Geneaology, Part II · 12:04am Mar 28th, 2014
For the first part of this essay, go here.
III. Symbology
There are two basic ways of keeping track of character relationships.
The first is a list of entries regarding each character with vital statistics of Kind, Sex, Birth, Death and so on. One will -- because this is for geneological purposes -- want to mention a character's parents and offspring, spouses and probably also siblings. One might also include a physical description of the character: Coat, Mane, Eyes, Cutie Mark, and Other. One would often want to include a psychological description of the character. Talents and other Skills might be relevant, as might be a brief Biography.
For instance, the sort of entry one might make for Twilight Sparkle at the start of the series (including information not revealed until later) would be "Unicorn, Female, born YOH 1480, died n/a, mother Twilight Velvet, father Night Light, elder brother Shining Armor, younger brother (adoptive) Spike. Coat lavender, mane dark blue with rose streaks, eyes purple. Cutie mark a rose six-pointed sparkle star superimposed on a smaller white one, surrounded by six much smaller similar white stars proceeding from the points of the small white one. Speaks in a precise upper-class Canterlot accent. Asocial, highly intellectual and well-eductated, few friends, no lovers, mild obsessive-compulsive disorder relating to completing tasks, very fascinated by books and by magic. Very powerful and talented mage, skilled researcher. After she displayed extreme magical abilities, was taken under Celestia's personal tutelage."
The second is through a family tree (there are several possible ways of organizing this) or "pedigree chart", which directly depicts the relationships of numerous characters. The most common form is a vertical one with ancestors on top, descendants on the bottom, and siblings arranged left to right in order of birth from oldest to youngest. Marriage is indicated by a straight double line between the spouses, illegitimate birth by a wavy double line. A line of descent proceeds from there to the offspring; where there are multiple offfspring, the line goes horizontal with a vertical line descending to each offspring. One often puts dates of birth and death beneath the names, usually in parentheses, and may also put the dates of important titles or other achievements.
A solid line indicates immediate descent, as between mother and offspring. A dashed line indicates distant descent, as between ancestor and descendant with intermediate ancestors not indicated.
This is the chart of the Caecilia Metella family for the 1st and 2nd centuries BC.
Sex
This particular family tree is missing a feature one will find on many actual family trees: namely symbology to indicate who is male and who is female. The standard male symbol is "Mars," a circle with an arrow coming out at a 45 degree angle to the right; the standard female symbol "Venus," a circle with a cross depending directly downward. The system can be elaborated for complex, unusual or very specific sexual situations, and is explained in some detail here.
Ponies, being mammals, are basically similar to Humans in sexual terms. Some Ponies can under certain circumstances be fully- functional hermaphrodites, but this is extremely rare.
Kind
The important distinction among Ponies, which does not exist among Humans, is that of "kind." This is essentially a "variation" rather than "subspeciation," because the three Pony Kinds appear to be completely fertile with each other, and their offspring completely fertile with each other. There is limited fertility between different equid species; Ponies can interbreed with Donkeys, Onagers or Zebras, but the offspring are often infertile (the biological meaning of "mule").
The symbology I use to indicate Kind is as such.
An Earth Pony is represented by a circle with two lines depending ("legs"). A Unicorn is represented by a circle with one line rising ("horn"). And a Pegasus is represented by a circle with one curve on either side ("wings"). An Alicorn gets all three additions to the circle.
For other species, a Donkey or Onager is represented by a circle with two lines rising ("ears"); the two are often distinguished by coloring the top half of the Onager's circle black. A Zebra is represented by a circle with three vertical stripes running through it. And so on, for any other species one might wish to add to the list.
IV. Locality and Lineage
There are four historic systems of organizing families (locality) and tracing lineage (important line of descent) amongst the Ponies.
The oldest, which dates back to the Age of Extermination (over 6000 years ago), is a derivation of the primal herd system as applied to the desperate survivors of the Viprallan (and other) attempts to wipe out Ponykind under Tirek the Annihilator (and other malign beings). This involved a division into (sedentary and hidden) "mother herds" which contained adult mares, fillies, and foals of both sexes; and (smaller, nomadic and more overt) "big brother herds" which contained adult stallions and colts, but no foals. A mother herd would have one or more associated big brother herds; they would meet once a year at Festival to renew friendships, exchange information, and breed. The big brother herd would then take the male foals who had grown into colts with them to travel with them. This system had its obvious cruelties and was only practiced as necessary to survival.
The dominant form of mating was serial monogamy. This is because the Ponies of that age were quite capable of love, but there was a very strong likelihood of a stallion dying between Festivals, and the sexes only met for a month, once a year. Hence, true marriage in the modern Equestrian sense was impractical. This meant, however, that a mare almost always knew just which stallion had sired that year's foal.
Since the personal requirements for survival in a mother herd and a big brother herd were so different, lineage was often tracked separately for the two sexes. The mother herds traced matrilineage (descent through the mother) and the big brother herds patrilineage (descent through the father). As is obvious from the terms employed, the culture as a whole was matriarchal, since only the mother herds had the continuity and ability to accumulate resources needful to maintain civilization.
