Theories on the Large Number of Cutie Marks in Starlight's Vault

[Music Chart Fan 818]

In "The Cutie Map" Parts 1 and 2 (S05E01 and S05E02), I noticed an interesting discrepancy between the number of cutie marks in Starlight Glimmer's cutie mark vault and the number of villager ponies we see in her village. In the wide-angle shot of the cutie mark vault, we can see that it contains roughly 100 cutie marks (14 x 8 grid = 112, minus a few blank slots). Meanwhile, in the village, the most villager ponies we see is a little more than 20. I didn't comb through the episode to count the exact number of unique villagers, but this is the approximate number we see in the scenes where the village is gathered for the Mane Six coming out of the brainwashing chamber, which is a seemingly mandatory event to attend; and, to my recollection, no other scene shows more villagers than this.

 

So what explains this discrepancy? Why does Starlight's cutie mark vault have roughly 80 more cutie marks than there are (visible) villagers? I came up with a few theories.

 

First, maybe the village has a lot more ponies living there than we see in the episode. But are there really about 80 more villagers living there than we saw? That seems like quite a lot, especially given that we see that there are only 12 houses other than Starlight's, and at least some of these houses seem to be partially used as shops or brainwashing chambers. Also, the townwide events (e.g. the singing of the song, attending the daily releasing of the Mane Six from the brainwashing chamber) seem to be mandatory. In the song, Starlight says "Every one of you! Nopony left behind!", and the fact that Starlight asks Fluttershy to identify the dissenters when she agrees to join would seem to imply that all the villagers are present. (Although, strangely, we see kids in the village earlier, but no kids singing the song or attending the daily releasing of the Mane Six.) So, in conclusion, this explanation seems unsatisfactory.

 

Second, maybe the other cutie marks in the vault belong to ponies who aren't living in the village, and perhaps never have. But, for one thing, Starlight says that "nopony has ever come to our village and wanted to leave", so that would seem to rule out "escapees" from the village. Also, Starlight seems pretty dedicated to having the ponies whose cutie marks she's removed live the equality philosophy in her village; it would seem uncharacteristic for Starlight to remove about 80 ponies' cutie marks and then just let them go on their way. So, again, this explanation seems improbable.

 

The third explanation I can think of is perhaps the most interesting, and I'll explore it further below. Maybe the approximately 80 other cutie marks in the vault belong to villagers who have died, e.g., of starvation, malnutrition, disease, etc. This would really contribute to the dark and creepy nature of the village, and even hold further lessons about the results of trying to enforce total equality in a society.

 

To explore this further, we have to think about both (1) the logistics of the village and (2) the implications of Starlight's removal of the villagers' cutie marks and their attendant skills and talents. First, the village seems to be in the desert in the middle of nowhere. The Mane Six got off the train at a location where the track literally just ends, without a town or even a train station. Then they had to trek even further from there to reach the village. So, even though we do see at least a bridge and a road into the village, we might reasonably expect trade between the village and the outside world to be treacherous, and thus rather scarce, if such trade even occurs at all. (Not to mention that Starlight may not want too much interaction of the villagers with outside ponies who might spark "free thinking".)

 

Given this, then, the village would likely have to be significantly, if not totally, self-sufficient. However, in the wide-angle shots of the village, we don't see any farms, nor any large workshops or other obvious means of producing goods. Of course, the villagers are probably producing things out of their houses/shops, but that narrows the possibilities quite a bit.

 

With all the above in mind, now consider what Starlight's magical removal of the villagers' cutie marks, and subsequent replacement of them with the equality cutie marks, does to the villagers. As we observe in the episode, this process removes all special talents and skills of the ponies who lose their cutie marks, and instead limits all their abilities to some average or mediocre level. For example, Rainbow Dash cannot fly as fast as she normally does, the Mane Six can only trot at an average pace, and Sugar Belle apparently loses her baking abilities. And it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that the villagers' equality cutie marks prevent them from gaining any skill or talent at whatever tasks they do; after all, gaining skill and talent at something would make them unequal, would lead to bitterness and strife, etc.

 

So, to put it all together, this village is located in an inhospitable environment far from civilization, and so would probably need to be able to produce its own necessities of life (food, etc.), or at the very least, be able to produce enough salable goods to trade for the necessities of life. At the same time, the villagers are all magically prevented from gaining any skills or talents above mediocrity to help them produce such things. Therefore, I think it's not hard to imagine that the village's economy is only barely productive enough for the villagers to scrape by, and that tens of previous villagers have died of starvation, malnutrition, disease, etc. As a case in point, Sugar Belle only offers muffins to serve to the Mane Six. Whether because the village lacks the foodstuffs to make anything else, or because Sugar Belle has been ordered to make only muffins, it would be difficult for the villagers to subsist on muffins alone, and if they are, then some of them may in fact be malnourished and vulnerable to disease.

 

If this whole theory were true, it would cast an even darker and more tragic light on the village. The villagers are forced to smile and act friendly, even though they've seen tens of their fellow villagers die, and may be only barely escaping the same fate themselves (though, one discrepancy with this is that none of the villagers in the episode look especially weak or sickly). Furthermore, if any of the villagers tried to escape, given the harsh environment, distance from civilization, and their painfully average abilities (trotting speed, flying speed, etc.), they would likely just die a slow and painful death alone in the desert anyway.

 

One final question about this whole theory might involve what happens when the cutie mark vault is shattered and all the cutie marks fly out. Obviously the cutie marks with living owners reunite with their owners, but where would the other cutie marks be going? Perhaps they're flying off to reunite with the buried remains of their deceased owners?

