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So, the CMC origin episode – this is I think the first one I remember not being so keen on. I like the CMC in general, I think they make a valuable contribution to the show (especially since this franchise has historically been a bit confused as to precisely what age group to aim toward, and the CMC in this regard seem to me like a fairly elegant solution), so what’s the problem with this episode? From my memory of it, I think it’s that Apple Bloom is having to carry the episode essentially on her own, where I think she in particular seems to work better as part of the CMC group dynamic. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle’s focus episodes stick out more in my mind, where they’re solidly supporting their own episode. 

The opening shot is neat, establishing the theme visually by moving from cutie mark to cutie mark. A point of interest for me was when Cheerilee is explaining how she got her cutie mark, and she details what it symbolises. The two obvious theories are that it’s either her interpretation or the cutie mark grants some innate knowledge of it’s symbolism. I have to say I lean very heavily toward the latter, symbology plays such an important role in the magic of this universe and in pony society generally that I simply cannot imagine the symbolism of a cutie mark being a matter of mere interpretation. It’s too innate to who the ponies are, and the reassurance in life that they draw from it I can only imagine would be a whole lot less reassuring if one could be uncertain of what a cutie mark meant. It serves a fairly limited purpose socially if there can be no guarantee of it’s meaning. It also occurs to me that society would essentially depend on the presumption that what the pony in question says their cutie mark symbolises is correct, lending further credence, in my mind, to the innateness theory. It is a very nice thought, down this thinking lane, to imagine being a pony and applying for a job. Unlike in our world where there’s total uncertainty of how to determine someone’s talents and so the entire educational system and structure of entry-level jobs revolve around ways of divining exactly what someone’s talents are (and quite imprecisely at that), in Equestria the talents of a pony shine through them so brightly that it’s even got a physical manifestation. The emphasis on the uniqueness of cutie marks (even though in background animation we see several duplicates all the time, the hourglass cutie mark is particularly common leading to a theory I’ve read where ponies with that cutie mark are in fact time travellers) also suggests to me that the Equestrian economy must be remarkably un-standardised, perhaps borne out by the pre-industrial society that we see in the show. After all, how could society in Equestria move past the reliance on the crafts? Things like the Flim-Flam brother’s machine don’t just threaten jobs, as they did in our world, they threaten the fundamental fabric of Equestrian society. 

When Apple Bloom gets home and is complaining to Applejack, Applejack talking about how Granny Smith and Big Macintosh getting their cutie marks last in their class, just as she did, was intriguing. I got the impression that Applejack got hers later because at first she had tried doing something other than being around on the family farm, and when she later came to accept it the cutie mark appeared as a result. But if it was predestined (which is implied but not entirely confirmed by the fact that cutie marks stay the same once you’ve got them, they don’t change over time) then seemingly the long-running trait of apple cutie marks in the family suggests you could hack the system and just embrace the family talent earlier, the exact idea Apple Bloom gets. So did Big Macintosh and Granny Smith not do that? Were they reluctant like Applejack was? I suppose the easiest answer would be that enthusiasm and passion can’t be forced, and it simply took them both a while to find passion in their family traditions, but again it suggests something about all their characters that it took them all so long.