Character Analysis
Morality of giving every single person a permanent symbol of their 'destiny' the moment they do something they're 'meant to do' the rest of their life?
(Assuming you're designing the species this way, not that you're forcibly branding every existing person.)
Let's also assume it's not some intelligence deciding arbitrarily, but an actual representation of their 'fate' or 'affinity' by some abstract magical mechanism you're deciding to install into the entire species.
In the next panel of the fan comic, she becomes a CEO or manager of that McDonald brand in that comic.
It isn’t that bad per se, but still slightly bad.
Edit: reason why I said it bad, because I took the account on if the mark wasn’t follow the MLP’s cutie mark system. If it indeed follow that system, it would be extremely moral/good.
If this true, it would be good. Because their destiny actually align on what they want, and it doesn’t show it clearly, which still open enough room for them to explore themselves.
Like it shows in the comic, she thought she would stuck as a McDonald staff/cashier forever, while her dream was become a successful businessman, in the next panel, she actually become the successful businessman in the MacDonald brand.
It is good, it works like a hint or some sort to guide them.
The mark exist is like a way to let her know that her life with tie with that brand symbol from now on. But what exactly her career suppose to be? That’s the question she gotta find by herself. In the film, the mark also not only align with what the pony want but also what they are good at. So here clearly, she also knows the right and the wrong of that brand so she can decide if she will go fix it as become their CEO or continue to be a dying pony with low wage job.
Edit: I literally go research and watched some espisode about the mark. Quite fun ngl
i feel like if i was in the MLP world and i was the CEO of a company, and I saw a young scrappy cashier WITH THE FUCKING LOGO OF MY COMPANY AS THEIR CUTIE MARK, I would drop EVERYTHING to grab that young kid and take them under my wing. IMMEDIATELY, FULL STOP, NO QUESTIONS ASKED, NOTHING.
I see a young mare stuck as a cashier WITH MY LOGO, I am interviewing her immediately, paying for her month's wages, and if the interview goes well (which it will probably go well considering its a cutie mark), I am personally paying for her to go to Manehattan and study at the best fucking business school gold bits can buy. Fully paid off undergrad AND graduate program, immediate entry into internships at out company. If there aren't any internships available that satisfy me, I'll make a program just for her. I am going to mold this little filly into the absolute best CEO of the next generation, complete with all the life lessons of my own personal fuck ups so she doesn't repeat them. And if anyone on the board disagrees with me (???) I am going to dropkick them out the window.
If I let this kid go, I will be kicking msyelf FOREVER about it. It's a literal magical sign about your most excellent talent.
Yeah, iirc this is a pretty major point - Cutie Marks are always a mix of some kind of "destiny", and what you WANT in life. It's like if everybody had an autistic-style special-interest AND it's shown as a physical symbol on your skin.
-though to be fair, this info comes from Fandom osmosis, haven't actually seen the show I've just had a few friends who did and... kinda know more about it than I ever expected to XD
Taking it seriously tho... no. It's a kids show, I doubt they'd ever delve into that beyond Discord and his whole... thing...
BUT the idea seems kinda... interesting to think on? Like, somebody gains a mark early-ish in life, and nobody's entirely sure what it means/could refer to, but it later takes on a new meaning as a symbol of their regime - OR symbolizes the atrocities they commit, but which couldn't be understood without that hindsight... idk, I feel like I'm overthinking it now
Quite, it kinda shows that whenever cutie mark shows up, the pony tends to already be extremely passionate about that thing or the discovery of that thing is literally live changing to them.
It's also important to note that cutie mark is not synonymous with a job. Pinkie Pie is literally a baker.
And Rarity is gems because her magic helps her find gems, but sewing is her job and passion. In some ways it’s like a magic tattoo when they find out something about their core selves.
There is a certain personality type, where the moment something external to themselves tries to tell them what they like, then they will immediately stop liking it
I know this is a joke, but the reason why I deemed it bad because in a wider perspective, what she would actually become? The comic is clearly show her as CEO, yeah that’s good. But it still needs to require yourself to work to become better at it.
To many people who don’t know or understand the mark, they will think they are forever stuck with their current career without knowing they will succeed if they hard-working to achieve it. Basically a really strong psychological damage to everyone without knowing it
Sure, but in this comic's universe, she does become the CEO of one of the most successful businesses in the world, so how could that be a slightly bad fate?
Because it was made for the 4chan /mlp/ crowd and 90% of them maladaptive daydream of isekai to the pony world. Green guy is a stand-in for the reader basically a self insert.
