13 Horrible Life Lessons My Little Pony Tries To Teach Our Kids
Friendship Is Magic teaching the magic of selfishness and codependency.
On April 6, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic will begin its ninth and final season. According to a Discovery Family press release, the final story arc will involve Princess Celestia's decision to appoint Twilight Sparkle and her friends as the new rulers of Equestria. What the release doesn't mention is the likelihood that this decision will plunge Equestria into a dark age of codependent misery as the Mane Six teach their new subjects the ways of over-reliance, selfishness, manipulation and ingratitude.
You may not remember these lessons from past episodes of My Little Pony. Many of the show's morals appear sound at first glance: friendship is magic, forgiveness is important, chaos demons make good friends.
Beneath its cute façade, however, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic contains countless harmful life lessons hidden in the subtext of seemingly innocuous storylines. As will soon happen to Equestria if Twilight Sparkle and her friends take over, the misguided moral instructions pervading these stories threaten to turn our children into a generation of morally confused codependents.
The following 13 are some of the worst offenders. If you can think of any other terrible life lessons not covered here, feel free to share them in the comments below.
13. Applebuck Season
The Horrible Life Lesson: Self-sufficiency is for suckers.
My Little Pony begins its descent into codependent madness as early as the fourth episode. When her brother Big Mac finds himself unable to work due to injury, Applejack tries to harvest all of the apples in Sweet Apple Acres by herself, leading to sleep deprivation and fatigue. She eventually allows her friends to help her, learning that sometimes we just can't do everything on our own.
The problem is that Applejack doesn't spread herself too thin by bucking apples alone. Her exhaustion reaches its peak after her friends - the same friends who criticize her noble self-sufficiency - ask her to help them with tasks that anypony else could have helped with.
Rainbow Dash merely needs AJ to fall onto a catapult, launching her into the air - an unnecessary boost for a pony capable of breaking the sound barrier. Pinkie Pie just needs somepony competent enough to read a recipe book. Fluttershy wants Applejack to herd some bunnies that seem more than willing to take direction from Fluttershy herself.
Applejack may have been plenty tired and a bit loopy before all of this nonsense, but it's after helping her friends that poor AJ can no longer muster the strength to finish the harvest. If her friends had followed her example and taken care of their own needs, she might have finished just fine. Applejack could have served as a model of self-efficacy and determination. Instead, she became infected by her friends' over-reliance and lazy refusal to manage their own affairs.