The "Herd" trope and why I hate it · 2:06am Jul 2nd, 2014
My good friend The Elusive Badgerpony wrote a blog post about some common issues with harem fics a while back. And recently, I've been reminded of the existence of the "herd" trope. The idea is that in Equestria, it's common for one stallion to be shared by multiple mares in a "herd"—you see the ratio 1:7 being bandied about, but let's be generous and say that it's the idea that some form of polygamy is common in Equestria.
Okay. I could go on for days about why people like this trope, and why it's pretty common (it's a fast and cheap way to provide a rationale for haremfics), but let's get one thing out of the way.
Canonically, it is complete nonsense. I'm not just talking about the fact that it's not confirmed in canon—of course it's not. I mean that there's not a scrap of anything that even sounds like evidence for this.
Let's start with the obvious. First, the only couples we see are clearly monogamous—the Cakes, Shining Armor and Cadence, Twilight's parents, Pinkie's parents, etc. Of course we're not likely to see anything different in a show with a target audience of nine-year-old girls, but it's worth pointing out that everything points to monogamy being the normal order of things.
Second, the idea that mares don't get jealous over stallions is... sketchy, at the very least. You might remember Simple Ways, where Rarity tries to get the attention of a goddamn hipster ponce famous travel writer, who has become infatuated with Applejack. Now, Applejack doesn't reciprocate his interest, which means that there's nothing to be shared, but it is worth mentioning that it's pretty obvious that it's an either/or proposition for Trenderhoof:
Rarity: He doesn't like me because he has a crush on Applejack, even though I've had a crush on him ever since the beginning of time, and it's not fair!
This isn't dispositive, but it sure as hell sounds like Rarity considers the fact that Trenderhoof is into Applejack a dealbreaker for any relationship she might have with him.
But let's get to the real question, shall we? The entire reason why people think the herd trope is plausible (other than it sets up a nonproblematic excuse to write haremfics) is that there's supposedly this huge gender imbalance between mares and stallions that necessitates one stallion having multiple mares as partners.
Okay. Y'all better have stuck around for this, because it took me like forty minutes to add all of this up. I consulted the MLP Wiki's list of ponies and added up the totals for each gender. There are around* 460 named female ponies (mares and fillies), whereas there are 295 named male ponies (stallions and colts).
This works out to a cast that's about 61% female, and has 1.56 mares for every stallion. This doesn't even count the stallions in the Royal Guard, who aren't named, with the exceptions of Shining Armor and (sigh) Flash Sentry. So yeah. 1.56 is high—that kind of gender imbalance would make a complete mess of human societies—but it's not "every stallion gets his own bevy of females."
So basically:
1. All canon couples are monogamous.
2. It's strongly implied that mares aren't inclined to share stallions.
3. The observed gender ratio is skewed towards females by a significant margin, but you'll notice that 1.56 can't really be construed as "multiple" females for every male.
I mean, do what you want, guys. If you want to write little cartoon horses having all sorts of cartoon horse sex, go for it. But don't pretend that there's a lot of canon evidence for mares sharing stallions, and it certainly isn't a theory that somehow explains a great deal of canon anomalies.
At the very least, Big Mac is mine and ain't no other bitch gonna touch him.
*I say "around" because there are a bunch of duplicated characters towards the end of the list, which clearly hasn't been maintained properly, and I don't know how well I compensated for that.
Obviously, people have some license with canon while writing fanfiction. But let's at the very least not pretend that the herd trope explains something about the show. It's blatantly uncanonical.
Yes! Somebody who shares my opinion!
You rock!
Certainly hasn't stopped about 1/3 of the writers here.
But yeah, bottom line; it could make sense, but given the evidence it doesn't.
You can keep Big Mac by the way, McDouble ftw.
That is a fair opinion backed up by lots of evidence.
An opinion that i disagree with because I like the idea of guys getting to bang lots of other lady horses.
Not because I think it's supposed by canon, no. I just like sex.
I like this, and I never really thought that having a herd really fit in with all of this fandom and this backs it up so you sir are now on my awesome people list
I'll just chime in here as another voice to the "no herds" chorus.
I'll admit that there are one or two fics that I read where there's some kind of sharing arrangement, but...it's typically fairly awkward, and those are fics where I didn't realize it was coming. I avoid those that blatantly advertise it as a key point. And yes, I agree, the "herd" trope is a cop-out to provide an excuse for this behavior.
I kinda like my own way (I know right!
) where herding is a thing, but it's not that common. Like, one out of every seven or eight relationships are two mares and a stallion. Another way I did it, was that mare/mare relationships were as common as mare/stallion. When the mare/mare couple want a foal, a stallion friend (married or not) helps with that (artificial insemination being considered too cold hearted and emotionless).
You obviously understand Common Sense.
This was well reasoned and well researched. I guess my stance on the matter is invalid.
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Not really such a thing as "invalid". If you like the headcanon, keep it. I'm just making an argument about its legitimacy on canonical grounds. You're a fanfiction writer: you know when to disregard canon and acquire awesome.
A toast! To common sense!
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Damn, Commie. Getting first post on your own blog post? Not fair!
