Are the unicorns in FiM really unicorns?

[Rarity Paige Belle 1,854]

I say this because they are unlike traditional unicorns for example

 

•Unicorns can only be seen by the good and honest

•Unicorns are incapable of evil, so no Sombra

• In the most famous unicorn story, they dislike being grouped with horses

•all unicorns are immortal

•unicorns live alone

[ghostfacekiller39 23,860]

MLP has different standards than whatever guidelines you're going by It's a fictional universe containing candy colored equines who have a society similar to our own.  They're not mythical creatures in Equestria

[Dattebayo 2,850]

Don't look too into it friend, it'll drive you crazy. x)

Edited April 16, 2014 by Dattebayo

[Rarity Paige Belle 1,854]

MLP has different standards than whatever guidelines you're going by It's a fictional universe containing candy colored equines who have a society similar to our own.  They're not mythical creatures in Equestria

It's just after reading the story 'the last unicorn' has put a different perspective onto FiM!

[deadprofile 1,123]

All mythos related creatures within the MLP universe are different from their mythological characteristics in order to properly culminate all these creatures into a cohereant and grounded world....

[Rarity Paige Belle 1,854]

All mythos related creatures within the MLP universe are different from their mythological characteristics in order to properly culminate all these creatures into a cohereant and grounded world....

As I said in my earlier thread, reading and watching the last unicorn has given me different views on FiM. I just feel now a bit short changed by MLP after seeing the magical world of Amalthea!

[deadprofile 1,123]

there are a lot of stories that can change ones perspective of FIM...Take Hercules (not necessarily the Disney version), or really any Greek mythological stories in general....

Plus The Last Unicorn is only one telling of unicorns...there are many cultures that have unicorns and each unicorn mythos can vary (just as any similar mythologies across cultures).

 

Also, when doing research in regards to the inspiration regarding the Windegos, I really look at them differently....especially with the whole cannabalism aspect....

[Obsidian Sky 14,004]

I say this because they are unlike traditional unicorns for example

 

•Unicorns can only be seen by the good and honest

•Unicorns are incapable of evil, so no Sombra

• In the most famous unicorn story, they dislike being grouped with horses

•all unicorns are immortal

•unicorns live alone

Well, if you go by the medival stories most of this is not really correct.

 

For example, you could see Unicorns just fine, even if you where not a female virgin, which where the only ones capable of taming them. If you where NOT an female virgin, you could in fact see them rather well, as they would pin you to the next tree with their horns...   They where said to be rather aggressive.

 

In legends virgins where used to bait Unicorns, then the hunters would kill it and then their horn could be used as a chalice. Every poisoned drink that was consumed from a hollow unicorn horn lost its deadly potency. You could also put just a piece of the horn into your drink.

[GaleFenrir 281]

They are unicorn ponies, not unicorns. Same with the pegasi ponies, who are not pegasi. Ponies are ponies, horses are horses.

[Rarity Paige Belle 1,854]

They are unicorn ponies, not unicorns. Same with the pegasi ponies, who are not pegasi. Ponies are ponies, horses are horses.

Sorry my friend, but ponies ARE horses! They're not a seperate species, just a horse bred to be small.

[Neon Fire 473]

Well each show/story/etc has their own rules for fictional characters.  For example, in some movies dragons are portrayed as only evil and fire-breathing, while in games like Spyro, he's a multi-element good dragon.  So each thing will have its own rules for fictional characters, even unicorns.

Edited April 16, 2014 by Neon Fire

[GaleFenrir 281]

Sorry my friend, but ponies ARE horses! They're not a seperate species, just a horse bred to be small.

They are still different breeds.

 

And I don't really care, tbh. Just made a post out of boredom.

 

But this brings up an interesting quandary, as to whether the ponies in Equestria are indeed the same species as the horses from Saddle-Arabia. Their anatomical structure seems really quite different.

[Malinter 3,064]

They have horns so they are unicorns.

 

Question I'd like to know is, is the horn a tooth?

Edited April 16, 2014 by Malinter

[PE Brony 1,712]

As has been said, Unicorns (and Pegasi) are mythological creatures. As such, they are up to interpretation based on the person(s) utilizing them. They were also visible to evil characters in Harry Potter book 1, seeing as Professor Quirrell and Voldemort would have been hard-pressed to catch one, (much more so to kill one) if they couldn't even see it!

