Is Twilight Sparkle A Murderer In "Too Many Pinkie Pies?"

[DiscordAnarchy 770]

Oh my god, it all makes sense now. All the unicorns are evil. The unicorns are the obviously superior race. They could solve world hunger, end all wars, and alter reality itself, yet they choose to withhold it. They are, by definition, gods.

 

Yes it is true. Unicorns are Gods but they choose not to help their people for they enjoy seeing others struggle when in reality they can just blink and make everything okay.

 

And they say that Discord was a monster. HOW DARE THEY!

 

"Everyone knows this" isn't an explanation, nor do have these "levels" of spells been established anywhere in the Ponyverse.  Amd I submit that it's far easier to change the nature of the nature of parasprites than it is to alter the nature of matter *entirely*- you're talking about change on a molecular level here, to turn a house into, say, gingerbread- and done on a large scale. 

 

As for covering the entire town in chocolate sauce, well that creates almost as much a mess as the parasprites themselves. 

 

Ah, but everypony knows that all they need to do to clean up chocolate sauce is to release a certain pink maned pony into town and she will devour the sauce lickity split!

[Comet Tail 808]

I for one loved reading your post.  However, I do have to quibble with one bit of the prosecutor's case. The 93% chance that Twilight murdered Pinkie is dependent entirely on guessing and assumption- Assuming that there were 42 ponies, and assuming that only 1/3 of them created a distraction, and assuming that only 14 were distracted by said distraction- especially since we've seen one clone distract multiple other clones. Given that the final clone was also eliminated by distraction, I'm guessing that all were eliminated in such a fashion. 

 

The prosecutor clearly failed to make his case here.

 

 

Again, if she can't turn *food* into food, how can she turn *buildings* into food?

 

Second paragraph: THANK YOU! Word for word, that was a reply I had on mind.

 

First paragraph: Lol, yeah, I was just talking about it, and it slowly turned into a mock trial (not of the kangaroo-court type. Equestria doesn't do those!

 Credit )

 

Oh, and about his trolling about Twi being evil...

As Applejack would say; "There's no reasoning with that one."

I just wish he'd joke about things that aren't, you know... Accusing ponies we love of being evil.

But then again...

It is nice to have a strawman for everypony to see how wrong it is to call Twilight bad.

 

 

I'm a little curious but assuming we go by the show's canon status and the real Pinkie Pie survived, what would have happened if the real Pinkie Pie was struck? Best case scenario the spell backfires or perhaps banishes her back to the phantom zone. Worst case she might poof or blow up in a gruesome mess of blood that the show can't show.

 

Thinking back on the scenario now, despite Twilight being a very rational and strategic minded person, this plan could have seriously backfired if they got the wrong Pinkie Pie. They were in a sense playing Russian roulette with Pinkie's life. 

 

1st Paragraph:

 

 

 

2nd Paragraph: Exactly my thought! That was actually something that disappointed me a bit. I think Twilight should've been analyzing it a lot more and using her awesome brain to come up with a much more well-thought out, logical, rational method, and to gather information on where they came from, learn more about the pond, things that could identify them better, etc. etc.

 

Since we can't exactly apply actual physics, such as the laws of matter, I guess the best I can do to rationalize the clones was that they were made of magic. I think that if Twilight had struck the real pinkie pie, nothing would have happened as she herself isn't of magic, or at the very least, of a magic foreign to that of the pond, where they were being sent to. As posted on page 1, the Pinkie Pies were acting with emotion but... perhaps the pond only copies the most basic of a pony's personality? We know that they definitely do not copy the pony's intellect and experiences, otherwise they would have know all of the Mane 6's names.

 

When we come down to it, how would we define life? Would it be defined as being conscious of one's own existence? Animals of our world are, and obviously we are as well. However, as mentioned earlier, the Pinkies only showed one desire, to have fun. Nothing of anything else. Not even the most primal instincts that all living beings as we know it to possess.

