Spike, Rarity and Sparity -- An Analysis in the Shadow Wars Universe · 9:03am May 28th, 2014
Introduction
One of the stranger -- and more daring -- aspects of the character interactions in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is that it not only contains an example of a Precocious Crush, and has done so since the very first episode -- but it takes this subplot seriously, rather than merely playing it for laughs as "cute." It's even explored the extent to which the emotions on both sides are long-lasting and real -- and hinted at the obvious problem with it.
I'm talking, of course, about Spike's attraction to Rarity. And the extent to which she returns it.
I. Spike
It's implied from that very same episode that Spike is sexually-attracted to Pony mares. This is unsurprising, as though he's biologically a Dragon, he was raised as a Pony in Pony society.
Moondancer
We see this in that Spike comes into the show with a crush on Moondancer. She's been generally thought poorly of by the fans because (1) she doesn't seem to be returning the crush, (2) she's obviously much more interested in befriending Twilight than Twilight is in befriending her, and (3) she never gets an important role in any episode.-- she only appears on stage in the comics. There's a tendency to see her as air-headed or an outright bimbo, for no other reason than the theory that she's sucking up to Spike to get close to Twilight.
This is all rather unfair to her.
To point (1) she's around Twilight Sparkle's age (17 in my continuity, and given Twilight's own precociousness I could see Moondancer as being more around 18-19 at the time of Luna's Return. What sort of a mare would she be if she responded to the crush of a 10-year-old by encouraging his advances? She's obviously friendly to Spike, given his affect toward her, but it's obvious to me why she couldn't be more than friendly to him. Also, even if one likes Spike a lot as a character and as a person (as I do) Spike's not freakin' entitled to the love of every mare to whom he is attracted!
To point (2), just because Twilight's the main character doesn't mean that her lack of interest in befriending somepony means that this pony is stupid, shallow or morally-suspect. Especially at the beginning, one of Twilight's problems is that she's rather asocial -- she has no real friends outside of her family and her mentor. Celestia was obviously worried that Twilight would end up like Sunset Shimmer or Twilight's own Winningverse ancestor, Sunbeam Sparkle, somepony who understood friendship only in terms of manipulating others. Moondancer gets points in my book for recognizing Twilight's worth and making the effort.
To point (3), there's no particular reason to assume that Moondancer is friendly to Spike only to get close to Twilight. This is based on the assumption that Moondancer is herself callous and cynical, and it also under-rates Spike himself, who's pretty loveable. Another way to read Moondancer's actions is that she's open-minded and curious, interested in ponies and other creatures who are not just normal members of Canterlot society. This doesn't mean she necessarily is a good Pony, but it doesn't mean she's a bad one either -- or one with any bad intentions toward either of them.
Spike's Nature, Background and Personality
Spike's own nature is mysterious. He's a Dragon of some sort, but he's the only one to have been shown to have the ability to cast a teleport spell thorugh his dragonbreath. He's wingless, which may or may not be natural for his Kind (other Dragons shown are winged, and Spike is wingless the two times he is artifically-grown to full size). He seems to have biologically-based Draconic instincts, but these are very much overlain by his Equestrian cultural upbringing, which sometimes confuses him when the two patterns of behavior conflict.
He's around 8-10 years old at the start of the series -- roughly a contemporary of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. By my chronology he's around 12-14 years old at the end of Season Four. We have no idea where Celestia got his egg, when it was laid, or who were his biological parents. That's a dangling plot thread of a kind very common in heroic fantasy, and given the skill of the writers I wouldn't be surprised to see it seized upon in a future episode. By dramatic convention, characters with this sort of background often find themselves related to royalty, major villains, or royalty who are major villains.
He was raised by Twilight Sparkle's family under Celestia's authority. Twilight Sparkle's family, by the evidence, are highly-intellectual, morally-upright Unicorns of the lesser gentry of Canterlot. Twilight Sparkle herself, for all her initial asociality, is gracious, honorable, well-mannered and quite at ease in the highest-society situations (in fact, the contrast between her innocence of matters such as sleepovers and her smoothness when dealing with formal high-society is a dead giveaway that she's upper-class, albeit somepony who's been a "sheltered maiden" -- to use my Luna's description of her).
Spike's own socialization, therefore, has been as a young member of the Canterlot upper classes. He's less-asocial than is Twilight, and one gets the impression that he's frequently taken advantage of invitations extended to her to form his own circle of friends and gain experience in how to deal with other ponies socially -- hence the easy manners between himself and Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, Minuette and apparently Moondancer as well. Given his general affability and cuteness, he's probably found general acceptance among the younger set in upper-class Canterlot.
In short, he's a young gentlecolt. Which is exactly how he later interacts with Rarity, to her delight (she's a social climber and wants to befriend persons of his overall character).
Spike is devoted to Twilight Sparkle. He is proud to be her "Number One Assistant," and is willing to work hard for her at what must often be meaningless tasks (such as her obsessive-compulsive "checklists") just to be of use to his beloved big-sister-figure. This sort of intense emotional connection seems common between the siblings of the Twilight family -- Twilight has a similar relationship with Shining Armor. It's less apparent how close Shining and Spike are, but then Spike's entry into the family coincided with Shining's increasing preoccupations with Cadance and with his own military career. It's safe to say that Shining and Spike probably care about each other. There are numerous evidences in the show that the Twilight family is a happy one -- Twilight's own asociality outside the family seems to have been more of a combination of her feeling a misfit in the wider world with having a very happy family among whom she knew she could always find acceptance and love.
I was born in comfortable circumstances to one of the older and better families of Canterlot, raised respectably in the security of love from my happily-married parents, and further sheltered by the best older brother for whom any filly might have hoped. I do not think that I experienced a single serious worry regarding my own identity, nor feared that I was unwanted.
Yes, there were points in my life when I experienced alienation and rejection: this is part and parcel of being much, much more intelligent than the average Pony. But it was alienation and rejection for my superiority -- so obviously pure jealousy that I found it difficult to take it seriously. The few times that I feared that I was inherently unlovable, that something was wrong with me, I fled to the comfort of my parents and Shiny, who reassured me that I was good, that it was simply others who had difficulty accepting me.
(Twilight Sparkle on her early upbringing, from an unpublished part of An Epistolary Legal Consultation Between Princesses)
Spike shows some signs of normal early-adolescent rebellion. He wants to emphasize his masculinity (hence the moustache obsession, probably triggered by his awareness that he is hairless in a hairy society) by various means, and tends to elaborately swagger and act macho. He is mortified in "Dragonquest" by the awareness of just how feminized he has become by hanging out mostly with females of various ages (the Mane Six and the Cutie Mark Crusaders) and wants to be seen as masculine both by Twilight and by Rarity.
Physically, Spike is a lot tougher and more dangerous than he might seem at first glance. He is armored in scales tough enough that he can literally be used as a pincushion without discomfort, and suffer no worse than bruises from anything but an attack by fairly heavy personal weapons or their equivalent. He is around as strong as a fully-grown Earth Pony -- in fact the only Pony-sized character on the show who is definitely stronger than him is Maud Pie. His jaws and teeth can shear through solid stone, he can chew and digest the hardest minerals, and his claws can score steel. His dragonbreath is initially hot enough to light tinder; as the series progresses it gains enough enthalpy to light a large barbecue grill and by Season Four can melt steel. He can also use his breath to teleport objects, and the limits of this capability have never been explored.
Spike is highly-intelligent -- he can (most of the time) keep up with Twilight Sparkle on anything but the most erudite and esoteric subjects, and he by Pony standards would qualify as genius-level (he underestimates his own intellect greatly because he measures it against Twilight's, and Twilight is a once-in-a-generation level supergenius). Though he affects anti-intellectualism, he is also highly-educated -- though only around 10-14 years old, his knowledge is equivalent to that of most college-level Ponies. He has a wide knowledge of books and is fairly well-read; he reads for pleasure (even though what he likes best are comic books).
He sometimes deliberately tries to act tough and streetwise, but he is naturally-polite and his manners impeccable, when he wants them to be. He has a strongly-sarcastic streak, which he in part has picked up from Twilight Sparkle herself -- but he doesn't hide it as well as does Twilight. He is normally extremely-kind and solicitous. His main flaws are typically-draconic: he is greedy, selfish and inclined to jealousy by Pony standards. (By Dragon standards, he is incredibly generous, altruistic and tolerant of rivals -- which, depending on the rest of his reputation, will make him either despised as a weakling or revered as a saint by other Dragons, when he gets the chance to befriend some).
When first introduced, Twilight Sparkle is by far the most important person in his life and his best friend. As the series progresses, his crush on Rarity deepens into a very strong friendship and long-term love interest, and he becomes very loyal to her -- though, significantly, at this point still nowhere near as loyal as he is to Twilight. It significantly shows the depths of his feelings for Rarity that she is able to bring him out of a Draconic berserker state. By the end of Season Four, Rarity is his best friend and the pony with whom he spends the most time save for Twilight herself. He also has significant friendships with the other members of the Mane Six, especially Applejack and Fluttershy; and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, especially Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.
Spike is very much torn between having distinctly adult reponsibilities and relationships (he is the aide to one of the Realm's Princesses and frequently assists her in matters of importance to the whole Realm, and sometimes assists the Ruling Princess, Celestia, with other such matters) and still being in many ways a child (even in my chronology, he's only 13-14 years old at the end of Season 4). One significance of his friendship with the Cutie Mark Crusaders is that, with them, he gets to display the more purely childlike (and increasingly adolescent) aspects of his personality.
