A few thoughts on pegasi and Scootaloo [warning: highly spoilery for S3 EP5]
Ahem. Professor Daring Do and I would like to share some little-known facts about Pegasi children and a certain young denizen of Ponyville in particular. Our previous entry crashed, as it was getting to be furlongs too long, and it's better to have it as a separate entry, anyhow. So, putting on our sober professorial velvet tam here:
[Spoiler tag specifically for episode ]
Let's cut to the important stuff.
BE STILL MY HEART
There are just no freaking words for this. NONE.
"It's like she practically said she wanted to take me under her wing and teach me everything she knows and be like, my big sister!"
"I know, I know. But all that stuff I said COULD happen, right?"
I cried. Like, three times.
And it's kind of cool that Scoots can only get to her dream by going through her biggest nightmare.
More stuff in a real review. Back to Professor Do and what she's passed on to me about Pegasi children, and how I think this relates to young Scootaloo.
It's obvious that Scoots hero-worships Dash and has wanted to have her notice her for ages. She's the President of the Rainbow Dash fan club, for heaven's sake. And as a Scoots fan, I'd like to point out that she isn't just Mini-Dash. She's good at her own stuff. She seems to have mechanical abilities RD doesn't have, and she seems a bit more graceful, or more accurate. If this were the Olympics, Dash would blow you away with speed and strength, but Scoots would be the kind of kid who could do a quadruple Axel and stick the landing perfectly every damned time. She's also the only one of the Cutie Mark Crusaders who doesn't have a big sister. Even if you count Babs Seed as the Fourth Crusader, and I do, she has a big sister too. Of course Scootaloo wants a big sister, and she wants that sister to be Dash.
Ever since this started up, people have assumed that Dash was already Scootaloo's sister. Lauren Faust's official take on this was "no," adding that she didn't think Dash would make a very good big sister. I disagree, but to me, it was important that they weren't related. Blood's not everything. I guarantee you that a person can be a mother or a father or a sister to someone and have no DNA in common at all. What's more, they don't have to adopt you, either. Friends are worth something, and in this series, they're worth everything.
The flip side of this was the "poor Scootaloo" concept. Scoots is an orphan, she lives in a cardboard box, she never has enough to eat, blah blah, that's why she wants Rainbow Dash to adopt her. Someone actually asked if the writers would ever address the "orphan issue." Some people have said they'd be disappointed if Scoots *wasn't* an orphan.
What orphan issue? The truth is that the writers probably haven't given Scootaloo a family and a home because it's not convenient. They even said something like this on the audio commentary for *The Show Stoppers*-- if it hasn't been mentioned, it probably hasn't been decided, although they pointed out that it's nice that people care about the characters that way. We didn't know anything about Rarity's parents until Sisterhooves Social. We didn't know Twilight Sparkle had a brother until the Royal Wedding, although that was kind of pressing credibility. Family is awkward in children's literature. They get in the way. You can see from Applejack's family that if you include them, they start to upstage the character.
If there's an orphan among the CMC, it's most likely to be Apple Bloom. We know her family, and we have never seen her parents. They never talk about them. The producers thought about having some kind of explanation ("they're traveling all the time") and Faust simply said she thought they were probably dead. Finally they decided simply not to mention it, and it's worked out just fine.
Is Ponyville the kind of place where a hungry orphan would go totally unnoticed? Do you think Miss Cheerilee wouldn't realize that one of her students had no home? Do you think Applejack wouldn't notice that one of her sister's best friends was homeless and hungry? If Scoots lived in a box, why would she find the Crusader Clubhouse lacking something when they move in? Who bought her that scooter? Who drilled it into her tiny head that she must always, always wear a helmet (aside from the really obvious reason that the Hub doesn't want its kid audience to think that riding or driving without a helmet is cool)?
Everyone's entitled to an opinion, I guess, and I'm fine with it, as long as you're not rooting for the poor little thing to be ground up into Ponyburgers or something, in which case you can talk to the hoof.
Here's my theory, as I've gleaned from Professor Do's notes.
"Child-rearing custom among the Pegasi, ancient and modern."
