Pinkie the Genius

[Sheogorath 1,155]

As chronic and almost compulsive over thinker I have extrapolated a character study of my favourite pony Pinkie Pie.

Brace yourselves if you are actually interested into some TL;DR.

 

I have assessed that Pinkie pie is the most tragic and misunderstood pony of them all, and here is why:

Pinkie Pie seems to be according to Jungian psychology (and following a theory then expanded and tuned by Myers and Biggs to MBTI) A psychological archetype of ENFP. Many points in her behaviour indicate the cognitive processes of pinkie being not only highly intuitive but also extremely logical contrary to the shallow preconception one can draw from her bubbly nature. It only takes introspection and analysis to truly value and see Pinkies genius in its full scale and intricacy.

 

To elaborate on that I shall give some examples.

In the very latest episode (S2 E4) Pinkie came in to the festivities dressed as chicken, she had appointed herself to make sure the young fillies will have a fun nightmare night full of memorable spooks and fun running around.

The moment she was exposed to Luna, whom only Pinkie and Twilight actually recognized as harmless and now restored pony, she realized that Luna had certain air to her that made the ponies uneasy and also seemed to cause her (Luna) distress. Pinkie then decided to integrate Luna and her awkward attire into the fun and festivities of the night as the "Villain".

The scenes of pinkie "misunderstanding" Luna were obvious telltale sign that pinkie was NOT afraid of her as she did not react with her usual "laughter" in face of scary, or trying to convert Luna into kindness with peaceful offers of giggles on her expense by the use of silly demeanor.

 

Rather Pinkie Narrated to the children quickly some scary outlook of the scene and acted in "scared" manner in order to play with the children and give then jollies from running away in panic when there was no harm involved. This in turn made Princess Luna to the children not some "scary" thing who reacts all scarily by shouting and being huffy, but placed Lunas behaviour actually in good light in form of the play and made the children feel that she was participating rather than intimidating.

 

This means in a short moment pinkie had come up with a long term plan to help Luna to become accepted among the kids and also was having fun doing so.

Once confronted by Twilight who misunderstood Pinkies "chicken" behaviour she was surprised that twilight hadn't seen through the OBVIOUS role she was playing. She even had a clear telltale sign of her role in the evening (chicken costume, a common nickname for a scared coward who runs around panicking). She was simply pulling her role for the sake of everyone and their fun.

 

See her intellect yet? Well there's MORE!

 

Another thing I want to address about Pinkie as genius of almost unparalleled scale is the approach she had to Zecora.

Sure, this is where Pinkie was more evidently concerned with Zecora's motivations as she had isolated herself outside of the ponyvillian society and only rarely came to town to share into their hospitable environment. Zecora's withdrawal and practice of alchemical / chemical arts as well as her residence in the wilderness rather than conditioned environment indicated that she might be involved in something dangerous and shady enough to warrant need of secrecy.

Pinkie, lacking data to make observations resorted to caution and likely Zecoras behaviour had given Pinkie the idea that she was not going to welcome approach from anyone. (she came to town, but never seemed to call out people or leave notes for merchants or anything like that) Meaning Pinkie did not want to violate Zecoras projected need for privacy.

In order to enforce the image Zecora was putting on, pinkie had taken it to her task to make sure Zecora was given such peace and initiated propaganda in form of scary songs and tales of Zecora, to make sure other ponies do also respect her wishes. This was erroneous judgment but only one available from the data Zecora had put forth. The fact that Pinkie had this idea of the situation still did not make her reluctant to join the party that decided to confront Zecora after everyone was afflicted by the "joke", she came along in her happy and fearless nature as she knew Zecora likely wasn't a direct threat.

Still advising caution to her peers however.

 

Other indications of Pinkies genius are her abilities as engineer, making flying devices, having intuitive sense of the future probabilities she "conveys" through twitches that likely are not actually as involuntary as she makes it out to be, rather they are her "smoke and mirrors" to convey her higher level of thinking to more simple ponies. And this brings me to the tragedy of Pinkie:

 

 

Pinkie Pie, as misunderstood and underestimated genius, visionary and selfless caring individual often ignored through her own inability to communicate on "normal" level due astronomical I.Q is a background story that made me shed a manly tear of empathy as I arrived to this conclusion.

 

Pinkie Pie, likely all her life has been exceptionally talented and fast thinking individual, and back in the day, when she was on that rock farm she was severely under-stimulated and depressed as her world had been void of innovation until then, her mind full of thoughts but her family simpleminded farmers could not nurture her abilities.