This was an unstable system, and in fact the Ponies were a dying race six thousand years ago, when they were found -- and saved -- by The Megan, a Human from another world, where her extremely-violent species were the dominant life forms. The Megan slew Tirek the Annihilator, recruited allies, and -- very importantly -- taught the Ponies how to fight back against their attackers. After the Megan, the Ponies were on the climb to planetary dominance that culminated in the Age of Wonders.
The sole but extremely important remnant of this system lies in the fact that the current incarnations of Celestia, Luna and Discord spent their formative years at Paradise Estate, where the last Age of Extermination era culture survived until Discord himself destroyed it. The Ruling Princesses themselves practice what amounts to matrilocal, matrilineal serial monogamy -- though the "serial" part of it comes mainly from the fact that their lovers are mortal and hence cannot endure as long as their Princesses -- and this bothers them less than it would had they come from an Age of Wonders culture.
The Megan left tomes of wisdom which the Ponies used as templates on which to construct their own civilization. This led the Meganist Earth Ponies -- who dominated the world until the Cataclysm -- to adopt the system of Megan's own kind. This was patrilocal (wife moved into the husband's dwelling) patrilineage (descent traced by the male line). It was not patriarchal for three reasons: The Megan herself was a female war-deity, her own native culture was on the sexually-egalitarian end of the patriarchal spectrum, and the Ponies were too naturally matriarchal to easily take to patriarchy in any case.
The all-female, almost-entirely-virginal, immortal Ponies of Old Paradise, the World That Was Not, did not really form families or have offspring. They sometimes reproduced by conceptual mixing through Paradise, and in some cases new Ponies were created out of wishes by existing Ponies. Any genealogical charts of them would consist of their conceptual descent from Age of Wonders Ponies, and there would be comparatively few "generations" in the six thousand or so years their society lasted.
The Cataclysm smashed Pony cultures worldwide, and a century later had reduced a global population of 8 billion to around 80 million worldwide. Many existing marriages, families and family structures were shatted in the terrible mortality of that century (the worst of which, however, was experienced in the first year and first decade of the Time of Ruin.
By 100 years after the Cataclysm, pretty much the only surviving Ponies were those who had managed to retain or reconstruct strong family structures, as the Time of Ruin environment was much too lethal for Ponies to survive long alone in. Hence, in the ensuing Time of the Clans, these became formalized into marital and lineal systems. Lone-Madness became more common, as a tendency urging Ponies to form tighter and tighter herds.
Among the Earth Ponies, who experienced a severe decline in status as the Unicorns and Pegasi rose to power, this usually involved matrilineal matrilocality, since mares were the reproductive bottleneck and stallions thus tended to die young and have less influence upon families. Successful Earth Pony mares tended to marry and breed relatively late in life, but have numerous offspring. Meganism faded in influence, as the Cataclysm was seen as a failure of the old ways. It tended to be replaced by various shamanistic and superstitious practices, some of which became effective through Earth Pony magic.
Unicorn cultures were often male-dominated and hence patrilineal and often patrilocal, because of the conflict between studying magic and child-raising. Intrigue became very common and often female-dominated. Birth rates tended to be relatively low the more powerful the mages, but conversely powerful mages tended to be very hard to have long lives and hence numerous reproductive opportunities. Marriages were commonly political, long-lasting, and often adulterous, leading to a parallel matrilineal tradition.
Pegasi clans varied all over the place: the common feature was that they were warlike, which among successful groups meant patrilineality and patrilocality. There was a general tendency for young Pegasi to be urged to rather risky behavior, under the theory that only the fittest would survive. It is likely that the nymphomaniac aspects of Sky-Madness (the signature Pegasus variant of Lone-Madness) became genetically-linked at this time, to enable the less fit female Pegasi to have breeding opportunities before their inevitable early deaths on risky affrays. Because of frequent Sky-Madness, even though families were patrilocal, descent was often traced matrilineally, especially in the ruling dynasties.
In the Time of the Tribes, which lasted until the coming of the Windigoes a thousand years after the Cataclysm, these attitudes hardened. The most important development of this era was the rise of the Crystal City, which was founded by Earth Ponies led by an elite of Unicorns and willing to ally with Pegasi to augment their military strength. The culture of the ensuing Crystal Empire had a patrilineal and patrilocal monogamous Meganist ideal, which became influenced by absorption of Earth Pony tribes into a more matrilineal system, especially during the Middle Empire when Discord's chaos confused all attempts at maintaining order. Eventually the culture turned back toward patrilineality, and indeed actual patriarchy, as the Empire declined: by the time of Prince Crimson Quartz and his Lady Tourmaline, it was assumed that most important political and military leaders would be stallions.
Equestria's culture is descended from all Three Tribes, the Crystal Empire, local Pony groups residing in the territory before the coming of the Three Tribes, and immigrants from the Old Worlds (especially the Lippisch, Low-Lippisch, Prench, Istallions and Caballans). There is hence a mixture of systems, though society as a whole was once matriarchal with stallions being viewed as too irresponsible for serious leadership positions, save in the military where stallions were viewed as the expendable sex. This began to change in the 15th century YOH (1400's) with the increasing availability of suppressors which made encountering concentrated mare estrus scent much less common, hence enabling stallions to think more clearly. In the most recent generations, there have begun to be stallion leaders in civilian political and economic roles.