[Long-winded lecture by Professor Do, which also contains spoilers.]
"Stratigraphic archeological analysis of ancient Pegasopolis presents unique difficulties to the field archeologist. I refer in particular to the recovery of remains from ossified cloud, generally buried in remote mountain tops with poor access. Nevertheless, records etched into the permafrost reveal distinct patterns of child-rearing that persist to the present day. These include--"
[I'm cutting into Professor Do's lecture here. Even the coolest professors can get a little long winded. She'd like to point out, though, that it's really hard to do archeology under conditions like these.]
Scootaloo isn't an orphan, although she is adopted. She was born in Cloudsdale, and she was a "faller foal."
We've all seen how quickly and unpredictably baby Pegasi can move, based on little Pound Cake. This is a problem, when you live in the clouds. Some Pegasi are good little fillies and colts and play in the center of the cloud like Mommy and Daddy said. Fluttershy was probably like this. Dash's parents gave up eventually and bought a harness. Sometimes a really small baby will fly off the edge of a cloud, stall out, and fall.
Now this doesn't happen often, as Pegasi parents are vigilant and constantly watching for this sort of thing. Everyone else is, too, and dives to grab the baby--we've seen or heard of both Fluttershy and Dash doing this. In Cloudsdale, you get lots of practice. If that fails, there's almost always a nice fluffy cloud underneath and everypony gets all upset and relieved, but there's no harm done. But sometimes that doesn't happen.
On those very rare occasions, the Pegasi will form search parties and look for the foal until there's absolutely no hope. If there's a nice big clearing, they likely will find the baby. Searches are much easier now that there's a Pegasus who lives on the ground and who can talk to woodland creatures. Not one single Pegasus foal has ever been lost since Fluttershy moved to Ponyville. Before that, though--
When that happens, the whole community grieves. Pegasi never talk about this with unicorns or earth ponies, assuming, probably correctly, that they won't understand or be thought of as callous or as bad parents. Rumors already circulate that Pegasi are careless and cruel to their young, which is far from the truth, but they don't want to make things any worse. They're an ancient warrior culture, and they don't display weakness. Fluttershy doesn't talk about it at all, as the very thought of it makes her cry. Rainbow Dash also doesn't talk about it, because she's very stiff upper lipped about that kind of thing, but she's led a lot of those search and rescue parties.
Scootaloo was one of those rare foals they couldn't find. Luckily, she was rescued. I won't insist on the idea that she was raised by chickens the way Mowgli was by wolves and then sent to live among her own people. She can't remember that bit anyway, because she was too little when it happened. When she was found, though, she had little bits of ribbon plaited into her mane and tail. Somepony must have loved her very much.
She was taken in by two old Earth Ponies. I like to think they were G2 ponies, since Scootaloo was originally G3. Maybe it was Sweetheart and Teddy. They're grandparent age. They're not quite as old as Granny Smith, but they're getting up there, and they're not as mobile as she is. Teddy has bad knees and he worries about Sweetheart's health.
That's why they don't get into Ponyville too often. Teddy wouldn't let Sweetheart walk all that way to the talent show, even though she wanted to, but they proudly display Scoot's award in the living room.
Scoots has two affectionate parental figures, even though she probably knows they're not her "real" parents. And what are "real" parents, anyway? The ones who gave birth to you, or the ones who did the job? As someone who was raised by a stepparent, I'm going with the latter. She's got a nice place to live and someone to nag her to do her homework, and they let her go off to play with Apple Bloom, naively assuming that because she's with Applejack's little sister, she can't get into too much trouble, right? They bought her the scooter, and the helmet. (G2 Earth Ponies seem to have played a lot of sports.) However, there's no question of them helping to teach her how to fly. She'd love to be able to do that, like a real Pegasus, and have a big sister of her very own, and now she does.
Meanwhile, up in Cloudsdale, a pair of Pegasus parents have almost, but not quite, given up hope . . .
Professor Do hopes she's cleared up some common misconceptions about child-rearing customs among the Pegasi.
