Ponies are Doomed to go Extinct. · 2:15am Dec 11th, 2019
I have been thinking about this for a while ever since I saw the last episode of MLP and I have not seen anyone mention the problem I noticed, so I decided to post on it.
Ponies are doomed to go extinct. What do I mean by that statement? Well simply put, there is not enough offspring to keep the population of ponies from dying off as a species. During the final episode "The Last Problem," the show takes us to the future, where we see what has happened to many of our beloved characters. Upon watching it, I was greatly disappointed to find that out of all the main six, only Pinky Pie apparently had a child, and only one child at that. Now I do agree that it is possible that there could be other children that weren't shown, but why would they do that to us?
Now for a healthy population, the average birth rate should be around 2.5%. Out of every breeding couple in the history of the show, only Bright Mac and Pear Butter, Igneous Rock Pie and Cloudy Quartz had three or more children with the Apples having 3 (Big Macintosh, Applejack, and Apple Bloom.) And the Pie's having the most at four. (Limestone Pie, Maud Pie, Pinkie Pie, and Marble Pie.) Twilight, Fluttershy, and Rarity are a two sibling family, and Rainbow is a lone child. All other ponies in the show have only 2 or less children, a decidedly unhealthy population rate.
This is my personal opinion, but out of the Main Six of the Future, I definitely saw Applejack as the one having children. She has always shown a strong focus on family. She should have been shown having at least three children if not more. Personally I would have loved it if she had been shown having had triplets. (My favorite ship for her was with Flim, from the flim-flam brothers. Read An Honest Life if you haven't yet. One of my personal favs-https://www.fimfiction.net/story/228959/an-honest-life)
Next, I would have expected that Rarity would have found a nice stallion to settle down with and had at least one child. It's true that she has shown a drive to succeed at her business, I do not however see her as giving up on starting her own family to do so. There is no reason she wouldn't be able to have her buisness and family at the same time, in fact, I see her starting her own foal line of clothing. (I have no ships for her, but I do see her falling in love with a ugly, deformed stallion, who is a master artisan of some kind. A beauty and beast kind of match up.)
Rainbow Dash, is one I can see as not having children, but at the same time, I don't see a reason she wouldn't have one or two, though I definitely don't see her being a normal kind of stay at home, cook and clean mother. More like the racy, soccer mom type. (I see her marrying a active stallion, perhaps even one in the Wonderbolts, but I also see her being so focused on her career, she never does marry.)
When it came to Fluttershy, I would have loved to have seen her have a child with Discord. A little girl Draconequus would have had me squeeing for sure. But then, I also would have expected both her and Discord to be active in adoption. But not just adopting ponies, no, I see them very much adopting monster babies. Fluttershy would be the kind to love any child of any race as her own.
Pinky Pie with only one baby? Are you kidding? Nope, nope, nope. For her, you'd expect 3 or 4, perhaps even 5 or 6. Out of the main six, I saw her as the first one to marry and start having babies.
Lastly, Twilight Sparkle. Seeing her not finding a love or having children was disappointing, but not altogether a surprise. In order for her to have a child, they would have had to of set up some kind of love interest beforehand or it would have been weird to the fanbase.
For being geared for families, the show didn't show much in the way of families. I drew much of what I wrote from my memory so I probably missed a few of the larger families. These of course are my opinions and likely not shared by everyone.
So ends my rant. I feel better.
So people's favorite ships wouldn't get sunk. As is, I remember a lot of people got upset that the finale dared to even tease AppleDash and FlutterCord.
And besides, Equestria's a big place; The Mane Six's hypothetical kids could've been in plenty of places other than Ponyville and Canterlot.
I think you've answered your own question, mate. Rest assured, the ponies are going to be around for a long time.
crystal empire cadence and shining you think they will stop at one , 6 minimum pinkie 4 -8 apple jack 2-4 rarity 2 max twilight will be spinster -0 foals like her mentor
5167499
But what about Rainbow Dash?
Cadence and Shinning I see having a total of 2, both girls as a kind of new royal sisters.
Um, why the selfcest picture?
5167543
I just grabbed a bunch that seemed to fit with the theme. Don't think too much on it. I assume you're talking about Rarity. Didn't even notice it until you mentioned it.
