Help! My Heart is Full of Pony! - The Peppermint Dimension · 4:52am Feb 16th, 2020
PEPPERMINT TWIST
This week, I have been posting a few essays inspired by Call of the Cutie. I felt Peppermint Twist deserved her own post.
Call of the Cutie is the only episode where she speaks, and she hardly even appears in later episodes, (except I think as a background pony on rare occasion).
When I first started watching the show, I joked that her disappearance was because she was a bad friend who stopped hanging out with Apple Bloom the second that she got her own cutie mark. I knew that wasn't the intent of the creators, but I figured it was a funny take on a continuity error. It was noticeably weird - Peppermint Twist's introduction and subsequent disappearance.
When I attended Big Apple Ponycon 2016, however, Lauren Faust was the guest of honor. During her panel, she actually explained the true story behind Peppermint Twist.
It turns out that Peppermint was supposed to be a recurring character. She was intended to be Apple Bloom's BFF. Hasbro said 'No.'
They feared that the character would be perceived as making fun of girls with red hair and glasses. Lauren Faust, a red head herself, argued that Peppermint was not a caricature. She was adorable, and some girls could very easily see themselves in her.
The Hasbro suits were not persuaded.
On the one hand, I can't imagine how the crusaders' dynamic would have been different if Apple Bloom had a best friend with a cutie mark. Some of their adventures might never have happened! On the other hand, I feel that Peppermint Twist was robbed.
I don't know what kind of pony she would have grown into with 9 years of character development. I don't know how the CMC's would have evolved differently with a fourth-wheel cutie-mark-having friend around. No one knows.
So if you're sad that there's no more new MLP:FIM, remember that there's an alternate dimension out there with nine seasons you haven't seen. The Peppermint Dimension.
Discuss.
-Sprocket
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"Call of the Cutie is the only episode where she speaks, and she hardly even appears in later episodes, (except I think as a background pony on rare occasion)."
Wait, really? Huh. A character the fandom's done even more with than I thought, then!
Oh, wow; I didn't know that story behind her, though. Thanks!
"So if you're sad that there's no more new MLP:FIM, remember that there's an alternate dimension out there with nine seasons you haven't seen. The Peppermint Dimension."
Nice. :)
Of course, that applies to so many other differences, too.
...And now I'm wondering what did happen to her in-show-universe.
I hadn't heard the story behind her. Thank you!