And I hope I've amused you and provided a nice alternative to the "Scootaloo is a poor starving orphan" theory, which for some reason has always ground my gears.
Have a nice picture of the Cloudasseum, just because I can!
This is the kind of thing professors do when we procrastinate.
[Spoiler tag specifically for episode ]
Let's cut to the important stuff.
BE STILL MY HEART
There are just no freaking words for this. NONE.
"It's like she practically said she wanted to take me under her wing and teach me everything she knows and be like, my big sister!"
"I know, I know. But all that stuff I said COULD happen, right?"
I cried. Like, three times.
And it's kind of cool that Scoots can only get to her dream by going through her biggest nightmare.
More stuff in a real review. Back to Professor Do and what she's passed on to me about Pegasi children, and how I think this relates to young Scootaloo.
It's obvious that Scoots hero-worships Dash and has wanted to have her notice her for ages. She's the President of the Rainbow Dash fan club, for heaven's sake. And as a Scoots fan, I'd like to point out that she isn't just Mini-Dash. She's good at her own stuff. She seems to have mechanical abilities RD doesn't have, and she seems a bit more graceful, or more accurate. If this were the Olympics, Dash would blow you away with speed and strength, but Scoots would be the kind of kid who could do a quadruple Axel and stick the landing perfectly every damned time. She's also the only one of the Cutie Mark Crusaders who doesn't have a big sister. Even if you count Babs Seed as the Fourth Crusader, and I do, she has a big sister too. Of course Scootaloo wants a big sister, and she wants that sister to be Dash.
Ever since this started up, people have assumed that Dash was already Scootaloo's sister. Lauren Faust's official take on this was "no," adding that she didn't think Dash would make a very good big sister. I disagree, but to me, it was important that they weren't related. Blood's not everything. I guarantee you that a person can be a mother or a father or a sister to someone and have no DNA in common at all. What's more, they don't have to adopt you, either. Friends are worth something, and in this series, they're worth everything.
The flip side of this was the "poor Scootaloo" concept. Scoots is an orphan, she lives in a cardboard box, she never has enough to eat, blah blah, that's why she wants Rainbow Dash to adopt her. Someone actually asked if the writers would ever address the "orphan issue." Some people have said they'd be disappointed if Scoots *wasn't* an orphan.
What orphan issue? The truth is that the writers probably haven't given Scootaloo a family and a home because it's not convenient. They even said something like this on the audio commentary for *The Show Stoppers*-- if it hasn't been mentioned, it probably hasn't been decided, although they pointed out that it's nice that people care about the characters that way. We didn't know anything about Rarity's parents until Sisterhooves Social. We didn't know Twilight Sparkle had a brother until the Royal Wedding, although that was kind of pressing credibility. Family is awkward in children's literature. They get in the way. You can see from Applejack's family that if you include them, they start to upstage the character.
If there's an orphan among the CMC, it's most likely to be Apple Bloom. We know her family, and we have never seen her parents. They never talk about them. The producers thought about having some kind of explanation ("they're traveling all the time") and Faust simply said she thought they were probably dead. Finally they decided simply not to mention it, and it's worked out just fine.
Is Ponyville the kind of place where a hungry orphan would go totally unnoticed? Do you think Miss Cheerilee wouldn't realize that one of her students had no home? Do you think Applejack wouldn't notice that one of her sister's best friends was homeless and hungry? If Scoots lived in a box, why would she find the Crusader Clubhouse lacking something when they move in? Who bought her that scooter? Who drilled it into her tiny head that she must always, always wear a helmet (aside from the really obvious reason that the Hub doesn't want its kid audience to think that riding or driving without a helmet is cool)?
Everyone's entitled to an opinion, I guess, and I'm fine with it, as long as you're not rooting for the poor little thing to be ground up into Ponyburgers or something, in which case you can talk to the hoof.
Here's my theory, as I've gleaned from Professor Do's notes.
"Child-rearing custom among the Pegasi, ancient and modern."
[Long-winded lecture by Professor Do, which also contains spoilers.]
