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Science!
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Mr. Cake’s head remains in quarter view and his iris/pupil never passes to the audience’s right, only to the left. He’s specifically answering Applejack when he’s speaking. His eye movements only cover the Mane Six in the window in front of him. He’s not scanning the audience, just the other ponies. Moreover, why would Hasbro have told the writer to make a Pegasus and a unicorn? There were no Cake Twins toys even on the drawing board until a year after “Baby Cakes” aired, meaning almost two years after the episode was scripted. And then they were just extras in a blind bag set. They were not a profit source to Hasbro. Pound being a Pegasus and Pumpkin being a unicorn was entirely the writer’s idea, because having an earth pony like Pinkie Pie entirely unable to deal with them was intended to be funny. Nobody was told by Hasbro to do that. Hasbro couldn’t have had any reason at that time to tell the writer that. Hasbro found out while reviewing the semi-final script that the writer intended to do that. It’s possible the writer was told by Hasbro to defuse the obvious implications, leading to Mr. Cake’s explanation. But more likely the writer did that on her own too before Hasbro’s people ever saw the script, because obvious implications are obvious.
His explanation doesn’t even make genetic sense. On his side, it could. If his own great-great-great-great-grandfather was a unicorn, he’s 1/64th unicorn, and maybe it skipped six generations. The lineage is there, if only laughably so. But on Mrs. Cake’s side, a great-aunt’s second cousin twice removed isn’t even a matrilineal relative. He’s not saying she’s a tiny part pegasus. He’s basically saying her grandmother’s sister’s daughter married a Pegasus, and together they had a baby Pegasus. It affects Mrs. Cake’s genetics in no way whatsoever. Or, they’re saying there’s one other instance in her entire extended family of a Pegasus just popping out with no apparent explanation, and the best he can think of is it just happened to occur again with Pumpkin. (Except that the implications for the other Pegasus in her family are just as obvious.)
Adultery perfectly explains both foals. They’re not identical twins; that means they came from different eggs. Two eggs must be fertilized by two different sperms. If one sperm came from a Pegasus, and the other from a unicorn, both foals are explained. But it doesn’t even require serial adultery to explain it; if both sperms came from a Pegasus (or unicorn) who was himself the offspring of a Pegasus and a unicorn, then both sperms could’ve come from the same stallion. However, so does “it’s a cartoon; the script called for a Pegasus and a unicorn to overwhelm Pinkie Pie, and so that’s what they were.” But then they had to put in an adultery joke, because if it’s not a joke…
Yes, Punnett Squares are away of estimating or predicting the probability of certain genetic outcomes. They’re not perfect. No one said they were.
If I may try in his stead.
Explain yourself.
It could be an adultery joke in that he was told that explanation and he’s still unsure whether to believe it or not.
Hasbro wanted the foals to be a unicorn and a pegasus, the writer knows that bullshit will be called, but can’t do anything about it. So Mr Cake delivers his nonsensical explanation and then scans the audience with his eye.
If the joke were about adultery, it would be Mrs Cake looking nervous, not her husband. Not to mention that adultery wouldn’t make anymore sense than it being Mr Cake’s kids. If Mrs Cake had slept with a unicorn, then why is there a pegasus? And vice versa if she slept with a pegasus? You still have the same problem for one half of the twins.
Every single couple we’ve seen in the show and even comics, from ones that are featured more prominently down to ones that are simply implied/or are in the background, has been monogamous. The show may not focus on romance, but it’s hardly uncommon to see it around, so most ponies are surely monogamous, even if I do think poly would ultimately be accepted too, just not very common.
Anyway, I’m not sure how to word much of this post, but I VERY strongly disagree. Even for people in a relationship, going behind your lovers back, getting pregnant, and then tricking them into not know whether it’s theirs or not, is going to be completely unacceptable for the vast majority of people. It’s certainly not impossible to love children that aren’t yours, but it isn’t in any way acceptable for your partner to just go and get pregnant like that.
