[Analysis] Equestria is Magic: The First Generation 5 Screenshot, Sunny Starscout's Heretic Parents and More!

Following up on my analysis of the Hasbro Investor Event 2021 and Part One and Two of my Generation 5 Movie Synopsis Analysis, I continue with analyzing the first Generation 5 screenshot today!
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And for the start, here we have Sunny Starscout in all her glory! This is now the first time we can take a quiet, serene look at her, without having to stop a running animation at the right frame. She is looking into a mirror in her room while standing in front of her bed that shows a mussed up blanket and she has a satchel bag strapped over her back. What we see in this moment is Sunny after waking up at morning, getting ready for her day and taking a last look into the mirror before she leaves her house.
What catches the eye here first are the buttons on the straps of Sunny's satchel bag. She has buttons with the cutie marks of Twilight, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash attached to them. And these are the only ones, there are no buttons with the cutie marks of Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rarity, so this lets us make the first amazing discovery on this screenshot, we now know who Sunny's three favourite members of the Elements of Harmony are! And it's even easy to see why Twilight, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash are her three favourite members of the Elements of Harmony.
Twilight's element is Magic. Which symbolically stands for friendship, as the Magic of Friendship. And it's even literal magic, too, as we learned when Twilight and her friends fought "Sombra" after the Tree of Harmony and the Elements of Harmony got destroyed. Which Sunny might or might not know about, but even if she doesn't, there is still the symbolical meaning that she definitely knows about. The Magic of Friendship is the reason why Twilight is among Sunny's favourite members of the Elements of Harmony.
Fluttershy's element is Kindness. Kindness is the most basic thing that any friendship needs, if friends aren't kind to each other, then there is not really a friendship. If the three pony tribes should unite once again, kindness will be crucial for them to stay united. That is why Fluttershy is another one of Sunny's favourite members of the Elements of Harmony.
And Rainbow Dash's element is Loyalty. Friends are supposed to be loyal, to stand up for each other in tough times and to protect each other. After kindness, loyalty is the second defining aspect that makes a friendship. If the three pony tribes unite again, it will also be important for them to be loyal towards each other and to stand together as friends against threats. This is why Rainbow Dash is also one of Sunny's favourite members of the Elements of Harmony.
The Magic of Friendship, Kindness and Loyalty, these are the three most important elements of friendship and this is why Sunny, with her goal to reunite the three pony tribes and to make them friends again, has Twilight, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash as her favourite members of the Elements of Harmony. And she has learned quite a lot from them, as going deeper into this screenshot will reveal.
Another crucial detail is on the flap of Sunny's satchel bag. It has Twilight's cutie mark drawn on it. Twilight is, quite obviously, who Sunny admires the most from all the Elements of Harmony. We have learned from the synopsis of the Generation 5 Movie that Sunny tries to reunite the three pony tribes. It weren't the Elements of Harmony who brought the three pony tribes together, neither Twilight nor any of her friends, but Twilight united ponies and other creatures from different nations and kingdoms with her friendship school and we already learned from the Leaked Generation 5 Storyboard Animatic that it was Sunny's dad who introduced the Elements of Harmony to her and explained her all about them. WIth that, it is clear that Twilight is Sunny's big idol and role model and that she strives to be just like the Princess of Friendship with her resolution to reunite the three pony tribes again.