 

tl;dr, In my opinion, the clones were magic, and without any primal instincts and consciousness of their own existence, makes them non-living. I believe the magic of the mirror pond was only being dispersed back.

 

 I love the deep thinking!

^credit

 

Life is something that can

1. Grow

2. Adapt to it's environment (by Darwinistic processes)

3. Reproduces

4. Responds to stimulus in it's environment

5. More advanced lifeforms can communicate information

 

What you're getting at is self-awareness. Plants, insects, many animals do not display this, but some animals do (such as elephants).

 

Please read my huge post xD lol. I mention my thoughts on what they are. Kinda like mind parasites.

 

Also, in terms of physics, I like to think that magic doesn't actually violate any laws. My own irrational belief on the mind-body problem is that consciousness is an entity that can collapse quantum states selectively (When this atom's position is determined, it could be anywhere in this area. Well my consciousness says it collapses here), and a brain provides a system where by changing a few quantum collapses, we can cause a cascade of events that changes brain waves and thus control thoughts. I'll make a post about all this later... Suffice it to say, it's all pseudoscience but it's a cool idea because it's a way to fit MLP:FiM magic into a plausible framework that blends nicely with known science

 

 I should definitely make a thread about my idea here... 

 

It was also established that magic couldn't alter cutie marks, but that kinda did a 180, huh? Magic has proven itself to be fairly unpredictable in the show. Very possible my theory is wrong and yours is right, and vice versa. 

 

Thank you for the welcome.

 

EDIT: Not only did the magic alter their cutie marks, it nearly altered the entire universe, what with the entire town being unawares of the change. For all we know, maybe the clones were reincarnated.

 

Well, a telekinesis spell can't make things teleport, and a teleportation spell can't turn a frog into an orange. When Twilight said magic won't make AB's mark come before it's time, she meant any magic she knows of. She didn't know about "heart's desire" or Starswirl's spell when she said that. Different spells, different effects

[Dopey Hooves 90]

I don't really describe Pinkie Pie as a no brainer but, just a crazy friend that I would love to have. Maybe Twilight did go a little insane in that episode as I do say so myself. and I can't believe that Fluttershy actually got pissed . Damn this is getting even better. 

Edited June 6, 2013 by Dopey Hooves

[Venture 6]

As for the murderer question: I really don't think that's how it was. The other Pinkies were only mirror images of Pinkie. They were all tied to the same soul, and were not actually separate beings. Sending them back was only getting Pinkie out of the mirror, so to speak.

 

but Pinkie Pie wasn't in front of a mirror. That post makes it sound really sketchy, like something you wouldn't see int the show with all of the "tied tot he same soul" weird stuff.

[Princess Periwinkle 3,774]

but Pinkie Pie wasn't in front of a mirror. That post makes it sound really sketchy, like something you wouldn't see int the show with all of the "tied tot he same soul" weird stuff.

 

Okay, let me explain it a little better.

 

What came out of the pond were not individual beings, but mirror images of Pinkie. They were basically just copies of the basic Pinkie, without everything pinkie had learned (her friend's names, how to be at least a little mature)... When Twilight sent them back to the pool, she wasn't killing anything because they weren't really alive. They were just... mirror images.

 

Alright, this is actually pretty hard to explain, but I hope you get the picture.

[Anadu Kune 668]

It was also established that magic couldn't alter cutie marks, but that kinda did a 180, huh? Magic has proven itself to be fairly unpredictable in the show. Very possible my theory is wrong and yours is right, and vice versa. 

 

Thank you for the welcome.

 

EDIT: Not only did the magic alter their cutie marks, it nearly altered the entire universe, what with the entire town being unawares of the change. For all we know, maybe the clones were reincarnated.

WelI I think it was more established that true cutie marks cannot be granted by magical means. I don't think it was ever directly said that magic cant alter cutie marks or destinies. Perhaps the info in the book was partially incorrect though I don't see reason to suspect this. In either case I don't think the term murder is applicable to the situation and I think your asesment of the nature of the Pinkie clones to be acurate. 

