Dehumanizing Ponies, Part Eight - Psychology · 4:08am Feb 4th, 2014
Rather than a first-principles post, this will be sort of drawing together bits and bobs that I've written throughout my other posts into something more coherent.
So, the primary pony psychological drives would be:
-Herd instinct. This would be community inclusion, though not necessarily friendship. So long as there's a self-identifiable role in the community that is either unique or valuable, it's satisfied. Twilight didn't feel the need to reach out for friends earlier because she had a high-value social slot - Princess Celestia's protege. Their communities are going to be integrally interdependent and trusting. Between their higher communal drive and biological honesty, communities are going to be far more directly related to a pony's psychological health than it is for humans.
-Cutie Mark Drive. This is really their primary motivational driver for the bulk of their primary actions. They have their special talent, and they have to use that special talent. Of course, this doesn't mean they can't do anything but: so long as they feel secure in both their ability and achievement with their special talent, there's nothing stopping them from watching plays, taking up golf, or whatever. The reverse is true as well - when they feel insecure about it, regardless of time spent or past history, they're going to be under immense psychological strain to correct that as soon as possible. we've see instances of this before but I'll elaborate further.
-Intraherd dynamics. This is somewhat less of an issue, but I think that Twilight's actions in Season Four have shown it can be incredibly important to the psychological health of ponies. Maybe not because of direct interactions, but because of the possible feedback options.
So let's start by considering what would be considered pony derangement. I'm ignoring something like, say, Screw Loose because that's obvious and kind of silly. No, I mean things that would be inoffensive to us.
Here's an easy one: "I want to do something else with my life." That makes perfect sense for us, because we crave novelty. But ponies do not, and their cutie marks compel them to follow whatever path they've marked out for themselves, so expressing that sort of attitude would be indicative of some sort of dissociative fugue state.
A less easy one is misrepresenting their cutie mark. Given how powerful a drive it is, and that cutie mark denial creates such a powerful negative feedback, this isn't something that they would be equipped to spot or would be guarding against. In fact, calling someone out on it would probably go against the prevailing social norms, because of cutie mark denial feedback. So long as the misrepresentation was obfuscated enough, they might never get called on it. Similar to how humans have a very difficult time spotting narcissism because we assume the misunderstandings are on our end, not theirs.
A more subtle one is living apart from the community. You know, like Zecora. Rejecting the herd/community dynamic automatically puts suspicion on a pony, a weird off-ness that is our instinctive reaction to the crippled or deformed.
So let's reverse that and look at things that we might consider pathological but are perfectly normal in the context of pony drives. We'll start with Boast Busters.
Trixie has a performing cutie mark. She was a performer, not a braggart. But the mane six didn't know that, they hadn't contextualized her cutie mark, they only saw her actions as threatening - a pony external to the community claiming their community roles. So they heckled her, which they shouldn't have, but it makes sense since dishonesty is so rare. It'd be perfectly tolerated in performers, because that is what they are, but outside of that it's very threatening behavior, so the Mane Six reaction makes sense. As does the escalation, since the heckling is cutie-mark threatening to Trixie. And we see she doesn't break character - for a human performer that'd be at best rude, but for a cutie-mark compel on performing breaking character is probably quite difficult! The entire episode is a lesson in mismatched social signalling.
Let's take Pinkie Pie. Both Pinkie Pride and Party of One, it might seem that she has an extreme reaction to events. But Pinkie Pie's cutie mark is entirely extrinsic. She cannot fulfill her self-determined role without feedback from others, and ephemeral feedback at that, since it's making ponies happy. In Party of One she got slapped pretty hard with Cutie Mark Denial (which, of course, is perception and not reality), and she's not going to be stable to begin with, since she can't self-center herself on her cutie-mark driven compulsion. Similar to Twilight in Lesson Zero, sudden and severe "psychosis" due to perceived failure in social or cutie mark driven contexts is probably fairly common, as is solving it, since the moment the perceptions are changed the entire causal chain behind the psychosis goes away.