II. Rarity
Background
By my chronology, Rarity Belle is around 18 when the series begins and 22 by the end of Season Four. She comes from a respectable lower middle-class family -- her father is a sports-obsessed ex-athlete and her mother a very conventional homemaker. Her father wanted her to become an athlete herself, but she from an early age wanted to be a fashion designer who moved in high society -- something that would require her learning and practicing highly-specialized skills and either becoming a great businessmare or making a very good marriage -- preferably both. She's been pursuing both paths since before she even earned her Cutie Mark.
Rarity's origins are interesting from both lines. Other branches of the Bell / Belle family have been socially-prominent (hence my reference to the Belles of Manehattan) ...
...
Belle View Hospital was a huge pile of masonry, raised almost two hundred years ago as the Enlightenment started to spread from salons and laboratories to the more practical world of medicine. It had been founded by Claria Belle, a rich Manehattan society widow, heiress to a shipping fortune, who had decided to devote her declining years to good works: there were institutions named "Belle" all over the city. The Belle family was extinct now in Manehattan, but many of Claria's good works remained.
... and the Sweeties are descendants of Melody the Songsmith, and have actually managed to preserve some of her lore over four thousand years of history. Both these facts convinced Rarity that she was destined for greatness, and she has spent her life trying to live up to and surpass this heritage.
When Rarity was 11 -- several years younger than the normal age for the school -- she was accepted into the Fillydelphia Institute of Fashion. At 12, she fell in with a clique of older and rather vicious Mane Liners (the "Mane Line" is what the social elite of Fillydelphia term themselves). She thought that their leader was in love with her, and she gloried in the notoriety of being seen with such a prominent young Pony in the big city. Events ensued as one might expect them to, and she was cast aside by that clique. Her emotional strain was such that she lost the only possibly-happy consequence of her acquaintance with that shallow young stallion.
At 14 she was ashamed of herself, emotionally-devastated, friendless (she'd alienated all her old friends during her brief reign as Alpha Bitch) and seriously-considering suicide. She rallied, devoted herself single-mindedly to the pursuit of her studies and the development of her art, and made up for her time of dissipation, graduating with high marks at 16. She returned to Ponyville, opened the vacant Carousel Boutique -- financing it by following her gem-finding talent into some highly-dangerous places -- and making it an initial success through hard work. A year later, the Call came knocking at the Equestriad Summer Sun Celebration at Ponyville.
The rest is history.
And now you know why (my) Rarity rocks.
Personality
The thing to understand about Rarity is that she has a surface of extreme elegance and refinement, covering a bitter, cynical, determined, tough-as-nails survivor, which in turn covers an extremely idealistic, loving and warm basic personality. She is one of the elite in her dreams, and has decided that she will become one of the elite in reality. All her efforts are bent toward this end.
She has strong faith in a hard-to-define personal quality which she herself calls "fabulosity." This is a combination of moral integrity, emotional warmth, overall generosity, impeccable manners, flamboyant style, and many other subtler traits, all of which she strives to embody. It is the antithesis of banality, callousness, mediocrity, selfishness and viciousness. It is in part fueled by admiration for the most idealistic concept of aristocracy, in part by a rebellion against her lower-middle-class upbringing, and in part against the shallowness she discovered among the Mane-Line youth in Fillydelphia. (It is also in part fueled by shame at the amorality, cruelty, foolishness and selfishness she herself displayed there).
(Somewhere in the back of her mind is the memory of a frightened, abandoned and pregnant thirteen-year-old filly, friendless and ashamed to tell her family what was happening to her, and then a half-year later the same filly -- after a miscarriage -- staring obsessively at a pair of cloth-cutting shears, thinking seriously about abusing her own great telekinetic talent by burying those same shears in her heart. Faith in fabulosity was how she gathered up the courage to rebuild her life after that, so it means a lot to her).
In terms of "Uplifting" versus "Degrading," Rarity's ideal is the essence of Uplifiting -- she wants to Uplift both herself and everypony else she can influence. This is of course an immodest goal, but then Rarity has never been modest.
Rarity is highly intelligent, imaginative, and creative. She is also extremely competent and hard-working. She runs the Carousel Boutique -- an operation which would normally require at least three Ponies to crew -- by herself, making this possible by means of her extremely-adept telekinesis and her capacity for organization and self-motivation.
She is also an unabashed social climber. She goes out of her way to befriend any ponies she can find who are of higher social status and acceptable personalities, with the hopes of making contact at higher levels of society. Her friendships with Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Spike and (most obviously) Fancy Pants are all easily understandable in this light. This does not preclude real and deep emotions on her part -- she very much loves Fluttershy and Spike, has the warmest admiration for Twilight Sparkle, and regards Fancy Pants as her mentor and patron. But the social-climbing aspect of these friendships should not be ignored.
The ultimate expression of this is that her romantic fantasy is to woo, win and marry a stallion of higher social status than her own. This normally takes the form of strong crushes on high-status stallions of whom she has not actually made the acquaintance (they inevitably disappoint her when she actually meets them, because they don't even remotely live up to her personal standards). From 1497-1501 the focus of her romantic regard was Prince Polaris Blueblood, whom she despised when she met him. In 1503-1504 it was Trenderhoof -- that failed when he fell for Applejack and Rarity eventually realized his own shallowness. Those are merely the two longest-lasting and best-known of these unconsummated crushes.
Rarity has a strong sex drive, and is very heterosexual. This creates an emotional conflict with her moral idealism. If she were amoral she really would have a line of stallions in her bed as in the worst clopfics about her. As it is, she may have had some affairs in Canterlot or at fashion shows. If she did, she's been discreet -- nopony knows for certain about them.
Rarity would not, however, become involved in such a fashion save where she felt genuine love -- to do otherwise would violate her own concept of "fabulosity." And Rarity has rather high standards in this regard. So those rumors may well be false. It is obvious that one way she burns off her excess libido is through her fantasy-crushes, and possibly private thoughts and actions regarding such individuals.
Rarity is also very much interested in marriage. This is partially because marriage to a handsome and upper-class stallion (more recently, she's been thinking more in terms of somepony creative and inteligent like herself, who would understand her various business and social maneuvers and be her partner in them) would be a fairy-tale "happy ending" to her single life. This is also because -- much as she is ashamed of the conventionality and mundanity of her family background, she was brought up by happily-married parents and sees romantic love in that light.
"My parents can be annoying," she confided. "But they love each other madly. They have my whole life. I've never seen my father look seriously at another mare. And the way he looks at my mother -- it can be very embarrassing, but it's also very beautiful." (from A Robust Solution)
III. Sparity
Spike's Point Of View
This began as an utterly shallow crush on his part. He was in a new town, he saw a very pretty and elegant mare, far more sophisticated than he would have expected from the point of view of the town, and he liked the color of her coat, her elaborate hairstyle, and a grace of movement and firmness of musculature that far exceeded the average. By this point Spike had a vague sort of notion of how physical love might be consummated (from the same source as Twilight's own notions in that regard, namely books -- generally, as they live together, the same books) and Rarity probably figured in some dreams and fantasies whose contents he would probably have found very embarrassing to be revealed to anypony else he knew. (If Luna knows, she isn't telling: she normally keeps secrets like that, and keeps them well. There are times that other ponies -- or dragons -- should be glad she has a firm code of honor).
Then, over time, he got to know her. And as he got to know her, he found out that Rarity's beauty of form utterly paled in comparison to her beauty of character. And, when Rarity returned at least his friendship, and actually wanted to have him around her on a regular basis, a transient pre-adolescent crush began to develop into a deep friendship and a serious romantic attraction. At least from a Pony point of view.
What nopony -- and not even Spike -- realized at the time was that he was bonding to Rarity.
"I see," said Luna. He had it bad. What was more, he was obviously on the verge of lifebonding with her. Dragons did not love easily, and sometimes they just mated instead, but when they did love, they were very monogamous. More so than most Ponies, and most Ponies were far from wanton.
Luna, who herself was far from wanton, could understand how Fischfootur felt. She felt the very same way every time she thought of Dusk Skyshine. And to a lesser degree when she thought of several other stallions, all of whom were long-dead, and one of whom she wished was long-dead, but whom she feared was only sleeping.
(Luna, with regard to Fischfootur the Dragon, son of Greattfisch who is Lord of the Northern Isles)
Dragons aren't very gregarious beings aside from their families and a very few friends. Naturally top predators, they are much rarer than and less chummy than are Ponies. Dragons instinctively assume that any entity with whom they spend a lot of time with strong emotional affect must be very important to them. (Which really isn't that alien to how Ponies think either, it's just that as archosaurs, Dragons have some serious rigidities in their thought processes compared to those of mammals).
Spike consciously thinks of Twilight as his adoptive sister, but he subconsciously thinks of her as his mother, because she has been supportive of him and cared for him to a degree that would be rare among actual Dragon siblings. One of the things delaying his physical growth, in fact, is that he's giving off all sorts of happy hormones that are telling his body that he's still in the home lair, and getting unusually-protracted care, and should take advantage of it by completing each growth stage to the maximum extent.
Which is one reason Spike's going to, in the end, become a very huge Dragon, and one of the ones with the capability to easily live for many millennia -- his body has gone onto the "I'm getting super high K treatment" developmental path. Dragons are, after all, a very old race, much older than are the Ponies, and have been sapient for tens of millions of years, and have enjoyed or suffered many changes of culture during that tremendously-long evolutionary history.
Spike -- raised by Ponies -- is very gregarious indeed by Dragon standards. And neither he nor Twilight ever fully-grasped the danger of letting him spend that much time in company with Rarity, because to Twilight -- thinking in Pony terms -- the only danger would be that Rarity might amuse herself by seducing Spike -- and Twilight trusts that Rarity is far too decent to take advantage of him in such a manner. Which Rarity, of course, is..
