Zaid Rants: GanonFLCL's 'Of Mares and Magic' · 8:40pm Feb 18th, 2018

It’s good to know that, as the years go by, I’ll never run out of pony stories to read. There seems to be no shortage of stories about which I can complain, either, which is bad for my liver, but good for anyone who reads these things.

About a month ago someone recommended me ‘Of Mares and Magic’ by GanonFLCL, and not only did it remind me that the pony fiction archive still exists, but that TwilightxTrixie romance fics are a delight which have become rarer over the years.

What’s more, this is an adequately long story with hints of a slow-cooking romance set in motion by a quest of self-discovery for Trixie. This could be a fantastic Twixie story which could scratch my itch for early lore stories. And for the most part, it really was. For the most part.

You should know the drill by now.

Also, there be spoilers up ahead. Not just for the ending, but for several mid-story reveals. You’ve been warned.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m a sucker for romance. Long, short, serious, comedic, overly dramatic, pure, or full of debauchery. It’s my favourite type of story, and I’ll happily keep on reading them for as long as there are stories to read. Today’s topic of discussion is the aforementioned tale about romance hailing from the earlier days of the fandom.

As with most Twixie fics written in 2011, it uses “Boast Busters” as its starting point. After her--at least in her eyes--defeat during the Ursa debacle, Trixie comes back with the intent to prove herself against Twilight. You see, ‘the Great and Powerful’ is not just a boastful moniker, but a title which legally belongs to Trixie. Every graduate of Celestia’s school has a title which belongs only to them, though it can be earned by others through a Magician’s (heh) Duel. By the way, Twilight’s title is ‘the Magnificent”, which I think is adorable.

Nevertheless, since forfeiting would be insulting and disrespectful towards Trixie, Twilight agrees to the Magician’s (heh) Duel, which consists of a series of events taking place over the span of a week and are meant to prove the prowess of an unicorn in several aspects of magic.

It’s around this time that we’re told in the least subtle way possible that Twilight has a crush on Trixie--as in, a few characters explicitly say that Twilight’s only doing this because of her crush on Trixie--and as it is to be expected in this type of stories, Trixie is completely oblivious to this for the first couple of chapters.

However, I feel this is justified with the way her character is portrayed in the story. You see, Trixie got her title by defeating the Great and Powerful Paragon in a Duel, thus earning the title for herself. Paragon was one of Equestria’s most powerful mages in modern history, second only to Princess Celestia herself. He also happened to be Trixie’s father, which is why she’s so adamant to prove she’s worthy of that title, she wants to honour her late father’s memory by showing everyone she’s just as Great and Powerful as he was.

Of course she won’t pay any mind to the little cues an hints which show what Twilight feels, she can only think of proving her worth as a magician, she doesn’t care about romance.

This sets up their dynamic for the first few events of the Duel: Trixie does her best, but Twilight effortlessly surpasses her with sheer power. Still, she manages to pull ahead in a few events until they’re tied. All in all, it’s quite interesting and keeps you intrigued as to how will the Duel turn out.

And yet, what I find most enjoyable is how Trixie develops over the course of these events. At the beginning, she’s your Season One stock characterisation Trixie: boastful, confident, and a bit of a loner. Over the course of that week, however, she starts to open up to others, she starts making friends in and out of the Mane6, and you can see how she starts to care about others than herself. The story itself is relatively short--just under 100k words--but it manages to give Trixie a nice development in the first two acts.

This is a romance story, though, so how’s the romance? Well, once Trixie eventually realises Twilight likes her likes her, she actually starts thinking about it. Her desire to prove herself is still the most important thing for her, and even though she may have started to accept Twilight Sparkle as a friend, she doesn’t know if she is interested in having more than that.

A date and an odd adaptation of “Village of the Blanks” later, we’re down to the last event, which Trixie needs to win if she wants to keep her title. Thanks to the magic of friendship and dramatic timing, they tie. However, Princess Celestia drops by to offer a solution based on the ancient magic known as legal procedures.

Simply put, a year from the end of the Duel, Twilight and Trixie will meet again and have a final duel for the title. Twilight will stay in Ponyville so the rest of season one can happen, while Trixie voyages beyond Equestria in a quest to gain power and knowledge.

