The Fridge Brillance of G1 Pegasus Ponies

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Whatever. I'm not gonna argue about this anymore.

I don't get why you were arguing. You were saying that Firefly didn't really work as the writer/reciter of epics, and I was agreeing - I was saying she was more someone who would have epics written/recited about her. The character of the epic, not its teller.

[Strawberry Swirl]

I thought that as a kid too.  But only because until MLP the only other wide spread use of colorful Pegasus I knew of was a segment from Disney's Fantasia which was very Greek themed too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_EDBM1tOEo

In fact there is a scene with the little black pegasis jumping into the air just like Ember did in the first My Little Pony cartoon.  It's hard for me not to think some inspiration came from Fantasia.

Oh wow- not a Disney fan here but I really enjoyed that bit anyway! I like the idea of pegasi building nests akin to birds and swimming like swans.

[Taffeta]

I am wary of trying to force ponies to fit the models of existing greek figures just because there are some similarities. I think it's possible that the general idea was an influence in the creation of pegasus ponies, but I don't really think we can sit down and say Hasbro definitely tried to pair pegasus characters with those greek figures. There are too many pegasus ponies which don't really fit any kind of criteria - Flutterbye I can only really remember being afraid of spiders, for example.

As regards the epic, they're usually fictionalised representations of existing events, but there are more criteria to epics than just that factor. I've had to study that somewhat because the texts I study, sometimes people call variants of them epics and really the term doesn't fit with Japanese culture enough to be a good term. It's people forcing the idea because they want to use the term to describe Japanese War Tales, rather than because Japanese War Tales are actually the same as great greek Epics like the Iliad. (they're really not by the way).

The fact that epics tend to cross history and fiction means it wouldn't be a problem for Paradise to cover both territories, but I also remember that at least one ancient world account of the epics divides them from history, rather than seeing them as representative of history. It's harder to prove Paradise as a teller of history than a storyteller on those grounds, if even ancient world scholars saw a separation between those two genres. I don't know, personally, if that separation exists, but it does explain why ancient Greece has two individuals covering those aspects. We don't really have any proof that Paradise does anything with history, so I would say if you have to assign her, assign her the storyteller role.

The big problem I have is that I feel it's trying too hard to force the pegasus characters into the greek roles. I don't think Masquerade fits as tragedy, as there's zero example of her acting and disguise that reflects tragedy. On the contrary, the roles she plays usually help people or bring them happiness or entertainment.

I also think forcing Wind Whistler into the hymn role is a stretch. There are two personalities for Wind Whistler and to make that work you have to pick bits from both but not actually take a consistent character representation of either. The comic Wind Whistler is not recognised as a singer in this context. She sings, whistles and behaves in a silly way (contradicting the reserved character). Wind Whistler in the animation is not at all musical. She has the reserved character but no apparent inclination for the arts. Neither Wind Whistler fits the brief.

North Star is also a bit grey for me. Her symbol is a compass and the suggestion is she explores geographically. Astronomy (as I know people are aware) is not really a purely geographical art (and especially not in the ancient world). There's deeper aspects at work in that which North Star does not represent as well as, perhaps, Galaxy would (and she isn't a pegasus). Galaxy is a stargazer and has a telescope in the comics. But she doesn't have wings.  North Star, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have any connections with the stars other than her name and symbol.

In short, I think Hasbro might have thought generally about greek ideas when coming up with some of these ideas. Medley drumming thunder on the clouds and playing harp music with her tail is the most powerful to me, as it is a sort of divine power relating to music as opposed to just a gift (and a harp fits very nicely, even though she actually doesn't have a physical harp of any kind). But I think to try and take it deeper is too much. I could see Pegasus inspiring Firefly and Medley being inspired by such things too - but I think that's as far as it goes for specific matches between pony and greek myth.

Like the academics who want to make the Japanese war tales fit the epic category because they see a few superficial similarities, this is kind of trying to force the ponies into a pre-set framework where they don't entirely fit, as opposed to looking at the ponies and what other potential influences there might have been on their characters.

[Leave a Whisper]

Well said Taffeta.

[Taffeta]

It also occurs to me what hymn actually means in this context. In old Japan, the word for poetry actually denotes classical Chinese poems (shi). The word for Japanese language poems is actually the word used in modern Japanese for song - uta. It is hard to know what some of these ancient categories really denote. In English a hymn is a particularly Christian song, but that doesn't work in Ancient Greek context.

Sorry...the historian in me finds a lot more issues with this the more I think about it as a theory..

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Playing devils advocate here, while you see clashes with the theory from your perspective, for them to truly be flaws in the theory would require the Hasbro designers from back then to have had your deep expertise and not the more casual knowledge that generated the theory.

