Oct
29th
2015
Realtalk: MarbleMac · 4:07am Oct 29th, 2015
Okay, seriously, am I the only person even remotely bothered by the fact that they might be cousins? I mean, they hinted at it quite strongly in the show itself, but that only makes me wonder what went through the heads of the creative team, and whoever was in charge of inspecting the episode. The fact that the two families may already be related was even mentioned earlier on. Seriously, what even the heck?
Fifth cousins. 1/1024th genetic similarity in the variable DNA. A common ancestor a century to a century and a half back.
I doubt you even know all your fifth cousins. I don't know the name of even one of mine. As far as I know, my wife could be my fifth cousin.
They're so far removed from each other that it couldn't possibly matter.
3504311
More than just that...
...I'm not any kind of genealogy expert, but I think that means their common relation is that the grandparent or grandchild of AJ's forth cousin was married to one of Pinkies fifth cousins. That's like, what... 13 degrees of separation? As I recall, the total population of our own would is statisticly separated by no more than 17 steps. Most people are more closely related to everyone in their own home town than Pinkie and AJ are to each other. So they're basically not really related to each other in any meaningful capacity.
Just for further comparison, while first cousin marriage is illegal in about half of the USA, second cousin marriage is only illegal in four states, and no state has laws extending to third cousins.
3504311 3504321 I suppose you have a good point... Idunno, it just kinda bothers me.
3504406 It will be fine. What should bother you is that the Cakes are both named Cake. Pinkie's parents are Igneous Rock Pie and Cloudy Quartz. This implies that ponies do on occasion have last names, and if both Carrot and Cup have the same one... their family tree may not branch very much.
3504415
Maybe, although the weird thing is that Pinkie and her sisters are all share the name Pie, despite neither of her parents being named as such. Although, based on Pinkie's Giggle at The Ghosties song her grandmother did have the last name Pie... so how is that supposed to all work? Pie is also the name Pinkie cited on the genealogy chart when determining her relationship to AJ.
Simply put, we just don't know enough about pony naming conventions to really draw any firm conclusions about the Cakes. Besides, they would seem to not be closely related as Mr. Cake cited his own family for pegasus heritage and his wife's family for unicorns when trying to explain the twins.
3504422 Actually, this is directly from the episode transcript.
3504444
Ah, good point. I must have missed that since his name was only ever listed as just Igneous Rock prior to this episode.
Still, Cake might just be a common last name, like Smith in the real world... or else maybe one of them only took the last name Cake after marriage.
It's such a large degree of separation that I was bothered by Pinkie declaring she's an Apple back when the family connection was first brought up, so no, it doesn't bug me.
Now that I've started thinking about it, the one person it should be weird for is Pinkie, since she treats the Apples as much closer relatives than they really are.
3504545
Hmm, good point.
I wouldn't mind if Pinkie didn't keep bringing it up constantly. It's like having a close friend for years and you think of each other as misplaced brother and sister and then suddenly you're going out. It's not wrong, but it is distinctly weird.
EQD's discussion post today was "what kind of relationship do you think the Apple and Pie families have?"
After the episode? Probably incestuous. :V
3504760
Yeah, that's basically where I'm at regarding it.