From this point, the story turns into an epistolary chronology as we read Trixie’s letters to the group and learn about the new things she’s learning and the new cultures she’s getting to know. It’s quite interesting, and I wish this could’ve been turned into a story of its own.

Back to the romance, though, Trixie also sends a letter for Twilight’s eyes only where she says she’s reached a conclusion about her feelings and will give Twilight the answer she deserves. While one can take this letter as a sign that she will say yes, the letter itself is worded in such a way that it could easily be interpreted the other way. Suffice to say, Twilight will have to wait until they meet again for their duel… and Trixie returns from hunting dragons in the Dragon Territories.

By the way, Trixie ends up not sending any letters after this, nor does she show up to their Duel.

Anyway, since Twilight doesn’t want to get the “Great and Powerful” title by default, she lets it be up for grabs in a grand, Equestria-wide tournament.

I’m about to give up an obvious twist, so you’re warned. But seriously, go read the story, it’s a lot of fun. Anyway, Trixie enters the contest under a painfully obvious pseudonym and through her skill and power manages to win and keep her title. All is smiles.

Finally, after a heartfelt reunion with the girls, Trixie talks about her journey, her lack of letters, why she didn’t show up to the Duel, and why she didn’t try to contact anyone after that. But hey, that’s not what you really care about, is it? No, we want to know what will Trixie’s answer be.

Well, she starts off by asking Twilight if she knows what love is, and how can she tell if she’s really in love. This catches Twilight off guard, but she keeps going. Trixie proceeds to present a genuinely interesting and mature view of love, and it feels refreshing to see it in a pony story as old as this.

Regardless, Trixie finally gives Twilight her answer, and it is that she does not feel the same way for her. She cherishes Twilight’s friendship but nothing more than that.

Understandably, Twilight is hurt, but she accepts Trixie’s decision. Even with those conflicting emotions inside of her, Twilight holds her head high and acts maturely, thanking Trixie for her answer and wishing her well before leaving.

Surprise! After Twilight leaves, Trixie takes out a bundle of letters she wrote to Twilight but never sent. In these letters we can see how Trixie comes to the realisation that she holds feelings for Twilight as well, but just as she comes to accept these feelings, she also becomes aware of the circumstances which would make a relationship impossible. First of all, Twilight belongs in Ponyville, and Trixie couldn’t make Twilight leave anymore than Twilight could make Trixie stay. Part of the responsibilities that come with being Equestria’s “Great and Powerful” Trixie is that she must defend this title much like her father did, by travelling Equestria and carving a name of her own in the lineage of Great and Powerful mages who came before her.

For the record, this is not something that comes out of the blue. It has been established in the story that this is how Paragon, Trixie’s dad, reached his status as a legend by travelling Equestria performing great feats of magic, and is why nobody questioned his disappearance once he passed away. The Great and Powerful Paragon was surely on an epic quest beyond Equestria, of course nobody has heard of him in years. Trixie’s mother was already another famous and powerful travelling mage, so of course she could adapt to Paragon’s lifestyle. However this is not something Trixie could ask of Twilight.

One may think this is an excuse to have a bittersweet ending, and it’s a point of view I can understand, however, I argue that this decision makes sense based on what we’ve seen of Trixie’s development throughout the story.

As I mentioned, she starts as basic selfish Trixie, caring about nothing other than herself, her, and Trixie. However, she gives the first steps towards growth after befriending Pinkie Pie and Derpy, the latter of which was made out of her own volition. She slowly opens up to others about herself, her past, and her father. A few days into the Duel, you can see how she goes out of her way to help those in need--the Crusaders in the aforementioned “Village of the Blanks” scenario--and it’s done in a nice, even progression where you can really feel those changes.

However, you also learn just how important the legacy of “the Great and Powerful” is to Trixie, how growing up next to two living legends shaped her view of the world, and more importantly, of herself. She longs to prove she is great and powerful, not only to honour the memory of her parents, and her magical legacy in Equestria, but also to herself, to prove she’s a worthy successor of the title, to prove she’s just as good, and even better than those who came before her, and that she has earned that through her own sweat and tears.

Trixie is no longer the same mare who came to Ponyville demanding a Duel with Twilight to prove she was better than her. She’s grown as a character, and that growth lends credence to her decision at the end of the story.

