Talk:Episodes, films, and shorts/@comment-3410511-20150129170605/@comment-10390252-20150130094718

@Otherside86,

My gut feeling is that they're being watched, probably magically. I have no doubt that their 'benefactor' has some pretty odd ideas about what makes a pony happy and whether or not the pony in question thinks they are happy isn't very relevant. He or she knows much better than them.

It reminds me of an illustration I saw in the rulebook of a tabletop RPG I played as a teenager:

A sign reading: "Happiness is Mandatory! Are you happy?" The sign was on a wall above a hulking and heavily-armed guardsman. Understandably, the people who were walking past the guard had similar fixed smiles to those ponies. Some were actually pointing out their smile to the guard, just to be doubly sure he was getting the point.