The problem is that Spike's instincts have already read Rarity's behavior as "acceptance by a desired unrelated female." And read Spike's own reaction to Rarity as "exceptional admiration for a desired unrelated female." Spike's instincts have told him that he should begin a courtship aimed at lifebonding with her. And while Rarity's not a dragon, she's a very draconic Pony, so she's been (unwittingly) giving him the "right" signals back that have told his instincts that his courtship is being accepted.
Spike is not fully aware of the improbability of his suit being accepted, in part because while not really a "baby" dragon (that appellation comes from a combination of Twilight's protective instincts with her confusion by the apparent stasis in Spike's physical development) -- he is in many ways a child, both by Pony and Dragon standards. And he's grown up reading Twilight's chivalric romances, recently enhanced by Twilight's and Rarity's more explicit romance novels (which both Twilight and Rarity would be quite shocked and embarrassed to discover Spike's been reading). So he's very much inclined to believe that "true love can conquer all."
Nor are his goals entirely unrealistic. Rarity is not betrothed to anypony else. She obviously does love him more than she does any other male. And one of the main problems -- his youth -- is a problem that cures itself with time. (Far from being immature by reasoning that way, Spike is actually being more mature than are most adolescents, Human or Pony, by understanding this -- but then, he comes of a naturally very long-lived species). As for the species barrier, Rarity's never indicated to him that this is in any way an obstacle from her point of view. And -- unlike most children -- Spike's entirely serious about his courtship.
Plus, his instincts tell him that there is a mode of absolute and lifelong acceptance which Rarity might take toward him, and that she's receptive toward it. This is neither his nor her fault, as Rarity is mostly giving him signals which a Pony would understand as an acceptance of close friendship. However, that is what is happening.
This has been building very slowly since he first met Rarity in late June of YOH 1500. Key moments have included his participation in the rescue of her from the Diamond Dogs against significant physical opposition in May 1501; his growing awareness that every other friend he has is aware and seems (by Dragon standards) to approve of his courtship (they're not trying to drive him off her); Rarity's abandonment of her main previous romantic focus (Blueblood) in September 1501 (this had nothing to do with Spike's actions, but he was one of the two individuals she most turned to for social consolation afterward); her emotionally-needy state after her experience with Discord in September 1501; the apparent triviality of every one of her crushes afterward; her apparent failure to find a mate during her successful entry into Canterlot High Society in April 1502, the fact that she alone could reach him and bring him back from madness (which demonstrates that on his end he'd bonded to her) in May 1502; her role in following him and bringing him back from the other Dragons in October 1502 (the other participants were Twilight, who he already sees as a mother-figure, and Rainbow Dash, whom he likes as a friend bu t with whom he is not at all romantically-bonding) and finally that he has twice been able to bring her back from madness due to their special emotional bond -- first in September 1503 when she became Nightmare Rarity, and then in the fall of 1504 when she fell under the sway of the Inspiration Manifestation spell. These last two incidents confirm to him instinctively that she is reciprocating the lifebond.
The link is not yet fully-formed, because she hasn't done all the things which he's learned from his Equestrian upbringing would constitute acceptance of courtship (such as betrothal), and he and Rarity have not yet actually mated. Nor is he doomed to continue on this course -- Dragons are fully sapient, and can control their own emotions to some extent (as can Humans or Ponies). He is on this course, though. Nor are Dragon lifebonds necessarily unbreakable -- though a lifebonded Dragon tends to be much more monogamous than are most Ponies, and Ponies are relatively very monogamous for mammals.
Rarity's Point of View
This was never part of Rarity's plans. And the whole idea bothers her on so many really deep levels.
Spike is eight years her junior. When she met him he was 10; now he's 14. He is, in fact, in exactly the same age range that Rarity was when she was seduced. And Rarity is older compared to Spike than was her seducer compared to herself (the age gap there was only 3-4 years). Rarity would see herself as a moral monster if she attempted to make Spike her lover in the physical sense of the word.
Rarity has always liked Spike. He's an exotic creature with genius-level intelligence by Pony standards, and the manners and morals of a well-brought up Canterlot gentlecolt. He's the younger adoptive brother of somepony else whom she personally admires, Twilight Sparkle. He's almost always treated her with kindness, courtesy, respect and admiration. He listens to her long monologues about her belief in her own destiny and the things she does to achieve it. And he is extremely willing to help her in practical terms (to Spike, marriage would mostly be a transfer of to whom he would be the Number One Assistant). Whatever else Spike has become to her, he's her best friend.
But of course she can't romantically love him. He's not a stallion of greater age and higher social status than herself. He's a child, who acts as assistant to one of her other friends, and he's not even a Pony. She can't wait for him to get older; she has no idea how long that will take, and she both has a strong sex drive and is very aware that her own marrigeability is very much a wasting asset -- she's not an Earth Pony, who may expect to retain her fertility into old age. Nor do the Belles have a tradition of late marriage like that of the Apples. There are many, many reasons why letting herself feel romantically toward him would be a very bad idea, not the least of which being that if it didn't work (and how could it?) she'd have simultaneously alienated her leader Twilight, and her best friend Spike.
And yet ...
She's long past the point of caring about his species. To her he's simply Spike, sui generis. She's strongly touched by his own love for her, which is very pure and yet very passionate, offering her a combination of all her romantic ideals. She's also very much affected by his high opinion of her, the more so since 1503, when he learned her most shameful secret, saw the darkest side of her personality -- and still loves her. These are things she would not feel comfortable exposing to any other suitor, and things to which she would need to admit if that hypothetical other suitor and her were to have a really honest marriage.
He's her best friend. There's no-one she trusts more in the world, no-one with whom she feels more comfortable. His company makes her happy. He already knows her business, has helped her with her career, would easily and naturally move into the role of her partner and helpmeet. Unlike the sort of stallion who figured in her adolescent fantasies, he wouldn't mind that sort of implicitly subordinate role. He'd gladly move from being Twilight's Number One Assistant to being hers; he's made that plain by his behavior.
And ... Rarity's a social climber, but she's a very intelligent one. She has long been coming to the realization that, by being the Element of Generosity, she's moved into a whole realm of status parallel but ultimately higher than anything she could achieve as a fashion designer (which doesn't mean that she doesn't still want to promote her designs, they're an expression of her creativity and talent, of her faith in fabulosity). In 1502, she personally experienced the reality that Princess Celestia was willing to receive her as a friend. When Twilight was crowned in 1503 she became, essentially, one of the closest companions of royalty -- a status made official with Twilight gaining her own castle and responsibilities in 1504, with Rarity one of her explicit Companions. Which means that she's already at almost the level of status she had hoped to achieve by marrying a Prince Minor.
And she's realized something about Spike. He is on the very short list of individuals who can visit any one of the four Princesses of Equestria, including Celestia and Luna, unannounced -- and normally be received by them. He's the brother of a Prince and a Princess, which makes his status effectively that of minor royalty or high nobility. He's been formally acknowledged a hero of the Crystal Empire -- a realm whose prestige is actually older and higher than Equestria's own. He chooses to play an unassuming role, but he in fact is of very high status himself -- in some ways, equal or even greater to that of Blueblood. She could work with that. Very easily work with that. (Rarity is nothing if not a quintessential Designing Mare, and raising Spike's status would give her great joy whether or not she were his wife).
Really, the only thing keeping Rarity from responding to Spike's suit is his age.
And Spike is getting older.
Conclusion
Rarity and Spike are not lovers. Yet.
However, they may well wind up being not merely lovers, but spouses. And they are very personally-compatible -- their marriage would probably be quite successful for both of them.
The best of luck to both of them.
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Comments, regarding either this fanon Rarity and Spike, or the canon Rarity and Spike, are most welcome.
I've never been under the impression that Spike had a crush on Moondancer. He's not particularly bothered by the fact that he'll miss the party, and is rather excited to go to Ponyville instead - not the behavior of a young guy missing a chance to be with the girl he loves/crushes on.
Yes, he had a gift ready for her, but in a lot of cultures it's custom to bring a gift to the host, even if you're not romantically inclined.
My interpretation, given lack of further evidence, is that she's just an acquaintance and he's being social (far more social than Twilight, at any rate). Though I can admit that he's obviously interested in mares in general, having been raised in pony culture and thus imprinted.
I do like this essay on what the 'Sparity' relationship is like and what it may become, as well as your own takes on Rarity and Spike. Your ideas of their personalities sound better than most such takes I"ve seen in fandom.
And this line, oh dear, it sounds like the set-up for a comedy story:
And he's grown up reading Twilight's chivalric romances, recently enhanced by Twilight's and Rarity's more explicit romance novels (which both Twilight and Rarity would be quite shocked and embarrassed to discover Spike's been reading).
I can just imagine poor Spike turning red as a ruby if either Rarity or Twilight -- or both! -- caught him reading them. The only way it might be worse would be for the CMC to stumble across his 'stash', read them, and ask innocent questions of their big sisters.
I also imagine 'your' Spike hasn't been reading any of the despised by Twilight pulps that he has in WiPC. They might also give him an unexpected education; though in reality most of them were downright chaste by literary standards.
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You're right -- a lot of fanon tends to assume the existence of that crush (Spike on Moondancer) despite the evidence for it only being minor. Well, if it existed it clearly wasn't very deep, as he never refers to her later even though he frequently visits Canterlot. I'm guessing that his friendships in her set were superficial compared to the ones he later makes in Ponyville.
