Naming Background Ponies Thread!

CMC Scootaloo
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@Frustration in Excelsis
 
You say things like that an awful lot. I thought it’s just for the two mares the Tree of Harmony created, but now you do it here, too.  
I think you should tone the scepticism down a bit. If we see a guard in the show, we need to have a name for them so we can refer to them. It doesn’t matter how similar they look, they are still individual ponies.
 
SecretTitan
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It seems to me that each aspect of royal guard in the series would have to be given a proper name, as in star wars there is a name for each variant of clone tropper. Something like “White Guard” “Gray Guard” or something more inspired.
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@SecretTitan  
We’ve got Day Guards and Night Guards, which seem to be the two major variants. Beyond that is Hasbro finally getting around to having female guards in numbers roughly equal to male ones, which is nice. So, two main variants, plus things like Crystal Guards, Bat Night Guards, Sombra’s Guards (Shadow Guards?), and I’m pretty sure there’s another variant somewhere.
SecretTitan
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@GenericArchangel  
Well, I also referred to the different guard models that appear in each group, especially in the Day Guards.  
 
 
 
I am with the theory that the Royal Guard use a minor spell to change the color their hair and eyes as part of their “uniform” while they are in service.
Frustration in Excelsis
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@CMC Scootaloo  
Two times is an awful lot?
 
I’m not sure what you mean by skepticism, to be honest – I mean, I get why I could come across as overly harsh or critical, but I’m not certain where skepticism comes in.
 
Then again, I don’t think I explained myself as well as I should have. Here’s my point: it’s clear that the individual guards are separate ponies who can be assumed to have their own histories, names, identities and such, but the issue is that the royal guard models, male and female, routinely appear multiple times in any given scene. Their models are not treated as, and do not behave like, unique individuals. Individuals do not generally appear in dozens of different places at once.  
If we see a guard in the show, we need to have a name for them so we can refer to them. It doesn’t matter how similar they look, they are still individual ponies.
 
Very true, but consider these pictures:
 

 
All right, they’re all individual ponies despite looking identical. Do we need a second name for the second instance of Guardian Angel in the one on the left? The one on the right has nearly a dozen copies of four identical models – do we name each instance? That’s clearly not feasible. To begin with, we cannot tell which individual a given copy-pasted model embodies – how do we tell which of the various specific guards appears in each shot they show up in? Do the two guards in the picture on the left also appear in the one on the right?
 
Alternatively, do we name each model and use this name to refer to each picture in which this model appears at least once? That’s much more manageable – we’re doing it for Guardian Angel, the blue mare, easily enough. At the end of the day, that’s what the royal guard, night guard and crystal guard tags already do, after a fashion.
 
Or put another way, my point is this:  
 
These two background pony models are used in the same manner in the show; therefore, logically, they should be treated, identified and so on in the same manner. If we decide that the one on the right does not logically warrant an individual name, neither does the one on the left. If we decide that the one on the left does warrant an individual name, so does the one on the right.
 
Now, I want to make clear that I am not saying we should not name the various guards in any way. I am saying that we need to keep in mind that, when we pair a name with a guard model, we are naming a general type of guard and that that name will be used to refer to large numbers of wholly separate individuals rather than to a single, sole and specific person, and to models that can, and do and will, routinely appear multiple times in any given shot. Background guards are not used like regular background ponies, who outside of very large crowd shots in the early seasons are generally only used once in any given shot and can thus be said to pair any one Flash model with one specific person.
 
@SecretTitan  
@GenericArchangel  
I am very much in favor of this idea. “Gray guard” and “white guard” seem like good general names for the Canterlot royal guards. We already have “crystal guard and “night guard; “night guard”, however, seems to refer to both the Canterlot guards’ night shift and to Luna’s bat-winged guards. I would personally differentiate the two by renaming Luna’s guards “lunar guards”, but I’m not sure how easy or advisable it would be to fight the inertia of the fandom’s and this site’s history of calling them night guards.
 
Sombra’s soldiers already have, well “sombra soldier. There are also the pegasus guards from “Hearth’s Warming Eve”; perhaps “ancient guard” for them?
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@Frustration in Excelsis  
I like the idea of giving individual guard models unique names, but going back and tagging them would be a monumental undertaking.
 
