A little something I find funny.

In a lot of fics, people make out ponies to be a near idealistic, violence hating society because they're herbivores. But when you look at their world, that doesn't work. Anything that wouldn't fight tooth and nail, or in this case, tooth and hoof, would be hunted out in a week. Just look at some of the predators they have to deal with.

Timberwolves, wolves with wooden armor, any wounds sustained from these creatures would be riddled with splinters and larger shards of wood, meaning if the wolf doesn't kill its prey immediately, all they have to do is wait for the wound to turn septic and then they eat.

The Manticore, a blend of a lion, a scorpion and a bat. Not only does it have a rather nasty set of talons, it can fly and scorpions are naturally venomous. Even if the toxin isn't that strong, the size of the barb guarantees that a lot of it's getting pumped into the victim.

The Cockatrice, now this one just doesn't play fair. One look in its eyes and you're stone on the outside, sweet, juicy meat on the inside. What else is there really to say except. You cheater.

At the top on the non-sentient predator food chain is the Ursa. A massive star bear that dwarfs a small town, you have to worry less about being eaten by this one, and more about it stepping on you.

And then it's obvious that all the standard earth predators also exist, Fluttershy takes care of a lot of them. This place makes Australia look like a petting zoo.

Then there's the sentient predators, oh boy.

Diamond dogs, while stupid, are excellent ambush predators, able to tunnel and burrow at breakneck speeds. Throw in an acute lust for all things shiny and you had better hope you're not wearing jewelery. Being sentient means they can be reasoned with, but being stupid makes this difficult as they probably wont grasp that you're trying to save your neck on top of giving them your necklace.

Griffons, talons and beaks and teeth, oh my. These guys are a panorama of all things deadly, a sharp beak and high jaw strength means that if they get that thing on you, you can say goodbye to wherever it bit you. Add in the teeth and now they can just rip it off, tearing open a larger wound than they would have been able to if they just had the beak, and teeth mean jagged wounds, which means more blood loss, which means faster death. Then they also have talons, a prehensile tail and can fly. Griffons are overkill at it's base level.

And at the top of the sentient food chain are the Dragons. Basically the same as the griffons, except this time around they can rival an Ursa in size, have scales as hard as rock, breath fire and are completely resistant to heat. If one of these decides you're lunch, you're f--king lunch.

There's no way that a society that hates violence/refuses to kill would be able to survive here, they'd be hunted to extinction in a year at best. And this isn't even factoring in the emotional predators found in the Windegos or Changelings or the mad god Discord. Even with the weak magic a unicorn would have if it wasn't intelligent, they would be massively, hilariously, outgunned. And what do you do when you're that badly outmatched? You start playing together and playing smart. And thus, the race of ponies was born. Out of the ashes of prey, where only the most cunning and powerful survived by banding together. It's no wonder they place such high value on friendship, evolution and their ecosystem have hammered that if you want to survive you need to band together into their heads with a jackhammer.