Bradel Brainstorming – On Cutie Marks · 5:13pm Mar 27th, 2013
Bookplayer, she of the wonderful blogs – and, eek, now that I check, whose stories I have yet to read – posted something yesterday evening on the topic of cutie marks and their significance to the world of My Little Pony. It was an interesting blog, and it sparked a very good discussion. It also led me to refine some of my own thinking on the matter, which is always a good thing. I promised some of the people in bookplayer's discussion that I'd write up my thoughts as a formal blog post, and that's what I'm here to do.
The central question on bookplayer's blog is this: do cutie marks serve as a sort of magical destiny stamp, controlling who ponies are, or is their role more psychosocial, as a way of communicating to the pony themselves (and to others) that pony's special talents / role in society. This has become something of a question after "Magical Mystery Cure", where the cutie mark switching spell seemed to cause all sorts of havoc with history and pony personalities as well.
What does canon have to say on the subject? We only have a few episodes that really weigh in on cutie marks:
"Call of the Cutie" (S1E12) – Apple Bloom stresses out about not having a cutie mark; many ponies tell her she'll get hers when she "finds that certain something that makes [her] different from every other pony"; Cheerilee and the magical metaphorical cutie mark.
"The Cutie Mark Chronicles" (S1E23) – Each of the Mane Six relates how she got her cutie mark; Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie get theirs after realizing what they want to do in life; Twilight and Rainbow Dash get theirs after defining events in their lives; Rarity gets hers after haywire gem-finding magic.
"The Cutie Pox" (S2E06) – Apple Bloom takes one of Zecora's potions; multiple cutie marks appear; Apple Bloom is magically compelled to engage in activities portrayed by those cutie marks.
"Magical Mystery Cure" (S3E13) – Twilight's spell goes haywire, reassigning the cutie marks of the Mane Six; destiny and history change; personalities are distorted, but not completely rewritten; then this happens.
There's a lot to unpack from these episodes – and some inconsistencies, one could argue, but isn't it our job as fans and writers to do the hard work of making canon internally consistent? I propose approaching this Socratically (which is my usual mode of inquiry). Let's look at a few questions and try to resolve them.
Are cutie marks literal or metaphorical? This is probably the easiest question to tackle. While some cutie marks in My Little Pony appear to have concrete meanings (Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Wonder-Twins-Form-of-Cosmic-Alicorns, Octavia and Vinyl Scratch, etc.) we can make a pretty solid list of ponies whose cutie marks are more abstract as well. What, exactly, is Twilight's star supposed to mean? Dash's cloud with rainbow lightning? And perhaps most tellingly, Rarity's diamonds – if ever there were a literal-looking cutie mark, it would be those diamonds, and yet any concrete interpretation seems almost incidental to Rarity's personality. Cheerilee basically answers this straight out in S1E12, though, when she explains her own smiling sunflowers. Some cutie marks may appear to have literal interpretations, but fundamentally they're more about a pony's personality and talents than her/his job or day-to-day life.
Are cutie marks magical or social? This question is decidedly more difficult, since it seems like we're getting conflicting information. Cutie marks seem utterly mundane, right up until Apple Bloom starts throwing hoops or Rarity decides it's a good day for checkered weather. Sure, one could argue that Rarity just wakes up the morning of S3E13, looks in the mirror, and decides that new cutie mark is telling her to go play with clouds, but that seems like a pretty unconvincing argument. We already know magic has been invoked, and it's not very believable that five of the Mane Six would just wake up and decide to change their plans for the day based on butt tattoos. And it still wouldn't explain Apple Bloom. As for her, I think we can discount the idea that S2E06 is a bit of one-off weirdness, too. One of the most notable things about this show is an absence. Nopony ever stops to wonder why cutie marks seem to be controlling Apple Bloom's actions. As out of place as this all seems to us, the audience, it doesn't even raise an eyebrow in Ponyville. Clearly there's something going on with cutie marks.
So they're magical, right? Not so fast. If they were purely magical, why would they play such a small role in the world of My Little Pony? With the exception of two episodes, we never see them coming into play in a magical context. Even after Twist gets her cutie mark in S1E12, we don't get the impression that there's been any dramatic change in her abilities or personality. And the story is similar with the Mane Six in S1E23. Each filly gets her cutie mark after a key life event. Only Twilight's and Rarity's seem to involve magic in any way, and of those two only Rarity's experience shows any weird magical effects. There's something magical going on with cutie marks – after all, they just mysteriously appear and no one really understands when or why – but their role in pony society appears to be almost entirely psychosocial.