Upon exposure to the Rainboom she was first time in her life truly intrigued and inspired. She felt joy and was filled with possibilities of entailments. She realized that moment that in life, it was not the money, it was not the hard work, and it was not the achievements of ones life that really mattered.

From first experience of joy and enjoyment it dawned upon her little smart head that in life only one thing truly matters: The joy and enjoyment we bring to our fellow ponies. We live only a single life, we meet people only momentarily in our path from cradle to grave, and it all is so insignificant unless you walk that path smiling and filled with joy, surrounded by friends you love and who love you.

 

Pinkie, now with perfect philosophy; fortified and driven, she wanted to share her philosophy, her enjoyment and love between everyone she could ever reach. She understood that parties and festivities are the best way to bring ponies together, you offer them good food, enjoyable music and with endorphin released by all that and the bright colours the ponies lower their defenses and open up to each others This leads to communication, they share food, they care for each others opinions enough to debate and converse, they sing, dance and just act all silly / embarrassing in the heat of the moment and realize that nobody is perfect, everyone is allowed to be silly sometimes and we all are alike in our flaws, fears and enjoyments.

 

So why is this so tragic? Because nobody sees her for what she is! She is not an airhead, she is not "random" she is ingenuously logical! All her selfless behaviour and resources she spends to make people happy is likely why she is stuck living with Mr. And Mrs. Cake, as she selflessly spends all her resources to host parties and buying gifts for her friends. Sure she is not accumulating wealth and aiming for some giant system that would perhaps reach more ponies as charity, but those systems can never have similar degree of influence as personal effort and Pinkie wants to bring maximum joy.

 

Pinkie is a wonderful pony, intelligent, caring, philanthropic and just all around extraordinary avatar of awesome.

Edited October 29, 2011 by Pencils

[LiquidLove 80]

Oh my god, that all makes so much sense! Pinkie Pie is now the most smart being in PonyVille. And boy, OP how long did this take for you to write this? And how long did it take you to formulate this? I also agree with you.

[Sheogorath 1,155]

Oh my god, that all makes so much sense! Pinkie Pie is now the most smart being in PonyVille. And boy, OP how long did this take for you to write this? And how long did it take you to formulate this? I also agree with you.

 

Hmm, it took me a little less than hour to write out, the actual analysis and character study has taken me several months and many reviews of pinkie content in the series Thank you for reading through it, I hope it wasn't too droning

[LiquidLove 80]

Hmm, it took me a little less than hour to write out, the actual analysis and character study has taken me several months and many reviews of pinkie content in the series Thank you for reading through it, I hope it wasn't too droning

 

Oh no, it wasn't droning at all. It made a lot of sense... I also decided to share your content around many of my ponygoing websites so you may get a lot of hits, discussion, and reviews about this topic. I hope you aren't upset at me at sharing it. But yes I am glad to see that you made such a well thought out and Intelligent analysis of the genius Pinkie Pie.

[Sheogorath 1,155]

Oh no, it wasn't droning at all. It made a lot of sense... I also decided to share your content around many of my ponygoing websites so you may get a lot of hits, discussion, and reviews about this topic. I hope you aren't upset at me at sharing it. But yes I am glad to see that you made such a well thought out and Intelligent analysis of the genius Pinkie Pie.

 

I don't mind you sharing it around of course ^^ It is a bit long read so I don't expect much success for it though XD

[Games4me 7]

MY MIND... SHE IS BLOWN

[abschwortden 0]

This is all very well and good, but it fails to explain Pinkie's behavior in Party of One, where she acted out of fear and quite irrationally for such an intelligent pony.

[Ferrous_Oxide 27]

It all makes sense! This explains everything!

 

This is all very well and good, but it fails to explain Pinkie's behavior in Party of One, where she acted out of fear and quite irrationally for such an intelligent pony.

 

All geniuses have a mental breakdown at some point, sometimes just a small one from stress, or a massive hallucinogenic breakdown, as is the case with Pinkie Pie.

[LyraHeartstrings 482]

 

Sorry, had to be done... This really opened my eyes to Pinkie... She really is very interesting due to the dark, boring background story they gave her... Love this!

[Zoop 8,384]

This is all very well and good, but it fails to explain Pinkie's behavior in Party of One, where she acted out of fear and quite irrationally for such an intelligent pony.