By contrast, the reason I consider Spike's attraction to Rarity to be so serious is that it's been a subplot from the very first episode of the series, and it is if anything even stronger now after over four years (or one year, depending) of Spike being in frequent, prolonged and socially-intimate contact with her. A mere crush usually dissipates upon such close acquaintance.
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I'm glad that you liked this essay. I was actually worried that you specifically would hate it, because of the harshness of the backstory I inflicted on her. I did so because something I've noticed about her in the series -- her darker side is by far the most bitter and cynical of any of the those of the Mane Six. This implies -- at some point in her life -- an experience of betrayal and resultant suffering.
There are several possibilties, of course. But some are closed off by the fact that Rarity obviously comes from a very loving family, and others by the fact that she is obviously somepony who was very socially adept from a very early age. The one I picked -- seduction by a higher-status colt when still a filly, pregnancy, abandonment by the foal's father, and miscarriage -- has the merits of fitting some of the known facts about Rarity: she has a high sex drive and a hunger for social status. It is also very melodramatic, the sort of thing that would happen to the young heroine of one of the more realistic historical romances. And any backstory for Rarity needs to include melodrama.
Rarity's shame at all this is not based primarily on the fact that she lost her virginity at an early age, though that's not exactly something of which she's proud, either. Nor even that she so badly misread his personality (this stings her pride, though, since she's generally very good at understanding the motivations of other Ponies). To her, the worst of what happened were two things -- that she let herself be corrupted by her sudden increase of social status into treating her old friends badly, and that under the emotional and physical strain she lost the foal.
I had her treat her old friends badly precisely because this is an action which her new friends would demand of her (they don't want to be associated with those lower middle-class types) and toward which she would be tempted by the desire for status (plus it's the sort of thing that would come up in the typical pre-teen or teen dramatic show). It's also very specifically un-Generous, and hence something which would deeply bother Rarity later on.
I had her lose the foal because such an outcome would be quite likely (she was only a bit over 13, she was emotionally isolated and not getting proper physical care, and she was under tremendous psychological stress -- she'd be signalling her instincts that her own life was threatened and her body would spontaneously abort under such circumstances). It's also something that made her feel horrible -- because it's an act of un-Generosity she couldn't control.
Rarity reacts to this darkest moment in her entire life not by collapsing, not by giving up her original ideals and goals, but by making both of them more ambitious and more explicit, and throwing her self into achieving them with such single-mindedness that she graduates in three years and quickly gets together the funds to open the Carousel Boutique. Which is why I say "Rarity rocks," because she's really, really strong.
But the fault-lines remain from the time she was broken, and the Night Shadows exploit them, oozing in to corrupt her soul in my version of the Nightmare Rarity arc, in the Late Summer of 1503. Spike plays a key role in bringing her back, because (the sanitized version Celestia released cannot explain) he knows her secrets and admires her anyway. That's one of the big reasons she loves Spike. Because he's there for her when she really needs him.
And yes, I do see the comedy potential involving Spike and romance novels. Or for that matter pulps. I see Spike as reading pretty much whatever he considers fun or exciting, and not being too concerned about what Twilight thinks of the literary merits (besides, he knows that Twilight herself reads a lot of stuff she claims to despise.
One of the funnier implications is that -- especially given that Rarity and Twilight are sharing a lot of their reading now, since Twilight runs the library and they are friends and probably talk about books with one another -- Spike is now operating off the same universe of shared trope assumptions as are they. That could reveal itself in terms of stray turns of phrase on Spike's part. Rarity pays attention to those sorts of things, and Twilight is just plain smart.
If the Cutie Mark Crusaders are like any group of tweenie Human girls I've known, they're probably getting interested in the spicy stuff, and probably digging some of it up at the Carousel Boutique, or possibly the library. They also probably don't understand the references all too well. Spike would probably understand them a bit better, because he hangs out more among adults, but his knowledge would also be theoretical.
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I flat-out forgot she was ever mentioned in the cartoon. You can tell I haven't watched the first episode in awhile.
(I have seen Moondancer in the comic and I wish they would use her more. G1 feeeeeels.
)
But overall, even outside of your specific fanon universe, Jordan, you've presented exactly why I seriously love Sparity, but haven't gotten around to reading a lot of it. They have a beautiful potential relationship, but right now he's just a kid. I like the idea of it becoming something more and I think you've laid out some perfectly canonical thoughts that I have yet to truly see, but which also make it infinitely more interesting (although I confess I haven't read a ton of MLP fanfic thus far; most of it goes into my read later pile.)
I think Obsolescence hit the nail on the head, in his most recent blog post, for why I steer clear of Spike in a lot of fanfiction. You, on the other hand, have pointed out exactly what I love about him, whether he is with Rarity, someone else, or no one at all. I'll admit I was kind of miffed that the Equestria Games were more about him than the actual games (I was hoping for Animalympics), but I was quite happy to see more of Spike. Inspiration Manifestation was also his best episode to date, IMHO, but he's always been a shining part of any story that he's in. I think the bigger problem is that he's often presented in such heroic terms that his biggest fans forget he's just a person, for lack of a better descriptive. I know that sounds weird, but we just don't get enough of him on his own and when we do, it seems really awkward and I'm not sure why. Perhaps I expect too much out of the cartoon, but his inherent nature and its contrast and comparison with both pony and dragon society is what I want to see. At the same time, I don't want a retread of his greed. That's not what I mean at all.
I think you basically summarized the incredible dichotomy of his soul and that's why I love him, but I usually feel like the canon is skimming the surface whenever he's in the limelight. Maybe I'm just cynical though.
Btw, I haven't replied to the Fluttershy response because it's so many words. I had to get in the right mindset to want to delve that deep again. Your blogs (including the comments section; you attract equally amazing people) always leave me with strong thoughts and impressions that don't always leave my fingers in the first place, so while I ramble often, I have to really think most of the time before I can even form a coherent response to anything you've written. You're too goddamn deep for li'l ol' me.
Also, have you written a blog on Princess Twilight yet? I'm too lazy to check right now, but I'm really eager to see your assessment of her over the course of everything. Thing is, I've never subscribed to the "Mary Sue" issue, even if she hasn't been evenly handled across this season, per her new status, and has naturally faded more into the background. I believe she still has plenty of stories to tell, regardless of whatever one feels about the finale. I also prefer not to speculate on what she does in the upcoming seasons, because I feel that is actually detrimental to both enjoyment of the cartoon (and comics) and writing enjoyable fanfiction, regardless of when the story is set, if that makes any sense.
Also, you've inspired me to consider writing some sort of Sparity fic set after he has aged up a good bit and Rarity has openly accepted the relationship as a romantic one... sigh. I have enough to start and finish. Why do I do this to myself?
Then again, I love Rarity. I don't have a single fanfic dedicated to her yet, but she inevitably leaks into most of them, whenever she can. She's too good not to be mentioned or have an appearance and she makes for some of the best cameos and supporting roles, no matter what type of story it is.
2153190 Well, it is harsh, but you handle it intelligently and more, you show it as having affected Rarity without permanently damaging her mind and soul. Rarity is strong and she's pulled herself back from that terrible place she was once in, and I love her all the more for it.
And besides,, and please take no offense, in the end these are stories about colorful pastel ponies in a kids' cartoon, albeit an uncommonly well-written one. There's a point at which you just gotta say, 'it's not worth getting THAT excited about'. I enjoy a lot of the fanworks but they don;t usually affect my own view on the canon characters and setting.
I like the comments about Spike, Twi, and the pulps. I'm beginning to think that I should write a comical story wherein Twi decides to 'do something' to save the minds of Equestria's youth for the classics and from the pulp peril. It should get really good when she discovers that the authors of the pulp series she hates the most -- think Ray Palmer and Richard Shaver's tales of the dero and tero, with all the insanity implied -- happen to be two of her friends just doing it for cider money.
Spike's very long lifespan presents another issue for his pairing with Rarity.
Unless Twilight's lifespan has been lenghtened considerably by her transformation into an alicorn, and the lenghtened lifespan was shared with the other five due to the events from the fourth season finale, we have a Mayfly-December Romance situation. Spike would be together with Rarity for less than one tenth of his life.
The situation is slightly better if you have reincarnation. Spike could be together with Rarity many times during his lifetime. But even if reincarnation exists on his world, there's still a lot of potential for drama.
The first issue is that most ponies (and other intelligent beings) will not know about it. In my stories Fluttershy's Garden and its sequel, Flora, the only being that knew that every pony would come back as another pony was Discord -- though Celestia suspected it ("The birth of a pony, and the death of a pony, are the greatest mysteries of nature."), and Pinkie intuited that Flora was Fluttershy reborn.
The second issue is that the newly born "Rarity" would have no memories of either her past lifes or the time she spent as a ghost between them. The basic personality would be there (it's the same pony, after all), but the experiences would be different -- again from Flora, being born to an extrovert mother and being treated well by everypony (the whole town was still feeling guilty over the way they had sometimes treated Fluttershy, and projected that into Flora -- not knowing she was Fluttershy all along!), Flora is not shy. Of course, given that what Spike likes is Rarity's basic personality, that would not be a problem, but here the third issue comes in.
The third issue is finding the new "Rarity". Even if you knew she would come back ("They always do," as Discord said), you have no idea when or where she would be born, you have a completely different set of experiences making it harder to recognize the personality, the personality itself could have changed a little, and she could even have come back as a male (or a different subspecies of pony).