An Equestrian family may be patrilocal, matrilocal, patrilineal or matrilineal. The issue of lineality is most relevant to naming customs,as will be discussed in the next part. Family trees are customarily drawn to both patrilineal and matrilineal patterns, and sometimes to more exotic ones.
V. Naming
Because of the multi-cultural origins of Equestrian Ponies, naming customs can be very complicated. It must also be understood that it is purely a Translation Convention to render Equestrian as English, Lippisch as German, Prench as French, and so forth. In fact, even the names of those languages are in reality not at all like their renderings -- the Ponies actually speak in complex equine vocalizations combined with body language, in a manner which would be extremely hard to phonetically-render into any human tongue.
Having said this, the typical Equestrian Pony name takes the form word-word, where "word" is in each case a single descriptive English word, creating a combination such as "Path Finder" or "Smith Apple." There may also be cognomens or nicknames, such as "Shining 'Shiny' Armor." Common variants are two words compounded into one, like "Fluttershy," or even a tripartite name, for various reasons of aesthetics or family history.
Complicating this is the tendency for some families to retain traditional names often from other languages. An example of this is "Pinkamena Diane 'Pinkie' Pie," where "Pinkamena" and "Diane" are both traditional family names, the first from Istallion, the second from Crystal-Imperial; "Pie" from Equestrian and "Pinkie" a nickname employed because her family didn't want to say "Pinkamena" constantly. Another example is "Abigail Jacqueline Apple," composed of "Abigail" (Onager), "Jacqueline" (Prench) and "Apple" (Equestrian), more famous under her nickname of "Applejack."
This kind of nicknaming is common. The Great and Powerful Trixie's actual name is Beatrix Lulamoon: she is one of seven siblings, each of whom has a formal Crystal-Imperial-derived name, and all of whom go by nicknames instead -- none of them like their original formal names. Trixie also hates her family name, "Lulamoon," which is unusual. But then Trixie is a very unusual Pony in many ways.
Sometimes one of the words is a family name in the English sense of the meaning. This is most true when a family has a proud tradition under that name, as in the case of the Apple Clan. Almost every member of the Apple clan has a name including the word "Apple" (and often with the other part of the name being a type of apple or apple-based food product). Note that the word order we give them in English is an artifact of the Translation convention: "Apple Bloom" works as well for an Equestrian as would "Bloom Apple" -- the family name can come either first or last.
Family names are passed down by lineality. Offspring are often conceptually-named for both parents. For instance, "Twilight Sparkle" is the daughter of the mare Twilight Velvet (of the Twilight family) and the stallion Night Light (of the Night family) and her name includes the name "Twilight" and a personal name (Sparkle) conceptually related to "light." Her elder brother "Shining Armor" was given the name "Shining" as a "light" name and may not have been named "Armor" until he received his Cutie Mark. Which gets into a whole other topic ...
Pony names are changeable. Since Cutie Marks are often similar between parent and offspring, the birth-name is often kept throughout life, but if Mark and Talent are dramatically-different than either parent, a child may be renamed on or after her cutecenara. In that case the Pony may be known by both child and adult names. For instance, Shiny's original name was probably something on the order of Twilight Shining or Shining Light, until the shield suggested something else entirely.
Family names can sometimes shift while remaining within theme (for instance the way in which the names of the descendants of Star-Swirl the Bearded shifted while retaining a general connection to astronomical or meteorological events. This may sometimes reflect purposeful change, and sometimes drift within the Translation Convention. The fact that we don't actually know the Equestrian language creates additional ambiguity within any naming system.
In general, remember that descent is more likely to be matrilineal than patrilineal, and that the Equestrians try to pick and keep their names in reference to their family themes, Cutie Marks and personal Talents and careers.
It may interest you to know that McPoodle devised a genealogical symbology that combines description and descent. The details are here and an example can be found here.
In any case, fascinating as always. I should read more of your stories now that I've caught up on most of your blogs. And I probably should've done that the other way around.
I found McPoodle's geneaological essay very interesting, and I see that he anticipated many of my points, in particular the utility of distinguishing between Kinds. I like the concept of including Cutie Mark and coat color in the fully-elaborated version; mane and eye color could also be included as these are also genetic markers.
What was interesting is that he included strong friendships and did not formally distinguish between married and unmarried unions. I've experimented with "relationship diagrams" for characters in which circles of friends can be mapped out -- this can be useful for any society in which friendship is very important, and is especially useful for Equestrtia.
I do think that the difference between married and unmarried unions would be important, though, particularly as one might want to trace patrilineal as well as matrilineal descent. As McPoodle's system stands, there would be no way of tracing the difference between friends, lovers, or spouses, and hence one could not more than wildly-guess at paternity.
Thank you for pointing me at this, though!