@imercenary  
Alright after remembering what your actual first comment was I see what you were sort of getting at a couple of posts ago. Your other points confuse me though… I think we’re branching off a little from each other.
 
You say it’s unfortunate that we don’t see more interaction between ponies and meat-eating people. I agree, I’m very curious to see how they would touch on things like that, and I guess of all the different races we’re now being exposed to we don’t really see much carnivores around. Unless you count the cat guy from the movie, but I don’t know if they ever actually even talk about him being a carnivore or if they do what Zootopia did and only show him eating sweets. Dog people seem to have a mixed-to-negative reputation in Equestria, but you can’t really tell if that’s because of them being omnivores or if that’s just the way it is, more or less because.
 
I still don’t think what you were implying earlier would be something to expect from MLP as it is in this generation,  
with “MLP could teach that you don’t HAVE to be friends with everyone. Or even that you shouldn’t. Maybe they could have a begrudged respect for one another or a not-so-friendly rivalry.”. I don’t think MLP wants to encourage or even just showcase racial tension much without then turning around and showing why it’s bad, as it’s already done at least once pretty straight forwardly, with the origin story to Equestria’s foundation. I could be misinterpreting this but it sounds like you’re implying the show should have situations where the Ponies, as a collective, have a situation with carnivore people and the show comes to the conclusion that certain people should just stay away from eachother. That’s not what the show is about at all…
 
it just doesn’t quite seem to be a fitting kind of political dynamic. Changelings, though not canonically “carnivores”, are a pest/predator-ish kind of race though and things are looking up for them. I think the movie is making Hippogryphs a bigger deal in Equestria now, and I would assume their diet would be the same as a Gryphon.
 
Sorry for the double post but I can’t edit the last one anymore.
 
Also,
 
@PUBLIQclopAccountant  

 
Personally I think Gryphons at some point could have been a natural predator to wild ponies, in the sense that even primitive unicorns probably didn’t have very good magic. Magic seems to be a kind of skill which is refined over time and study, a lot like a science. But magical. I mean they’re basically a lion-hawk. They could easily just swoop in and grab even a full grown normal horse - which is what a lot of art in other universes depicts them doing. As for the herd-mentality… The basic reasoning behind that survival method in animals is that it’s a sacrifice of the few for the safety of the many. Safety in numbers means that as a giant herd, you’re more likely to survive so long as you stick with everyone and keep running. But the instant you lack behind or trip, you’re the first one to die and the predators stop chasing the rest, who get away. That’s what happens all the time irl. Although the show never explicitly said this, I personally feel that ancient ponies probably got eaten by ancient Gryphons a lot, but at some point in the future once they became people - and then later more modern people - the Gryphons probably stopped eating their newfound friends. The real question is…what do they eat now? Dragons are a kind of ehh thing in the question of herbivore vs carnivore because in MLP’s universe, dragons all eat crystals. They can be aggressive and territorial, but their diet seems to only be crystals, which is a play on the mythos that dragons were evil treasure-stealers who lived in caves with their plunders.

@imercenary  
I seriously don’t even get what you’re trying to say anymore at this point…. Admittedly I may have mixed up the role of Gryphons with Hippogryphs in the show, but still, I don’t see any evidence that My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic is a show about sticking together and being friends, but only explicitly among your race. Hell there was an episode once that actually touched on racial tension between the different kinds of ponies before Equestria’s formation and the point was that only after overcoming that did they find peace. I don’t remember there being any suggestion that it can or should only go so far and they can’t intermingle with non-horse people. Even if such political statuses exist within this fantasy world, I highly doubt the show would actively try to imply that’s good and the way things should be. If anything, the show looks like it’s progressively trying to move their fictional society in the opposite direction, it would only make sense that the Mane Six would be selected to set a new example for how things should be.
 
I seriously don’t get where this cocky attitude is coming from. You’re not making any sense to me…

@Goddess Erosia  

 
Ah, the “I went to school with a foreign-exchange kid, therefore I can’t be racist”-argument.
 
You got me.

@Goddess Erosia  
I view it as a gryphon could eat a pony, but griffins wouldn’t eat ponies in the wild because the ponies are good at defending one another and stay with the herd (and a unicorn could have a nasty surprise in store for you)

@imercenary  
Dude….
 