[Taffeta]

I am rewriting this post in some kind of coherence because writing on my phone really isn't  helping me to make any kind of sense

I have to begin by being sincerely apologetic, and my brain is tired at the moment, but I have reread it three times and I still don't really understand your logic here.

First and foremost, I don't have expertise on ancient Greece. I've never studied it and never claimed to be. None of my posts express any expertise on ancient Greece. I study mediaeval Japan, which is a different continent and a different time period. What I know about is the theory behind defining something as an epic because it is relevant to my own academic work, and that is what I commented on because of Paradise being split between epic storyteller and historian in the list offered by the OP.  I was being on topic in the discussion as to which suits Paradise best - storyteller or historian, (or as the OP suggests, both). I am not sure why that might be problematic? That is the only educated thing I said about Greek mythology, so if that was somehow offensive, I apologise, but I don't think that it was.

My real other point was that Hasbro may have made a nod to ancient greece in the concept of the pegasus but not given it too much detailed thought.

I  am saying that Hasbro didn't design all of their pegasus ponies to fit with individuals from Greek Mythology, because there are too many that don't fit the criteria. I did not generate this list, the OP did. It is the OP and not me who is suggesting Hasbro made that connection. I don't pretend I know the stories of all the individuals cited and I am basing my judgements according to the information provided in the thread. If Hasbro did intend to make that connection, however, they would need to do the research in order to make the match. Nobody sets out to create something that's definitely based on mythical figures and then does no research on those figures. Hasbro would need to have some expertise on the subject to make that work.

What I raised were the characters Hasbro gave their ponies and how they don't fit the definitions in all cases as given by the OP. I think we can agree that Hasbro probably did know what character concepts they were using for their ponies. I should also add that Masquerade is only an actress in the UK, not in the US animation (although I don't know her US backcard story). Princess Pearl (mentioned earlier in the thread) is also only an artist in the UK, although I didn't mention her in the last post because the OP didn't put her in the list.

In any case, it seems to me your argument is that Hasbro did try to match the pegasus ponies to specific greek figures but didn't actually research any of those figures or that they did research the figures but then didn't really communicate with the character creation departments devising the storylines...?

If you were confused as to why I brought up the meanings of shi and uta in Japanese, it was simply to highlight that things can be lost in translation, and Greek is not English. Meanings for those terms as used in this discussion therefore may not be correct, meaning that we might be mismatching ideas because of that. But again, that information came into the discussion from the OP. It is the OP (and not me) whose intent is to make this a more detailed discussion about the relationship between ancient Greece and MLP.

In any case, I am not a fan of forcing a theory to fit because it's appealing, rather than because it makes sense. Hasbro either intended to make their pegasus ponies greek characters or they didn't. If they did, they would do the research. If they did the research, we'd make easier matches. We can't. They didn't. For me that's pretty much case closed.

If I misunderstood your post, again, my apologies. Autistic brains work better when they are not tired

[Carrehz]

Post makes perfect sense to me, Taff I was thinking the same thing, just wasn't sure how to put it.

IMO, it's a lovely "headcanon", but I don't think it wa actually what the Hasbro designers were thinking when they designed the pegasi. I doubt they put that much thought into it

[Al-1701]

It was meant to be a little fun.  They don't fit all that well together and you do have conflicting sources (especially when it comes to Wind Whistler).  It's probable the pegasi being more closely related the arts than earth ponies and unicorns was pure coincidence as well.  They were just assigning character traits to ponies, and they happened to come across pegasi when they were thinking of something artistic.

Still, even if it's coincidence, it's a brilliant one.

[SeashellnBubbles]

I read this whole thing and I think it's fun! I really enjoy different people's differing interpretations of things, especially historical and mythological histories (including present day religious ones) so this thread is right up my alley, including the passionate discussions! Taffeta, how does one pronounce "uta" in Japanese? Do you say it as it is written?
I also like when new words and meanings (like "fridge") are introduced to me, especially when they're patiently explained as well I sometimes feel a little old myself when people say things like "headcannon" and "trope". Learning new stuff is exciting for me! So thank you, everyone, who used new language on this thread!

[Taffeta]

It's really hard to explain pronunciation without a soundclip, especially since even different versions of English have different pronunciation for certain syllables (in this case 'ta') so I found this online :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtM20geUHfU

Which I hope answers the question.

The word uta　today is pretty much only used to mean song, I think, and the verb, utau, means to sing. But in old Japanese, the word uta means a Japanese language poem, normally a waka (31 syllables)　and generally is referenced using the verbs to recite or to read instead.

[SeashellnBubbles]

That sounds so neat, Taffeta! Thank you for taking the time to find that for me. I think I'll start nicknaming my little Bourke's parrakeet "Uta" when she sings to me or when I want her to sing. I call her different names when she does different things for me...it's quite confusing to people who don't live with us! LOL