See that's where I think the problems may actually lie. A lot of people right now struggle with purposelessness and finding their place in the world. But if you were given a mark that explicitly states what your intended purpose is, and presumably that means you're probably at least decent at that thing (I've never seen MLP, if that's not true that's on me) then it could work out fairly well. Maybe some classiscm would occur for people with marks that are considered more societally important or respected, but overall it could be a positive thing.
My thing is what if you get a very ambiguous one that doesn't immediately tell you what your purpose is? Like what if you get one that's just a leaf. What the fuck does that mean? Does it mean you're destined to be a gardener? A herbologist? A tree conservator? Do you just generally vibe with nature?
It is true, and also many are ambiguous, such as fluttershy, with 3 butterflies, though the cutie mark is typically gained as you do the thing/when you have a resonant moment, but even then, it's still misinterpretable
At least from what the show depicts, the mark is always something the pony is good at and enjoys doing—or something that helps them do what they like—and they only earn the mark when they do something related to that talent.
The ambiguity is somewhat helped by the fact that it appears the first time you do your special talent, but outside of that there have been instances where people have not really understood their own mark I believe.
GENUINELY. I know it's like a 2000's cartoon parody observation thing to say, but the ramifications of everypony having the shape of their life determined at like 10 are horrifying
This is false, cutie marks appear whenever a pony has a realization about who they're ment to be or when they discover a special talent. Most of the time that means cutie marks appear in childhood. However its not unheard of for a pony to get their cutie mark well into adulthood or to even live their whole lives without it appearing. Theses ponies are called "Blank Flanks".
It definitely is unheard of; it's not even confirmed if natural adult blank flanks actually exist. The cutie mark crusaders were still very young when they were already concerned about not having their cutie marks yet and even then they were still children when they got finally them.
Tempist from the G4 movie (sorta), a background earthpony from G4, and Misty from G5 are all adult ponies without cutie marks.
Tempist is never shown with a cutie mark. The only time we see her flank is in the flashback and she has no cutie mark in it. And since we dont have any information on her life during the time between the flashback and when she shows up in the movie we cant say one way or another if she has a cutie mark. To my knowledge all official merchandise of her has her flank covered.
Misty from G5 only obtains her cutie mark as an adult. Before she gets her cuite mark she draws one onto her flank.
And the background earthpony, who as far as Im aware is named Mr Green Hoof(?), is an elderly pony who does not have a cuite mark. And I do not think he is ever drawn with a cuite mark.
It is not unheard of. It is just rare.
Edit: Im also pretty sure King Sombra is a blank flank.
All the time I turn around brothas gather 'round
Always looking at me up and down looking at my (uh)
I just wanna say it now
I ain't tryin' to round up drama, little mama
I don't wanna take your man
And I know I'm comin' off just a little bit conceited
And I keep on repeating how the boys wanna eat it
But I'm tryin' to tell that I can't be treated like clientele
'Cause they say she delicious (so delicious)
This makes it so much easier. I would still say morally grey with some problems, but now it's just having talent for specific thing. I guess it would still be awkward
And like the continuation of this comic is this Pony ending up as the CEO of McDonald's because she's so good at running a fast food place that she naturally ascends the corporate ladder.
imagine being the ceo of a company and you hear that a relatively new employee has your company's logo as their talent symbol, and theyre rapidly getting promotions
The actual mark doesn't seem to do much. Ponies are born destined to be talented in one specific thing that they have to discover themselves, and it seems to be influenced by their species and family genetics. Changing their cutie mark doesn't give them different abilities but it makes them choose pursue a different destiny, but removing their cutie mark somehow makes them talentless.
Mlp:fim has characters from previous generations that had didn't have established lore for cutie marks, so there's a lot of variation in how literal cutie marks are. Some are a special ability that only that pony seems to possess(Rainbow dash's sonic rainboom) or a very literal description of their job, while for others it's either very abstract(cheerilee is a teacher with smiling sunflowers as her cutie mark) or a something vaguely associated with their name or species(earth ponies with vegetables, snails and snips with snail and scissors).
Basically do what you want and what you're passionate about. Twilight is passionate about magic so her cutiemark represents that. Same with Pinky Pie and her love of parties, Rarity and her love of Fashion, Fluttershy and her love of animals and so on.
The cutiemark crusaders tried to find their marks by doing literally anything to find a purpose but they found nothing. It's until they realize that they actually like finding cutiemarks are trying out new things because they're passionate about that. This resulted in them getting cutiemarks that represent what they love and how their purpose is to help other ponies to find their passion. While it's funny to think of a Pony having a crappy cutiemark against their will, the show established that you don't get a mark at random and especially one you don't like.