I wouldn’t dare suggest that, say, someone who adopts couldn’t love their children very much (though many people would certainly prefer their own biological children, of course, and an adoption is not comparable to a pregnancy), but I will never, ever, agree with you that just letting your partner get pregnant from anyone off the street is somehow okay. Not even many poly people would agree with what you’re saying, it’s just such an extreme. Open relationships are only okay when the people involved are consenting at ALL times and everything is communicated clearly, so going behind your partners back and just getting pregnant is extremely disgusting. The ONLY people who are going to be okay with their partners pregnancy not being theirs are going to be the people who already consented to it beforehand. Even most open relationship people would rightfully feel like they were backstabbed pretty horribly if a pregnancy happened without them giving their consent.
And then there’s people who are strictly monogamous, like me. If anything is disgusting, it’s the way you seem to suggest that monogamous people should accept your little philosophy, when in reality monogamy is about an exclusive, powerful bond and such. I could go into a huge rant about monogamy and love and such, but really I just want to get this conversation over with, because the things you say are not pleasant to read. You’re coming from the perspective of a seemingly very extremist open relationship type of person, and I’m a monogamous person who believes in strong, powerful bonds of love and companionship between two individuals in monogamy, also meaning that sex is a special bonding experience between those two people exclusively and that any pregnancy should only involve those two individuals. Our viewpoints are in no way compatible, and never will be, I’m sure.
There are a lot of other things I could rant about, because to be honest, your rhetoric is just extreme, much moreso than any other ‘open relationship’ person I’ve talked to, and it does not do good things to my mood, but I think I need to call it quits here because I’m tired. Again, I don’t think we’ll ever agree with this stuff, your views are radically different than mine in a way that cannot be reconciled, and to be honest I just want to get out of this conversation, because the only thing I can really do at this point is write long-winded walls of text about how very, very strongly I disagree with you about various things. And finding a way to properly word a lot of the things I want to say here is a little difficult.
To each his own, I guess. We definitely have seen that monogamy is a very respectable option among the ponies; weddings and married couples are certainly canon, if uncommon.
But to suggest that loving your partner and foals even while doubting that the foals are biologically yours is anything but beautiful, that’s disturbing. And it flies in the face of the show. Twilight doesn’t have to be a dragon to love Spike, for instance. Nor does Celestia have to be Twilight’s actual parent (nor even her only living parental figure) to love her. Love is not about “I’m with you as long as you do things my way.” It’s about “I’m with you no matter what.” Actual love is, “Sure you tried to murder me and plunge the world into eternal darkness, but I still care more about the good in you, and want to put things back to right between us if it takes me 1000 years.” If you can’t forgive someone’s mistakes (or in the case of illegitimate foals, their happenstance of birth), that’s not love; it’s subjugation. “I doubt those foals are mine; I’m leaving you all to starve in the streets,” is tragic, not noble. “Maybe they are and maybe they aren’t; you’re great and they’re great and I love you all no matter what,” is noble and beautiful.
@Background Pony #6ADE
Somehow I doubt Hasbro told DHX, “Hey, that new foals ep? Stick in an adultery joke. Six-year-old girls love that kind of thing.” Hasbro ultimately approved of it or it wouldn’t have remained, but I’m quite sure that originated with the writer. I’d say the writer knew the implication was false (nobody reasonably thinks Mrs. Cake would actually be sleeping around) even though the excuse made no sense. But it’s not a fourth wall joke; it’s clear his “That makes sense, right?” is directed towards the Mane Six (after Applejack specifically pointed out that it doesn’t), not the camera.
What happened was the episode needed a pegasus and a unicorn to come from a pair of earth ponies, and the resultant implication was just too obvious not to put in. That’s probably why Hasbro let it stay. Putting it out there for a laugh had less troubling implications than if something that obvious had to go unmentioned. Really, it’s Pinkie Pie’s fault; the foals are a pegasus and a unicorn because Rule of Funny required it later in the episode for their interaction with an earth pony foalsitter, not because of genetics.
THIS 1,000 TIMES
Mr Cake’s nervousness is a joke; he’s breaking the fourth wall and sweating because he knows the audience won’t buy it. The writers know the excuse is stupid, but just like when Twilight’s brother emerging ex nihilo, they got their orders from corporate.
