Talk:Crusaders of the Lost Mark/@comment-5750954-20151019070154/@comment-4531340-20151019075217

As has been stated multiple times before, just because you're really, really good at something doesn't mean it's your special talent - remember how in Suited For Success (a season one episode as well, just like The Show Stoppers), it was mentioned (and then shown) how Fluttershy was really good with sewing, even though her special talent is working with animals?

I quote a really great comment I found on Derpibooru on the subject of them receiving essentially the same marks with minor differences in the center of them, courtesy of a user named Background Pony Number 17: There’s something very obvious and yet very subtle that you’re missing. Yes, the writers spent four seasons exploring the CMC’s attempting to discover their individual talents. Yet, even though those talents seemed obvious, the CMCs never got a clue what they were. In fact, it became a running joke among the fandom how clueless they were.

Here’s the thing, though: Although their individual talents were part of their destiny, they weren’t the sum of it. The CMCs had a higher calling that they were being drawn to, something more important to them as a group than their individual destinies. If not for that, they would’ve gotten their cutie marks much, much sooner.

Scootaloo finally cracked the code when she said, "I don’t care if I never get my cutie mark as long as I can be with my friends." Once the CMCs realized their shared destiny was more important than their individual self-fulfillment, they realized their true talent.

It took four seasons of trying and failing for the CMCs to discover this. So no, it did not come out of the blue. It was, in fact, the logical conclusion of their story line up to this point.

Also, I don't think the show has ever been beholden to the fan art or fan fiction (with a possible exception being Slice of Life), so I really don't think it's should be that unexpected that the show would go in a different direction than fan works had.