by Reaperfan Fri Jul 20, 2012 10:57 pm
WhatDoesThePendantDo? wrote:But, for example, the buffalo's culture is only revealed until ponies (Pinkie Pie and RD, Dash in particular) take up their cause.
They are not taken regarded as cultured or as having an equal claim to the land by the settler ponies until such a time as ponies begin to champion their cause. And it takes the Chief having to taste some Applejack's Westernized eats to fully come around, because, y'know, the natives couldn't possibly have been eating well without pony intervention.
Looking at only one of my points, eh?
The only reason the buffalo are ever considered "uncivilized" is because of the battle of perspectives being done in that episode. The uncivilized aspect comes when it's told through the settler ponies' perspective, which is intentionally made biased against the Buffalo for the purpose of the episode's lesson. The fact that this is false is only revealed through the interaction with Rainbow, Pinkie, and Spike because they are the characters whose perspectives the viewer sees the series from. What they learn, the audience learns. The Buffalo didn't magically become cultured once the ponies intervened, the intervention is merely the first thing that brought the audience's attention to their culture in contrast to what they'd already been told.
Also, the settler ponies didn't magically decide to understand the Buffalo because Rainbow and Pinkie decided to speak up for them. In fact, the Mane 6 became split, with some of them championing the Buffalo and some championing the settler ponies. Their intervention actually led to an escalation of the conflict as opposed to settling the matter between the two. This leads into your last point (which is really silly btw
), about Chief Thunderhooves tasting the apple pie during the final conflict. He didn't suddenly change his mind out of desperation for adequate food, he did it because tasting it made him realize that the settler ponies had something to offer that he'd be willing to make a compromise over.
Just because the Buffalo have a more primitive lifestyle, doesn't make them less civilized or lower ranking than the ponies. Both sides were equally intolerant, with the Buffalo actually coming out slightly ahead in terms of their capacity for cultural understanding.
