is indulgent beyond belief. They just gorge on food, drink, and whatever other pleasures they can get their hands on. And in some sense Pinkie Pie does seem to indulge in this; her diet does seem to primarily consist of baked goods after all. But in philosophy, hedonism means something else completely. In simplest sense, hedonism is the belief that pleasure is the only intrinsic good while pain is the only intrinsic bad. Other things can have value, but said value is only instrumental; their value is only important in relation to their ability to increase pleasure or decrease pain.

As a philosophy, hedonism has a rather long history, ranging from the ancient Greeks in the form of the Cyrenaic school and Epicureans to more modern renditions such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill in the form of utilitarianism. If interested in reading more on these, I’ll have some links at the end. For now, we’re just going to focus on a few core ideas of a modern sense of ethical hedonism, which draws primarily from the more utilitarian style:

1) Pleasure is the primary or only intrinsic good; pain the primary or only intrinsic bad.
2) The right action is one that produces the greatest happiness for all concerned.
3) Everyone’s happiness is of equal value

You may notice that there is no definition of pleasure here, which is actually one of the common issues of hedonistic philosophies. While all of them would generally agree that over-indulging in short-term pleasures, such as eating, is bad as it causes long-term pains, such as weight issues, there is some fuzziness on everything else. Still, for the sake of this discussion we can probably get away with a vague concept of just the feeling or sensation of happiness, a state of well-being, etc.

There is one thing that tends to be specified, however, as being important in some sense or another; friendship. Epicurus was especially vocal about the importance of friendship and companions in creating happiness, and most hedonistic philosophers would agree friendship has a very strong instrumental value. Mainly mentioning this since, well, we are talking about Friendship is Magic.

Pinkie Pie and Ethical Hedonism

So now that we’ve briefly covered what hedonism is, let’s relate it to Pinkie Pie. As already mentioned, there is quite a bit of support behind the idea that Pinkie Pie places happiness as an important thing.

First, the “Cutie Mark Chronicles” gives us her backstory. Living on a rock farm with her family was not a happy existence for Pinkie Pie; no talking, no smiling. When the Sonic Rainboom occurred, the sheer beauty of the thing poofed up her hair and made her feel a joy she never felt before. More importantly, it made her want to share that happiness, leading her to throw a party to make her family happy as well and getting her cutie mark.

Second, there is the episode “A Friend in Deed” and the “Smile Song”. The song itself was prompted by a conversation where she discusses how everyone is her friend and she loves to make her friends smile. And the song, well, it’s all about how she loves to make ponies happy. Kind of self-explanatory, no? The episode itself was about Pinkie Pie relentlessly going all out trying to make Cranky Doodle Donkey happy.

So, point is, Pinkie Pie places happiness at a very high priority and actively goes out of her way to try and make others happy, even at a cost to herself. Now, obviously, we can’t say with 100% certainty that Pinkie Pie is a pure ethical hedonist since we don’t know if she would say pleasure is the only intrinsic good. If anything, it would be safe to say that she would find friendship and other related things as intrinsically good as well. Still, she obviously places it as important, and she attempts to increase happiness for as many ponies as possible. So even if she’s not a pure hedonist, she does seem to at least act in a manner that a pure hedonist would suggest.

Problems with Hedonism

Episodes with Pinkie Pie, however, also have ways of demonstrating some of the downsides of hedonism, or at least why hedonism may have developed as a theory the way it did. Best episode to point to for this is the episode “Too Many Pinkie Pies.” The cloned Pinkie Pies are great examples of the sort of short-term, self-centered pleasure speaking that is commonly thought of when “hedonism” is brought up. They placed instant fun and pleasure above and beyond, well, anything really. The “watch-paint dry” test was a rather interesting look at the ability to trade short term pain for a potential long-term pleasure. The clones, failing to be able to control those impulses for instant gratification, failed. Pinkie Pie, determined to stay with her friends – and probably get through her existential crisis – was able to override her own tendencies for instant fun for the greater joy of staying with her friends.

The episode, in its own way, also dealt with another issue of ethical hedonism; that it is too demanding of an ethical system. At the start of the episode, Pinkie Pie was trying to figure out how to hang out with all her friends that day. Theoretically, the way to create the greatest increase in happiness in this situation would have been for Pinkie Pie to hang out with all of them. The problem was that the events often overlapped in time or were too far away from each other. In short, she didn’t have enough time, which is a practical limitation that no ethical hedonist would mark against her if she failed to hang out with them all.

But let’s assume that she could have just barely fit everyone in without requiring intervention by Doctor Whooves. Would she still be required to hang out with all of them? It would be safe to assume that she would have still been ran ragged if she did. Furthermore, we also have evidence that Pinkie Pie goes through tremendous mental efforts to try and make everyone happy by remembering everyone and everything that makes them happy. Is it really good to require this?

Unfortunately it’s a debate that we’re not going to settle here. Responses can vary from simply biting the bullet and require it, arguing the burden isn’t as terrible, or just arguing that requiring such superhuman efforts would cause pain and lessen the required burden. Whatever the case, it’s an interesting concern to think about.