What gave me a lot of reason to speculate is the look of Sunny's body, particularly, her white fetlocks and her purple hooves. Unlike the ponies who lived during the era of Equestria that we saw in Generation 4, the ponies of Equestria's distant future that we'll see in Generation 5 have fetlocks and hooves that are of different colors than their coats. But is it like this for all ponies? Or is this look unique to Sunny?
In my analysis of the leaked bedding, I was speculating why Izzy and Pipp look so different than other unicorns and pegasi, with the markings on Izzy's horn and the big, white, fluffy, angel-like wings that Pipp has, and came up with possibilities for why they look so different than other ponies of their tribes and I assumed that it's only them who look like that. But now that I see Sunny like this, I have second thoughts. That all three of them had something magical happen to them that changed the looks of their bodies or were born with a genetic mutation that makes them look different than other ponies is a lot more unlikely, while fetlocks that have a different color than the rest of the coat and hooves with a different color aren't as remarkable as what we see on Izzy's horn and as the look of Pipp's wings.
Sunny's white fetlocks that contrast the orange color of the rest of her coat and her purple hooves that have the same color as her mane and tail seem more mundane and natural. This makes me now think that, maybe, all unicorns have markings on their horn like Izzy has on hers and that all pegasi have wings that are colored differently than their coats, like it is the case with Pipp, and that we look at genetic evolution of ponies that happened across thousands of years.
We don't know how far into Equestria's future we look in Generation 5 yet, but if these different appearances of Equestria's ponies are caused by evolution, then a lot of time has passed and thousands of years, rather than "just" a few hundred years, must have passed since the events that we saw in "The Last Problem".
Another question is if all ponies or just earth ponies have fetlocks and hooves in different colors than their coats. It becomes a little clearer if we look at the promo animations from the Hasbro Investor Event 2021 livestream:
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Izzy has hooves that aren't the same color as her coat, so this leans us more into the direction that hooves of different colors are something ponies of all three races have. Izzy does not have fetlocks of a different color, though, her fetlocks have the same color as the rest of her coat. While Hitch, another earth pony, has the same white fetlocks that Sunny has. This could mean that unicorns have only one consistent coat color or that it's different from unicorn to unicorn. We also don't know if pegasi have fetlocks in different colors or not and we lack definite confirmation for it that their hooves are colored differently than their coats like the hooves of earth ponies and unicorns are. We've yet to see an animation of Pipp, as well as see more unicorns, before we can be sure about this.
It might indeed be that differently-colored fetlocks are unique to earth ponies in Equestria's distant future. However, I doubt that hooves of different colors are something that only earth ponies and unicorns have. Two out of three pony races with them make it rather clear that pegasi have them, too.
What gives more reason to speculate here, though, are Hitch's and Izzy's hooves if we compare them with Sunny's hooves. Neither of them has hooves in a color that even resembles the colors of their manes and tails, they are completely different than any color of their bodies. Does this mean only some ponies have hooves that are colored like their manes and tails? Another possibility is that Sunny has used hoof polish and painted her hooves in the same color as her mane and tail. It's fun to think about this and I'm excited to find out the answer on this little mystery.

The most interesting details of this screenshot are the things we find in Sunny's bedroom. First off, it seems that Sunny's bedroom is rather small. The carpet on the floor is partially under her bed, which is not a typical way of placing a carpet on the floor and rather impractical if the carpet has to be moved for some reason. Usually, a carpet in a room like this would be positioned in front of the bed, but Sunny's bed covers a part of it anyway. This leads me to the conclusion that Sunny has simply not enough space in her room to place the carpet in front of her bed.
It's only a tiny detail, but one that makes us understand and visualize Sunny's bedroom better.

At the hoofboard of Sunny's bed is a chest, with a red piece of fabric hanging out of it. We can't tell if this piece of fabric is a piece of clothing, a rag or towel or maybe a minor piece of clothing like a scarf for the Winter, so we can't make any conclusions whether the ponies in Equestria's distant future also wear clothes at special occasions, as ponies of G4's era did at the Grand Gallopping Gala for example, which means there isn't much to say here. A lot more interesting, though, is the little piano next to the chest.
The piano there looks like a toy piano, likely something from Sunny's fillyhood that she still keeps around, and it implies a potential interest of Sunny in music and in playing musical instruments. What I love about it is that Sunny's toy piano resembles the piano we have seen Scootaloo play on while she, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle prepared their performance at the talent show:
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Which made me have a significant realization: Sunny looks a lot like Scootaloo.
Letting aside the fact that Sunny is an earth pony (the race of a pony never had any bearing on genealogy and blood relationship anyway, though) and that her eye color is green and not purple, the similarities with Sunny's orange coat and her purple mane and tail are striking. I still think that it's more likely that Sunny is a descendant of Kettle Corn, as everything about their looks matches nearly perfectly, but Scootaloo is definitely another possibility here.
Now I have identified three different ponies who might be Sunny's ancestors; Kettle Corn, Applejack (the least likely candidate, which is why I haven't mentioned her in an analysis yet) and Scootaloo. I hope we will eventually find something out about which ponies of Equestria's distant future are direct descendants of ponies we know from Equestria's era in Generation 4.