Even Luna's psychotic break and Nightmare Moon thing is explainable as a result of cutie mark denial. Since the Sisters are Day and Night incarnate, it's not just making the sun and the moon go around their tracks, it's about all the shades in meanings in all the different tiers of reality for both day and night, and if Luna felt that night wasn't working right...well, it's not just petty jealousy. It's a natural outgrowth of the inherent biological and social requirements for ponies. And since it's based on perception and not reality, I would expect that Luna has had to redo her perceptions of what night means. And in fact that's probably all that would have been required if it weren't for the broad implications of what Nightmare Moon was and did requiring an extreme intervention.
So while ponies are probably more robust and calm than humans in a lot of respects, when it comes to cutie marks they are incredibly vulnerable. A failure that might irritate or depress a human could utterly destroy a pony - and understandably so, since their cutie marks grant them such assurance in competence. It'd be like the temporary loss of a vital organ.
A few other minor things. Ponies that are outside the normal herd/community dynamic (like Trixie and Cheese Sandwich) are flirting with the edges of pony pathology, though simply by being outside it they aren't classifiable as being afflicted. Intraherd dynamics is probably what keeps ponies from flipping out all the time - witness Twilight taking responsibility for keeping track of her herd's nature and health. She isn't making them do things or babying them, but she is cognizant of what they're doing and available to help. I would say that right now Twilight is learning how to rule by feeling out how to properly be a herd alpha, and when she's got experience with that she might get a rulership slot. By forming these tight groups and having people who are responsible for catching the early signs of social failure behavior, it helps prevent serious, long-term repercussions or failure cascades.
Okay, let's talk about Rarity and her bad writing. She's presented as being 'generous' but the truth is that her gifts and other actions have an ulterior, selfish motive. That's not so much a violation of cutie mark dynamics as it is the community/herd dynamics - since the communal trust for ponies is going to be far, far higher than for humans, this dishonesty goes unremarked. It slips under the threshold of what's blatant enough to object to or perhaps even consciously notice. So any attempts to address it, despite the fact that it's a real issue, are going to run smack into the stone wall of community and herd bonds. Not only that, ponies will actively work to justify the behavior with her self-professed generosity since that's how they fundamentally assume the world works. Unfortunately, this means that if Rarity ever gets called on this it's going to be a very, very serious consequence, since she's essentially earned herself exile from the normal community/herd dynamic by misusing trust.
Was thinking specifically about Trixie ...
... she's a lot more messed up by Pony standards than she is by Human standards. I completely agree with you that most of the Mane Six took her boasting too seriously because they failed to grasp that it was part of her stage persona. Notice that Twilight actually didn't take it all that seriously, which is ironic because Trixie fixates on Twilight as her rival -- and Twilight probably didn't because she's the most cosmopolitan one of the Mane Six, at least at that point, she's seen a lot of professional entertainers).
The way in which Trixie is messed up is that she's a loner. And I don't think her persona is totally an act -- I think that she really is very egocentric. To put it another way, sane-Trixie is quite aware that she's not the most powerful mage in the world, probably not even the most powerful unicorn in the world, but some part of her thinks she is and the stage-persona of the Great and Powerful Trixie satisfies that belief.
I find the rest of your analysis quite compelling, especially the part about cutie-mark drives. Though I do think that cutie-marks can indicate more than one thing, and some ponies seem to be satisfied with using the cutie-mark drive as ancillary to their main occupation: for instance Rarity isn't a gemologist or jeweler, she's a fashion designer.
This makes even more sense if you take Gilda into consideration.
She is a literal threat to the herd...
Given what happens to me when I try to not write stories, I think that there is a loose analogue to cutie mark drive in humans. Not something universal, but something common to a lot of creative folks.
Once you start to talk about Gilda in a xenofictional context, you have to start asking how griffon psychology differs from pony and from human. GhostOfHeraclitus (mentioned in part 1 of this series) and Guardian_Gryphon have some interesting ideas about this.
Harmony, and its keeping, is likely to be the analogue to law amongst ponies because it is their most significant and common problem. The extreme reaction to Cutie Mark denial, cross species interaction (which demands a united front from the ponies) and the need for such tightly knit bonds across such diverse personalities in a community mean disharmony is a regular occurrence. Chaos is a state so endemic to humanity that it is considered necessary to human operation, but is particularly damaging for a society that changes slowly and relies heavily upon community.
