@Background Pony #45D9
Where in the actual show does it show that? I watched it and I don’t see it. Show bibles are pitch documents, not actual canon. The writers had every opportunity to put it in the actual show, but didn’t. If it’s not in the show then it’s not canon.
Not all bibles are pitch documents. Some, like this one (which, by the way, is ANG’s movie bible, not a show bible), are records of final creative decisions that were made and work that’s already finished, intended to inform future work based on it like marketing campaigns or further media like shows, comics, books, games, more movies, and spinoffs.
This document starts precisely with explaining how Zipp’s gender is to be expressed in media without explicitly calling it out in-universe. From my read of the actual movie and even later media, that aspect of Zipp was handled in perfect consistency with how it’s described here, so I don’t see what makes the argument for Zipp being female stronger than the argument for her being nonbinary.
By the “only a character verbally announcing their gender can make it canon” logic you seem to want, Zipp’s gender wouldn’t be female as you ionately argue but undefined (and the same would go for every other character for that matter - Zipp having finished media imply rather than explicitly call out her gender is the same way Sunny, Hitch, Izzy, and everyone else were handled). If you want to argue that Zipp is female, the onus is on you to positively demonstrate that this is the case. Disproving all the positive evidence we have that she’s nonbinary (which you haven’t persuasively done but let’s imagine that you hypothetically did) still wouldn’t prove that she’s female.
Serving as a reference - not pitch - for the movie’s canon, vibes, and creative intent is literally this document’s purpose. Details that were thought about but not yet committed to at the time of writing are noted with question marks. Zipp’s gender and how it should be portrayed is clearly not one of them.
@Background Pony #45D9
He came back from a five year comment silence just to complain about a singular nonbinary horse. Definitely needs a perspective break.
@Background Pony #45D9
You are committing the fallacy of negative proof, dude. If the absence of a denial is treated as evidence, then literally any insane headcanon becomes “canon.” The burden of proof always rests on the person making the positive claim (e.g., “Zipp is queer”), not on the audience to prove the negative.
@Background Pony #63C5
In literary and media analysis, we can only discuss the text that was actually broadcast, not the text we assume was censored. Fictional characters do not have internal lives outside of what the writers explicitly put on the page. In screenwriting, when a character is exclusively referred to with she/her pronouns, is explicitly called a ‘sister’ and a ‘daughter,’ and is never given dialogue to contradict this, the narrative reality established by the writers is that she is female. Assuming she is genderqueer simply because she has short hair, dislikes dresses, and likes sports is actually relying on regressive gender stereotypes to overwrite the established script. Furthermore, the standard of proof applies to everything. And the whole rejecting her name thing doesn’t work because A) Zipp still answers to Zephyrena from what I , she just prefers to be called Zipp B) Name changes happen all the time, even cisgender people do it. When analyzing the objective canon of the show, we have to respect the primary text as it was written, not how we wish it was written. And show bibles do not count. If they did, we would have to disregard the entirety of FiM as it is wildly different from it’s show bible.
@Sunset’s Minion
There is nothing to debate, though. The fiction exist within our world, made by real people who still are forced to conform to norms. That’s what censorship is. If censorship due to queerphobia did not exist, there’d be no problem with having Zipp state (and not just show) that she’s gender queer in the text.
To say that queer representation has the same freedom to be as openly shown and discussed in children’s media like we can with cisgender straight characters is false equivalency. Queer characters have to “prove” that they are queer, but that is never the requirement to believe they are straight or cis, even when the text never states such a thing.
Zipp has never stated to be cis in the text. This is just what you are assuming due to her pronouns. But pronouns do not dictate gender. Her sexuality is just as nonexistant as the rest of the cast’s because it’s never brought up, but you won’t hear people ask for “proof” that she is straight.
@Background Pony #45D9
Where in the actual show does it show that? I watched it and I don’t see it. Show bibles are pitch documents, not actual canon. The writers had every opportunity to put it in the actual show, but didn’t. If it’s not in the show then it’s not canon.
@Background Pony #63C5
You completely sidestepped the actual debate. When analyzing media, the only thing that holds weight is the raw, primary text and the direct dialogue. Not external community desires. Real-world scarcity does not magically rewrite the established lore, dialogue, and on-screen reality of a fictional universe. You are explicitly stating, “We already have enough tomboys, so we should reclassify this one.” That is literally what tomboy erasure is.