 

Tesla may have suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, and had many unusual quirks and phobias. He did things in threes, and was adamant about staying in a hotel room with a number divisible by three. Tesla was physically revolted by jewelry, notably pearl earrings. He was fastidious about cleanliness and hygiene, and was by all accounts mysophobic.

Who says smart folk can't be oddballs from time to time?

[Slendermane 477]

I noticed that she wanted the children to play with Luna as the "Villain" but never made the connection with the chicken costume and cowardice. It seems so blindingly obvious in hindsight. I need to watch this episode again.

[Sheogorath 1,155]

It all makes sense! This explains everything!

 

 

 

All geniuses have a mental breakdown at some point, sometimes just a small one from stress, or a massive hallucinogenic breakdown, as is the case with Pinkie Pie.

 

This here is the case. In the name of some level of mercy towards the reader I tried to omit certain elements I now feel like I should have addressed.

In party of one actually what is seen of Pinkie was not irrationality but the dark side of genius level intellect.

When she was withheld information from, her intuitive cognitive process started to spin theories, despite her wanting to believe her friends and the excuses the gave, she saw through the bluff and paranoia set in. Paranoia of conspiracies is a curse of high intellect and due her entire life philosophy and the source of her personal fortitude is tied to her ability to bring joy to her friends she was faced with an existential crisis.

When the suspicion of her friends no longer being able to enjoy her company set in, Pinkie felt powerless, she realized the worst case scenario to be probable and this scenario where her beloved friends no longer felt happy or had ability to value Pinkies efforts she had a mental breakdown. In a no-win scenario where she could not even fix the situation by apologies or offering them her generosity and kindness, due it being the problem in her imagined cause for the lies and avoidance she faced, she had no longer any ties to her life as she had lived it until that point.

 

Upon discovery of her reality becoming in-fixable she did what many intuitive ENFP types do and turned inside, she created imaginary social environment in her mental distress to deal with her situation and isolated herself from those she now suspected her presence to repulse. She felt torn between unwelcome feelings of anger and guilt. She felt guilty for having imposed upon her friends to the point where they had enough of her antics, yet same time she felt angry that they had ignored all the sacrifices she makes and all the effort she puts to make every one of them feel special and important to her.

 

So as she was blaming herself for it all, she also understood that such behaviour from her friends in the light of the situation was rude and very ungrateful. So the conflict of negative feelings drove her into a very bad place where she didn't know what to feel and in order to cope with this paradox her logical mind encountered she made herself friends out of her imagination.

 

The immense pain she was in as her entire life was debased drove her entire behaviour from the moment she managed to get outside confirmation for her extroverted intuition which does THAT very thing, seeks outside confirmation for the observations her introverted feeling function conjures. Despite all her ingeniousness her very system of acquiring information betrayed as she in her paranoia managed force Spike to confirm her suspicion. She assumed Spike would never lie to her, and instead of wanting to hear Spike say what she "wanted" him to say, she actually wanted Spike to deny it all. Spike, being the kind and naive buffoon he is did the contrary, unwittingly pushing Pinkie over the edge.

 

Pinkie was not so much being irrational and "stupid", but actually extremely socially aware, her attempts to understand her friends behaviour overloaded her mind and started to bombard her with suspicion of her worst nightmare.

Pinkie is most intelligent pony of them all, but as it goes with intellect, she is not the most stable pony of them all, often her stability gets trumped by her ability to conjure scenarios and outcomes faster than average pony in higher detail than that of average pony.

 

Pinkie hides her genius behind silliness and humility, Also, she loves books and the library, likely having read every book in there as the Return of harmony episode 2 indicated, each time Pinkie went against her nature she grew more gray, and at one point she declared "I hate libraries" and grew grayer by a leap. This indicates that pinkie in fact is a passionate reader and information hungry little pony who's thirst for knowledge is only matched by her need to make ponies around her happy.

 

If the ponies around Pinkie knew how intelligent she is, if they had any idea how much above she is to those around her mentally they would not be able to enjoy her company, they would constantly fear appearing "stupid" or "slow" to her. Constantly out-staged by her abilities. This is why Pinkie denies all claims of her intellect and diverts attention with jokes or "randomness". Like how she found a book "under E" or how one just happened to "fall on her face" However she likely knows the library inside out like the backs of her own hooves. She just has to hold so much inside in order to keep ponies around her at ease. She exchanges so much of potential authority for a little bit of acceptance, so she could enjoy her friends. This is also a degree of her genius; She is a social genius! She knows how others would react to her true self and how much ponies / people fear what they do not understand, so she keeps this easy going mask on, even though it means she often goes ignored as "just Pinkie" or "random". It grants her still a level playing ground and keeps her friends at ease so they can feel free to talk to her about their worries and their joys without fear of intellectual judgment.

