Couldn't you see all the main cast work them selves to death?

[FNGRpony 658]

I'm not saying they'd ever show that or should,

but it's kinda messed up how bad the main six just go to the point of breaking.

Twilight even if she did get an extended life span (we know she doesn't but shhh)

with the work she puts on herself, could end up wearing herself down to the point where she fidders away the extension from stress.

 

Apple jack in the third episode literally was running herself into the ground, trying to juggle everything she could.

 

Rarity push to design and resign dresses, in stare master, and dressed for success but she seems like the kinda pony who's smart enough to take a break.

 

I could see it happening to Flutter shy, but alot animals would have to be in peril.

 

Now in rainbow's case I don't think it would be continued stress so much as rainbow pushing her luck one to many times.  but her job is dare devil (of sorts).

 

Could Pinkie party till she drops? 

(could think of alot worse ways to go lol).

 

Now again i'm not suggesting it would be on the show, just maybe the show seems to have alot fun with pushing the characters to their limits so it's some food for thought.

[Widdershins 9,960]

   Wow, four years old and no one's bothered to comment. But think this one is the closest to a pre-existing thread to what I was thinking about.

It's something I was just thinking alot about, being in the midst of one myself like I usually am.

   The six main characters of this show are quite the emotional sorts for as far as that notion goes. After all, any good character needs to get across quickly to its audience what their main personality traits are & fast. Trouble is, the faster one burns...

   It's clear the show's main goal is to test its characters. To sort of push them in that one direction their not comfortable with so they better know how to live & grow. As such, the mares seem very prone to their breakdowns. I agree with you, @@FNGRpony,  I can totally see them getting worked up to the point where they can kill themselves. I'm sure we can all point to specific episodes that were clearly designed to break them.

 

   Applejack may be the calmest, but she's also the most stubborn. That farm is her world, if it came to it I can see her not hesitating to sacrifice her life so that the farm could keep going. The girl has to be a mother to her own sister, her grandmother is hardly reliable & she seems convinced that she can't leave things for the big, shy, lunk that Macintosh is. AJ just gives up when it comes to modern conveniences or new ideas like actually taking a day off to relax and NOT spend every second of every day working herself ragged. I doubt she'll ever find anypony to settle down with & like as not, she'll probably die on that farm she's so devoted to.

 

  Anypony who spends anytime around Rarity knows that she's prone to over-exaggerate or find crises to be dramatic over. But I like to think that because of that, and maybe because she works in customer service where she has to turn on a dime to fit her customers' whims, she likely is just as level-headed as Applejack is should things call for a good old fashioned hoof-to-hoof combat. She may work herself to hyper-ventilation, maybe even put herself into danger trying to fill an important order, but she seems to be able to count on herself enough to know that even in the worst situations, some time holed up in her room to cry it all out & maybe pig out on ice cream, and she'll be fine.

 

    Fluttershy may be the most blatantly cowardly of the six, but I like to think that might also be a bit of a strength too. She knows her boundaries, where not to tread if she can help it. Sure, it may not be the healthiest way to grow, but running from everything is a way to cope too. Worst scenario, she's likely to just give up and retreat into herself enough to go catatonic & maybe, hopefully, by the time she wakes up it will have blown over.

   Sure, that time at the gala was indisputably at her worst, but she's a slight mare. Her being in a frenzy like that most likely wouldn't have wound up hurting anypony else, just somepony would likely to have been needed to be called in to hold her down till she calmed down.

 

  Then we get to the more... memorable ones.

 

  The fandom sure thinks Pinkie can go full-bore psychopath, but I don't think she would have that in her. Like the original poster brought up, Partying is important to Pinkie. But I have to disagree, its probably one of the worst ways to go. It's clear Pinks has centered her life around making others happy. If she feels she's being purposefully ignored, that she's made somepony else unhappy, she'll either go frantic trying to find an answer only to absolutely deflate into spiraling depression or it will just be so unfathomable that she can't do anything to make them like her, that she'll keep at them until only an outright claim of violence upon her will get her to stop.

  The mare has a party planning cave under her house to keep tabs on everypony just so she can't ever slip up & forget somepony's birthdays or likes/dislikes. When Pinkie doesn't have your approval, she looses the will to live. If Pinkie was deprived of any social contact at all, say, living on some desolate farm in the middle of nowhere, she would probably wind up killing herself without having somepony else to live for.