The ponies in MLP are very clearly primarily monogamous. There are no herds, end of story. Poly individuals probably DO exist because some individuals ultimately prefer that sort of thing, but I’d imagine they’d be rather uncommon right here. And I’d say the ponies value love and companionship and strong bonds like that a whole heck of a lot, so backstabbing cheaters are most definitely going to be seen as the scum they are.
I do stress that cheating and poly where all individuals are consenting are two different things, obviously, but again, the ponies in MLP are monogamous like us, there is no ‘herd’ stuff, and honestly I’m tired of hearing people trying to shoehorn that stuff in despite how much overwhelming evidence there is for them being monogamous. Either way, if Mrs. Cake cheated, she most definitely is a bad person, and would be seen as such. But she’s a nice pony, and I’m quite confident she didn’t cheat.
And you’re basically glorifying cuckoldry, which I despise with a passion. I find cheaters to be the scum of the earth. Can someone forgive one despite their shittiness? Sure, if they want, but what they did is completely awful and one of the worst ways you can backstab your partner. I really cannot stress enough how extremely disagreeable on a fundamental level I find the nonsense you’re spewing there. There’s no ‘beauty’ in accepting that your partner backstabbed you, that’s downright disgraceful to even suggest there is.
Either way, I doubt we should continue this argument for long, because I can tell already there’s not a chance in hell we’ll be agreeing on anything, because I strongly disagree with you with every fiber of my being. Though, I think you will have to concede that the ponies are indeed primarily monogamous, because there’s simply no way that they have herds at this point. Nor is there a reason they should, these are talking, magical equines that barely resemble horses in any way. There’s really no comparison between them and the horses in their world, and their society does not resemble that of the social structure of horses whatsoever.
I will again mention that poly where all individuals are consenting is fine, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s certainly not something I want, as I am monogamous, but there’s nothing technically wrong with it as long as all the individuals involved are consenting and aware at all times. Cheating on the other hand, and stuff of that nature, is extremely, extremely, scummy.
Cadance is literally going to destroy Equestria with this if she doesn’t knock it off. Immortal beings giving birth to more immortals, who themselves will give birth to more. In a few thousand years, the entire planet will be nothing but a carpet of alicorns fighting for space.
You assume a specific human culture’s morality is 100% superimposed onto a world of talking horses. Mrs. Cake isn’t necessarily a bad pony for sleeping around, if she even did sleep around. In actual horses, one dominant stallion generally covers an entire herd of mares, though less dominant stallions may sneak in when he’s busy. The non-existence of monogamy among their kind doesn’t imply that all actual stallions are “scum” or “a completely shitty person.” It implies they’re horses. Likewise for a mare who happens to enjoy a peripheral stallion while the herd’s dominant stallion is busy. Not to mention that there are polygamous and polyandrous cultures among humans. Other cultures practiced various forms of wife-swapping. Does this mean that all members of these cultures are shitty scum? I’m no fan of strict multiculturalism, but the condemnation of the entire populations of cultures just because they do one thing that doesn’t hurt anyone differently from the US is too far. If you want to say US culture is superior to some other cultures because in the US we don’t throw acid on girls when they try to learn to read, I’m with you. But while the US may be superior to other cultures, it’s not because we have a bee in our bonnets about women daring to be unfaithful.
Mr. Cake’s nervous explanation doesn’t actually imply that Mrs. Cake cheated on him. What it does imply is that cheating is an actual thing in the pony world. If cheating didn’t happen, he might be curious or confused how two earth ponies could have a pegasus and a unicorn in the same litter, but he wouldn’t have any reason to be nervous about it.
The real beauty of it is he ultimately doesn’t really care. He loves the foals and his wife even if he suspects she might’ve had an orgy with their unicorn milkman and a pegasus mailman while he was away, and the foals aren’t really his. And I mean that literally; it’s one of the most beautiful things about the episode.