So, from Spike's POV, even if the world he lives in has reincarnation, he'll still lose Rarity when she dies -- and will have to live for many ponies' lifetimes with only his memory of her. His best hope would be to meet the reborn Rarity by chance, and both falling in love again. Even without postulating a higher power arranging coincidences so that this happens, it's slightly better than chance odds, due to small bits of emotional memory "leaking" -- for instance, the reborn Rarity would find dragons beautiful, and be less afraid of them than the average pony. It's also slightly worse than chance odds, since Spike would probably actively reject falling in love with anypony else.
Of course, if the world he lives in doesn't have reincarnation, none of that applies, and you have (depending on the writer) a Downer Ending or a Bittersweet Ending.
At the risk of being typecast into "that guy who writes mostly ghost stories" (it's half of my stories so far), I might write a fanfic about an older Spike meeting a reborn Rarity. It's an interesting premise. (Not to mention how delightfully convoluted you can make family trees when you take reincarnation into account -- but that needs a lot of work to make all the genealogy.)
My memory for the show isn't as good as it should be. Where are you getting the 'strong as an earth pony' and 'can melt steel' things from? Is this stuff from the comics?
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Look at some of the loads Spike has carried (often for Rarity) in various episodes. And he melts steel with his dragonbreath in "Inspiration Manifestation." He bites right through a stone bar in one of the IDW comics.
It fits -- he has to be that strong to bite and claw through stone. I don't know for sure that he's as strong as (say) Big Mac or Applejack, but he's up around their class. He's not, however, in Maud Pie's league -- she's a flat-out meta-pony with super-strength, some super-speed, and high levels of damage resistance. But then Maud's divinely-empowered.
Understand -- Spike's power levels have varied . But there is method to this variance -- he's been depicted as getting stronger over time.
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I'm very familiar with the Mayfly-December Romance problem. In my universe, it's one of the big reasons why the Immortal Incarnations of Cosmic Concepts tend to go insane.
Specifically, it's one of the things which drove Luna insane. In any given century she's likely to take 1-2 lovers and make a dozen or so really good friends. In 1500 years incarnate on the Earth from her birth in this incarnation to the onset of her Nightmare, she has lost something like 20 lovers and over 150 really good friends to death. The combined grief of it helped wear her down.
Celestia manages by carefully maintaining a distance from most mortals. She actually has more lovers and friends than Luna, but is less emotionally-intimate with them. Still, over 2500 years incarnate on the Earth she has seen her sanity eroded, the more so because she spent 1000 years of it without her sister.
(So did Luna, but she was in the Nightmare's thrall at the time, and entirely unsane in the normal sense of the word anyway).
Cadance doesn't have this problem -- yet. She has the great good fortune to have found True Love fairly early in the life of her current Incarnation. Unfortunately for her, he's not an Alicorn -- whether or not he can ever become one is uncertain. She will probably be facing the Mayfly-December Romance Problem within a century, and it will hit her hard because he is her first real love in this incarnation.
Twilight's Ascended to become an Alicorn. In my verse, Alicorns are extremely hard to kill: they have regeration and considerable internal organ redundancy, in addition to their magical defenses. Ordinary aging is treated as damage and repaired, diseases are easily handled by powerful immune systems.
Twilight (in my verse) is the reincarnation of Dusk Skyshine, who lived over four thousand years ago and was the husband of Moondreamer Finemare, one of Luna's earlier Aspects. Luna is ecstatic to have found Dusk again, and even more so that he's now in a form which can live indefinitely. She's missed him very much.
She's less happy that Dusk is female this time. The fact that normally both Luna and Twilight are heterosexuals (in terms of orientation, anyway, for the virginal Twilight Sparkle) is a generator of all sorts of drama.
The reason why Twilight was capable of Ascension is that she is an Aspect of a Cosmic Concept (Magic). This is also true of some other Ponies (Celestia's "potatoes") of the various Kinds. Six of the others of whom this is true in my universe are Rarity Belle, Trixie Lulamoon, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack and Pinkie Pie. They may Ascend, and if they do they will live until killed by some tremendous force.
You will notice a pattern. Most of the Aspects of Nature's Law -- the Alicorns -- are female. Why this is the case is uncertain, though it may have to do with the potential of Lawfulness to be usefully creative in its implications.
Now, I don't know how much of all of this is true in the canon verse. There, I wager, you're completely right about the Mayfly-December problem.
But Spike loves Rarity anyway.
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Well yeah, I know it's just cartoon fanfic.
Still, I'm glad that you believe I've treated Rarity respectfully. I have tremendous admiration for the character, and it's not my intent to degrade her. Far from it: it's my intent to show her as having both strength and grace, surmounting these obstacles to become truly great. That's also, of course, how Spike sees it. Though he's not as objective about it all as am I.
Oh, the punchline on the whole "classics vs. pulps" issue is that Twilight's "classics" were once the equivalent of "pulps." And she knows two sisters who could tell her about that in detail.
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Y'know, I totally forgot Spike melting his way through that lock. huh.
Well, he's from a species that takes lava baths as constitutionals.
Dragon's pretty tough.
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Yes. He's a very intelligent and serious child, and psychologically he's by now more an early adolescent, and Rarity knows it. Actually, I think that by now (because he's starting to mature) she may already be starting to be a little bit attracted to him, and is terrified by this awareness: she's worried that she'll harm him in some way analogous to the way she was harmed when she was really too young as well. She fears toying with him and emotionally damaging him, the more so because she genuinely loves him and would go far out of her way to avoid such an action.
Twilight's likely attitude also has to be a consideration.
Twilight is well aware of Spike's crush on Rarity, and doesn't expect it to end well for Spike. I'm guessing that the main reason why she doesn't try to interfere with it is that she also respects Spike's intelligence and autonomy, and trusts Rarity not to take advantage of her adoptive younger brother. I also assume that -- by 1504, after over four years of Spike's hanging out with Rarity, spending much of his free time with her, and Rarity not complaining to her about this, that Twilight assumes that -- whatever else may happen -- Rarity and Spike are very good friends, and it's not wise for her to attempt to block a friendship of such obvious importance to both of them.
She might turn all Protective Big Sister, though, if she thought Rarity would hurt Spike.
Well ... Spike is heroic, but he's also still rather childish in some respects. And he's heroic in the same sort of way as the other major characters -- he's capable of great things, but he still has his flaws and to some extent always will have them.
This is also, of course, true of Rarity. She's not quite as childish of course, being eight years older than him and having had some harsh life exeriences, but she has her silly and foolish moments (one of them coming up in Dragonshyness, actually, when she almost gets herself killed -- and screws up her part in the mission -- giving way to her own Greed).
I really love the episodes in which we get to see how Spike's draconic nature interacts with Pony culture. "Secret of My Excess" and "Dragonquest" are good examples of this. I hope they do a good Spike episode that explores this again, which isn't just a retread of the points already covered (though I wouldn't mind seeing the adolescent Dragons from "Dragonquest" returning).
One of the ways in which Spike is maturing with regards to Rarity is that he's realizing that even though Rarity is loveable, she's not perfect -- and that he needs to be able to call her out on this sometimes for her own good. You see this even in the semi-canon IDW Nightmare Rarity arc (I'm going to do this in greater detail when I reach it), in "Simple Ways" (where he pretty much realizes all along that Rarity's being silly over Trenderhoof, even as it annoys him), and most decisively in "Inspiration Manifestation" (where it essentially saves her from destruction by the spell).
This is an example of the sort of maturity Spike will need to have a healthy love affair or marriage with Rarity, and why things wouldn't have worked if Rarity had been for some reason been willing to take him for a lover when he was still a child. Rarity is creative, and sometimes a bit unbalanced, and she needs a husband who can keep her anchored to reality when she starts to drift off into delusion. Enabling Rarity's less sane tendencies would not be doing her a favor. (Rarity doesn't fully grasp this yet, but it would be especially bad for her, because she is a nascent Alicorn, and hence vulnerable to Nightmare as an organic rather than merely possessed state, if she goes sufficiently mad).
And Rarity realizes this. Note that, when Rarity understood that Spike had been willing to stand up to her own displeasure, she became extremely grateful to him, including becoming physically demonstrative. Rarity wants a mate who can master her in the sense of standing up to her when she needs to be checked from a course toward madness, and Spike needs to win her respect in this regard before she will see him in the light of a potential husband. (This would be true even if he were an adult stallion, rather than a young-adolescent dragon).
Spike is on exactly the right course of development to become someone whom Rarity could respect as a mate.
And yes -- an actual love affair between them is still years in the future. Though it is obvious that their love, in the emotional sense, is mutual.
I haven't yet done a major essay post on Twilight Sparkle. I've indicated my opinions of her character in various fanfics. I deliberately chose a primary romantic relationship for her that I consider to be rather unlikely in canon, in part so I could explore the extent to which love can or cannot surmount barriers of sexual orientation.
Twilight is in the Shadow Wars universe the reincarnation of the (male) husband Princess Luna had in an earlier incarnation, and in consequence they are drawn together -- but both of them are essentially heterosexual. Luna is rather confused but willing to try to court her (even more so because Twilight has Ascended and hence will be able to remain with her for an indefinitely long future instead of being lost to Death in a mere century or so); Twilight is very confused because she doesn't remember her past life, is quite inexperienced (she's not only a virgin, but has never even had a colt-friend) and yet finds herself drawn to Luna. This is a lot of fun to write, but is almost certainly not what the writers intended when they made Luna and Twilight somewhat kindred spirits.
In both canon and my fiction, though, Twilight is a very important and positive figure for the Realm. She's very decent, honorable, idealistic and intelligent -- the most positive imaginable expression of all the best virtues of the gentry, of unicorn culture and of Equestrian civilization in general. She is cool, courageous and cunning in a crisis (it is by this behavior that Luna first recognizes that she's Dusk Skyshine in Nightmares Are Tragic; as she's showing in Dragonshyness, she's a natural leader.