To the left and opposite of her bed is Sunny's mirror that she looks into. We can't see it from the front, but if we look into Sunny's eyes and zoom into the picture, it seems like something is reflecting in them. It looks a little too specific to be color gradients in the animation of her eyes, I can see something that looks like a blue object that seems to be surrounded by something yellow or golden reflecting in her left eye (from Sunny's POV). It's impossible to make out what that object is, but since Sunny is looking at the mirror, it seems to be hanging or sticking on it. The blue color of the object and the golden color below it make me think of a blue gem that has been set in gold. We know that Sunny admires the Elements of Harmony and that she has many items that resemble, remind on or depict them, so what I think we're seeing here is a replica of either the Element of Laughter or the Element of Generosity that has been set in gold.
Of course it could also be an animation error or maybe an error of the screenshot, but I think it's remarkable enough to point it out, just in case I'm right. No opportunity to analyze and speculate should go to waste.
Around Sunny's mirror is a string of lights, which are also important, and I will come to them in a bit.

Next to Sunny's bed is a stack of three books, with a bedside lamp standing on them. I like the fact that Sunny didn't get a second nightstand to put her lamp on, since the white nightstand at the other side of her bed has not enough space for the lamp anymore with the alarm clock on it, but that she put it onto books instead. This shows that Sunny likes it a little bit messy and casual in her bedroom and nothing fits a free spirit better than a little chaos.
On her lamp are two star stickers, undoubtedly a sign for it that Sunny likes the stars and astronomy, which is also her special talent and highlighted by her comet cutie mark that I talked about here.
The stack of books, as well as the books under the white board at the other side of her bed, also show that Sunny enjoys reading a lot, just like Twilight did, especially with how thick the top and bottom book are, and it's amazing they have that in common. That's another thing Sunny took from Twilight.^^
The bottom one of the three books has no less than three bookmarks in it, in three different colors and at three different pages. It seems Sunny is researching something there, perhaps she does research about the Elements of Harmony to study the past?

Above Sunny's bed is the second-most interesting item in her room and the one item that allows for the most exciting speculation. A big picture of a sun, but not just any sun, the exact sun that is on Celestia's cutie mark. And I think that Sunny's parents hung up that picture of Celestia's cutie mark in her room to pass on a specific message to her.
We know from the Leaked Generation 5 Storyboard Animatic that it was Sunny's dad who told her about the Elements of Harmony and taught her everything about them and who is therefore directly responsible for it that Sunny got inspired by their heroic deeds and made the plan to reunite the three pony tribes again. Believing in this is frowned upon, though, and definitely seen as heresy. Which means that Sunny's dad is a rebel and heretic and that he passed everything he knows about the Elements of Harmony on to her to ensure she is developing the same belief in them that he has. Sunny's mom, whoever she is (was?), likely sees it the same way. And with such a strong belief in the Elements of Harmony and the idea that the three pony tribes should live together in peace and friendship, it isn't farfetched that Sunny's parents also have the same feelings about Celestia.
My theory here is that Sunny's parents still worship Princess Celestia, one of the old rulers of Equestria, something that is definitely a sin in their time because alicorns symbolize the union of the three pony tribes and therefore, likely, even against the law and punishable by it. But they still worship Celestia, in secret, because they believe that the old times when the three pony tribes were still united were better and I think that they hung up this picture of Celestia's cutie mark in the room of their daughter after she was born to express that and to teach Sunny the same values.
If this theory of mine is true, it means that Sunny's parents are essentially heretics. Which might even explain why we haven't seen her mom yet and why it seems like her dad isn't around anymore. Maybe their beliefs got them imprisoned, with the verdict being heresy and maybe even accusations of being secret supporters of the other two pony tribes.
We don't yet know how dark exactly the times are in Equestria's distant future, but there are a lot of things here that point to it that Sunny's mom and dad aren't exactly cherished members of their society because of the things they believe in.