It is textbook tomboy erasure wrapped in progressive terminology
There are thousands of straight cisgender tomboy characters. We cannot count the amount of canon nonbinary characters in children’s shows on one hand. If anything, this is erasing the very little representation that queer people get at all.
@Background Human
Nonbinary people don’t have to use they/them pronouns. They can also use she/her, he/him, or any other pronoun for themselves. It’s all up to personal preference. Even the movie bible itself says she/her in the same sentence as ssying that she IS nonbinary.
@Not Torchik
It may be simplest to say she’s enby-coded. She may or may not identify as such. If she does, she clearly doesn’t consider her pronouns a particularly pressing matter. (Tolerating dirtbags and horndogs is a big enough ask without throwing gender into it.) But it’s a useful proxy for understanding her character.
@Sunset’s Minion
Zipp never said anything about denying she’s ultimately a girl, she just didn’t want to be treated as such. No amount of twisting you do changes that.
Oh wow, that’s even worse LOL
Nice use of the ad hominem fallacy. Attacking my character just to invalidate me.
He came back from a five year comment silence just to complain about a singular nonbinary horse. Definitely needs a perspective break.
I’d you’re getting so worked up over the gender of a fictional winged horse, you need to take a step back
Yeah. Okay.
You are committing the fallacy of negative proof, dude. If the absence of a denial is treated as evidence, then literally any insane headcanon becomes “canon.” The burden of proof always rests on the person making the positive claim (e.g., “Zipp is queer”), not on the audience to prove the negative.
Bro atp just stop, you ain’t convincing anyone 🥀
Holy shit, you’re so far in denial it’s hilarious. Just accept that you’re wrong
In literary and media analysis, we can only discuss the text that was actually broadcast, not the text we assume was censored. Fictional characters do not have internal lives outside of what the writers explicitly put on the page. In screenwriting, when a character is exclusively referred to with she/her pronouns, is explicitly called a ‘sister’ and a ‘daughter,’ and is never given dialogue to contradict this, the narrative reality established by the writers is that she is female. Assuming she is genderqueer simply because she has short hair, dislikes dresses, and likes sports is actually relying on regressive gender stereotypes to overwrite the established script. Furthermore, the standard of proof applies to everything. And the whole rejecting her name thing doesn’t work because A) Zipp still answers to Zephyrena from what I , she just prefers to be called Zipp B) Name changes happen all the time, even cisgender people do it. When analyzing the objective canon of the show, we have to respect the primary text as it was written, not how we wish it was written. And show bibles do not count. If they did, we would have to disregard the entirety of FiM as it is wildly different from it’s show bible.
Edited
Where does it say Zipp is cis? Or any of the characters for that matter?
There is nothing to debate, though. The fiction exist within our world, made by real people who still are forced to conform to norms. That’s what censorship is. If censorship due to queerphobia did not exist, there’d be no problem with having Zipp state (and not just show) that she’s gender queer in the text.
Where in the actual show does it show that? I watched it and I don’t see it. Show bibles are pitch documents, not actual canon. The writers had every opportunity to put it in the actual show, but didn’t. If it’s not in the show then it’s not canon.
Zipp is literally not being reclassified. It was always the intention to make her enby.
You completely sidestepped the actual debate. When analyzing media, the only thing that holds weight is the raw, primary text and the direct dialogue. Not external community desires. Real-world scarcity does not magically rewrite the established lore, dialogue, and on-screen reality of a fictional universe. You are explicitly stating, “We already have enough tomboys, so we should reclassify this one.” That is literally what tomboy erasure is.
We can barely count*
Nonbinary people don’t have to use they/them pronouns. They can also use she/her, he/him, or any other pronoun for themselves. It’s all up to personal preference. Even the movie bible itself says she/her in the same sentence as ssying that she IS nonbinary.
It may be simplest to say she’s enby-coded. She may or may not identify as such. If she does, she clearly doesn’t consider her pronouns a particularly pressing matter. (Tolerating dirtbags and horndogs is a big enough ask without throwing gender into it.) But it’s a useful proxy for understanding her character.
I didn’t realize it was actually said by someone who worked on it at the time. It’s still a cool thing to make official.
Edited because: Specified opinion on the matter.
Zipp never said anything about denying she’s ultimately a girl, she just didn’t want to be treated as such. No amount of twisting you do changes that.