Discord was reformed, then later so were Changelings. And it’s apparent that ponies have a good relationship with Gryphons as a race, regardless of what kind of person Gylda was. Even if it took several seasons, this shit happened…. I don’t even get what you’re trying to say anymore. I don’t know what kind of diet minotaurs are supposed to have, but if they’re more in touch with their bull side, that’d make Iron Will also an herbivore…
 
Me thinks Celestia wants friendship for basically all life in Equestria if possible and the show progressively seems to be going further and further in that direction. I don’t see how that could be a bad thing considering the message it’s supposed to send.

@Goddess Erosia
 
You say that, but it wasn’t season 5 till Gilda came back. And it wasn’t until season 6 did we get a non-oneshot, less-than-full-asshole dragon character other than Spike named Ember. And after 7 seasons, Iron Will is still the only minotaur in the entire series.
 
Me thinks friendship is only for ponies.

@Goddess Erosia  
It’s a veggie burger.

@imercenary  
wtf?
 
People eating different people?
 
Yeah I’m pretty sure that’s a bad direction to go. I mean traditional cartoons like Tom and Jerry exists on the very foundation of an animal character trying to eat another animal character even if they both talk and are humanized, but that doesn’t quite seem like the template I’d expect from this show. Ponies and dragons seem to have a mixed relation with each other, but there still appears to be some kind of deeper level of diplomacy between the different races of Equestria that is hinted at. If you wanted to get into the politics of this fantasy world, I think it would be very disturbing for there to be some kind of implied agreement that everyone herd-race must present a portion of themselves to be eaten by the predator races. Maybe it would be an interesting idea for a dark dystopian fanfiction or a completely different universe altogether, but not something I expect from MLP at all. Even Zootopia got a little confusing with the way their society functions because they didn’t want to get too deep into it.
 
As for “teaching kids that they don’t have to be friends with everyone”, that’s stupid. The show already accomplished that with characters like Gylda from way back in season one. And it wasn’t because she eats meat - in fact we only see her actually eat fruit. It’s because she was a bully towards Rainbow’s new friends and was too possessive. In other words, the personality of the character. If the show did what you’re suggesting, it would feel more like a statement on race, with a weird racist implication.
 
Going back even further, there’s a reason The Lion King never really gave us too deep of a look into how their world worked. We all just took it for granted that all the animals lived in peace and order, but actually if you really want to pick it apart, it’s as if all the zebra, elk and other prey animals are basically slaves to the Lions who live in fear of being eaten by the top predator every day, yet they dare not defy this master race beyond simply running for their life when need be. That’s…horrifying, and it makes it a lot harder to relate any of the lion characters as good guys, so the movie conveniently showed as little of the inner workings of this strange order as possible and left it more vague, as a kind of “natural order” despite the weird scene where all the animals bowed to Simba-jesus.

Always could use a tough price negotiator

Meat your maker!

At least it’s already dead an butchered.  

@Goddess Erosia
 
Is that such a bad thing?
 
MLP could teach that you don’t HAVE to be friends with everyone. Or even that you shouldn’t. Maybe they could have a begrudged respect for one another or a not-so-friendly rivalry.

Well she was a human once…

@imercenary  
Realistically it’d be a bit confusing because even cows have been shown to count as people in the show, but at the same time they’ve done weird things before. Applejack owns a typical dog and yet there are also dog people, and the movie canonizes that cats can be people too but Rarity owns a not-person cat. So I guess carnivores/omnivores don’t have to be thought of as murderers.
 
I’m sure ponies would feel a bit weird in the company of a meat eater, some would likely be prejudice and stupid about it like they were with Zecora, but over time basic Equestrian xenophilia would settle in and their curiosity about these people would be stronger than any primal fear of predators. In a way, Ponies are already friends with a potential predator - in the wild, if you turn them all into animals and they lose their person-hood, gryphons would most likely prey on ponies because of the small size.

I always wish griffons and dragons (Spike doesn’t count) were used more as characters. The carnivore/herbivore stuff would’ve been great.

@FanOfMostEverything  
ew why is it green though

 
That wasn’t hay.

SHE REMEMBERS MEAT  
SHE REMEMBERS MEAT!!!  
SHE REMEMBERS MEAT!!!!!!!!!!!! D;