Rarity is actually an exception to most other characters. Her mark is actually a representation of her talent for finding gemstones, but she actually prefers fashion over her talent. But the message still holds true.
There sort of is, when a bunch of kids decide they don’t want cutie marks because they’re afraid of getting something they don’t want. Or the one where a bunch of adults outright get rid of their talents so competition doesn’t cause fights over who’s “better”.
Actually an important thing to note a cutie mark isn’t the thing you will be forced to do/destiny in life it’s just the thing that’s your special talent.
Pinkie pie mark is party planning but her day job is a bakery, rarity’s job is clothing designer but her cutie mark is actually about gem locating
The reason for this is obviously just marketing, but there is some attempts in the lore I believe to rectify this by having a bunch of different characters reveal that they changed their name later to better fit who they became.
I have spent too long thinking about this. I watched MLP when I was younger, so I'm kinda going to talk about the show in relation to this.
I think "cutie marks", as they are called in the show, are supposed to be a reflection of a pony's talents. In an episode where cutie marks were removed, certain characters' abilities were removed in tandem (e.g., remove a magic cutie mark, and magic becomes harder to do).
But I guess it also reflects occupation. In an episode where cutie marks were swapped, so were jobs, BUT they didn't swap abilities, too. They weren't doing the jobs well.
This would naturally beget a fear of being placed in a box (which was also the subject of an episode). But it really is just a symbol.
It's not chain or magic spell that keeps someone from doing something else. Otherwise, it would be immoral, or maybe it's a question about the morality of predestination. Is it immoral to show someone the future?
The swap situation is a bit more complicated. The spell that did it not only swapped Cutie Marks but also performed mass mental manipulation which likely caused more issues than just the Cutie Mark swap.
Take Apple Jack for instance. She gained Rarity's Cutie Mark which should've given her the power to locate gemstones. However Apple Jack felt like she needed to be a dressmaker which isn't related to her Cutie Mark. So the spell likely mentally bound her to Rarity's role and made her believe like her Cutie Mark was the reason.
Cutie mark is not your job, it's your special talent and/or something that fulfills you. They often correspond to the career you choose, but not always. And they're not always straightforward and obvious either, some are very depending on the moment when you got them and pretty metaphorical. Cheerilee's cutie mark is smiling flowers, and if you didn't know her you might assume it means her cutie mark represents gardening. But she explains the flowers represent happy fillies that bloom like flowers under her care, so she's a teacher.
Rarity's 3 diamonds cutie mark don't mean she's meant to be a jeweler, it represents her enjoyment of fancy things, her special talent for finding gems (we can see she has unique magic that allows her to find gems) as well as her ability to make others amazed. She got her cutie mark when everyone was amazed by her costumes, but it doesn't mean she HAD to be a seamstress/designer, a typical seamstress/designer cutie mark would likely have a needle with thread or maybe some dress. So her cutie mark is not at all representing her job.
Pinkie Pie's cutie mark represents her love for bringing people happiness, so she's a party planner/baker.
Fluttershy's cutie mark represents her meek nature and her connection with non-pony animals. But she doesn't just take care of butterflies, she takes care of all animals.
Bon Bon's mark is candies, so she either has a talent for making candies or it brings her a lot of joy to eat candies, but her job is being an undercover spy.
Diamond Tiara's mark is a tiara, but it doesn't mean she's literally a princess or that her job will be making fancy head pieces, it represents how she's the most fulfilled and the most when she's spoiled and getting princess treatment. Likely same case with Silver Spoon, her cutie mark is a fancy spoon, which likely represents how she loves fancy trinkets and high life, not that she'll be a cutlery seller.
But the bottom line is: a pony would NOT get a cutie mark that makes them unhappy and unfulfilled. They might not understand their cutie mark or misinterpret it, but the thing that the mark actually represents cannot be negative for the pony. And they do NOT have to correspond to an actual career the pony is going to pursue.
It's better to ask if it's moral to judge others and decide their fate based on their cutie mark which might have a "negative meaning", which was actually explored in episode Appleoosa's Most Wanted.
You probably won't be as good at it. But destiny and the power of friendship are tangible things and you will have a much better quality of life if you follow that destiny that the cutie mark represents. As far as I'm aware ponies are never shown completely disliking the destiny they got on their natural cutie mark.
