The Crunch the Rock Dog Iceberg

[Al-1701]

I need to get back in the saddle, and I might as well go with my favorite pony episode: Crunch the Rock Dog.

So, let's get into how there is a lot more to this episode than first appears (hence the iceberg) when it comes to the titular adversary.  Good old Crunch, whether intentional or not, bears a striking resemblance to two stories.  So, I figured it would be fun to break it down a bit.

First, Crunch's origins mirror that of the golem.  The golem is a robot made of clay animated by with writing emét (“truth” in Hebrew) on its forehead or placing a sacred scroll in its mouth.  It was deactivated by erasing the first letter (making it mét [“death”]) or removing the scroll.  The golem would be created as a servant, but—being a creation of man and not God—lacked a soul.  Thus, it lacked the compassion and morals of a person and followed its orders to its logical conclusion.  (The term golem even comes of a Hebrew insult to being unfinished or unrefined.)  So, a command as inoffensive as “Protect me” could lead to a rampage because the most effective way top protect something is to eliminate it before it can become a threat and everything is a potential threat.

Crunch is a being made of earth that lacks a heart and feelings (which is essentially a soul by another name) animated by the obsidian in his collar.  He was given the command to protect the Heart Stone which he has turned into destroying all organic life.  Attacking the collar deactivates him (reducing him to a harmless puppy in this case).

However, his plot is very similar to the Norwegian fairytale “The Giant Who has no Heart in His Body” (I'm assuming it sounds better in Norwegian.  The story goes that a prince's older brothers were returning after finding brides and happened to stumble into the territory of an indestructible giant who turns them into stone for trespassing.  The prince travels to the giant's castle where he's hidden by another princess he holds captive (the giant, not the prince).  She tells him the giant's invincibility is because he removed his heart from his body and has it hidden somewhere.  They eventually figure out its hiding place, and the prince goes to find it.  By squeezing it, he can cause the giant pain (apparently Beast Wars Megatron read this story too).  Depending the version, the prince crushed the heart to kill the giant or simply used the threat of it to make the giant to restore his brothers and their brides to flesh and blood and free the princess he marries (the prince, not the giant).

While not his heart, Crunch is an indestructible giant who turns anything that offends him to stone.  His only weakness is a heart hidden away, and it is used to stop him.

And if that story sounds familiar for another reason, it was the basis for the third chapter in the first Paper Mario game.

This is completely random, but it astounds me how much you can pull out of this twenty minute episode.

And if you got other MLP icebergs, feel free delve below the surface for them too.