[Shawn Parks 1,798]

Some of these posts were really long - I didn't read them all.

 

I don't think that there is enough information given for the audience to determine whether the Pinkie Pie duplicates were murdered.  We don't know what they really were, where they came from exactly, or where they went when they left.  However, I would assume that the book Twilight read gave her all of that information.  And I trust Twilight.  So if she felt that using the spell to get rid of the duplicates was the right thing to do, I would give her the benefit of the doubt.  

[Cwanky 17,445]

 

 

2nd Paragraph: Exactly my thought! That was actually something that disappointed me a bit. I think Twilight should've been analyzing it a lot more and using her awesome brain to come up with a much more well-thought out, logical, rational method, and to gather information on where they came from, learn more about the pond, things that could identify them better, etc. etc.

 

If that were the only flaw to the episode, I'd be content to let everything be as is. But the Mirror Pond just in Pinkie Pie's hands alone proved to be potentially very dangerous, if not destructive. All on her own, Pinkie Pie managed to wreak havoc and destruction to Ponyville and literally raze Applejack's barn. I understand that Celestia is a busy person but she couldn't spare a minute to check out the disaster that was transpiring in Ponyville? She sure gave more than a rat's ass about Twilight when that last happened in Lesson Zero. 

 

There was a potent dangerous artifact lying around and no one had the insight to inform Celestia or Luna about it? Not even Mayor Mare of the town that was being afflicted by said cause of disaster? The best part of this all was at the very end the solution was to simply place a giant rock (presumably reliable Tom) over the said cave entrance and pretend that the Mirror Pond would go away.

 

I don't buy it. Maybe they just decided to leave a plot hole open for future episodes or a comic book, but as Magic Duel demonstrates, MLP villains are very capable of being resourceful and intelligent. Trixie has to be given a lot of credit to be able to locate and acquire an artifact as potent and dangerous as the Alicorn Amulet, especially since the Mane 6 hardly knew a thing about it. Its not beyond the realm of possibility then that a villain, or any random individual, could just as well locate and use the Mirror Pond once again.

 

Imagine if say, Alicorn Amulet Trixie used the Mirror Pond, or Celestia forbid Nightmare Moon or even Discord. Let's see whether the Mane 6 combined or even Celestia could stop that. 

[TailsIsNotAlone 3,694]

It wasn't dark at all. We are fatally over-thinking this. Pinkie got carried away with the mirror pool and the residents of Ponyville weren't ready to have 100 Pinkies running around. Twilight knew the real Pinkie would be mature enough to pass the tests. All she was doing to the copies was sending them back to the pool. They don't die, they don't go to pony purgatory; they were never flesh-and-blood ponies to begin with. You can see them turning into pink rays of magic and going out the door, for crying out loud.

I think the fact that Twi didn't recognize the real Pinkie by talking to her and didn't have an easier, less mistake-prone test in mind was rather strange, but the writers went with the idea to get the most laughs.
 

(And if I had a bit for every potentially disastrous location/artifact/creature around Ponyville that Celestia did nothing to protect her subjects from...well, I could afford to move someplace more secure, like the Crystal Empire.)

Edited June 9, 2013 by TailsIsNotAlone

[Winona the Dog 1,981]

 

 

It wasn't dark at all

 

I tend to disagree with this. Twilight did say that her spell would have in fact; affect the real Pinkie Pie. I think that statement alone made the episode dark (or at least suspenseful) And if Twilight were to hit  the real Pinkie with it she most likely would have been sent somewhere.....I don't know......I may be over thinking it but that's what everyone does while analyzing MLP.

 

 

 

You can see them turning into pink rays of magic and going out the door, for crying out loud.

 

Magic can give things life. (At least to me) So I think blasting them away was pretty much the same thing as killing them in a sense. The Pinkie Pie clones were living breathing beings even though they were flawed heavily.