Celestia has extremely high hopes for her, of which the first and dearest was fulfilled when Twilight brought her sister back to her alive and freed from the Nightmare, and of which we've seen many fulfilled in the other episodes. Twilight is actually the first of Celestia's "potatoes" to successfully become an Alicorn (Cadance was a much older Cosmic Concept, though she's young in her current Aspect). Twilight's success means that the others -- particuarly Twilight's Companions -- may succeed in Ascension as well (something I think the canon series has been hinting toward for a long time). Celestia is hoping to harvest a bumper crop of potatoes with which to repel the invasion of the Shadows, which she fears will approach its climax within a mere couple of decades -- and that's her short term plan.
Yes, I'll probably post something about Twilight some time soon ...
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Well yeah, I know it's just cartoon fanfic.
I wasn't saying you didn't, and sorry if I implied otherwise. It's just that I've seen way too many people with a FIAWOL attitude about the show and the nastier aspects of fandom can get pretty thick sometimes. You're definitely one of the sane fans.
That and I want to remind *myself* so I do my best to avoid acting like that. I don;t need to make the fandom unpleasant for others.
Still, I'm glad that you believe I've treated Rarity respectfully. I have tremendous admiration for the character, and it's not my intent to degrade her. Far from it: it's my intent to show her as having both strength and grace, surmounting these obstacles to become truly great. That's also, of course, how Spike sees it. Though he's not as objective about it all as am I.
And I'd say that you've done a great job of it. I do hope you eventually go on to Applejack and the other members of the Mane Six and write similar essays about them.
Oh, the punchline on the whole "classics vs. pulps" issue is that Twilight's "classics" were once the equivalent of "pulps." And she knows two sisters who could tell her about that in detail.
Yes! It can be amusing to discover just how many classic authors were considered the worst sort of popular tripe in their own lifetime. Heck, William Shakespeare was seen for the most part as a hack if I remember right. Today he gets so idolized that many scholars try to prove that he didn't really write Titus Adronicus.
And thanks for the responses.
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Eeyup! Heaven help anyone foolish enough to truly threaten Spike!
But as you've said, Rarity isn't that callous or pernicious, and your version of her has all the more reason to be gentle and to wait. So I highly doubt Twilight will have any reason to weigh in.
Sorry, I didn't explain what I meant very well. I was trying to say that some fans view him purely as a reader surrogate while forgetting his actual nature. He is heroic, childish, smart, and flawed, which is as he should be. Then again, most of those stories don't seem to stop at him and Rarity, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Sparity did the same thing. It's very easy to turn any character into a self-insert, regardless of the reasons. I'm aware of that phenomenon though, and that he seems to be a common target, so it makes me kind of leery to read some of the stories he features prominently in.
Exactly! Really, we just need to explore more dragons in general, although the adolescent ones are the most interesting of the ones we've already been introduced to (and Spike has already had some extended interaction with them.) Of course, they're really not so interesting on their own as they are when juxtaposed with pony culture, but that's why Spike is perfect for that.
Eeyup, and that strength of character is hard to come by too, which makes it all the more respectable. That Spike was making up for his own mistake, because Rarity's well-being meant so much more than being right or accepted, is nothing to sneeze at. It took him awhile, but that's only expected. He needed to realize something was wrong first, and then he had to actively accept that he unintentionally hurt her by giving her the book. Not everyone can deal with that, even though they might think that they can. It's so much easier to run away, especially when you're both at fault and the other person is a friend, but he came through for her in the end.
Sorry I probably muddled that. The moral was about honesty, but he had to be honest with himself first. Rarity's unbridled actions weren't right, but then neither was being a yes man.
I would imagine (based on the commentary sprinkled into the posts I've read), but I have over a thousand fics in my read later list and I keep adding to it. Still, I really need to read some of your stories some day.
And I'm eager to read that essay! The dilemma surrounding her and Luna certainly is fascinating, and I am curious on the solution they come up with. It could go a few ways. But I'm more curious for overall speculation and analysis, since I'm sure that conflict between them would have to be answered in a story proper, rather than in a blog post, for maximum interest.
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Especially where Spike is concerned. Especially because it's been established in canon that -- at least as a friend -- Rarity loves him.
Rarity can take advantage of him in various minor ways. It's almost second nature for Rarity to do that to males. But she's not sadistic or vicious, even in her treatment of stallions she doesn't have any special feelings for -- mostly, she just wants them to do her favors. (In my fanon this might have been in reaction to what happened when she was young -- this is Rarity getting her revenge on the male sex, it's just that she's inherently not all that vindictive a mare).
In canon, any time that Rarity finds herself being really exploitative of anyone, she tends to feel guilty and pull back from the precipice (and we know what's over that precipice -- it's Nightmare Rarity). This is especially true when she exploits Spike. Having him hang around her and help her work is one thing (and she knows he likes to do that, anyway). Playing with his heart and emotionally devastating him is quite another.
Ah, you mean all those weird "harem" stories in which every mare in sight falls in love with Spike? I see several problems with those tales.
(1) Spike is a Dragon and has a hoarding instinct, yes, but being a Dragon also means he's highly monogamous. At most he could have one true mate -- the one to whom he was lifebonded -- and keep the others around as secondary mates. Which would be kind of mean to them, leading into the point that ...
(2) Spike may be biologically a Dragon, but he was raised as a Pony, in a matriarchal culture, by one of the most idealistic representatives of that culture, Twilight Sparkle. Spike is chivalrous and cares about the mares he's befriended, and he wouldn't feel comfortable degrading them in such a fashion, and in addition
(3) Rarity is a rather Draconic Pony in her basic personality, and if she were to really fall for Spike I do not think that she would be interested in sharing him with a bunch of other mares. I don't think that her Generosity extends quite that far. If it did, though, she'd still feel bad about the situation -- and Spike would never knowingly hurt her. Finally ...
(4) My Equestria isn't one of the ones with a stallion shortage, so it's not particularly polygynous. Equestria is more open-minded on the topic of polygamy than are most modern Western societies, but most Equestrian marriages are monogamous. Spike having a polygynous marriage with a half-dozen or more mares wouldn't be illegal, but it would be seen as very odd -- possibly so odd that some sort of magical effect would be suspected.
Exactly.
I don't know if Rarity has a right to call Trend shallow since he engaged in the exact same scheme she did to win over the pony he was smitten with.
And Rarity chose her friends over her status when push came to shove (when before she was trying to please both, not wanting to fail either one).
I wonder how fate would have gone if Rarity's unborn child had lived.
She and Berry Punch might have a lot to talk about.
Ah, the line you're referencing is:
Heh, I don't recall saying anywhere that Rarity's incapable of hypocrisy ...
And in canon it's obvious that Rarity's and Trenderhoof's behaviors in "Simple Ways" are meant to be seen as parallels. Rarity has a crush on Trenderhoof, whom she does not actually know all that well; Trenderhoof has a crush on Applejack, whom he does not actually know all that well. Both of them are pretending to be who they are not in order to impress the object of that crush. Applejack finally gets sick of watching this and decides to play the exact same game in order to show Rarity why this behavior is stupid; what makes the climax truly hilarious is that AJ plays the game better than either of the other two: "Applejewel" is lovely and seductive, even though it's obvious (to anypony who knows the real Applejack) that AJ's voice is dripping with sarcasm all through her performance.
I think that Rarity originally saw Trenderhoof as a "kindred spirit," somepony else who was trying to make the world more beautiful by originating, or at least popularizing, new aesthetic currents. Her crush on Trenderhoof, while immature in the sense that she invested far too much emotion in somepony she'd never actually met, was far more mature than her crush on Blueblood in that she actually had some good reasons to think he might be well-suited for her beyond "rich, handsome, high-status stallion." There is a sense in which they are kindred spirits, and their life goals are similar. The main difference between them is that Rarity is a truly creative artist, while Trenderhoof is a mere imitator and popularizer.
The sad thing (from Trenderhoof's point of view) is that he actually did have a real chance with Rarity, and if he'd gone for her instead of being mesmerized by a mare who was totally incompatible to the point of finding him annoying and creepy, he might have been happy with her. As far as I can tell from the episode, Trenderhoof was never a bad guy, nor even really a jerk; just somepony a bit too eager to be accepted as fashionable, a bit too superficial where that was concerned, and suffering a crush on somepony (Applejack) who would never tolerate dishonesty as a major element of the personality of a beloved.
In contrast, Rarity is a natural diplomat and socializer, who is quite capable of lying to advance her ends (though she'd rather achieve the same ends through honest trading), and who would have had little problem with Trenderhoof's superficialities (provided that he was a good stallion in general, and I do think that Trenderhoof is basically a good stallion). In canon, Trenderhoof was actually responding well to Rarity's personality -- until he saw Applejack and lost his head over her.
The Mane Six are in many ways divided three and three on most personality axes and this is true regarding "socially normal<-->fantastic" -- what's even better is that this sorts out perfectly by Kind. Of the two Earth Ponies, Applejack is normal, Pinkie Pie fantastic. Of the two Pegasi, Rainbow Dash is normal, Fluttershy fantastic. And of the two Unicorns, Rarity is normal, Twilight fantastic.
What I mean by this is that AJ, Rainbow Dash and Rarity would be perfectly happy with lives that were high-achieving but otherwise conforming to the normal values of a member of their Kind. And in this context, I'm speaking specifically in terms of husbands. AJ would be happy marrying a normal Earth Pony and settling down to a life of farming and having foals with him. Rainbow Dash would like to marry a militarily-heroic Pegasus and be a great flier with him. And Rarity would consider it a good fate to marry an upper-class (or at least socially-climbing) Unicorn and succeed in society with him.