Wait, what? This doesn't make any sense. Or does it? Let me toss out some personal headcanon I developed while reading bookplayer's blog post, and you can see how well you think it fits.
A cutie mark is a magical reinforcer of the core of a pony's self: their talents, their ambitions, and the drives that make up their personality. We rarely see this in practice, because there's rarely a disconnect between pony and cutie mark. A pony with a correct cutie mark is going to behave (tautologically) in perfect accord with that mark.
When a pony somehow winds up with the wrong cutie mark, however, it's going to twist her/his motivations and attitudes. Since cutie marks act as reinforcers rather than enforcers, an incorrect cutie mark will come into conflict with a pony's inherent (but no longer correctly reinforced) personality. In a Freudian sense, a cutie mark is like an ego-amplifier. This is what we see with the Mane Six in S3E13 – their personalities aren't wholly wiped over, but they're brought into conflict with a magical reinforcer that's giving them bad information. Fluttershy is still painfully introverted, which is why she's terrible at doing what Pinkie's mark motivates her to do. We see Rarity not becoming an athlete or a speed demon, as many people expected, but instead trying to bring her own creative personality to bear on the problem of weather manipulation.
But Dash is defined by her athleticism! Well, no, she's not. It's one part of her talents, motivations, and personality – and the one most on display when Rainbow Dash is herself – but athleticism and loyalty certainly aren't equivalent ideas. When Rarity gets Dash's cutie mark, what we see is Rarity's ego being twisted out of shape. Dash's athleticism, as prominent as it may be for Dash, just isn't a good fit for Rarity's own instincts. So it takes a back seat to parts of Dash's ego that mesh better with Rarity. Cutie marks acting as reinforcers, not enforcers.
The situation with Apple Bloom in S2E06 is so extreme because she doesn't have a cutie mark yet, and so she has no experience with their magic. Having one (or a bunch) that conflict with her own inherent personality overwhelms her, because she's not acclimatized to the magical effects cutie marks cause. Apple Bloom's inexperience is what lets the cutie pox cutie marks actually override her existing talents and motivations.
I'm curious what other people think on this topic. To me, this seems like some nice solid headcanon and I suspect it may lead to some interesting story ideas in the future.
Yay, you've given me new headcanon. That makes such perfect sense I'm going to take it home and call it George. Wait, where was I going with that?
Seriously though, thank you for posting this blog. It makes me very happy I followed you. I have no insightful comments to add other than the fact that I have no insightful comments to add.
Now that is some brilliant head canon, but shall I be adopting it as my own? derpicdn.net/media/W1siZiIsIjIwMTMvMDIvMjgvMTZfMTFfMTlfODE5XzI1ODAxMF9fVU5PUFRfX3NhZmVfYW5pbWF0ZWRfc2Nvb3RhbG9vX2FwcGxlX2Jsb29tX3N3ZWV0aWVfYmVsbGVfaW1hZ2VfbWFjcm9fcmVhY3Rpb25faW1hZ2Vfb25lX2JhZF9hcHBsZV9oZWFkY2Fub25fbGFudGVybl9jbHViaG91c2UuZ2lmLmdpZiJdXQ/258010__safe_animated_scootaloo_apple-bloom_sweetie-belle_image-macro_reaction-image_one-bad-apple_headcanon_lantern_clubhouse.gif.gif
I believe so.
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My God, that .gif is awesome!
Broadly speaking, yes, I agree with your interpretation. They are magical destiny amplifiers, sure, (magic theory) but their way of interacting with ponies is mostly psychosocial (social theory).
In my headcannon there's a level of interpretation -- ponies don't immediately know what a cutie mark means and interpreting it is a big part of growing up. Usually, it's obvious what it might mean, sure, but there always a touch of ambiguity. An example would be my own Dotted whose mark (a...dotted line) was first taken by him to be a part of a thermodynamic diagram, and so off he went to be a chemist. He later reinterpreted it and, lo and behold, he's now a bureaucrat. In this scenario, the mark is what it is, but a degree of negotiation is present, just how much depends on the pony.
I do have an alternative that was fodder for a fic a long time ago.