Around the picture of Celestia's cutie mark is another string of lights. Which makes small lights being arranged around a big light, even the biggest light that exists, but that's not the most interesting aspect about these lights. The sun is also a star and that's how it looks like from a very far distance. If Sunny switches off the light in her room after it got dark and then turns on this string of lights, the little lights look like the stars in the nightsky. This string of lights, and how it is arranged around a depiction of the sun, is another, this time very subtle sign for it that Sunny likes the stars and astronomy.
I already said it before in my analysis of the Hasbro Investor Event 2021 and in Part 1 of my analysis of the synopsis of the Generation 5 Movie, but I absolutely love Sunny because she has the same appreciation for the stars and the night that I have and because she is, just like me, often in the situation of seeing the flaws in something and seeing where a change is needed, but doesn't get taken serious with it.
Sunny is my favourite pony of Generation 5 and with how much we are alike each other, I doubt this will ever change.

On the nightstand next to Sunny's bed stands the alarm clock that I mentioned earlier, which feels like a radio alarm clock to me, but there is no way to be sure yet. But it's definitely a digital alarm clock and this shows that modern technology has found its way into Equestria with the millennia.
I am not sure how I feel about that. We have seen some technology in Generation 4, but there was often also a noticeable lack of it, which is one of the reasons why I like Equestria a lot, the lack of technology that often makes it feel like a more medieval society. Sunny's digital alarm clock now makes it look like there has been a leap in Equestria's technology and that Equestria has changed in one of the aspects that I love about it. Then again, is this leap really a big one?
In the era of Equestria that we see in Generation 4, we haven't just seen some technology, we have even seen an entire, very advanced stage with stage lights and all sorts of laser effects, if we think of Countess Coloratura's concert in Ponyville back when she still named herself that way for her career. Which has been powered with magic instead of electricity, but it was a lot of technology regardless. And maybe digital (radio) alarm clocks already existed in Equestria's past (And if they did and if it is a radio alarm clock that Sunny has, maybe even radio stations? That's something for a potential Generation 4 analysis.) and we simply haven't seen any during Generation 4? It's a possibility with the rest of the technology that we did see there.
So maybe the leap of technology is only a small one or maybe there wasn't even a leap of technology at all and we'll simply see stuff in Equestria's future that already existed there in the past, but has never found its way into an episode or issue of the official comics, and I have no reason to worry in the end.
Though, it could also be that technology has a bigger meaning for the ponies of Equestria's distant future than it did for Equestria's ponies of the past. If (radio) alarm clocks already existed in Generation 4's era of Equestria, then there weren't many ponies who used them, as we only ever saw analogue alarm clocks there, so not many ponies of this era of Equestria cared about technology then and it was a niche interest. But maybe in Equestria's distant future that we'll see in Generation 5, this has changed and ponies care a lot more about technology than they used to in the past? If that's true, then Generation 5 would have a bigger focus on technology in its show and the movie that will start it (and in a potential comic series by IDW that I'm sure will happen at some point) which I would feel equally indifferent about as I would about a significant rise of technological level in Equestria.
This is all very ambigious right now and there are many possibilities, Sunny's lone alarm clock is not enough evidence for such a technological rise in Equestria's distant future yet. But if such a rise did happen, we will see more about it at some point, that's for sure. For now, we have to wait until we learn more.