 

Think of all the other creatures MLP: FiM has had: Discord, Ahuizotl, Cerberus, Cragadile, a Hydra, a Cockatrice, a Chimera, a Manticore, and Dragons to name a few.

 

Take dragons for example: In Harry Potter, they only have hind legs and walk on their wings and cannot speak or be truly tamed. In How to Train Your Dragon (the movie), they are quadrupedal, quite intelligent, can be tamed and are considered hive-minded in the first movie. In the Inheritance Cycle, they are sentient, telepathic, and use magic. In Middle Earth, they are obsessed with gold, are sentient, and undomesticated.

 

Each of these creatures have been portrayed in countless ways, usually with basic similarities, but alterations as well based on what the user is going for.

Edited April 17, 2014 by PE Brony

[#1FluttershyFan 206]

I'm sorry if I offend anyone when I say this but in my eyes, unicorns are fictional creatures so they can really be however and whatever you want them to be. The only real guidelines are:

• They have to be related to horses

                           and

• They have to have a horn.

That's pretty much it though. If a unicorn has two horns it's a bicorn, if it has three it's a tricorn, if it has four it's a quadricorn, etc. 

All in all, a unicorn is in the eyes of the beholder. 

[Sapana 66]

As someone who dearly loves The Last Unicorn (book version), I would just like to say that that is NOT the sole 'true' interpretation of unicorns. I spent years of my childhood reading about unicorn lore across the world - there is no one correct version I love TLU's interpretation above many others, but I also am pretty cool with FiM's interpretation as well. 

 

I'd have to say that the only depictions of unicorns I despise are those that look they are literally just horses with a cone sticking out of their head - like the movie adaptation of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. That just looks tacky.

 

But that's just me =)

[Shanks 10,816]

Different mythological creatures can sometimes have different rules in different media, you ought to see just how many different conflicting rules there are for vampires even in myth. There are some mythological creatures which have much more established rules but unicorns aren't one of them.

[Paladin Butters 163]

I was actually misled when I first watched movies and that one introduction with a horse in the thing. and I thought that was a Unicorn, if it wasn't for My Little Pony I didn't know it was a Alicorn, if that's a real type of pony. OR if they consider it a Pegasus, because of the wings and horn? I don't know! LOL

[Princess Periwinkle 3,775]

To quote the dictionary:
 

A mythical creature resembling a horse, with a single horn in the center of its forehead

 
So, they fit the bill as far as I am concerned. They might not fit in exactly with some of ye olde mythical stories about unicorns, but the traits of mythical creatures vary from story to story simply due to the fact that they do not exist.

[Forlong 1,726]

The Pegasi were also not born of the blood of Medusa...

[PE Brony 1,712]

...that one introduction with a horse in the thing. and I thought that was a Unicorn, if it wasn't for My Little Pony I didn't know it was a Alicorn...

I have to assume you're referencing TriStar Pictures??

If so...it's a pegasus...

 

 

 

Also, while searching for this, the Wiki articles about Pegasus and Unicorns both came up. Pegasus, the "original" Greek mythological flying horse himself, has always been depicted with wings; but also with OR without a horn. According to these articles, the term "Alicorn" actually refers to the unicorn's horn itself. So, yet another example of various uses of the same thing based on what the user wants.

It's allowed

It's fiction!!

 

 

Articles

 

 

"Alicorn

Main article: Unicorn horn

The horn itself and the substance it was made of was called alicorn, and it was believed that the horn holds magical and medicinal properties. The Danish physician Ole Worm determined in 1638 that the alleged alicorns were the tusks of narwhals.^[15] Such beliefs were examined wittily and at length in 1646 by Sir Thomas Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica.^[16]

False alicorn powder, made from the tusks of narwhals or horns of various animals, has been sold in Europe for medicinal purposes as late as 1741.^[17] The alicorn was thought to cure many diseases and have the ability to detect poisons, and many physicians would make "cures" and sell them. Cups were made from alicorn for kings and given as a gift; these were usually made of ivory or walrus ivory. Entire horns were very precious in the Middle Ages and were often really the tusks of narwhals.^[18]"

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn%27s_horn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus

 

 

@@Forlong, 

"He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa.^[1] "

Edited April 17, 2014 by PE Brony