In this version the marks are a curse, artifact of the Pony equivalent of the Babel-event. You know. In days long since past, ponies were mighty and skilled in anything they put their hooves to. No destiny touched them, and they could use their vast inborn magics at any task. Now nothing was restrained from them, which they have imagined to do, to paraphrase a book of some renown.
And so, fearing such power, some cosmic force cursed them, so that they are bound to one destiny, one they cannot change, and so that one might work in stone, and another in metal, but none are free to do as they please. And to mark their diminishing this force placed a mark on them.
It sure does put the Starswirl spell into a new light, yes?
Anyway, this was part of this huge Dan Brown-esque conspiracy, too, with it drawing origins from the first pony city that brought together the tribes -- the pony equivalent of Atlantis -- as described in the Lost Dialogue of Broadwithers -- the Hermocoltes. But it's not to be, alas.
I think that the reason everyone said "It must be my destiny because it's what my cutie mark is telling me," is because a cutie mark is never wrong, except in the case of the Cutie Pox, which is a rare sickness that forces a cutie mark on you and forces you to do things. The logic in saying that "my cutie mark tells me my destiny" is just that. Cutie marks are never wrong. Couple that with the fact that all of their memories were changed and they believed that they had those talents and cutie marks their whole lives and you have a natural recipe for belief being the main reason they would think they had to do something. They still had all of their original talents with their new cutie marks, they just thought they had another talent.
Right, I don't have a clear headcanon for this, so I'm just going to ramble speculatively.
Are cutie marks social or magical phenomena? They're both. This isn't surprising. In the MLPverse, it's pretty much standard. For ponies, at least, the magical is intimately tied up with the social. Friendship is Magic isn't just a twee sentiment, it's a fundamental statement of fact for ponies.
Now, as canon goes, every time we see cutie marks behaving normally, they're secondary to the pony. The pony exists prior to the cutie mark, and exhibits personalites and innate talents without it. The cutie mark is born when the pony has an ephiphany of some sort (not specifically about their "special talent" either, that seems to be an oversimplification). This is where the CMC are failing: They're oblivious, not talentless. Further, we have that among adult ponies, their cutie mark doesn't encompass all of their personality, just the bits relating to their ephiphany.
But! Whenever there is some abberation that forces a cutie mark to change, in contrast to the above, the new cutie mark has a very strong affect on the pony's behavior, affecting her on a very deep level and even overriding free will.
Here's my hypothesis to explain all this: A pony has an ephiphany of a particular kind, about her place in society. An ephiphany that defines the pony as an individual and independent person with her own wishes, dreams, goals, etc. and yet also illuminates how she relates to all of the rest of society. Since all (or almost all) pony magic is in fact powered by and intertwined with social interactions and feelings, this ephiphany creates a cutie mark.
Now, what is a cutie mark? It's not really the picture on their rump. It's an independent magical entity that is shaped by all the realisations that were present during the ephiphany. The pony's arsepicture is merely how the cutie mark presents itself. It's the tip of the iceberg, just a facet of the whole thing. How it relates to the rest of the cutie mark and the ephiphany that birthed it is unique to each pony.
Now, although the cutie mark is a seperate entity from the pony, it's still bound to the pony. Pony and cutie mark are harmonised, resonant with one another. So, if one uses normal magic to try and induce a cutie mark, it won't take because the lack of harmony kills it. If very strong magic is used to force a cutie mark, the resonance overpowers parts of the pony's personality, leading to a pony with an unharmonised hodgepodge of traits - hence what we see in the Cutie Pox and Magical Mystery Cure.
(...Aaaand looking back over that, it seems to be the same conclusion you've reached, only stated more pretentiously. Oh well.)
Edit: Also, is seems reasonable to suppose that the Elements of Harmony are in the same class as cutie marks: Magical objects with a physical aspect. Given their behavior on the show, maybe they draw their power via cutie marks. Or maybe they are cutie marks themselves, engineered away from their original holders and turned into a weapon. In which case, what of the ponies who originally bore them? Some story potential here, perhaps.
Very awesome stuff! I'm hoping to make a collab up with bookplayer abut cutie marks and I know i'd love to see folks writing fics about ponies thinking about what their cutie marks mean and such n_n
Sorry I took so long responding to you all! I decided to get my act together yesterday and actually read some of bookplayer's stories instead of just sticking to her blog posts. Best Young Flyer is in the Pony Fiction Vault already, so I figured I'd give it a try. It's not a perfect story, to me – one of the chapters kind of fell flat from my perspective – but on the whole I really, really enjoyed it and tossed it into my (fairly selective?) favorites list. I always like when I can read a story and spend the rest of the day just feeling good because of it.