[TailsIsNotAlone 3,694]

There was nothing to give life TO. The copies didn't exist until Pinkie stood over the pool and started talking. Therefore, there was nothing to take life away from. If your personal headcanon says otherwise that's fine, but there's nothing objectively true about it.

 

I think the fact the people are confused about this reveals the weaknesses in the writing of that episode, rather than any hidden meaning it was supposed to have.

[An Old Head 4,815]

No, she isn't. Recall specifically the part of the book that Twilight reads aloud when researching the spell.

 

"Aha, here it is! The Legend of the Mirror Pond. It describes a spell that I can use to send them back where they came from!"

"If I can't tell which one is the real Pinkie, I might send her back by mistake!"

 

It's all that talk of "sending back" that makes me think that there's something else beyond that Mirror Pond. The fact that it isn't specified within the book (otherwise Twilight would have read it aloud) should be reason enough to suggest that there is a world beyond the pool that nobody has ever visited before. I've deliberated over this matter quite a bit as it concerns my dear Pinkie, but in the context of how the Pinkies came into existence, all the facts that we know point to it being merely banishment.

 

Whether the clones had enough consciousness to make the concept cruel is another matter. An interesting theory was put forward by a friend of mine, nonetheless. It went along the lines of this:

"When Pinkie Pie first went to the Mirror Pond, she can't have simply created a soulless copy of herself. That clone was able to clone themselves as well; if they were simply a mirror image of Pinkie, they wouldn't have either the soul or the originality of the actual Pinkie Pie that enables a clone of them to be made. The truth is that Pinkie Pie did create an entirely new Pinkie Pie complete with soul and traits of old Pinkie Pie. It was murder to banish them."

 

I can't help but disagree though. I noticed a similarity between the clones of Pinkie in this episode, and Lightning Dust in Wonderbolt Academy. Both were designed with one idea in mind - contrast. The clones of Pinkie Pie, who go absolutely bananas while Pinkie Pie remains relatively calm, obviously don't embody Pinkie Pie to enough of a stretch that we may start considering them to have feelings. They are only ever interested in fun and physics breaking, whereas the actual Pinkie with her own feelings and thought processes broke down at the prospect of the Pinkie clones obscuring herself from her friends. Did the other Pinkie clones get overwhelmed with the same notion that they might not be the real Pinkie? Nope, because they are simply mirror images - soulless copies of Pinkie.

 

There are simply so many theories; but I stand firmly by the idea that no, Twilight was not a murderer in TMPP. She was an assorter. As has been said, the Mirror Pond was only ever legend until Pinkie discovered it after so long, and as such the true nature of the world beneath the pond can only be speculated. This is one of many reasons why Too Many Pinkie Pies is my favourite episode - it lets your imagination play a part.

Edited June 9, 2013 by Flipturn ツ

[Sunny Fox 5,929]

It was also established that magic couldn't alter cutie marks, but that kinda did a 180, huh? Magic has proven itself to be fairly unpredictable in the show. Very possible my theory is wrong and yours is right, and vice versa. 

 

Thank you for the welcome.

 

EDIT: Not only did the magic alter their cutie marks, it nearly altered the entire universe, what with the entire town being unawares of the change. For all we know, maybe the clones were reincarnated.

"Call of the Cutie" only established that magic can't make a cutie mark appear before the pony discovers it for herself, not that magic can't effect cutie marks. Besides which, the spell in "Magical Mystery Cure" affected the destinies of the Mane 6 by acting on the Elements of Harmony, not by acting on the cutie marks themselves. It's not really an inconsistency. 

 

First of all, I have a problem with using the word "clones". It doesn't apply, (clones are created by science, not magic) and furthermore is never used in the episode itself. I think the proper term to use is  "duplicates". The word "clone" has some additional connotations. You can't say a clone isn't a person, because then you are saying twins are not people either.

