If given a choice, why would anyone choose to be an Earth Pony?

Two particular ponies on the show, Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich, both demonstrate abilities of a sort that Princess Twilight Sparkle, a prodigy of magic and science unlike anything seen since Star Swirl the Bearded, can neither explain nor reproduce. Both are earth ponies. Coincidence? I think not.
 
That aside, there are a couple ways to explain the runaway success of earth ponies as a society. Probably the biggest one is that of course they breed carelessly, more earth ponies won’t result in scarcer resources, thanks to their innate physical capabilities more of them only means more food and more labor to expand with - the only thing that could stop them is running out of land. Contrast pegasi and unicorns; past a certain point, you just don’t need more weather, and in the modern age, thanks to the Princesses the unicorn race is just another kind of pony and not 1/3rd of a triumvirate anymore.
 
But another thing to consider is the fact that every earth pony, regardless of their special talent, enjoys the full benefits of increased strength, durability, adeptness at physical object manipulation, and arguably an innate connection to plants, nature, or even life itself. Pegasi and unicorns both gain access to special skills as their racial ability, but without special talents in those fields, that never amounts to anything particularly special. If this were cast in RPG terms, pegasi and unicorns would get gimmicky level 1 abilities and special feat/perk/class access, but earth ponies would more or less be getting a flat stat boost good for nearly any class they could choose. In that light, earth ponies would be the most commonly chosen race, purely because they’re better at everything that isn’t outright race-locked.

@Pinkamena 314  
I’d see Earth Ponies being the Humans of D&D or Pathfinder in the land of Equestria.

@Pinkamena 314  
I’m not saying that Earth Ponies don’t play an important part. I’m asking if you would choose to be an Earth Pony over any other type.

@Flippydaman  
>why would anyone choose to be an Earth Pony  
Psh, everyone knows Earth Ponies get ALL the booty.
 
 
In your heart you KNOW this team has a gazillion groupies in every station town.

@Flippydaman  

 
Nope. Flying or telekinesis are bonus fun abilities. Why passing on both, if i have a choice? Physical super strength isn’t very interesting to me, not to mention the fact that i’m thinking it rather to be some inconsistent random fun than serious canon. Come on, why couldn’t Pinkie free herself from the rocks, if they’re all that stronk?

@Background Pony #C39A
 
Because the writers seem to be adamantly against putting any serious, specific thought into earth pony racial abilities, as well as not showing them onscreen most of the time. And even when we do see things that could be earth pony abities, we are NEVER explicitly told that it’s an earth pony ability, which repeatedly allows for the “character-specific ability,” “cartoon bullshit,” and “love poison” excuses.
 
We, as a fandom, have tried our best to fill in the gaps and give functional, obvious credence to earth ponies’ “special connection to the earth,” but we really don’t have any legs to stand on other than “headcanon”… with the one exception of Celestia confirming that earth ponies have magic that increases their strength near the end of Twilight’s Kingdom Part 1. And even then, she didn’t outright say so ; she said that losing their magic makes them lose strength, not that they had an excess to begin with.
 
Overall, it’s very sad how we keep being shown that having a horn and/or wings simply makes you better. :/

@Background Pony #D9C0  
@Background Pony #C39A
 
Thing about Celestia herself mentioning strength as part of the land-tending package, magical enough in nature to be nommed on by Tirek, is this: that’s pretty big. You can’t make it more explicit than that. It’s not as visible in most episodes as, say, fliers having wings, but it’s far from ‘random fun’ and ‘nothing to stand on but headcanon.’
 
As for some being able to do things that we don’t see the others do, well, all unicorns aren’t Twilight and all pegasi aren’t Rainbow Dash, are they?
 
What’s funny on that score is, we’ve seen a lot more like her than with Twi or Dash. (Let’s not forget how ultra rare it is to have their level of prowess.) And consider the feats that are not called out as special; nobody batted an eye at Cheerilee or Ms. Peachbottom’s wrecking ball moments. So, in terms of how likely it is that you’ll be one of the mega-powerful ones, and in how much it’d suck for you if you weren’t… being in earth pony would actually give you better odds of awesomeness, by quite a long way.
 
Like I said, after all that I still pick flying. But earth ponies have real power, and that is not fanon/headcanon/conjecture - if seeing what we’ve seen isn’t enough, Celestia herself is definitely pretty good authority to have it on.

@Background Pony #D9C0  
Horn privilege?
 
Twilight: I will just use a spell to…  
AJ: Check your horn privilege, ya’ll!

@Phantom Rider  
Unless… Celestia doesn’t even realize that she has horn and wings privilege!!!
 
Ohhhh! The plot thickens!

@Flippydaman  
@Flippydaman  
>Equestria has been ruled by alicorn monarchy and unicorn elite for dozens of generations  
>ponies originally lived in tribes, peaceful in coexistence but sequestered by race  
>with population growth and cultural shifts, the vast majority of ponies lives in triracial communities and areas, sometimes along with their non-equine neighbours  
>power, landmastership, titles of nobility, and old money remains largely in unicorn control  
>due to undying monarchy, general peacefulness of Equestria, and lack of major internal conflict, laws and regulations have stagnated and are barely ever touched upon  
>law continues to retain ancient passages supporting both implicit and explicit privilege for unicorns  
>e.g. law on county councils levies a certain percentage of unicorn boardsponies but does not require presence of other races, let alone representation of notable non-equid demographics

@Flippydaman  

 
That’s because of all the cake.

Earthlets, when will they learn

@saby  
I do not agree with most of these conclusions.

@EquestrianScholar  
They aren’t meant as speculation, more like alternative universe headcanon.

@saby  
Ah, my apologies.
 
I thought those conclusions/headcanons were supposed to be that which you had come up with for the show itself not for an alternate universe.

@Background Pony #D9C0  
We do have Appleloosa, though. While it was only mentioned how old the town itself is, there are orchards so vast that they began to interfere with buffalo stampedes, and I find it unlikely that appleloosans were living in tents for at least a decade before they decided to build a town.