Anyway, to the comments!
951902 I like the negotiation part of this. It's not quite where I was going, but for me it has a small element of, "Ponies don't know what's up with them either, so don't feel bad Series Fans!" I actually kind of like that, the idea that ponies might be as confused as the rest of us and as prone to their own wild and potentially inaccurate speculation.
As for the Dan Brown[1] conspiracy theory idea, I find it kind of fascinating, though I don't know that I have quite enough interest in where that idea goes to follow you down a rabbit hole that isn't going to get written. Definitely see some interesting ideas nascent in that, but it does seem to sort of lend itself to an epic tale of world-shaking events that doesn't necessarily have a lot of built-in potential for interesting characters.
[1] Dan Brown. Ugh. No, I don't hate him. I found his two Christianity books to be good page turners. But I picked up Holy Blood, Holy Grail after reading The Da Vinci Code, and it described a pretty junky theory. 2/3 of the book came off as good logical deduction, but the last 1/3 (where the critical ideas are housed) was just wild speculation that seemed like it might fit available evidence. My life wasn't made worse for reading it, but it's a little creepy to me that anyone can read their theories as anything more than some decently reasoned speculative fiction.
952112 Hmm. This is an interesting point, that with the Star Swirl spell at least, no talent seemed to be conveyed, just a motivation. That makes it qualitatively very different from the cutie pox, so perhaps it's not really meaningful to try to reconcile the two as closely as I've been trying...
952290 Speculative rambling is best rambling! I like your observation that things being both magical and psychosocial is far from unusual in My Little Pony. I also find the epiphany idea very unsettling and very compelling. It leaves some room for ponies to grow past their cutie marks, or to be hampered in their growth by their cutie marks, both of which have very interesting story potential. Also, what happens if a pony just never has that kind of epiphany?
This is some good stuff, and I really like it. (Also, not pretentious at all. You are once again making me happy to have found and followed you!)
953795 I know, that sounds like an awesome collaboration. I'm definitely interested in getting in on that, if bookplayer will have me! (I hope it's not assuming too much to think you'd enjoy me writing on the topic (~_^) )
951496 And for completeness sake...
yay, PrettyPartyPony is following me!
956115 Hmm *strokes nonexistent beard* I dunno....How clearly does "OHMYCELESTIAYES!!!!" Get across my interest in your writing in it?
Wow, finding this way late...
Let's hope this still works
This is what it would be like if it was only sociological, but since we can always point to specific point and say 'this caused the cutie mark to change' it could mean that this is very much the correct way to interpret it.
I like the idea that the side effects are because an incomplete spell was used, or a wrong potion taken. Rather than the cutie marks themselves being the cause for the behavior changes
You did link this from today's blog, so I feel no shame in offering my two cents:
A cutie mark is an external symbol of a pony's soul. Once a pony understands who, what, and why she is, when she can define that which makes her a distinct, unique being, she triggers the appearance of her cutie mark, which is a pictoral expression of that definition. The symbol can have nigh-infinite interpretations, but most ponies use the one that most obviously resonates with the revelation that brought it forth. Because of the myriad interpretations a single symbol can have, it should come as little surprise when very different ponies can have seemingly identical cutie marks.
According to Twilight herself, when she switched her friends' cutie marks, she also switched their destinies. Thus, the exchanged symbols are symptomatic of a larger problem: Starswirl's unfinished spell excised the self-identifying portion of each pony's metaphysical essence and stuck it in the next mare down the line. This portion was extratemporal; it not only defined the ponies at that time, but also what they had been and what they would be, hence the altered memories.
As for the Cutie Pox, that is a case of continuous growth uncontrolled by the usual limiting mechanisms. In other words, it is literally a cancer of the soul. Cutinoma, if you will. The spiritual metastasizing reverses the usual relationship between identity and cutie mark, causing an uncontrollable compulsion to comply with each new mark as it appears. To do so, the afflicted pony's body generates magic at an ever-increasing rate until she dies of exhaustion. When consumed, the blossom of the Seeds of Truth reasserts the pony's actual nature as she knows it, which is why Apple Bloom didn't get to keep any of those marks.