I saw a couple images sparking conversation on the topic of this episode, and yeah, its probably why its one of my favorites of S3 despite generally not liking Pinkie very much. This stuff was dark when you think about it, and opened up so many possibilities.
We now have a pool that can photocopy a pony into a shallow shell of themselves obsessed with whatever you were when you made the clone. And Twilight now has a spell that can banish anyone, or at least anyone who’s had contact with the pool, into it. A spell she’s been shown capable to be able to use in rapid succession on dozens of pony clones.
You can do a lot with the idea of a rogue pinkie clone, the moral dilemmas of whether or not the clones counted as people (They’ve been shown to be intelligent enough to be taught, and the original clone wasn’t that much divergent from the original’s personality, even remembering (incorrectly, but still remembering) stuff like Fluttershy’s name.
Then you have all the issues and quandaries surrounding Twilight’s method of distinguishing the real one from the fakes. You’d kind of hope that the real one would have just gone visibly Pinkamina when she got all existentially crisis’d and depressed, but even ignoring that, none of the other ponies notice she’s the only one acting differently.
I had the thought when making this thread that a more effective solution to the watching paint dry puzzle would have been to just tell them all to watch the wall, explain that it was very serious that they do because its to determine who is the real pinkie, but don’t openly threaten to banish them for it, then have RD make her distraction. Ideally, every head but one would immediately turn to look at her. Pluck the true pinkie from the crowd (Or at least single out the ones who aren’t distracted), ask her some questions to confirm, THEN rapid-fire pool banishment the extremely vapid, blatant clones. Ones who show the willingness to be more than just FUNFUNFUNFUN can stay, just not in Ponyville.