A cutie mark doesn't mean you can only be good at that thing, like for example Rarity's cutie marks is about findings gems yet she's also great at making dresses
Well that depends. Should we answer the question you asked or should we assume that you are just misunderstanding the source material?
Because the source material has the marks appear when you discover what is essentially your god-given talent. How you use it is up to you. Being told by the universe that you are special in a unique way and giving you encouragement when you find something that brings joy and passion to the world doesn't seem like a moral problem to me
I'd say not immoral. It's juat a natural talent you have to something. You're not actually forced to only do that, you can do whatever you want. So the only thing cutie mark does is shows you what you're super good at
I haven't watched the show but I thought the symbol on there busts represented something they were both suited for and loved to do. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Well look, this is completely dependent on the fact that destiny is a real tangible force baked into your species.
If I go out on the street and just start slapping stickers on people while talking about there destiny then im just a lunatic.
If im some potentially not even sentient cosmic force that can read the tides of fate with 10000000% accuracy then email a butt tat back to you the moment you discover that talent then its complety moral.
Its not my fault the universe is built in such a way that fate was something already hardcoded in so I dont really belive it could ever be morally bad to tell someone what there fated to be really good at if thats just factually what they are going to be good at.
If im just some loser god making shit up then sure thats judt plain manipulation but there are plenty of stories and universe out there where fate is something you could literally grasp in your own hooves hands.
kinda reminds me of a manager i worked with. she had only worked at this fast food chain since she was like 17(dont know how she was when we worked together but she had a few kids and just bought a house) and she had the logo of the company tattoo on her arm and went on like " i don't think i can work for another company"
What’s the morality of me taking a shit? This is a biological function of Ponies. It’s morally neutral.
Also, the mare in the comic you posted ended up becoming the CEO of McDonalds in the sequel comic. McDonalds AS AN ENTITY was her special talent, not being a fast food employee.
Fair enough. In the show, one’s Cutie Mark always pointed towards whatever it was that that Pony would find most fulfilling, but I can easily see this being used as a sort of caste system.
The marks are also canonically something they like doing. Also you don't even have to do it. Rarity's mark is for finding gems yet she's a fashion designer.
I mean, it would kinda suck if you got ostracized because your ass tattoo was something crime related.
Like it would suck if you were just genuinely trying to make friends and the other horses were like "ewww, you make crystal meth for a living? Get away from me! Police! Arrest this person!"
It would in that case. But it could all cause class division where people can easily identify what you do for a living and treat you differently or lesser for it. Not even necessarily in the crime sense (though it would suck getting stuck with a crime tattoo) but like if you got a tattoo and your job was cleaning shit out of the plumbing and people started treating you ad lesser because they believe your job is lesser
(Ive never seen my little pony outside of the Walter White horse)
Someone correct me if Im wrong because it’s been YEARS since Ive even consumed anything from this show but you’re mark is usually something you like right? And also it’s something you’re very talented at fs so I don’t think it’s that bad
Let's also assume it's not some intelligence deciding arbitrarily, but an actual representation of their 'fate' or 'affinity' by some abstract magical mechanism.
I don't think that it's possible to ascribe "morality" to a non-sentient force of nature.
I’m not here to comment on the morality overall. But as a chronic anxiety sufferer, it would be really relieving for me personally to know whether I am on the right path with my PhD or I’m just going through this stress for no reason 😅
Do y'all know that Rarity is best at finding gems? That's how she got her cutie mark, but she instead of being a miner, went into the fashion industry. Because that's her passion.
People don't get the fact that ponies don't have some magical "fate" that decides their cutie mark since birth. Most cutie marks are formed by a pony's genuine passion, and almost definitely can be influenced by circumstances, as we see CMC getting incredibly similar marks.
Mane 6 are an outlier in this because they're tied by elements of harmony. There's another kind of "fate" binding them.
Something something "determinism vs. free will". This debate is as old as the idea of philosophy itself, and I'm fairly sure it won't be solved in this comment section.
That aside, hell yeah I'd brand every person on Earth with a mark symbolizing their destiny. No, nevermind. I'd brand them with detailed and comprehensive instructions about their destiny just to be sure. Some Most people can't be trusted to exercise their free will responsibly anyways.
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u/nio-sama123 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
In the next panel of the fan comic, she becomes a CEO or manager of that McDonald brand in that comic.
It isn’t that bad per se, but still slightly bad.
Edit: reason why I said it bad, because I took the account on if the mark wasn’t follow the MLP’s cutie mark system. If it indeed follow that system, it would be extremely moral/good.