My thoughts after a The Cutie Map re-watch · 2:47pm May 12th, 2016
So, I recently rewatched The Cutie Map for the first time since I originally watched it, and some thoughts.
First off, every pony in town has a cropped tail and either a cropped mane or hair braids, with the exception of Starlight. There's even a brief shot in the first episode where she ties up a non-conforming pony's hair into braids. Somehow this is never really brought up, and it's not like it could've been animation to save on time considering they have tons of different pony models all with cropped hair. The ponies honestly seem as dumb as a sack of bricks at times.
The Mane 6 jerk quotient is thankfully pretty low. The worse they do is to be mean to Sugar Belle by ignoring her for so long.
It occurs to me that most of the ponies who were in Our Town were all probably socially awkward in some manner, which may have been exacerbated by the Cutie Mark Unmarking. You see it with Double Diamond's mannerisms in the first part where he completely buys Applejack's obvious "I'm trying to deflect attention here" line. All of them probably felt ostracised in part because of their Cutie Mark, going off of Sugar Belle and Night Glider's lines too.
Speaking of Double Diamond, he really does seem to be Starlight's trusted lieutenant. She uses him to spy on the Mane 6, and she allows him to retrieve Cutie Marks from the vault, even though that means he could potentially grab his own Cutie Mark at the same time if he was one of the disgruntled ponies. It's why I always thought StarlightDiamond could have been a potential ship but alas, the fanbase didn't sail with it. I want to say, however, I don't like his voice. The actual voice acting is decent, but the pitch and tone is just annoying, a shame since his VA does other characters like Ahuizotl and Filthy Rich who I don't have a problem listening to at all. I don't know if he's trying to play up the surfer accent and overdid it or what. At least Shining Armor's voice sounded nice. Also, DD's totally a Changeling.
Animation error? I think not! Quick, somepony write a fic starring DD as a Changeling sleeper agent.
Fluttershy is clearly using her tail extensions in the first episode :O
Going off the Cutie Mark Vault and the slots that have been filled in, there are exactly 100 ponies in Our Town with their Cutie Marks removed. I guess nopony ever knew what Starlight's Cutie Mark was, or else they might have been looking for it and not found it. There are several foals who have no Cutie Mark shown in the village.
Party Favor got the better deal out of sacrificing himself. He spends a whole night alone in a shack with five mares :P. Also, given his horn is shown to be able to at least partially puncture the wooden door blocking them in, Rarity and Twi could've sucked it up and gouged a hole in the door to try and escape!
The equalized ponies have desaturated coats compared to when they have their Cutie Marks, which is obvious after the Mane 6 get theirs taken away (and when the Equal 4 get theirs back). Ignore Rarity and Double Diamond since they have white coats, and compare the rest of the Mane 6 and Equal 4. While the Mane 6 have some desaturation it's fairly light in comparison to the desaturation of the Equal 4. I don't know if this is just an animation cue to the viewers or if it's an actual in-universe thing, but what's interesting is that the Mane 6 only lose a little bit of vibrancy, while there's a drastic difference in vibrancy for the Equal 4. I suppose the longer you've been equalized, the more colour tone you lose?
Now, talking about Starlight. It occurs to me that if Starlight was truly evil, then she could've pulled a Tirek and somehow managed to 'consume' the Cutie Marks and get their magic in turn, like how Tirek consumed magic and eliminated Cutie Marks. But she wasn't, as we see with her heel-face turn.
It seems to me that all the ponies already look up to Starlight as a leader enough between her having a house that's not in one of the two townhouse rows and being the only one to perform the Cutie Unmarking. She might've been able to get away with telling ponies individually about needing her Cutie Mark after they've been initiated and using the Staff as a fake-out to newcomers, and hides her Cutie Mark to fit in. The one smart action she takes in getting the Mane 6's marks retrieved from the vault is immediately negated by the fact she was keeping Fluttershy in her house at the same time. To cap it all off, if she had been as silver-tongued as she was earlier in the two-parter, then she could have easily turned it around after her Mark was revealed instead of going on a rant insulting everypony. Heck, even not taking her time with running off with the Mane 6's Cutie Marks, or putting her bed back in place would've given her a huge head start.
For fanfic fuel, I wonder what would've happened had Starlight decided not to steal the Mane 6's Cutie Marks at the end of the first episode.
All-in-all, I like The Cutie Map two-parter. I have two problems, and the first is a big one: it attempts to present a large social issue with the whole spiel about equality and special talents. It then chickens out on this altogether by turning Equal Town into a cult and Starlight into an unstable leader who goes on a rant as soon as she's outed, complete with a 1984 ad reference. Twilight and co might have been able to convince Party Favor of their own ideals of friendship while he was in the cell with them (if they weren't having sexy times instead), but it's entirely off-screen. In between the Season 5 premiere and finale, we got confirmation from one of the book source materials that Starlight truly believed in her ideals, and then it barely shows up in the finale. We had an episode in Appleoosa's Most Wanted that sort of took a sideways look at the issue, then Crusaders of the Lost Mark didn't touch on it at all.
There's several ways it could've been done. Perhaps Equal Town was, fully and completely, made up of ponies who were outcasts from society and chose to give up their Cutie Marks to reduce frictions between one another. We could've gotten a scene where a filly gets her Cutie Mark and then chooses to give it up for a follow-up of the Cutie Un-Marking. Twilight and friends would have had to use words to convince the ponies that they were running away from themselves by giving up their Cutie Mark, since the CM is an integral part of a pony's identity. Starlight could still be a sinister figure here, or be of the legitimate belief Cutie Marks are more trouble than they're worth and the biggest defender of their town's system.
The second issue I have is how much of a muddle this premiere presents for Cutie Marks relative to a pony's magic. We see from Twilight's Kingdom that taking a pony's magic takes away their Cutie Mark. From here, we see taking their Cutie Mark removes much of their identity and magic but not all of it. We see unmarked foals in Equal Town. So do foals have a set amount of magic and then get an enormous magical boost on getting their Cutie Mark? Upon getting their Cutie Mark do they get a huge boost in the talent they've found they're really good at? Do they have predestined Cutie Marks (supported by S5 finale) and the talent and magic skills to go with it and all the Cutie Mark is is something that comes from a moment of self-realisation? Could Starlight have ripped Marks from unmarked foals but just never thought to try?
Fanfic fuel.
Good review. One thing to keep in mind about the cutie marks. Starlight actually does 2 things: First she removes the cutie mark, then she casts an Equalization spell that puts the equal sign in place. It's the equalization that seems to drain a pony's magic, and even cause them to be unable to remember their talent clearly.