From here on out, most of the remaining objects and items in Sunny's bedroom are a little less interesting than what I analyzed so far, but there are two more left that allow for exciting observations. On the white board that's above Sunny's (radio?) alarm clock and in the corner of her bedroom are figurines of each of the Elements of Harmony, another sign for Sunny's adoration of them, but also nothing too new anymore at this point. We know about this since the leaked Generation 5 Storyboard Animatic already. There is also something that looks like a carousel next to them, with generic ponies that we can't identify attached to it, which I think is a music box. It gets much more interesting than that a little to the left and a little bit up, though.
On the wall next to the board hangs a poster with Rainbow Dash's cutie mark. And sticking to it is a small picture with a rollerskate that's on fire. It's not easy to see, but if looked at it closely, you can see a trail of fire behind it. It's easy to figure out the meaning of this. Rainbow Dash was (it stings to use this word) a speedster and another member of the Elements of Harmony and rollerskates exist for the purpose of moving fast.
Rainbow Dash is another idol of Sunny. Sunny is an earth pony, not a pegasus, and so she can't fly, but there are many ways to be a speedster and with rollerskates, Sunny can be just as fast on the ground as Rainbow Dash was fast in the sky.
What we learn about Sunny with this poster and this picture on the wall of her bedroom is that she loves rollerskates and rollerskating and that Rainbow Dash taught her the love for speed, which is why Sunny decided to get rollerskates so she can be fast like Rainbow Dash. Which is another similarity she shares with Scootaloo. Not only does Sunny look a lot like her and could be Scootaloo's descendant and has a similar piano like her, she also idolizes Rainbow Dash just as much as Scootaloo idolized Rainbow Dash, for the same reason! And Sunny even has a favor for trend sport with her rollerskates, like Scootaloo had with her scooter!
How could I love Sunny any more?! Not only is she the first pony of Generation 5 I met, loves the stars and the night like I do and has the same idealistic mindset and the same struggles as I have, she also looks a lot like Scootaloo, has the same kind of piano as Scootaloo, idolizes Rainbow Dash like Scootaloo and has the same love for trend sport that involves moving fast like Scootaloo! My favourite pony from Generation 5, the one pony from Equestria's distant future I care about the most, is so similar to my favourite pony from Generation 4, the one pony from Equestria's era in Generation 4 I care about the most, I almost can't believe that. This is like Sunny is made for me. I am left speechless. Yes, it will never change, Sunny Starscout will always be my favourite and most cherished and loved pony from Equestria's distant future. I am a permanent resident of Camp Sunny Starscout.

With Twilight and Rainbow Dash, Sunny has two different idols. Twilight is her idol for her goal to reunite the three pony tribes and Rainbow Dash is her idol for speed. Both of them are two of her three favourite members of the Elements of Harmony and Fluttershy is the third. And because the three of them are her favourite members of the Elements of Harmony, she has buttons with their cutie marks on the straps of her satchel bag, so she can always carry them around and they are always with her. And I bet that Fluttershy is an idol of Sunny for something, as well. We can't tell what that is, right now, but since Sunny already idolizes Twilight and Rainbow Dash, I bet that she also idolizes her third favourite member of the Elements of Harmony. I will look out for hints about this and as soon as there is one, I will make an analysis about it!

Lastly, the remaining object of high interest in Sunny's bedroom is the dream catcher to the right of the poster with Rainbow Dash's cutie mark. I wasn't thinking much about it at first, but then Luna crossed my mind and it hit me like a Tantabus on the loose. In this distant future Equestria's that we'll see in Generation 5, Luna is with a 99% probability not alive anymore. And that means there is no dreamwalker who protects ponies from deadly nightmares in their sleep anymore.
I think that Luna, unlike in my story "Dreamwalker Dash", has continued to walk the dreams of ponies and to assist them with their nightmares even after she stepped down from the throne of Equestria, until she died, but in Sunny's time, it is very unlikely that Luna still lives. And that means there needs to be a replacement for her dreamwalking assistance, which is why Sunny has a dreamcatcher hanging in her bedroom. Instead of Luna walking the dreams of ponies to protect them from nightmares, ponies of the distant future Equestria's in Generation 5 use magical dreamcatchers that are enchanted with the same magic that Luna used to walk the dreams of ponies. They vanquish nightmares in the same way Luna used to do. So instead of a dreamwalker, Equestria has dreamcatchers in the distant future.

And this is everything we can extract from the first Generation 5 screenshot. A lot already, more than I thought, but there is even more to explore. My analysis of the second Generation 5 screenshot will follow right after this one. I wanted to release both of them in the same blog entry, but like with my analysis of the synopsis of the Generation 5 Movie, this analysis turned out so long that I will split it in two again, this time before posting it all.
So, here is my analysis of the first Generation 5 screenshot that shows us Sunny Starscout in her bedroom. I'll post my analysis of the second Generation 5 screenshot, with Sunny and Izzy in the throne room of the pegasus kingdom's castle, tomorrow.
Until then.....

Stay easy as a filly!

~ Fluttercheer

Comments

[Blast]

So much for the Cutie Mark Crusaders getting some action.

[Fluttercheer]

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They aren't alive anymore during this era of Equestria, sadly, so we probably won't see much of them. But Generation 5 is a sequel to Friendship is Magic and Sunny has a strong connection to the past, so we might get some flashbacks here and there that show us the ponies we know from Generation 4's era.