I'll be honest, as a kid I never ever linked the symbols to talents or really special abilities (except for Gusty and Fizzy since those two I vividly recall one of the G1 episodes/movies that had Gusty call wind and Fizzy creating magical bubbles during a song to trick one of the witches ).

I think this thinking was due to ponies having names more related to their symbols, think about it. Dancing Butterflies I always felt got her name due to her butterfly symbol (though recently I did read her card information on My Little Wiki but still I will more or less link G1 symbols with G1 names)

Quote from: DappledHazel on November 19, 2015, 12:44:02 PM

I noticed the newborn and baby ponies already have cutie marks, are they born with it?

Sorry, but I have to say it. G1 ponies don't have cutie marks, they have symbols, or, in hasbro's official terms, rump markings. Cutie mark belongs to G3 and G4. Not to G1.

Onto the main subject, some lines of thought here.

#1 It depends on how ponies are considered to be born. Take for example the My Little Pony UK comic. In issue 1 is the infamous story of baby ponies coming from the Magic Mirror. Later in the sequence, the original Newborn Twins first come about with a mix of Baby Lucky and co's drawings and baby Lucky's Happy Go lucky Friday 13th magic bringing them to life. So ponies do not have to be "born" in Ponyland, and it makes sense that, if they are created from magic, they might have particular features at that point of creation.

#2 BORN ponies. The only ponies we can say for sure are "born" are the twins that come with Surprise Twins Pony (my sister calls them Itsy and Bitsy). They are officially 'born' and they do not have symbols. That would make the case that actually born ponies (as opposed to magically created ones) are not born with symbols.

#3 In response to names and types of symbols, this makes me think of mediaeval Japanese culture and the trend of changing names as individuals reached certain points in their life. For example, there's a famous warrior, Yoshitsune, and that is how everyone knows him, but he was called Ushiwakamaru as a small child, then Shanaou I believe as an adolescent, then he had his coming of age ceremony in which he was given the name Yoshitsune, and then, at the end of his life, I believe he had changed his name again because the Regent's name was Yoshitsune and it was a mark of deference to do that. So people's identities were fluid. I see Baby Ponies in a similar vein. Who's to say that symbol and name stay the same throughout a pony's lifespan?

#4 Alternatively, baby ponies are actually past versions of the adult ponies in some kind of weird ponyland timewarp. Maybe that explains coming through the magic mirror; they're actually coming through a time gate from the past into the present, where they already exist as adults.

As for why 3/4 Embers have no symbol, I think that is just one of those genetic variations. Rainbow Magic (RC Ringlet) also has no symbol. She has stars beneath her wing and her wings are rainbow coloured, but nothing that Hasbro could rightly term a "rump marking". Pocket Friends ponies also have symbols on one side, but not on both. There are variations in this style across the G1 line, which would be in keeping with the variations that occur in the real world with different types of person and their particular features.