 

What do you this about this theory? Do you have any other ideas of why there's such a discrepancy between the number of cutie marks in Starlight's vault and the number of villagers we see? Thanks for reading!

[A Black Circle 1,585]

Maybe they tried to escape and Starlight killed them and put their severed head in town with a sign hanging on its neck saying "OBEY"

 

Also, there's a few houses in town, some were maybe inside.

 

Or underground in heavy compression.

 

The reason my possibilites are kinda disturbing is because I now think that they WOULD go there, even if just by implication.

[Horsing Around 28]

I love that you did this, but I think it's just bad planning by the animators.  I imagine that cutie marks would dissipate when the pony dies.

[The Boulder 121]

I dont mean to be the rain to your analysis parade, but I think it was probably just the animators trying to show that there are a lot of cutie marks in there, without giving thought to the actual population of the village. I mean, the entire town supposedly came out to sing "In Our Town" but there were no foals or elderly ponies. And like you said there are only 12 houses, though in Starlights society, communal homes wouldnt be out of the question.

Your theory about the deaths of ponies in the Town does make a lot of logical sense, however creepy.

 

Anyways, MLP usually ends up disregarding true population pretty often. Ponyville is just a little town, but it gets a spot in the Equestria Games and actually wins somehow despite its supposed smaller population compared to Manehattan or Cloudsdale, both of which are supposed to be bigger in population . The Crystal Empire gets to host the Games despite just coming out of a 1000 year disappearance and has the title of Empire even though it seems to be just a City-State or maybe even just a small city (The empire thing always made me think).

Anyways, I like your analysis nonetheless.

[The Awesome One 1,314]

Most likely all those other ponies were in-doors or were just never shown on screen which gave us the impression that the town had a very small population.

[MLPFanatic34 3,234]

I wondered that too, I mean I've never seen so many cutie marks stored in one place, I do wonder how she came to acquire all those cutie marks over the years. I also noticed one of the cutie marks is a Pokeball.

[Winona the Dog 1,981]

I think you're over thinking this (like most people do)

 

The animators like showing things as bidet than they actually are.

 

Perhaps a few Equalized ponies did manage to leave because it's been shown that the brainwashed ponies can have a trace amount of free will or desire to be different.

[Pastel 7,627]

In the wide-angle shot of the cutie mark vault, we can see that it contains roughly 100 cutie marks (14 x 8 grid = 112, minus a few blank slots). Meanwhile, in the village, the most villager ponies we see is a little more than 20.

I disagree. I think the number of cutie marks in the vault matches the number of ponies in the town. They were a lot more than 20, some appeared only 1 or 2 times during the episode (like the clothes seller). Plus there were many blank slots (before Starlight adds the mane 6's cutie marks).

Edited April 13, 2015 by Blobulle

[Music Chart Fan 818]

@@Blobulle, 

 

I want to push back a little on your post, but first, I realize that my post here may come across as mean-spirited or doggedly trying to prove you wrong, so I want to say that I appreciate your interest, and I'm not trying to be antagonistic with this post.

 

Plus there were many blank slots (before Starlight adds the mane 6's cutie marks).

 

To be more specific about the number of cutie marks in the cutie mark vault, let's take a look at the shots of the vault from the episode. Below I've shown the original wide-angle shot of the vault on the left, and on the right, I count the number of blank slots to be 12, thus putting the total number of cutie marks in the vault at 100. (The other picture below shows that there are cutie marks in the slots up the left side of the vault, some of which are obscured in the wide-angle shot.) Even if one wants to quibble about a handful more of the slots, the total number of cutie marks in the vault would still be "roughly 100".

 

 

 

I think the number of cutie marks in the vault matches the number of ponies in the town. They were a lot more than 20, some appeared only 1 or 2 times during the episode (like the clothes seller).

 

First, the number of villagers is an approximation. I haven't combed through the entirety of these two episodes and documented each unique villager we see; that would be a lot of work that I'm not really up to doing. My source for the "a little more than 20" figure is this overhead shot of the villagers gathering for the Mane Six being let out of the brainwashing chamber, in which we see 22 villagers (other than Starlight):

 

 

I will admit that these scenes where the Mane Six are being released don't necessarily show all of the villagers we see elsewhere in the episode, but a few quick comparisons of different scenes in the episodes (especially group scenes) does show that we see mostly the same ponies throughout. Also, the above picture doesn't show any kids, which is a little strange, but, if I recall correctly, the kids we see in the village don't have "equality" cutie marks, which would imply that they have never had cutie marks to be put in the vault in the first place. Thus, I would estimate the number of unique villagers we see in the episodes (who would have cutie marks in the vault) to be in the 20s, maybe the 30s, but in any case, significantly lower than the roughly 100 cutie marks in the vault.

 

And if it were the case that there are tens of villagers we never see in the episodes, then why wouldn't we see them, considering that, e.g., the song and the daily releasing of the Mane Six appear to be townwide events? Would Starlight ask Fluttershy to point out the dissenters in the crowd if tens of villagers are not present?

[GuillermoGage 246]

The obvious answer is that some ponies had multiple cutie marks, which made the philosophy of demarking all the more urgent.

 

Or perhaps there was just a random twister that come through and swept away half the town or some volcano or some other random tragedy.

 

To imply that some ponies survive the economic and lack of resource conditions and some don't is to imply that "some ponies are more equal then others", in that case, then technically even without their cutie marks some do have the "special talent" or surviving; it is just not displayed on their flanks.

 

But really the obvious reason was the animators didn't think this through.