 

  Twilight has built her life around pleasing others. Time & time again we see that she's bound to always think of things first & foremostly of it being a test for her. That she feels the need to be judged & evaluated for everything she does. That she can't live without some structure, some report to hand in or a boss to have to cower before. If it comes to it, the need to send in a lesson outweighs how she treats other ponies around town. She can't allow herself to feel failure for some reason. Sure, one could say reporting to the leader of the Free World who also happens to have god-like powers that could be enough to smite you off the face of the planet could do that to you. But... we've seen how Celestia reacts to having a party she's attending/in charge of get ruined by slime. She seems pretty laid back. You would think her protege, Twilight, would know her well enough to not place such violent importance on something as simple as a letter to send in. That's a lot of doubt in one mare who has a direct line to the most responsible being in Equestria. I don't know... I suspect that Twilight may not have had the happiest of childhoods.

   If you ask me, giving Twilight more responsibility in the form of rulership is probably the worst thing you could do to her. Even if Twilight clearly has everything she needs for the situation, she will still fret herself to a nervous wreck over it. Breathing exercises or not. I can easily see her be the one to work herself to an early grave, immortality or not!

 

  But that still leaves me with my question of Who Breaks Hardest?

 

  What's an even taller order to report to than a literal god? Maybe yourself?

 

  Rainbow Dash sure likes to talk big. She knows she's a braggart, everypony makes a point of telling her that after all. She knows where she stands with everypony else anyway. She's got a fanclub, she's been in the newspaper on a regular basis, she was a fighter in her schooling days and undoubtedly won awards for that, her idols (and likely the highest authority she knows) know her by name & she sees them on a regular enough basis to not only know them back by name, but to be proud enough to tell them off when she thinks they're out of line.  But there's one thing that no matter how fast or strong you are, that you can't outrun. Yourself.

 

   Why do we see Rainbow Dash being so adamant about that one book series after we've seen her be not only highly critical of reading as a whole, but to seemingly ignore any other kind of book for her one series that she does know? Because it confirms her own image of herself. That's why we read/watch the Action Genre. There's always an answer & a solution to everything. You can always solve a problem by just kicking it hard enough. Or another staple of the genre, quick thinking. To be able in the heat of the moment to quickly asses a situation & turn it to your best interests, what any good treasure hunter like Daring Do ...does. Considering how often we've seen her balk at learning the conventional way or scoffing at Twilight's intelligence, these books give RD a new outlook. That thinking doesn't always have to mean slowing down, that thinking on your hooves and being rash can sometimes be the best, most exciting & indeed, fastest way to get what you want done. That's what she likes about it, that the hero always wins, even when he doesn't. Take Indiana Jones, for example, who is likely the basis for Daring Do. Sometimes he may lose the treasure or have to kill someone he once thought a friend, but by the end of it, a lesson is learned & our hero comes out with some platitude of what the true reward is. In fiction, you can't not win.

 

   She hadn't really given much thought to having a pet, something else to take care of, before her friend Fluttershy brought it up right? Even then, she felt it necessary to apply tasks, to judge something worthy before she cared enough to pick one for a pet. And who did she pick, but the turtle that slowed down to match her, instead of speeding up to beat her. We rarely saw her without that turtle after that, right? We don't see her being as image-concerned like Rarity, to take the effort to be close to those she knows idolize her. Yet she literally drags that poor turtle around everywhere. She's found & attached an propeller to him just to be able to keep him close to her, in her element rather than where we usually find land-bound tortoises. Propellers aren't exactly common in this world, neither. She even drags him around by a rope too.

   And when he starts slowing down, how does she take it? Very, very poorly. Explosively bad, even. Because it's unfathomable for her. She can see him quitting on her & instead of listening to him & accepting what the little critter wants to do, she keeps forcing him awake. She would rather knowingly commit crimes, blow Ponyville clean off the map if she has to, than admit to herself that she can't do anything here. It's not in her nature to not succeed. She thinks of things as a competition, as games you can win at, black & white rules of win or lose. And there's nothing to win at here. She can only sit & wait for the inevitable to happen.

 

   I think that's why I can't keep myself from liking her, as much as I try not to. And probably why Fluttershy also gravitates to her. In Rainbow's bid to burn as brightly as she can she lives in a constant battle with her own fears & doubt.

 

   Now I can't say I completely understand the competitive spirit that Rainbow Dash so clearly encompasses. Maybe that me, in my usual melancholic & pedantically self-introspective way is seeking to find a way that every being in some way hates themselves, but...

 

   When your a competitive sort, you never stop pushing yourself. Measuring what you've done to what your capable of now. If you keep chasing the Future to outrun the Past, when do you stop to breathe & live in the Present?  If working means constantly pushing yourself & wearing down further, Poor Dash has likely died many a metaphorical death by now. How ironic given how notoriously short-lived rainbows tend to be.