This isn't as true of Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy or Twilight Sparkle, each of whom is for different reasons an emotional outsider to the normal society of their Kinds. The most normal husband I can imagine for Pinkie Pie would be Big Mac -- who is deceptive in his mundanity, as he is in many ways a shy male version of Applejack. -- and the decidedly abnormal Cheese Sandwich works even better for her. Fluttershy is (at least on the outside) only marginally in touch with normal Pegasus values, and it's more a matter of wanting to be supportive of Rainbow Dash in paticular than of Pegasi in general. And Twilight Sparkle was far beyond most Unicorns even before she Ascended -- there's no way she would have been happy with a normal Unicorn gentlecolt as a husband.
Rarity might have been happy with Trenderhoof. Which is why it's sad (for him) that he blew it so badly.
(*nods*) That gets to my point that Rarity has integrity. This is important, because (though she doesn't fully grasp it yet) Rarity is going to become a leader of society, and a leader must know for what and whom she stands, rather than merely following others.
Would Trenderhoof choose friends over status? It's hard to say, because we've only seen him in one episode, and in an episode in which he behaved foolishly. Different fanon versions of him would behave differently -- I have rather a soft spot for Trenderhoof and am inclined to be forgiving in my interpretations of his conduct.
I'll point out one thing which some fans may have missed. When he behaved courteously toward Granny Smith at the end he was not favoring somepony of low status. Granny Smith is one of the most important Ponies in town, being the matriarch of the most important family in town -- something Trenderhoof would have by that time learned.
That doesn't change the fact that he was behaving nicely. However, it was still social-climbing.
A century later, my Rarity is still social-climbing. It's just that she's reached the top of the particular social pyramid within which she started, and is now working to help her whole species and planet rise higher.
If Trenderhoof's still alive by then, I hope that he's had a successful and happy career. The guy deserves it.
There's nothing inherently wrong with social climbing. It's certainly better than the alternative.
I think Rarity would have made a very good, though imperfect, mother. I also think that her many good qualities would have shone brightly enough that she might have wound up marrying anyway. In fact, she might have married sooner, because she would have been looking for somepony to help her raise her child.
I can't see Rarity aborting (*) or abandoning her child. Rarity is both too decent and too possessive to do anything of the sort. I could see her giving it up for adoption if she had a particular foster family in mind whom she trusted -- because Rarity is also quite capable of giving up something she values for someone she loves.
Rarity in canon is a rather good big sister to Sweetie Belle, and in many ways treats her as if Rarity were her mother, despite the fact that she's not. I'm guessing she would be even more caring and protective toward her own actual child. Rarity is, after all, quite capable of strong love, and a rather fierce protectiveness toward her loved ones. We've seen this more than once.
You know, I have no idea who the father of that child might be? Not even in general terms, as in a personality type. Same thing for Pina Colada -- and in many ways, Berryshine was replicating Strawberry's life trajectory, with the difference that she was never married.
Ironically, the best therapy for Berryshine may have been her Discording.
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(*) Technically, a miscarriage is a "spontaneous abortion," but this wasn't actually Rarity's fault, though she sometimes blames herself for it. The miscarriage would have happened because she felt socially-isolated and was hence under immense emotional stress, probably wasn't eating well enough, and was also too young for a healthy pregnancy. To put this in context, Sweetie Belle is now older than Rarity was then: Rarity was at that point in many ways emotionally and even physically still a child.
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Of course I didn't address the main points -- if she'd been able to bear and keep her child, what would her life have been like? Would she have been able to start her business? Would she have been able to become an Element Bearer?
I think definitely "yes" to the first -- she would now have wanted to succeed even more, to give her child a good life -- and possibly "yes" to the second -- she would have had more to fight for. I see Derpy as a Badass -- why not Rarity?
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I've been thinking about this in some detail.
Rarity would have returned to Ponyville and opened her dressmaking business in any case, but she would have had to start smaller; probably out of a modest cottage rather than buying up and renaming that huge building as the Carousel Boutique. She also would have had to start with less education, learning her trade on the job and through purchasing and reading books on the subject.
Assume that she comes home with her newborn colt, Diamond Bell, in YOH 1496. The butterflies begin to flap, and the first thing they flap against is a pegasus with a cutie mark containing three of them.
Fluttershy was at this time a casual friend of Rarity's, but at this point in time Rainbow Dash had flown off with Gilda and Fluttershy was alone. In the prime timeline of the Shadow Wars, she encounters and is seduced by Nosey, precisely because she's desperately lonely and has no female friends to advise her against such actions. In this timeline, she eagerly associates with Rarity, her only friend in town, and Rarity's greater understanding of Pony nature prevents this tragedy from happening.
Fluttershy and Rarity become very good friends, especially because Fluttershy can be useful to her both helping her in her dressmaking (remember that Fluttershy is an expert seamstress?) and helping her watch Diamond. Within the year, Fluttershy and Rarity are best friends.
Fluttershy is still a very shy Pony, and she loves animals, but she's not the Crazy Animal Lady of Ponyville, because she's not as emotionally damaged as the Fluttershy of the prime timeline. She probably winds up making some other friends, most of them Rarity's. I do not know if she dates stallions or finds a very special somepony, that's up in the air.
When Rainbow Dash comes back, Fluttershy still likes Rainbow -- one doesn't toss aside a lifelong friendship just because one has made new friends. But they aren't as close as in the prime timeline, nor is their friendship as intense.
Much of Rainbow's affect instead winds up directed toward Pinkie Pie, who likes Rainbow and is fully aware that in some other worldlines they become lovers (though this Pinkie is as heterosexual as the one from the prime timeline, and is content with Rainbow's friendship). They prank the town and have all kinds of crazy adventures together, a bit earlier than in the prime timeline, as best friends.
While Rainbow Dash is bisexual, she's sexually very non-aggressive (her sexual passivity is in strong contrast to most of the rest of her personality) and she's content with Pinkie's friendship -- though her own affect toward Pinkie can get a little intense, just as her affect toward Fluttershy in the prime timeline -- the difference is that Pinkie doesn't encourage it. They don't become lovers.
Rainbow is also friendly-rivals with Applejack, as in the prime timeline. With Rainbow Dash closer to Pinkie Pie, this also means that Pinkie Pie is around Applejack more. Very much unlike Gilda, Applejack isn't at all jealous regarding her friendships, and Applejack becomes closer friends with Pinkie faster than happens in the prime timeline. It is also possible, in consequence of this, that Pinkie befriends Big Mac and Apple Bloom as well, since she spends a lot of time on Sweet Apple Acres.
It's up in the air whether or not Pinkie develops feelings beyond friendship for Big Mac -- at this point, Pinkie's still too emotionally-immature for romantic love (remember, she matures slower than the rest of the Mane Six).
Come the Summer Sun Celebration of YOH 1500. Twilight Sparkle and Spike come to town. They probably meet everypony they did in the prime timeline. The difference is that Rarity and Fluttershy aren't going to come with them into the Everfree. Rarity has to watch Diamond, after all, and Fluttershy follows Rarity rather than Rainbow Dash. Instead, Applejack rounds up a guide to the Everfree, the only townsdweller who frequently braves its dangers: Ditzy Doo (who manages to get Rarity and Fluttershy to watch Dinky). "Carrot Top" Golden Harvest does not want it to be said that only the Apples can be brave, and she volunteers to accompany them.
Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash attune to Magic, Honesty, Laughter and Loyalty. Ditzy attunes to Kindness and Golden Harvest to Generosity. And we wind up with a modified Mane Six.
The Mane Six still have relationships with Rarity and Fluttershy, though. Rainbow Dash still cares deeply about Fluttershy, and Spike probably acquires a crush on Rarity. But Rainbow Dash does not get as many opportunities to deeply bond with Fluttershy as in the prime timeline; and Rarity has an actual child of her own. Things are thus more complex in both those cases.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders still form, and with the same members (if you look at the events causing their formation, they had nothing to do with the membership of the Mane Six). This gives Rarity another link to the Mane Six, since her sister Sweetie Belle (who still gets fobbed off on her by her parents who desire their multiple second honeymoons) still befriends Scootaloo and the two still befriend Apple Bloom.
There's a more sinister linkage if you consider my version of the Winningverse fanon as mined for the Shadow Wars verse. Ditzy Doo is the friend / lover / chew toy of Cloud Kicker -- primary carrier of The Taint. There is thus a probability of the Taint striking against the Mane Six themselves (it certainly does against Ditzy herself, though none of the others are particularly vulnerable and it never spreads to Ditzy).
There are other possibilities here in connection with my fanon and others which might be folded in. Applejack and Carrot Top get to renew their childhood close friendship. Both of them have strong interests in searching for Landscape -- Applejack's betrothed and Carrot Top's brother. This makes it likely that the whole Mane Six will get dragged into the search -- which means there's a good chance they'll find him and rescue him earlier -- under circumstances which he will appreciate, but which not lead to the whole Evergloom Hive becoming love-locked on him.
Also along these lines, the whole Mane Six is likely to get pulled into the quest which leads to the defeat of the Windigo Queen. This defeat is far more likely, and far more likely to be decisive, under these circumstances.
On the other hand, while Ditzy (unlike Fluttershy) is a skilled fighter, Carrot Top is nowhere near as skilled a diplomat as Rarity. And they have nothing like The Stare to back them up.
On the gripping hand, none of them have Fluttershy's extreme emotional weaknesses.
