I don't get it. (SPOILERS) · 4:34am Apr 5th, 2015
Seen a handful of reviews... and a lot of comments about the opening two episodes for the new season. It was good, I enjoyed, though Fluttershy's obliviousness in the start was a bit annoying... everything was good.
However, I don't get the connection a lot of people are making to Starlight, and the ponies in the town to being communist. Maybe I'm missing something, but Starlight seems more like a cult leader, and the others seem more like cult followers. Granted, their can do seem to be similarities between a cult and communism. But to be a communist leader Starlight would have to have some type of political authority and a military to help keep the subjects from revolting.
If anything she is more of a cult leader, she doesn't really have much political authority and she has more of a compound that a town. She also wants to bring down the ruling authority of Celestia, Luna and Twilight, probably even Cadence. She also talks of ponies taking pilgrimages to convert. Which is more akin to a cult than a communist style dictatorship.
I think it's a combination of cult and communism. cult mentality but equality and wanting power and not wanting there to be free speech.
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I can see that, however cults are similar in that the leaders strives for both power and control over their followers. But if you look at how it was shown, it's more of a cult following in how that Starlight control more with charisma than with force. If you look at more communist controlled areas the leaders rule with fear and violence. True a cult leader will use fear, blackmail, and threaten violence if charisma doesn't work. But normally it's a last resort, typically brainwashing and indoctrination works most of the time.
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2947898 It's kind of like what Iran has been under since 1979 and Communist China under Chairman Mao. Maoist China was run like a cult state since Mao was literally worshipped as a god. And Chairman Mao did plan to replace the names of the entire Chinese population with numbers except his own since his name is the first thing that schoolchildren are taught to write with before any other word including their own names
http://www.fimfiction.net/group/198512/the-shameless-selfpromotion-bureau/thread/166653/concerning-season-5-premier-reposted-shamelessly
Personally I just never saw that whole communism connection people made. That's not how it's supposed to work people. Yes, the word of the day was "equality" used in force as well as persuasion, but communism is still a differently functioning ideology than what was portrayed in this season start.
I too mostly lean to it mainly focus on the theme of cult based around the idea of confirming under this extreme ideal of equality. The signs were there: A charismatic leader turned guru, setting the rules on what is right and wrong. Abusing brainwash and Stockholm syndrome to insist you are happier if you think this way. The idea that "you are free to go by own choice" yet nopony considers it a choice. Restricting rules on how to live and behave, making the cult members police each other and run the point and blame game to secure yourself, excusing it as a "friendship" between the whole above the individuals.
People like to consider communism as that. An evil, suppressing cult where equality is a buzzword used to excuse the removal of individuality. But what IS communism, may I ask? Simple, equality between riches, production and ownership. Communism is focused on material good to secure everyone is equal on a base that allow all to have the same rights and means to survive, with less differences between classes and the rich and poor. It's a political ideology where everyone is equal in the means of opposite of capitalism, where you either make it or fail and that's only up to yourself as an individual.
I think this episode was far from anything that related to communism. It was based on cult mentality of ponies searching for something to fill a void they couldn't find the missing piece for, so they turned to a guru claiming to have the answers. Their ideology based on a forced equality on a personal level, where people are supposed to be blanks without anything making them stand out what so ever. It wasn't about equality in riches and material goods, but about personalities, traits and skills all together. It was a matter of removing individuality. That's not what communism is about, despite what fiction try to tell you people.
Sorry, that turned into a rant there ^^;
2948849 Not at all, that was very well said.