If the Mane 6 had no special talents

[Cwanky 17,649]

So for those that didn't have a chance to watch the season 5 premiere yet,

 

 

Starlight Glimmer is a unicorn who has learned powerful magic that enables her to remove the cutie marks, and consequently special talents of any pony, including an alicorn like Twilight. They are instead replaced by an equal sign cutie mark that suppresses the user's abilities and personalities.

 

 

So let's assume for a moment in a hypothetical alternate Equestria that:

 

- Twilight has no special magic talent 

- Pinkie Pie no longer has a sense of humor.

- Rainbow can't fly very well or at all.

- Applejack has no country mannerisms or skills.

- Fluttershy can't empathize and talk to animals.

- Rarity is butt ugly (okay that one was a little severe) she looks ordinary and lacks a sense of fashion.

 

Besides these things, they still maintain their personalities like we saw in the episode. Twilight is still intelligent and a critical thinker. Applejack is still sensible and honest, etc.

 

Could you still honestly say that you would respect and love them in spite of what they don't have? And if so or otherwise, how would you see them? Differently?

[A Joe in the Bush 255]

The question itself is flawed in a few ways. Pinkie Pie's sense of humor is 80% of who she is. When she has the Equal mark, she turns into her sister, Maud. "Laughs don't come in barrels. They come from inside you as your body's response to delight." Without their special talents, they aren't the same pony. So no. I couldn't love them nearly as much as I do their current selves.

Edited April 8, 2015 by The Only Joe

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,162]

It's a difficult question to answer as the question itself is hard to interpret. I mean, as the poster above me stated, their talents make up a large portion of who they are. Twilight without her magic by itself would change so much.

 

If I just go by the basic question, I would PROBABLY say I would still love them, but it's a hard one to be sure of.

[UnknownFry 169]

It might be harder to appreciate them as much as their special talents makes up the core of their respective characters.

[Nature's Spell 526]

It's fine having them deal with being limited for a single episode, but it's not something that you'd want to see forever. Yes in the real world people deal with disabilities and dramatic brain injury were they loose who they are, but that's not what the shows about.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Nature's Spell

[Wind Chaser 4,768]

If they didn't have their special talents, sick as this sounds, I'd probably relate to some of them better, being probably the biggest Mr. Gloom and Doom on this forum and among my friends. However, for them personally, it would make most of them depressed and much worse off as far as they are in life, if they never had that epiphany moment with the original Sonic Rainboom in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles".

 

The degree to which their personality and their special talent are intertwined varies depending on who it is. In the case of Twilight, Fluttershy, and Applejack, taking away their special talent is to take away a part of them, but there are still strong, admirable traits to those three personalities (confidence and leadership skills, kindness, and integrity and sensibility respectively) that are not directly related to their talents. However, for Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie, their emotions are directly connected to their talents. If neither of them can do what they do best, they are completely lost. Rarity can't be generous because there's nothing to give. Pinkie Pie can't make other ponies happy because she can't make herself happy. Rainbow Dash cannot enjoy winning or striving to be the best because she can't compete, and her loyalty would mean little because she would have no skills to offer. Such a loss of a "special talent" depends on how many talents and admirable traits each character factually has in their personality aside from their defining traits.

 

One thing I questioned early on in my viewings of the episode was how Twilight still had her confidence and leadership skills under the spell while Pinkie Pie's confidence was artificially crushed by the spell. That goes onto defining what their special talents are. Pinkie Pie's emotions are directly connected to her special talent, and they had to be neutralized in order to keep her from using her special talent, whereas Twilight's confidence and leadership abilities are admirable traits in addition to her special talent, but are not part of her special talent, which is magic. In the end, such a situation would require the characters to develop a number of admirable traits outside of their defining ones, not putting all the eggs in one basket as it were, and the ones that already have would be the ones who would weather this reality better.

[MLPFanatic34 3,235]

I personally would hate for the mane 6 not to have their special talents, it was bad enough seeing them in the episode without their cutie marks and seeing how sad and in confusion they were. I definitely like them with their cutie marks lol.

[Pastel 7,630]

The show would become very boring, try to imagine episodes with such characters...

They would become more realistic, and in a way more relatable like @Wind Chaser pointed out....but it's also a cartoon and I don't think I'd like them anymore, they'd lose their identity, their uniqueness...

Edited April 9, 2015 by Blobulle