On the prehensile tail, Fluttershy's future participation is not impossible -- especially given the revelation of Queen Chrysalis. And Chrysalis wants Fluttershy -- The Call may find out where she lives!
What do you think?
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YOU AM HAVE BIG BRAIN!!
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Hee hee ... though I've been thinking of other possible backup elements. Ditzy for Fluttershy keeps 2 Pegasi in the group, but Golden Harvest for Rarity swaps an Earth Pony for a Unicorn. Not sure if that's important to the balance.
In my prime timeline Golden Harvest and Applejack are old friends -- they were part of the group of children including Applejack, Berryshine, Landscape and Golden, for whom Big Mac originally built the treehouse later used by the Cutie Mark Crusaders. AJ, Berryshine and Landscape were all the same age: Golden was two years younger and the tag-along, there because she was Landscape's kid sister.
AJ and Landscape were literally childhood sweethearts; their friendship developed into love as they grew older. They betrothed, but Landscape -- whose talent was the ability to mentally-map anything he could perceive piece by piece -- wanted to win his own fortune so that he wouldn't just be the poor boy marrying into the richer girl's family (the Apples of Sweet Apple Acres are wealthy in terms of land), so, when he found an old map to a supposed fortune in moonsilver (titanium steel) left behind in what is now the Evergloom Swamps far to the southeast, he left to find it. This was dumb, but he was an idealistic young stallion.
That was in YOH 1498. He hasn't come back since. Applejack considers herself bound by her promise to him, for at least seven years, and is in any case disinclined to seek another stallion (she's the most monogamous member of the Mane Six, and an exemplar of Honor Before Reason). In winters she goes looking for him. She hasn't found him yet, though she's sometimes come close enough to utterly-terrify the hardscrabble, not very powerful or competent Hive which is keeping him captive: the more so after the summer of YOH 1500 in which she helped defeat Nightmare Moon. Hive Evergloom knows for sure that they are not as powerful as Nightmare Moon.
Hive Evergloom, starving and afraid of every passing shadow, is much more typical of Changeling Hives than is Hive Chrysalis. Landscape is caught in their psychic snares and cannot outright escape, but he becomes increasingly more important to their survival as he manages to get promoted from encysted food store to Trustee Captive to eventually wind up the effective leader of the whole crew of Workers in his section.
In YOH 1508, when first Chrysalis and then the Mane Six find him, he winds up first leading the defense of hte Hive from Chrysalis, then leading the survivors of Hive Evergloom through the chaos of the battle between Chrysalis' force and Twilight's force to survival. The single Princess who survives (the lowest-ranking one, who was theoretically in charge of Maintenance but actually relied on Landscape to do most of her job) takes the reign-name "Carrot" in honor of him, and Hive Carrot winds up on Carrot lands, working for the Carrots and eventually also for Rarity Enterprises, and becoming both an important part of the Reconciliation and of the economy of Ponyville.
Landscape, of course, marries Applejack.
And that's Landscape's arc in my prime line.
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Anyway, as of YOH 1500, Golden Harvest (now 20) rather resents Applejack (now 22) and tends to blame her for the disappearance of Landscape, her most beloved sibling. Golden feels that if Landscape hadn't been crazy-in-love with Applejack, he wouldn't have been tempted to go do anything so hare-brained as go into a trackless swamp looking for treasure with which to win his Lady Love.
This is unfair of Golden. Landscape grew up yearning for adventures of exploration, and this was more of an excuse to attempt at least one real adventure before coming back to settle down with AJ on Sweet Apple Acres than it was a matter of Applejack egging him on to find a fortune. In fact, Applejack never wanted him to go, and he departed without consulting her in advance (leaving her a note promising to return to wed her which AJ has taken out more than once since then and quietly cried over -- she'd never let anypony else catch her doing that).
But then Golden is not an objective observer in all this.
Wow...think you could do a blogpost on more of the alternate Bearers?
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Maybe -- you mean like Beatrix "The Great and Powerful Trixie" Lulamoon, Blackcherry Lee "Cheerilee" Berry Punch, Macintosh "Big Mac" Apple, and so on?
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Now you're just teasing me
I mean more that Ponyville is just full of these Potentials. We have lots of info on a few of the ones who have big roles anyway. What I want to hear is about the Lyra Heartstrings, the Time Turners, the Vinyl Scratches, the Bulk Biceps, and so forth. Ponies who you just wouldn't expect to be truly great, much like Derpy, but if circumstances had so chosen, would have been in the ruins on that fateful day.
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Lyra actually is the element of Loyalty in the Lunaverse, and it rather makes sense. It would also explain why ... but I can't go into that yet. That's an explosive revelation coming up in one of the unwritten chapters of Pinkie Sense and Sensibility. In the Lunaverse, she's also most definitely gay -- and in love with Bon-Bon. I can see Lyra as being either homo- or heterosexual; in either case, Bon-Bon would at least be her best friend.
Ditzy is the Lunaverse's Kindness. The Ditzy in my main Shadow Wars timeline gets to be a special courier for Princess Luna, and eventually becomes one of her own team of Champions. Ditzy is a natural fighter who Luna trains to work around her strabisimus and becomes fearsomely effective in battle, preferring to use her machete against non-Pony foes. Personally, I see no contradiction here, but then I'm a violent sort of Human.
Cheerilee gets to be an Element-Bearer in several alternate lineups: Laughter in the Lunaverse and Kindness in one of the other verses. My concept of Cheerilee is that she is an extremely charismatic and intelligent Pony, a natural leader, when she cares to be. Mostly, the only thing that motivates her in this manner is taking care of her students, but that might have been different if she became one of Celestia's Champions. My Cheerilee has a very deep attraction to Big Mac, which she fears he doesn't return. It used to be the other way round, because she is two years older than him -- which meant a lot more when she was 9-16 and he was 7-14 than it does at the time of "Hearts and Hooves Day," when she's 30 and he's 28.
Big Mac is a backup for Honesty and Loyalty. Big Mac is a really awesome Pony -- strong, gentle, brave, honorable and intelligent -- but also horribly shy save with his immediate family and some long-time friends. His introversion is his main contrast with his sister Applejack, who has a rather similar personality save for her extroversion compared to his introversion.
And Big Mac does return Cheerilee's sentiments.
I don't know about Bulk Biceps or Vinyl Scratch. Bulk I rather like from the episodes in which he got significant lines; he seems in canon to now be one of Fluttershy's major love interests. A few points about his character -- in addition to being obsessed with developing his mucles, he is determined, brave, and fairly gentle. His shouting seems to be a cover for shyness, in that it allows him to cover up what he's really thinking by just loudly agreeing with others.
Vinyl Scratch has had no significant interaction with any character except for Pinkie Pie -- she seems cheerful and friendly enough, but has received very little other characterization other than her musical obsession. Her pairing as Octavia's friend or lover seems to be entirely fannish -- she's never been paired with anypony, as friend or lover, and in particular has never even shared a scene with Octavia.
Spike may be a potential backup Element -- probably Loyalty or Generosity. The first is obvious: he is incredibly loyal to two Ponies, Twilight and Rarity. The second is less obvious, save when one considers that he is incredibly generous for a Dragon.
Trixie, of course, is a backup Element of Magic. In my stories, I assume that she represents a slightly different but allied Cosmic Concept: Illusion.
Out of curiosity, how much does Rarity's family know about all this, and what do they think?
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The first one to notice was probably Sweetie Belle, because she spends a lot of time around the Carousel Boutique, and knows Spike fairly well. Sweetie is somewhat naive, but not so naive that she could miss Spike's crush on Rarity, nor Rarity starting to return his affections (especially since Swetie Belle was a teenager by that time). She might have even come across them hugging or (eventually) kissing.
Sweetie would almost certainly be jealous. After all, Spike is her OWN chronological age, yet her glamorous beautiful older sister has won his affections. Sweetie Belle is at this point virginal and romantically idealistic, and only sees that Spike is smart, tough and morally-admirable; she doesn't consider the practical problems with being the lover to or marrying a Dragon. She'd be bound to wonder "Why not me?"
The next Pony in Rarity's family to notice the developing love between Rarity and Spike would have been her mother, Sweetie ("Cookie Crumbles") Pearl. Sweetie Belle might have told her (she'd be more likely to talk about this to her mother than her father), or Pearl might have noticed the affect between Rarity and Spike, or the tone that was coming into Rarity's voice when she mentioned him.
Magnum ("Hondo Flanks") Bell, her father, would be the last to realize it. He would probably learn when somepony else in his family told him.
Rarity's parents would probably be a little worried about the cradle-robbing aspect of the affair, though it's imprtant to note that in the SWSV Rarity didn't start being even slightly sexual with Spike until he was 14 (the local age of consent) in Season Four. Also, as of the present point, she hasn't actually had sex with him.
If the relationship looked to be leading to marriage, they would be utterly delighted by it. Rarity would be marrying into the Light Clan, a far higher status family than either of her parental ones. What's more, she would be the sister-in-law of Princess Twilight Sparkle and Prince Consort Shining Armor. The only downside of it is that they would worry about Spike hurting Rarity (once they got to know him, they'd realize that any such harm would be accidental, but still ...) and whether or not Spike could sire healthy children on her (they want grandchildren).
4140049 That Sweetie bit seems especially interesting. She has a jealousy induced crush?
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Sweetie Belle is jealous in vanilla canon of Rarity, though not necessarily about Spike. Sweetie recovers from some of this in "For Whom The Sweetie Belle Tolls," but I wouldn't assume it's all dissipated.
4140117 True. Maybe she should meet somepony else soon. *coughbuttoncough*