Alright, well, to address the content of your post, I like the way that you did all the 'fancy maths' and such and you presented your argument really nicely... but I think there is a more "meta" (and perhaps inherently easier) way to explain this.
how ponies went to the bathroom in their society till I got an answer in "The Last Roundup"
--The fact that pony society basically mimics our own more than it does the place of equines in a traditional "animal kingdom" sense.--
And I know that maaaayyybe that's a cop out, but I do think it's the default excuse for this kind of stuff. So, it's safer to error on the side of ponies mimicking human society for your head canon that it does erring on the bestial side. I mean, I used to wonder
what friendship could beAnd NO, it wasn't for an perverted reason that I wanted to know... mostly.
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Seconded. Hard.
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I think points 1 and 2 of my post established basically you're talking about as regards pony society, and do so with more than a general statement that "ponies act basically like humans." That statement would be true, but it wouldn't be terribly interesting and wouldn't be particularly convincing either.
As far as "fancy maths" go, Point 3 was a pain in the ass to make. But more than anything, it's a direct refutation of people claiming that "Oh, well, pony relationships have to be polygamous because there are so many more mares than stallions". I've established (without any handwaving about "Oh, most of the stallions are probably in the military or plowing fields or something") that this isn't actually the case.
So yeah. The meta argument would have been interesting in its own right—I think The Descendant made a similar point in one of his blogs—but it wouldn't have conveyed exactly what I wanted it to.
One potential problem with the counting mares and stallions on the wiki is the number of duplicates in scenes.
I assume, for example, that the audience isn't supposed to notice in Sisterhooves Social that Berry Punch is not only running in the race, she's watching, too. Along with a pair of Lyras and a pair of Bon Bons and . . . well, you get the idea.
I've noticed that mares tend to be cloned more often than stallions (although during Trixie's show, multiple Dr. Hooves were watching). But that does skew the numbers, since a pony will only be listed once on the wiki, even if she's been multiple parts of a crowd scene.
The other potential problem is--as Digibrony's Where are the Stallions video pointed out--they might be somewhere else. Say, serving in the Royal Guard. After all, all those stallions have to come from somewhere.
Perhaps a more accurate method would be to count foals. It can be presumed that they still live at home with their parents, and they'd all be out and about in Ponyville around the same time.
So I did. I did not count the foals who showed up for Apple Family Reunion, or those who only appeared in flashback scenes.
Counting the named foals, there are 50 fillies and 16 colts, for a ratio of about 10:3.
Interestingly, if we then add in the unnamed fillies and colts, the ratio improves, to about 7:3 . . . there are 15 unnamed fillies, and 12 unnamed colts.
I personally think that this is a more representative number.
Of course, this is only Ponyville. In the scenes we've seen in Canterlot, ponies are often in couples; throw in the Royal Guard, and it's plausible that Canterlot has a higher population of stallions than mares. Appleoosa seemed to be roughly 1:1, and I don't think we've seen enough of Manehattan to call it for sure, but based on AJ's flashback and street scenes in Rarity Takes Manehattan, I'd guess Manehattan's pretty close to 1:1 as well.
I was going to wrap this up with a meaningful discussion of what this all means for writers . . . but I don't think there's a need. The wikis and the episodes are there for anyone who wants to spend the time counting, or debating about what should be counted and what should not. And the reason for the gender imbalance--and what it means for the writer--well, guys and girls, that's why we're writers. We can say that Ponyville has a gender imbalance because stallions go elsewhere to earn their fortune, or because of societal or genetic pressures, they aren't born as often; we could say that if Equestria is matriarchal, only mares can be landholders, so of course in a farming community there'd be a paucity of stallions. We can say that generally only unicorns go for the one-mare and one-stallion marriages, or we can apply that across the board. We can speculate all day long about whether the Cake twins were really sired by Mr. Cake.
[Probably, because Mr. Cake claimed that he had a pegasus ancestor, and in Apple Family reunion, Golden Harvest (who's obviously related to Carrot Cake) and Cloudchaser were both there, which means that Mr. Cake is related to a pegasus.]
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Carrot Cake is not at all obviously related to Golden Harvest. As for what she and Cloudchaser were doing at the Apple family reunion, or if those two are related at all, which is also completely nonobvious, it could be anything.
None of this changes that everyone is lesbians.
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Golden Harvest Carrot Cake. 'Nuff said.
Where do foals come from, then?
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140324161120/mlp/images/6/6d/Rarity_giving_foals_party_favors_S4E19.png
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They're magic alien horses, exactly why do you think they would have sexual dimorphism at all, let alone bisexual reproduction?
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Well, of course the mares and stallions have different body types--more angular jaws for the stallions, for example. As for the reproductive organs (if they have them), we're not shown in canon. So we don't know. They might be hermaphrodites, be specifically male and female, be able to switch as needed. They might have cloaca, use pollination to reproduce, pick them from the cabbage patch, or some other method. Heck, it could even be magic. Maybe when two ponies love each other very much, a foal appears somewhere, possibly delivered to the hospital by a stork.
The discussion at the beginning of Baby Cakes suggests that there is some manner of genetic legacy, although how it's passed on and what form it takes isn't mentioned. Ditto for Pinkie's family tree in Pinkie Apple Pie.
2866153
Genetic legacy is not sufficient evidence for bisexual reproduction.
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If I may ask, how did you end up wandering onto this blog post?
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Someone posted it on Skype.