"Stratigraphic archeological analysis of ancient Pegasopolis presents unique difficulties to the field archeologist. I refer in particular to the recovery of remains from ossified cloud, generally buried in remote mountain tops with poor access. Nevertheless, records etched into the permafrost reveal distinct patterns of child-rearing that persist to the present day. These include--"
[I'm cutting into Professor Do's lecture here. Even the coolest professors can get a little long winded. She'd like to point out, though, that it's really hard to do archeology under conditions like these.]
Scootaloo isn't an orphan, although she is adopted. She was born in Cloudsdale, and she was a "faller foal."
We've all seen how quickly and unpredictably baby Pegasi can move, based on little Pound Cake. This is a problem, when you live in the clouds. Some Pegasi are good little fillies and colts and play in the center of the cloud like Mommy and Daddy said. Fluttershy was probably like this. Dash's parents gave up eventually and bought a harness. Sometimes a really small baby will fly off the edge of a cloud, stall out, and fall.
Now this doesn't happen often, as Pegasi parents are vigilant and constantly watching for this sort of thing. Everyone else is, too, and dives to grab the baby--we've seen or heard of both Fluttershy and Dash doing this. In Cloudsdale, you get lots of practice. If that fails, there's almost always a nice fluffy cloud underneath and everypony gets all upset and relieved, but there's no harm done. But sometimes that doesn't happen.
On those very rare occasions, the Pegasi will form search parties and look for the foal until there's absolutely no hope. If there's a nice big clearing, they likely will find the baby. Searches are much easier now that there's a Pegasus who lives on the ground and who can talk to woodland creatures. Not one single Pegasus foal has ever been lost since Fluttershy moved to Ponyville. Before that, though--
When that happens, the whole community grieves. Pegasi never talk about this with unicorns or earth ponies, assuming, probably correctly, that they won't understand or be thought of as callous or as bad parents. Rumors already circulate that Pegasi are careless and cruel to their young, which is far from the truth, but they don't want to make things any worse. They're an ancient warrior culture, and they don't display weakness. Fluttershy doesn't talk about it at all, as the very thought of it makes her cry. Rainbow Dash also doesn't talk about it, because she's very stiff upper lipped about that kind of thing, but she's led a lot of those search and rescue parties.
Scootaloo was one of those rare foals they couldn't find. Luckily, she was rescued. I won't insist on the idea that she was raised by chickens the way Mowgli was by wolves and then sent to live among her own people. She can't remember that bit anyway, because she was too little when it happened. When she was found, though, she had little bits of ribbon plaited into her mane and tail. Somepony must have loved her very much.
She was taken in by two old Earth Ponies. I like to think they were G2 ponies, since Scootaloo was originally G3. Maybe it was Sweetheart and Teddy. They're grandparent age. They're not quite as old as Granny Smith, but they're getting up there, and they're not as mobile as she is. Teddy has bad knees and he worries about Sweetheart's health.
That's why they don't get into Ponyville too often. Teddy wouldn't let Sweetheart walk all that way to the talent show, even though she wanted to, but they proudly display Scoot's award in the living room.
Scoots has two affectionate parental figures, even though she probably knows they're not her "real" parents. And what are "real" parents, anyway? The ones who gave birth to you, or the ones who did the job? As someone who was raised by a stepparent, I'm going with the latter. She's got a nice place to live and someone to nag her to do her homework, and they let her go off to play with Apple Bloom, naively assuming that because she's with Applejack's little sister, she can't get into too much trouble, right? They bought her the scooter, and the helmet. (G2 Earth Ponies seem to have played a lot of sports.) However, there's no question of them helping to teach her how to fly. She'd love to be able to do that, like a real Pegasus, and have a big sister of her very own, and now she does.
Meanwhile, up in Cloudsdale, a pair of Pegasus parents have almost, but not quite, given up hope . . .
Professor Do hopes she's cleared up some common misconceptions about child-rearing customs among the Pegasi.
And I hope I've amused you and provided a nice alternative to the "Scootaloo is a poor starving orphan" theory, which for some reason has always ground my gears.
Have a nice picture of the Cloudasseum, just because I can!
This is the kind of thing professors do when we procrastinate.