Rarity is more Earth Pony than unicorn?

[Hederik 119]

Huh. I never took note of that.

 

Here's a counter-theory though: some of the books Twilight keeps in the library must be pretty old, even if the style of the show doesn't usually put much emphasis on that fact -- or they're REALLY well preserved. Well... what if there is not one, but two distinctions among the pony race, both of them binary? Each of the four races would thus be described as possessing one of the two possible aspects of two features: earth/sky and pony/unicorn. Then:

• [earth][pony] = earth pony
• [sky][pony] = pegasus
• [earth][unicorn] = unicorn
• [sky][unicorn] = alicorn

This seems to be a bit at odds with the history passed down in the Hearth's Warming Eve pageant, but that IS old history, and there are several holes to poke at there. Plus, in a few logical steps, the conversion to "nowadays" names for the four possible pony races (if we were to suppose they were ever called by that division) would look as such:

• earth pony - uh, the same.
• pegasus - wasn't there a mention of a legendary hero called Pegasus in one of the comics? Or was that some fanfiction I read?
• unicorn - just drop the "earth" part, which, combined with unicorn, does sound a little demeaning. Especially if we take into consideration that...
• alicorn - ... the mightiest race does definitely deserve a separate name for itself, especially with how non-numerous it is. And the "all" prefix does kind of speak for itself. Or (though it is a looong shot), alicorns could have been "air unicorns", shortened to "airicorns", softened to "alicorns". Although then pegasi would have been "airponies"... maybe THAT was the thing that drove them to conjuring up a new name for themselves?

[Aurora Storm 83]

All unicorns have basic magic they can do, but as Twilight said to Spike, her special talent IS magic. That's why her powers are more extensive. Rarity has powers to find jewels, to levitate things, other basic unicorn powers, and Sweetie Belle is starting to learn these things too.

 

In response to what some others have said, whenever I feel bad about earth ponies, I just remember everyone would starve without them as per the Hearth warming play. Food is important. I do think earth ponies are supposedly stronger. I don't know if it's head canon or something that I saw that made me feel it was fact, but I always got that impression.