It’s honestly an interesting view on what to do when your heart is pulled apart in two different directions. Which passion do you follow? Do you pursue romantic love, knowing you will cause each other pain in the long run? Or do you go for self-realisation, following your lifelong dreams while hoping you can one day find a way to fill that void left by that person you loved?

I’ll take a happy ending any day of the week, but it’s interesting to see a story tackle a love issue which doesn’t have a clear cut answer, where you know you may regret the choice you make for the rest of your life. It’s nice to take a step back and think about how not everything is black and white, how there are shades to every aspect of life, and one must learn to accept the good and the bad in everything, and live with the choices you make, knowing that the resolve with which--Ah, who am I kidding. You know this is all going up in flames, or I wouldn’t be spending so much time talking about it.

You see, I’ve talked about all of what happens in the story up until chapter 11. But the epilogue burns everything to the ground.

Just a few hours after their tearful goodbye, Twilight comes back in full smug, telling Trixie she had cast a spell on her which let her hear her whenever she spoke, and Trixie just so happened to have picked up Twilight’s habit of talking out loud while writing, so she knew everything about how Trixie truly felt.

What’s that, you say? What about that seemingly genuine hurt reaction just a couple of hours ago? Drama, that’s what.

Twilight knew where Trixie was the whole time, she knew she was going to be late for their Duel, she knew she was going to enter the tournament under a fake name, no biggie. She probably acted the part to make it seem more real, I suppose. To whom, I’m not sure since I don’t think she’s aware this is a story.

But wait! There’s more!

Trixie’s commitment to her role as the Great and Powerful, which cause her to agonise over her feelings for Twilight before deciding to ultimately cast aside her love in favour of each following their dreams? Well, Twilight just so happens to know enough loopholes to make sure they can stay in Ponyville. See? No biggie, they just had to look up the Revised Edition of the Duel’s Code.

That sounds like the kind of thing Trixie would have known, seeing how she’s the one who instigated this. Or hey, Twilight was familiar with the proceedings of a Duel as well, why was that never brought up until it was a convenient free-happy-ending ticket?

Oh, and what is Twilight’s motivation for doing this?

"I needed to see exactly how dedicated you were to yourself... to your goals in life. I've told you [...] that the reason I love you is because of your bravery. [...] You'd have given up on your life's goal, for what? Just to be with me? I've learned something about love too, Trixie - you can't depend on somepony else for your happiness. Do makes you happy first, and then find somepony that supports you.”

Is it just me, or does what she says reinforce the message of the original ending? You know, striving to accomplish your goals and be true to your ideals.

Honestly, this whole epilogue reeks of damage control. I’m not going to pretend the preceding eleven chapters were a tightly crafted masterpiece, but it was solid up until this point, every action felt as though it responded to an established character trait, but then the epilogue comes feeling like a hurried note scribbled in a post-it note and tacked on at the end.

And after doing some digging, I suspect that’s a real possibility.

The original story was showcased in Equestria Daily as a series of GDoc files between June and August of 2011, and the epilogue had this little tidbit of information at the beginning:

Uh-huh.

I mean, you could take this at face value and believe that, or--and bear with me here--maybe the author panicked when the readers reacted less than favourably when they didn’t get their happy ending, so a tacked on ending was the response to that, pretending this was the plan all along. I mean, the epilogue barely breaks 2k words in just one scene, while every chapter sits comfortably around 9k words.

For the record, I would have liked a happy ending after the bittersweet ending, but not like this.

I usually refrain from saying things along the line “this is how the story should’ve developed”, because the story is the vision of its author and not the reader. Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder why couldn’t we have gotten an epilogue set a few years into the future when Twilight and Trixie meet again after they’ve accomplished more in their lives. Have them share a heartful meeting after not seeing each other for so long, then they have this deep talk about feelings, what they mean to each other, and perhaps they can try things out now that their lives have stabilised.

Honestly, anything other than the rushed, backpedalling mess that was the epilogue we got would’ve been preferable. I really feel it soured my memory of the story, because the bittersweet ending made me feel more satisfied than this forced happy resolution. I mean, at least some build up to the loopholes, or an indication that Twilight knew about Trixie would’ve been nice. It wouldn’t have had the same impact, but at least it would’ve made sense.

Maybe I shouldn’t binge on romance fics around Valentine’s Day, it increases the odds for disappointment. Or maybe I should just read “Eyes on You” again, it’s been a few months since I last reread it.

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