Significant structure and externally enforced discipline are considered stifling and damaging to humans, who believe in inborn rights, opportunity, and who exchange skillsets regularly. (Note: human societies do exist which more closely resemble the pony model herein described. Their similarities belie their differences to such a degree that they must necessarily fall outside the purview of this post, as they would need to be discussed at significant length.) Humans need flux in their lives. Ponies, on the other hand, need order and harmony to function effectively. They need the protection of the herd.
For humans, criminal behavior is largely not pathological; in fact disobedience to unjust laws is widely held to be the correct course. For ponies, what we as humans consider regular criminal behavior - bringing harm to other individuals by theft or injury - would be the domain of a deranged mind. Social cohesion and trust are paramount, and purposefully damaging those things is self destructive. Amongst humans harm is a likely outcome of any action. Risk and reward calculation for injurious behaviors are always a consideration, because working with others is no guarantee of personal gain. Among ponies, it is. For them injurious behaviors will fall so far down the risk axis that no reward could suffice. For ponies, while chaos can stem from poor choices or a deleterious environment, evil, as we know it, is the product of a broken and diseased mind.
Given that, it is unlikely that we would ever see a police force. Criminal behaviors that would necessitate such a force are outside context problems for them. Rather, we would see ponies like Twilight who act as guardians of harmony and social order. They would not be enforcers, because the use of force to inflict harmony is oxymoronic. They would instead be mentors and guides. Ponies, with their goal driven hypercompetence, well defined purpose, and sense of personal responsibility, would never seek to be led by such individuals in the classic sense, as decisions must come from those to whom the problems belong. Instead ponies in such a role would become alphas, acting as the center of the community by virtue of competence, interpersonal awareness, and wisdom.
My ponies are more human-y than yours, but I really like some of this. Especially the implicaitons of herd dynamics[1]. I can't adopt it into my head-canon—it fits poorly with the Civil Service—but I'm really taken with the idea of ponies like Twilight being in a position that has no human analogue. A non-leader[2].
As for the cutie mark I wanted to suggest a slightly alternative interpretation: what you write about the imperative to do the thing you are talented at, that I agree with, and I think it's canon supported, too. But I'd go one step further and say that while it is possible to misinterpret your mark, it is also possible to reinterpret it. That is to say, a pony can probably—due to a crisis of some sort—change what a cutie mark means to them, and thus refocus their talent. That way you leave room for a more varied personal history.
[1] In my serviceverse I model them as mostly humanish but with a powerful herd instincts kicking in at times of stress.
[2] Ponies, despite living in a principality, didn't really have leaders. Twilight Sparkle was one of the greatest leaders they didn't have.
Well, I won't argue that Rarity's poorly written but I would say her generosity is more horribly inconsistent than false per se-- her gifts are sometimes selfish and sometimes generous. Her characterization is flawed enough that it's not even consistent with her having ulterior motives.
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I haven't much thought about gryphons other than casting them as sort of Scotland circa 1430. All these proud little clans with a bunch of infighting but no actual war per se.
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With that in mind, not only would it explain the lack of police force (the only one we really see is part of a hospital, where it would make sense there are ponies that are non compos mentis that may have to be physically handled), it'd also imply a significant lack of criminal legal structure. Or rather, what criminal legal structure there is would be focused on different sets of behaviors, or codified methods of addressing behaviors that can't be sufficiently dealt with by a single community. Things that ultimately do require force would probably be escalated pretty high - princess, level, say. Or EoH level.
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I really need an all-encompassing term this xenofictional construct, especially since there's no stories adhering to it yet. I'm hoping that people are willing to pull out bits they like rather than trying to take it all as a whole, since while it all hangs together I think lots of bits function just fine on their own. But yeah, it unfortunately goes against a lot of stories simply by virtue of being...not humany.
An interesting thought for re-interpreting a cutie mark would be that if it is possible, it'd be just as formative as finding it for the first time...so it would be in essence creating an entirely new pony (oh, similar to be sure, but with an entirely different drive they're going to radically alter their various habits). Maybe some sort of extreme cutie mark denial could precipitate that - eventually that psychological stress builds up enough that their biology simply tries again. Wonder how the other ponies would deal with that...would they treat that pony as a new one, legally? Would they be pathologized, or celebrated?
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While my Rarity analysis might not be perfect, I think the way it's cast shows at the very least some of the vulnerabilities of the society and how they might be exploited. Humans have a bunch of different social malaises; ponies would do,but different ones.
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Much like witches, then.