Also, I apologize for largely disappearing from this thread. I’ve been back to running two D&D games a week since the new year and my free time just isn’t what it was. :(
GenericArchangel
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@Frustration in Excelsis  
I think the Canterlot Night Shift guards could be called something like “nighttime guards,” or we could rename the old night guards to lunar guards, which would make more sense. I think we need just the two names (day and night) to cover all the guards, things like “Guardian Angel” shouldn’t be used because that just refers to a gender difference in the guards.
Frustration in Excelsis
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I think we need just the two names (day and night) to cover all the guards, things like “Guardian Angel” shouldn’t be used because that just refers to a gender difference in the guards.
 
Something like “royal guardsmare” might still be useful.
CMC Scootaloo
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I am with the theory that the Royal Guard use a minor spell to change the color their hair and eyes as part of their “uniform” while they are in service.
 
This theory is a lot more enjoyable than FiE’s overtly technical way of looking at the guards as animation puppets. You have put actual effort into this, I will drink to your name with apple cider the next time I gather with my Crusaders on Sweet Apple Acres.
 
Besides, we named the blue guard “Guardian Angel”, so it’s not like we haven’t done this before. We need names for the other guards so we can refer to them properly.
CMC Scootaloo
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@Frustration in Excelsis
 
You’re making this way too complicated. I am carrying the theory that the guards use spells to appear uniformly during their shifts and that this is the reason why so many guards look the same.  
We can’t know who is who while they use the spell, but we can give each of their chosen appearances (I guess they are allowed a certain level of individuality when joining the guard, so they can choose their exact look out of a few options) a name that we then use as a group name.  
We can’t identify each individual guard, but this is the closest we can get to honor their identities.
CMC Scootaloo
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@GenericArchangel
 
“Guardian Angel” is the name for the blue, female guard. It shouldn’t be removed, because that is her name. And there is no reason to axe the tags for the day and night guards just because we give them actual individual names.  
Whether a guard is a day guard or a night guard is identified by the color of their armor and according to that, the respective tags are added.  
The individual names I say we should come up with are not related to their armor type, but the looks of their bodies, so we can have both types of tags at the same time. They don’t conflict with each other.
 
 
@cheezedoodle
 
Isn’t is possible for a mod or admin to just switch out a tag so that all pictures with that tag are re-tagged at once?
Background Pony #F5D1
or we could rename the old night guards to lunar guards,
 
PLEASE DO! I want to be them called Lunar Guards instead of Night Guards. It makes a whole lot more sense and besides….. Night Guard makes it seem like you are working in a museum :/
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@Frustration in Excelsis  
I’m pretty on board with treating each model as it’s own thing, and not just giving special treatment to the mares or tossing all of them under one collective lump of a tag. Alternatively instead of individual names, they could be something boring like “Pegasus Stallion Day Guard” and “Unicorn Mare Day Guard” or something too/instead.
 
@Background Pony #9D2E  
I prefer lunar guard for Luna’a guards, yes.
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@CMC Scootaloo  
Headcanons shoudn’t really take hold in tagging. Unless it’s related to the artwork or artist at hand. I headcanon that bat ponies are a subspecies of pegasus, should I tag that on all images of them? No.
CMC Scootaloo
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@LightningBolt
 
That doesn’t invalidate the idea of giving each different-looking guard an own name, like it happened with the blue, female guard when she got named “Guardian Angel”.  
They are still ponies, so it’s odd that no one has thought about naming the guards yet. And a collective name for each of the guard groups, like all pictures with the female, blue guard are tagged “Guardian Angel”, would allow for a precise way of finding only images of one particular guard.  
And besides that, if we wouldn’t use our imagination to fill in the blanks for things the show doesn’t explain to us, then the fandom would be a boring place. It works for fics and art, it can work for tags, as well. Not everything in the tags needs to reflect things the show outright explained.  
Whether you see them as a creative addition or as a tool to tag pictures more accurately, there are good arguments for naming the guards either way.
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