 

With that out of the way, I don't think the duplicates qualify as true ponies, being more like magical constructs that mimic (to an extent) the behaviour of real ponies. Golems, if you will. Perhaps those golems could be taught to live independent lives, but until then, they're not really ponies, so it's okay to send them back to the pool.

[Shawn Parks 1,798]

 The clones of Pinkie Pie, who go absolutely bananas while Pinkie Pie remains relatively calm, obviously don't embody Pinkie Pie to enough of a stretch that we may start considering them to have feelings. 

 

The first Pinkie Pie duplicate had feelings.  She was upset when she couldn't decide what to do and ended up not getting to do anything fun at all. 

[An Old Head 4,815]

The first Pinkie Pie duplicate had feelings.  She was upset when she couldn't decide what to do and ended up not getting to do anything fun at all. 

 

That's a fair point, but it's still not on the level of the real Pinkie. All the duplicate concerned itself was with being able to have fun. If it had enough consciousness as an actual copy of Pinkie for it to be murderous to send her back, she would've simply been concerned with having her friends not be left out; which was Pinkie's original intention.

[Shawn Parks 1,798]

That's a fair point, but it's still not on the level of the real Pinkie. All the duplicate concerned itself was with being able to have fun. If it had enough consciousness as an actual copy of Pinkie for it to be murderous to send her back, she would've simply been concerned with having her friends not be left out; which was Pinkie's original intention.

 

I think that they had a consciousness.  It seems to me that the reason they did not have the same concerns as Pinkie is that they did not have her memories.  I think they were a somewhat exaggerated version of what Pinkie would be like if she had amnesia.

[Comet Tail 808]

I tend to disagree with this. Twilight did say that her spell would have in fact; affect the real Pinkie Pie. I think that statement alone made the episode dark (or at least suspenseful) And if Twilight were to hit  the real Pinkie with it she most likely would have been sent somewhere.....I don't know......I may be over thinking it but that's what everyone does while analyzing MLP.

 

 

 

 

Magic can give things life. (At least to me) So I think blasting them away was pretty much the same thing as killing them in a sense. The Pinkie Pie clones were living breathing beings even though they were flawed heavily.

 

 

I think that they had a consciousness.  It seems to me that the reason they did not have the same concerns as Pinkie is that they did not have her memories.  I think they were a somewhat exaggerated version of what Pinkie would be like if she had amnesia.

 

I'll repeat my opinion from my super-long post, put into a lot fewer words:

 

Twilight isn't a murderer because:

 

Even if those Pinkies had any soul, then that soul was some sort of parasitic entity that resides in the pond and would create a copy of somepony's body to inhabit. Therefore, they inherit the creature's mind (in this case Pinkie's mind), but do not have a mind sovereign to themselves. Regardless of whether or not they were sentient, the "reflections" didn't have a mind of their own. The mind they had was a "stolen" copy of Pinkie's (Intellectual piracy to the extreme?).

[Wingnut 6,725]

Twilight got her information about the mirror pool from one of her books.  Although she didn’t say it out loud, I strongly suspect that, according to the book, the duplicates are soulless facsimiles.  Twi isn't the kind of person who would mindlessly blast away what appear to be intelligent, living ponies.  And, to be sure, she wasn’t ”blasting” them.  She was using a spell from the book designed to return the clones to the pond.  But maybe the author of the book was wrong.  Maybe they are living, intelligent creatures who reside in that pool?  Twilight seems a bit too quick to take everything she reads as truth when, by season 3, she must be aware that even well respected authors aren’t always 100% correct. 

 

There are lot of unanswered questions here. Who or what created the pool in the first place? What is the true nature of the lookalike ponies that emerge from it? Nobody is expecting the cartoon to revisit this issue.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s touched on by the comic in the future.  Just as Transformers have sparks, maybe ponies have these…floating pink things? But just from the episode itself, I don't think the Pinkie copies are aware, sapient beings. Instead, they appear to be magically produced constructs that are intended to mimic living creatures.

[GlamourDolly 77]

What a dark episode!

