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So I asked Dave Polsky about the ending of Too Many Pinkie Pies at Buckcon · 8:25pm Aug 26th, 2014
Dave Polsky was one of the VIPs at BuckCon, so I thought I will ask him about how he intended the ending of Too Many Pinkie Pies to be. (I tried to be as polite as possible, not even slightly intending to blame him for anything.)
To summarize his answer, he intended the clones to be something between mindless things and sentient creatures, somethings like robots. He never intended to have the episode analyzed from the perspective of cloning, he just tried to make a funny comedy with lots of Pinkie Pies. Therefore, Twilight's shooting shouldn't count as murder.
Although, it still hurts my heart to see the first clone who
-learned from Pinkie Pie the basics of living
-ate with Fluttershy at her picnic
-denied her desire to have fun when she became confused at where to go
-mis-remembered ponies' names
-collapsed and cried in her misery, complaining to Pinkie Pie
-rejoiced when Pinkie offered to help her
-made a decision to multiply herself, accepting Pinkie's offer
become disintegrated by Twilight's beam.
I still see it as murder -- especially with the first copy. The copies of copies seemed to be more like a bad xerox recopy, but the first copy seemed to be mostly with it. I could see the bitter mote of a soul there.
Twilight Sparkle would NOT want me on the jury if she were tried on this one.
That episodes' ending was bullshit on multiple levels. Polsky, you screwed up BIG-TIME.
2403464 Someone said the same thing in the Q&A panel about Twilight Time and ranted for 2 minutes to Polsky.
It was the most shameful moments of the whole con. The moderators started filtering questions afterwards.
I agree. The writers just screwed up in that episode. The first clone didn't come across as a mindless robot AT ALL, they just screwed up. They came across more like naive children to me.
2403553 Indeed. They just didn't think through what they were implying.
2403493 - I was there too and I was just cringing when that guy started ranting. I'm glad someone managed to put in a good word later on to try to make up for it, but I really hope Polsky wasn't offended. He's so cool.
For the first 2/3rds of that episode, I thought it was an homage to Multiplicity, a fun comedy where Kevin Costner clones himself so he can spend time with his family AND get his job done, then he makes another one so that clone can spend time with his kids while he relaxes, but then the clones make a clone themselves who's kind of dumb, you get the picture. I thought it was great. The difference: In the end of the movie the 3 clones move to a different city and start a pizzeria, Kevin Costner and his family don't force the clones at gunpoint back into the nutrient ooze or whatever. It always bugged me because CLEARLY Polsky must have watched Multiplicity to copy it, so why didn't he just have the extra Pinkies just move away somewhere and found Pinkietown or something?
2403618 The worst part for me was when Applejack rounded them up like cattle and herded them into an enclosed room, that just had profoundly unfortunate implications to me.
The worst part for me was when it was down to the last 2 Pinkie's & you can clearly see the effort that the last clone was going to to stay in the running, sweat trickling down her brow & that worried look on her face.
She understood the stakes & she wanted to live.
I think this was the first clone, who had lived the longest, experienced the most, & come the closest to becoming a complete pony, and the fact that she (And therefore by extension, the rest of the clones) were capable of doing that meant that Twilight's wholesale destruction of them is extremely jarring.
2403493 Yours truly was sitting with a friend who utterly loves Twilight Time, so that added an extra dimension for me. Agreed, it was embarrassing and the staff should have stopped the guy long before the end. But Polsky handled it outstandingly well. Certainly the part of the audience where I was sitting was 100% on Polsky's side. A shame if that's all the panel is remembered for, as it was a brilliant panel overall.
As far as TMPP is concerned, I seem to be more sympathetic to Polsky's explanation than some of my fellow commenters here. Not sure "robots" was the best choice of wording, given the popularity of Sweetie Bot in large sections of the fandom, but I got Polsky's point. The ethics of dealing with increasingly human (or pony)-acting robots has been a staple of SF for generations, so maybe there are some interesting fics to come out of it, at least!
2405721 The commenters are here mostly the people who favorited my alternative ending where the Pinkies turn out to be naive children and are sent to different cities to live (Fimfiction story-tagging in blogposts function), so I guess the group is kinda one-sided.
I think the general problem is that Polsky didn't intend his story to be analyzed, therefore didn't think of the consequences that the people who sit down and think might come up with, especially if you consider the first clone.
Wait, they're all Doombots? I knew it!
But seriously, robots or not, this episode still remains my third favourite. The ending honestly didn't bother me as much as others, apparently. I see where the points are coming from; the genocide, possible Pinkies trapped in the pool forever, but it's still very enjoyable to me. One thing that strikes me though, is how Pinkie suddenly becomes some fun addict. She was never that interested in finding fun everywhere. Guess you have different episode premises and writing to answer that. Like how Pinkie Pie was no longer so worried about Rainbow Dash after Wonderbolts Academy.
Still, no episode is truly perfect; it's ultimately down to opinion and preference. Trying to justify what happened in this episode concerning the clones was no easy task, I'd bet. How do you say Pinkie clones are pretty much robots, or lifeless? Shame to see Polsky on the receiving end of things, certainly with that Twilight Time thing. But he's still awesome.