[Zoop 8,384]

Delightful walls of text. Keep them coming.

[Sheogorath 1,155]

Delightful walls of text. Keep them coming.

 

Heh heh, thank you! I don't think I should though. Despite having still some points to cover, if I expand on this any more I risk losing reader interest in the face of overwhelming task in relation to subject "importance"

[Zoop 8,384]

I risk losing reader interest

Bah, I say.

 

The words, let them flow forth like wine... or, for those of us that don't partake in such things, like apple juice.

[LiquidLove 80]

Heh heh, thank you! I don't think I should though. Despite having still some points to cover, if I expand on this any more I risk losing reader interest in the face of overwhelming task in relation to subject "importance"

 

I just love to read your thoughts, too me they make just so much sense.

[Fghik 360]

FORESHADOWING!!!!

Maybe Pinkie knew THE WHOLE TIME that Luna would come to the party, not being evil. So she would dress up as Scootaloo, and act like a Scootaloo, to make the party fun for all the young ponies. Here, she is swinging around a rubber Scootaloo, foreshadowing what she's going to do later?


Once I notice how "scared" Pinkie Pie was in the episode, I made the connection to the Scootaloo costume she wore.
I didn't realize that she knew all along Luna wasn't evil; I just thought she was just pretending to be scared for the party.

[Octavia2 83]

This is amazing! It really made me think and reflect on Pinkie. Wonderfully said, too. You explained it clearly, and it made a ton of sense.

the actual analysis and character study has taken me several months and many reviews of pinkie content in the series

Wow, it must have taken a huge level of commitment to work on something like this for months. I can barely keep my mind on a project for a few days! Great job!

[BizzarePony 199]

My hat is off to you, sir. I see the validity of your points and your analysis. I suppose Pinke must be the eccentric genius, to oversimplify your brilliant work.

[Sheogorath 1,155]

Thank you all for this kind reception for my musings. It is nice that it has some entertainment value to others as well.

 

I will update this thread later with new info on Pinkie as well as might come to conclusion of releasing the true TL;DR version of my analysis going further into psychology and other relevant factors at a later date when my "case" is complete. There is something I await to see from Pinkie. If my estimation of her characters development proves accurate I will then issue a more complete analysis for those who are interested or want to compare notes.

[Broniesinarms 34]

what did I just read?

 

 

congrats pencils, you have won the ponynet

Edited October 25, 2011 by Broniesinarms

[Finesthour 7,287]

Well, while all this information is valid, it does not really prove she is a genious.

I believe she is just as shy as fluttershy, so she will do anything to keep her friends.

And the second she thinks her friends hate her, she goes off the deep end.

[Sheogorath 1,155]

Well, while all this information is valid, it does not really prove she is a genious.

I believe she is just as shy as fluttershy, so she will do anything to keep her friends.

And the second she thinks her friends hate her, she goes off the deep end.

 

It proves that she has incredible information recall ability, she is very keen observer, she can piece information together and then make intelligent and long reaching conclusions, has amazing engineering skills and also possesses very philosophical mind.

There's many indicators that point towards uncanny mental faculties, she is reserved pony in aspects that she doesn't trust just anypony. Also she is fantastic judge of character and knows that her friends would not lie with malicious intent, but when evidence went against it her logic broke down and her intellect soon manifested as paranoia when it had to go against the established reality.

 

There will be future episodes and we'll have more Pinkie footage to look, and if my prediction proves true, we'll see Pinkie Pie soon to do something that definitely proves her mental abilities to be far above average.

[Scritches 92]

Who says smart folk can't be oddballs from time to time?

 

Albert Einstein was known for not wearing matching socks nor doing his hair. Vincent Van Gogh saw fit to cut off his ear as a sign of affection. I see whole heartedly what you are saying and I completely agree.

 

There will be future episodes and we'll have more Pinkie footage to look, and if my prediction proves true, we'll see Pinkie Pie soon to do something that definitely proves her mental abilities to be far above average.

 

Or we might be left wondering forever, like in the case of Vash The Stampede or Captain Justy Ueki Tylor, whether or not it was truly genius or just incredibly innate luck/skill. i.e. that she has the skills/intellect but doesn't really fully grasp the how or why.

[accordion pony 5]

Saw this thread on reddit , so awesome!!!!