| “ | And here is the Staff of Sameness. It was one of the great Mage Meadowbrook's nine enchanted items. We are incredibly fortunate to have it here. This is the tool that allows us to free ourselves from our marks! | „ |
| ~ Starlight claiming the staff's false potential. |
The "Staff of Sameness" is an object from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It is an ordinary stick that was once used by Starlight Glimmer to convert ponies in her belief that true happiness can only be found through "equality".
Description
The staff was basically a brown piece of wood that had a swirly shape and two prongs at the top. It has no real power of its own, but Starlight uses it in her ritual to give the illusion that it does.
History
During a trek through the desert on the edge of Equestria, Starlight Glimmer found the strange-looking stick and decided to use it in her quest to create a society where ponies live without cutie marks or special talents. Claiming it to be the Staff of Sameness that once belonged to the great mage, Meadowbrook, she convinced other ponies to let her use the staff to remove their cutie marks and replace them with equal signs to suppress their abilities in the belief that true happiness can only be found in equality. In reality, it was done with a spell that Starlight conjures with her own magic, which she is able to use without suspicion due to covering up her own cutie-mark with paint. The staff is then placed before a vault where the collected marks are stored in a nearby cave.
The Mane Six arrive at Starlight's village and Starlight eventually tricks them into the cave so that she can take their marks as well. Later on, Starlight's lies were exposed when her mark was revealed, and she was forced to admit that the staff was just an ordinary stick and that the cutie-mark removals were a product of her own magic. Outraged, the residents turn on her and then go to retrieve their cutie-marks from the vault. One of the ponies named Double Diamond takes the staff and throws it into the vault, thus releasing all the cutie-marks trapped inside and restoring everypony's talents again.