Characters of the Shadow Wars: Goldie Pie · 7:29am May 9th, 2014
Golden ("Goldie", "Granny") Pie (b. YOH 1419)
Basic Description: Earth Pony mare, born YOH 1419 in South Dunnich. Orangish-yellow coat, golden mane which has mostly faded to grayish-white, light yellow eyes. Cutie mark is a pie with golden filling.
Powers: Goldie is a High Friend of Paradise and as such can commune with Paradise to receive enlightenment and precognitive visions. She is also the Earth Pony equivalent of a mage, with the ability to directly sense magic and to enhance her hoof-telekinesis to perform operations of great dexterity. She can in general meditate to enhance her overall performance with any skills, and knows much ritual magic.
Capabilities: She is highly-intelligent and wise, and was in her youth strong, agile and healthy. Even as an elder, she is in good physical shape. When she was young she was quite pretty, and she is still fairly attractive for her age. She is charismatic and a natural leader.
Goldie is tough-minded. She's capable of killing, though she has so far managed to avoid killing any Ponies or other sapients of normally-friendly races. She's not a highly-trained fighter, having focused more on science, scholarship, medicine and the mystic arts.
She is a highly-experienced healer and midwife. She also has degrees in Biology and Biochemistry from Miskatrottic University. Her occult lore is considerable, and she is widely knowledgable in demonology. She is also well-read in history, including events which were excised from most history books -- for instance, she knows some of the lore of Discord, Sombra and Nightmare Moon.
Personality: Goldie is kindly, wise, benevolent and loving. Her basic sweetness is somewhat masked by her sarcasm: she can be very snarky and despises ill-will and incompetence.
Motivations: Goldie loves her family, considers it her responsibility to lead the Friends of Paradise and her people, and her honor to play an important part in bringing about the Rebirth of Paradise.
Relationships: She is the widow of Jasper Quartz (1419-1493) and the mother of numerous children by him, the eldest being Cloudy Quartz Pie (b. 1456). By Cloudy Quartz Pie she is the grand-mother of Maud (b. 1476), Claire (b. 1481), Pinkamena (b. 1481), Marble (b. 1483) and Limestone (b. 1485) Pie, the former three having been sired by Paradise and the last two by Cloudy's husband Igneous Rock.
The three Daughters of Paradise borne by Cloudy are special: Maud is the Guardian of Paradise, Claire the Opener of the Way to Paradise, and Pinkamena ("Pinkie") Pie the Herald and Pink Daughter of Paradise. All are destined to play crucial roles in the Rebirth of Paradise. Pinkie Pie is also of course the Bearer of the Element of Laughter, and an Aspect of Thalia, the Cosmic Concept of Laughter.
Activities: From 1481-1490, Goldie is much occupied training all three Daughters of Paradise. That year (1490) Maud goes off to college to study Geology, and Pinkie goes to Ponyville to begin her destiny as the Herald of Paradise. Goldie continues passing on her lore to Claire. In 1493 her husband Jasper dies and she begins significantly aging: she begins to be called "Granny" by everypony, not merely her grand-daughters.
In June 1500, Granny Pie leads the defense of Dunnich and the area around from the Shadows. In September she takes in a demoralized and tired Trixie Lulamoon, finds her a job on the Pie Rock Farm, and mentors her in Earth Pony magical traditions. In June 1501 she and the Friends of Paradise she leads protect a terrified Trixie -- and the scarcely-less-terrified Alicorn Illusion within her -- from Discord, who otherwise would have shattered her mind as a test run against Twilight Sparkle. Later that summer, Trixie leaves the Pie Rock Farm to pursue her destiny elsewhere.
Sources: In "Friendship Is Magic," Pinkie Pie states that her Granny taught her the dispellation she proceeds to cast. In "The Cutie Mark Chronicles," we learn how and roughly when Pinkie left the Pie Rock Farm. In "Magic Duel" Trixie mentions that she spent some time working on the Pie Rock Farm -- she is angry about this, but she is under the influence of the Alicorn Amulet at the time. In Alex Warlorn's Reharmonization we learn what Discord would have done to Trixie had he been able to get to her; I assume here that the key POD is that Trixie was at that moment on the Pie Rock Farm, being protected by the power of Paradise through the potent wards laid around that region by Granny Pie and others (going back to the Princess Iolite Quartz herself); hence Discord would have had to really exert himself to reach her, and was too lazy to make the effort. Maud of course comes from the episode "Maud Pie." Claire Pie is mentioned in An Extended Performance, plays an important role in Pinkie Sense and Sensibility and stars in Least Noticeable and Little Flappy.
I find it interesting that Pinkie is a Cosmic Aspect. She's like a Venn Diagram; two vast entities extend themselves, and she lies at their intersection. Combined with Applejack's non-Aspect status, it makes me wonder about the metaphysics of the rest of the Mane Six. I suppose that will all be made clear in time.
Also, Granny Pie is awesome, and I clearly need to read the Pony POV series.
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Actually, she's not in the Pony POV series save by implication. But you should read the Pony POV series anyway!
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Oh, and I never said AJ wasn't the Aspect of something Cosmic. She's just down-home-country, which doesn't exclude that.