I love those ships
Twilight will be a great mother
5167560
I would have liked to have seen her being a mother.
5167570
me too
5167570
where did you get those pictures, Gentlehoof?
5167575
I just googled "name of pony" and "Family" and chose one that looked good.
There's quite a few reasons why they intentionally avoided this issue.
This being a female empowerment show, shows how great the girls are on their own, without needing a stallion (man) to help them.
That being said,xpairong this power group with any significant Male company would have run on the issue of effectively breaking the friend dynamic, something they wanted to avoid at all costs.
Only 2 really major times are the mane 6 given a romantic option, and of these 2 only one survived. These 2 being the maligned by the fandom Twilight x Flash Sentry and the other one being Pinkie x Cheese Sandwich.
Other than these 2 pairings, none of the other mane 6 are offered or posed with an option for a Male companion. But again the reason for this is to maintain the friendship dynamic without heavily disrupting it.
That being said, yes your observations on what should have happened regarding their family options are pretty spot on with what the more realistic mane 6 should have potentially followed.
In order of who I see as the more family oriented, that is definitely Applejack and had she a partner she would have wanted to at least equal her mother in number of children. Pinkie Pie falls into a strange place in which she may want a family as big as her own, but on the other hand would want to have something more manageable, still 2-3 probable offspring for her, more if her partner would accept it.
Fluttershy is an interesting case. By far she is the most "motherly" of the mane six, having a powerful mother instinct and nestling habits all throughout the show. The way the character was designed also suggests that of the mane 6 she may be the most fertile and once she has a goal, would want more to follow. I always see her as having the largest family by far, even surpassing Applejack, but would settle for less, depending on the partner. I was also surprised that while they mentioned it, they didn't act on the Discord x Fluttershy pairing, would be appropriate and a nice nod to what was the most consistent couple of the entire show if a strange one from day 1.
Twilight and Rarity fall into the 2 goal category. They are both dedicated to their duties and businesses, but would be more than open to a significant other if an appropriate one showed up. Rarity in particular always seemed to be in the lookout, but apparently there was never an appropriate one offered. Twilight would have needed someone special who could deal with how driven she is, but Twilight would make for a great wife/companion if a very scatterbrained one at times.
Assuming that Rainbow was willing to have foals, one, two at the most would be her limit and then only if it didn't interfere with her career. Though I am certain that a foal would have changed her priorities somewhat.
However to the point of Ponies going extinct, you shouldn't take the main 6 as a sample of Pony society at large. Simply put pony society has millions of individuals and there was no indication of that number decreasing. Although there is also no indication of large growth, but again that is because it is not relevant to the story and we have plenty of known locations with large active and thriving populations, indicative of a prosperous and expanding society.
On another note, someone took the ridiculous task of doing a Male to female ratio study of the show and the numbers are even better than for Humans. The Male to female ratio of ponies being very close to 1 to 1 with a large population of young foals.
For all indications there's enough stallions for any mare looking and no shortage of mates for stallions wanting, specially since Pony society seems to have evolved into a monogamous society, with no discrimination for sexual orientation.
5167579
That was a very thoughtful response.
Counterpoint. Looking throughout the show at all the background ponies, family size is shown to be rather small, usually being only one foal if any. Lets examine Apple Bloom's classmates. Out of all of them, only one is shown to have a sibling (Rumble,Thunderlane). The rest that we know of are of single foal families. (not counting background classmates with unknown family history). Almost all confirmed families in the show stop at just 1 child with a few going up to 2, mostly due to them being twins (5 pairs that I can think of). When it comes to three foals, the number of families drop to 1(apples) and four children families also only 1(pies). Five children families and above 0. That is a net negative population per generation.
I would have loved at one point in the show, that it showed a mother in the background trying to juggle two babies while breaking up a feuding pair of older foals while yet another foal is begging the mother to buy a absolutely must have toy while having a tantrum on the ground.
5167586
Thanks for the comment, and a valid counterpoint. To which I will again note, is not relevant to the show, although they did skirt the topic several times, just never blatantly.
On a side note I hope to see the next chapter of your story soon. I've been following it for years now and can't wait to see where it leads.