Final Thoughts

Now obviously this was just a brief look at hedonism and philosophy; heck, it’s just a brief look at Pinkie Pie for that matter, and I know I got another thing or two to say about her. Still, I hope that I at least provided some interesting food for thought. As a character, it could be rather easy to dismiss Pinkie Pie as just being an overly energetic goofball. When looked at closer, however, it can be argued there’s much more to her, including a rather coherent system of ethics and philosophy.

So, now that we’re all done here, in the spirit of Pinkie Pie and hedonism:

Let’s Party!

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For more on hedonism:
plato.stanford.edu/entries/hedonism/
www.iep.utm.edu/hedonism/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism

[Whammy]

“Party of One” and Ethical Hedonism

So several hours after I posted my article on Pinkie Pie and ethical hedonism, it struck me that I forgot to discuss one of the most important Pinkie Pie episodes of them all; “Party of One.” While originally I was just going to go ahead and insert something about it into the previous article, I decided to re-watch it first. I then decided it warranted a small article in of itself. Why? Because I could honestly argue that Pinkie Pie follows one of two different forms of ethical hedonism based on this episode. Which one she follows depends in part on how cynical you want to be about her motivations. So, let’s get started.


Hedonistic Utilitarianism

This is the hedonism discussed primarily in the previous article, and the one that the majority of her episodes seem to suggest she follows. Under this situation, “Party of One” plays a role similar to what “Too Many Pinkie Pies” does; it shows the stress that following ethical hedonism can put on a person.

Deciding that throwing parties is enjoyable and pleasurable for everyone, Pinkie Pie decides to throw one immediately the next day. When presented with everyone making up excuses not to attend, Pinkie Pie loses it and starts asking herself questions. Did she do something wrong? Do they not like her parties? Does her very presence make everyone else unhappy? In short, she starts to question whether or not she is even capable of making her friends happy and seems to jump to the conclusion they are trying to get rid of her. Sure, she acts mad and upset at them for, and it’s a bit of an unreasonable jump of logic. When you’re placing the burden of making everyone else happy on your own shoulders to the point you forget even your own birthday, however, it’s not surprising the stress eventually catches up to you and you just snap for a bit.

At the end, when presented with evidence that she does in fact make her friends happy and they care for her, her crisis ends and she learns a valuable lesson about expecting the best of her friends. In short, she’s reaffirmed that yes she is making the right decisions on how to make everyone happy and there is no need for existential crisis.

Hedonistic Egoism

This type of hedonism was not discussed in the last article, but it’s one that is rather quick to sum up. It’s basically the idea that one’s own pleasure is what is important above all else. In the context of her other episodes, it is a bit of a stretch to assume this of Pinkie Pie, but the events of “Party of One” could be interpreted in such a manner as to tip the balance towards this form.

Obviously Pinkie Pie finds parties to be fun, especially when her friends are there. In fact, they are so fun she decides to have one immediately the next day without even considering the possibility that her friends might not enjoy that (regardless of Twilight’s “we should do this again soon”). She then goes to invite everyone to the party, but is met with a barrage of excuses that she eventually realizes are all lies. Instead of simply asking her friends, she begins to eavesdrop, sneak around, spy on them, and even interrogates Spike in a rather hostile manner. This leads her to conclude that her friends don’t want to be her friends anymore. Such immediately paranoid, suspicious, and hostile reactions to the denial of something one finds to be a source pleasure could be seen as evidence of the “egoism” part of hedonistic egoism.

Of course, the biggest evidence of a possible “egoist” form of hedonism is that this denial results in a complete and utter mental breakdown. She replaces all of her ‘friends’ with inanimate objects. These objects then stoke her ego, commenting on how horrible her friends were acting towards her and that she doesn’t need them anymore. When her old friend Rainbow Dash comes around, Pinkie Pie makes it obviously clear that she is content in her own little fantasy world and has to be dragged to what turns out to be a surprise party for her. It is only when this is revealed that she returns to her normal self. Of course now her friends are motivated to never say no to one of her parties ever again because doing so now risks her completely falling apart mentally. How’s that for emotional coercion?

In this sense then, all of Pinkie Pie’s actions that could be seen as a hedonistic utilitarian act could in fact be a subtle form of manipulation. Pinkie Pie thrives off of being the center of attention, whether it’s: at the Gala where she forces herself on stage to sing a song, Gummy’s party where she bumps everyone off the dance floor, during the Smile Song which turns into a literal parade all about her, etc. etc. Her supposed trying to make everyone happy is in fact her way of making herself happy; it just has the added benefit of making others happy. Except when it doesn’t, like in “Luna Eclipsed” where her enjoying Nightmare Night was quickly making Luna rather depressed, alone, and angry, something that Pinkie Pie apparently never catches onto.

Final Thoughts

In the end, I still think Pinkie Pie is more along the hedonistic utilitarian than egoist. Her actions overall do seem to suggest she genuinely wants to make others happy. She tends to mess up sometimes, and does seem to have some insecurity about whether or not she’s really doing a good job, but I do think she is honestly motivated to try and make others happy. The moments where I think she messes up big time, like “Luna Eclipsed” or “Swarm of the Century,” are more issues of a disconnect between how her mind works and how others are. This, in turn, can cause some serious issues of communication. But that is a topic which is probably going to be addressed in another article at some point.

[Whammy]

As you can see I stopped posting my analysis updates here, but instead will be on my wordpress blog. But I went and updated the list and will try and announce when I do a new analysis or review.