Regarding the genetic analysis, I think it’s flawed. It starts from the assumption that pegasus and unicorn are dominant. If we instead assume that a pegasus must be PP (PPuu or PPUu) and a unicorn must similarly be UU, and assume that Cadance’s genetics weren’t rewritten on a somatic level while she was alive, you only get a 25% chance of the foal being born an alicorn. Still not very long odds. If you assume her genetics were rewritten, you get a 50/50 chance of unicorn or alicorn. And as Lucky Shot pointed out, it can’t be a dihybrid system, nor can P or U be dominant, in the first place. The Cakes do, for certain, prove that.
The most reasonable explanation is probably some sort of jumping transposon system – like how the same ear of corn can have white, yellow, and red kernels – on top of some sort of switching switching system like the promoter regions of homeobox genes, and that on top of chromosome silencing like how you get a calico cat. Pony race doesn’t seem to be even strictly hereditary, though there would be a tendency to follow the parents. If a foal is conceived with E U or P active, they become respectively an earth, unicorn, or pegasus pony. If none of them are active, there’s not enough magic to create life and the embryo dies in utero. If two are active, they cancel each other and transactivate the inactive one. Only if all three are active do you get an alicorn.
eup=embryonic lethal
Eup=earth pony
eUp=unicorn pony
euP=pegasus pony
EUp=pegasus pony
EuP=unicorn pony
eUP=earth pony
EUP=alicorn pony
But in this case the odds are not 12.5% alicorn as it appears. Shining Armor has two unicorn parents and a unicorn sister (at least at her birth) and so is very likely eUp. Cadance is either EUP, EUp, or euP. So depending on what Cadance is, and neglecting the possibility of a transposon jumping:
EUP and eUp could yield EUP, E Up , EU p , E U p, e UP, eU P, e U p, or eUp. And on top of that, 0, 1, 2, or 3 transposons could jump. If any jump when it’s EUP, the foal isn’t an alicorn. E Up is possible only if it’s p jumping to P. I don’t think we have the data needed to calculate the odds of a particular jump happening, though maybe with a thorough analysis of all foals/parents we’ve seen, we could. The odds don’t seem all that high, though, because most families seem to breed true. Derpy/Dinky, Berry/Pinchy, and the Cakes seem to be outliers.
On a grimdark note, I should add that the odds of specific jumps are probably not equal. The possibility of a pair of pegasus parents in Cloudsdale or a cloud home giving birth to an earth or unicorn foal would be downright tragic. That doesn’t seem to be a general issue among pegasi, so the odds of P jumping to p are probably substantially lower than E or U jumping. Indeed, P/p may not even jump. So assuming P/p doesn’t even jump, the foal pretty much has to start out EUP and have zero jumps, or start out e UP or eU P, and have specifically only the e jump. So the odds of an alicorn foal are probably very small, consistent with the prevalence of alicorns in the show.
I don’t know if you’re attempting to imply it, but there’s sure as hell not a chance that Mrs Cake cheated on her husband, and honestly I’m sick of hearing delusional clowns rant on about how that must be the case. Cheaters are scum, and even IF she cheated, going by your logic, that still wouldn’t explain it.
I’m quite confident that you’re wrong, and the pound twins very clearly are Mr. Cakes. I don’t know if you mean to attempt to imply you think otherwise, but if so, you’re out of your mind. And honestly, I think you give the writers too much credit in that regard if you think they would have a proper explanation in mind, it’s just not the sort of detail that ever really gets included. They probably should have, but it’s no surprise they neglected to.
So, if not recessive genes or something of that nature, which I still think is almost certainly the case, what exactly do you mean to suggest? Because it’s certainly not going to involve cheating. Not that we have much to go by on pony genetics, but if you really insist on sponsoring an alternative explanation rather than recessive genes, then you’d best find one that doesn’t paint Mrs Cake as a completely shitty person.
“Alicorns” are not a mixture of pegasus and unicorn. They are a mixture of pegasus, unicorn, and earth pony, and have access to all three of their otherwise unique magics. This is not possible with a dihybrid system, which excludes earth pony if both unicorn and pegasus are applicable (or else implies that all unicorns and pegasus can also access earth pony magic.)
Also, the characters clearly question the race of Pound and Pumpkin, and even their father is not sure of an excuse, indicating that race cannot be influenced by recessive alleles through multiple generations. If it could, Twilight or someone would know and would have cut in immediately.