 

I don't know if it was murder ....The clone pinkie pies seemed to be very selfish and just wanting to have fun and didn't have the heart soul the real pinkie pie did. Remember in another episode Pinkie states that she never forgets anything she learns about a pony,,,,and the clones couldn't remember Fluttershy and Apple Jack's names...The real pinkie would have remembered as she cares and loves others.

[Zygen 6,065]

Well you have a very good observation, one that really didn't come to my mind, but I guess you have a point partly. 

 

However I just don't know if I consider the clones to be full beings exactly, i mean I know that sounds mean, but I think their clones more or less had very narrow personalities based solely on having "Fun" as they say. Which was also the reason they angered everyone.

 

I do find that their banishment spell is very... Violent for sure looking, and I guess we won't really ever know about the other side of the mirror pool(Unless they uncover it later in time in another episode) but maybe they're just some kinda changling like creature before becoming clones? Maybe they go back that way after being banished. 

 

You make a good point I think, I just don't really fun the clones to be I guess fully beings really, I feel like they're just like part of Pinkie materialized in mass production, it doesn't seem like they can be terribly reasoned with anyways, the only one showing any real purpose other then to have fun was the first one, but all the others seemed quite mindless and set on having fun.

 

Whew... my brain hurts now, anyways I also agree that this is quite a dark episode to think about for sure(Although I did very much enjoy it regardless) and this is a very interesting observation on the subject, I guess if the clones where existent in some form before coming to Equestria, then being sent back there shouldn't be to terrible for them, but I guess we may never know.

[gamecubeguy214 2,511]

Well, I would say she was killing the Pinkies, because the bodies were destroyed, though the spirits were back in the pond where they belong, they're not supposed to have bodies so thay had to be killed.

Well, I would say she was killing the Pinkies, because the bodies were destroyed, though the spirits were back in the pond where they belong, they're not supposed to have bodies so thay had to be killed.

[TailsIsNotAlone 3,694]

Not the first time I've said this but the answer is NO. No offense, I love you guys, but this was a classic example of adults over-thinking a kids' show. They called it the Mirror Pool for a reason. Not the Clone Pool. It was never suggested that the other Pinkies were anything more than reflections of the original, to which the power of the Pool gave a physical presence. When Twilight spotted the fakes one by one and popped them like balloons, we clearly saw them dissipating into magical energy and floating back to where they came from. No death, no carnage. It's like saying I murdered a glass of water when all I did was pour it back down the sink.

 

I can understand bronies, on a morbid level, wanting to believe that the other Pinkies were living beings because it is thought-provoking and makes for good fan fiction, but the premise doesn't stand up.

[Pastel 7,627]

The topic title made me laugh for some reasons...

Of course she wasn't, all these Pinkie Pies were illusions, they weren't actually alive.

Edited February 11, 2015 by Blobulle

[Po-Nonimous 583]

Point 1: Look at any WB cartoon from the 40s. Those prove you can't kill a cartoon no matter what you do to it. Conclusion: the multi-pinkies aren't dead.

 

Point 2: they were sent back to "the mirror pond". It's unknown what that mirror pond is, exactly but what's strongly suggested is that it's, 1: an alternative universe. 2: some kind of natural clone generator. 3: a means to create tulpa-like physical manifestations of Pinkie's imagination.

 

I choose 3 because clones wouldn't explode the way they did. You'd have to physically kill a clone and the way they exploded at the end of the episode suggests that Pinkie, 1: really did want to get rid of them. 2: that they exploded because Pinkie also realized that they were manifestations of her imagination and nothing else. 3: that Pinkie did have enough imagination to begin with to produce Tulpas in mass quantities.

 

Conclusion: no murders were committed because the Pinkie Tulpas were never alive in the classical sense to begin with.

[DubWolf 16,584]

Wat

 

Of course she wasn't murdering anyone. All the clones went back to the pool.... Unless you're under the belief of that conspiracy which states the real Pinkie was accidentally zapped back into the pool !