Talk:Newbie Dash/@comment-3292369-20161212224841/@comment-10390252-20170120100813

I think that the problem with this episode is that everyone expects the ponies to somehow be better than we humans on a social and cultural level. Howver, we've seen nothing in canon to suggest that this is the case. Indeed, due to the need to make moral parables of most episodes, some ponies are even worse than average humans in terms of greed, supidity and cowardice.

If, in the real world, tight-knit organisations have initiation rites, brutal hazing of newbies and a rough, unkind locker-room banter, then it's inevitable that we'd see it in Equestria too. This is especially the case of the Wonderbolts, who are military in origin and likely have the same traditions of rough-house 'humour' between colleagues.