In all fairness to Twilight, this was shortly after the changeling invasion.

It doesn’t matter if the other Pinkie Pies were matches of the original, they were shown to be capable of learning, and could have learned from their mistakes. They had the potential to be individuals in their own right.

The first clone was pretty accurate. The next ones lost all thahttp://english.stackexchange.com/t defined Pinkie, they were just selfish jerks.

It reminds me of the Flesh out of Doctor Who. You have the original, and the copy, but can’t both of them be valid beings?

Personally, I felt a swell of empathy for that first Pinkie Pie clone, who proved that the clones were capable of reasoning and understanding the consequences of their decisions.
 
Growing up, I was never the popular one, I never had the best social skills, I was the less important second child, and I sometimes felt like I’d been tossed into this crazy, mixed up world without any clue on how I was supposed to get by.
 
Whatever Twilight’s spell did to those clones, I hope she is in a better place.

Anybody see “Multiplicity” with M. Keaton?

It doesn’t really matter what they were before they were created. You and I were nothing before we existed either, and from the perspective of a dispassionate 3rd party observer, we’re probably not that different from each other in the here and now.

Maybe they are just magic spirits that live inside the pond, and they take the shape of whoever needs a clone. This way they are sent back but still exist. They were no Pinkie’s to begin with.
 
 
Another way to explain this is that if there are souls, the clones had none.

I dunno. Maybe they continue to live (and seek fun) inside the mirror pool.
 
It was never said that those clones would cease to exist after being zapped and sent back.

What if, in some capacity, the first clone (who was most likely also the last one to be sent back) survives, avoids being fully absorbed back into the pond, by nursing a seething hatred of Pinkie and Twilight, and magics a way back up to the surface…

But if there is no Pinkie to mirror, there are no Pinkies in the mirror to have? :(

@cyanfunk  
Good thing my Pinkie clones are just like the real one but a little more disciplined… for the most part.

Since the pond is a mirror pond, maybe in the other side of the pond is a mirror world? That way the Pinkies would still have FUN.

They were sent into their pond. Imagine if Twilight Sparkle shot the wrong Pinkie Pie. Then Pinkie would be stuck in the pond forever.

I say they are lifeless hulls, borrowing their peronality from Pinkie. Acting like an AI using her stats.
 
When she cloned herself there were not more ponies than before.

As the dear magic giveth, the dear magic taketh away.

They were returned to the nothingness they spawned from.

“The Princess gave me the right to one massacre for my tenth birthday, time to use it.”

We find a way to make this show darker every episode, I swear.

Ladies and gentlecolts, I believe we have found our equivalent of “The Flesh” from Doctor Who.

Imagine if you could enjoy life, and you had only 3 hours of that spent in your life together…
 
Imagine how they all felt when only one of the could stay, if they could stare at paint as long as possible?

the first clone was smart but the more she clone herself, the more FUN the clones became.

trufax, it was Bad End for a lot ponies that day.
 
And that last dupe really really should’ve been let go. I mean, she held up like a champ until Rainbow baited her, and you can tell she cared.
 
And Twilight was totally enjoying herself there.
 
=[

and murder is canon since King Sombra.

they did not die, they was sent back to their own world…