On Immortality · 11:19pm Jun 16th, 2014
Or, stop writing these unhealthy angst stories eesh!
(Yes, I'm still around. Just quiet)
This isn't aimed at any story in particular, but I've seen quite a few stories where, for whatever reason, Twilight has issues with the rest of the mane cast dying off with the passage of time and ends up...unstable in various ways. One of the most common threads I've seen is resurrecting or reincarnating them or something, which is really the most egregious of them.
I want to make the case that ponies in general and alicorns in particular are going to be much more fitted to immortality than than your average human.
First of all, as I pointed out in my xenofictional deconstruction, ponies are prey animals. Oh, certainly nothing predates them now but way back in the hindbrain there's still the expectation that everything will end on the sharp end of something's claws. They aren't going to embrace death, certainly, and they'll mourn the deceased, but death is not the world-altering trauma that it is for a social predator species (humans). That's not even getting into the three different species - while by default I'd give them the same lifespan, earth ponies and pegasi seem to fill higher-risk roles than unicorns do, so it's entirely possible that there's a normal lifespan difference between them.
So in a society where death isn't as great a shock, and isn't as demonstrably taboo as it is in contemporary culture, it's not going to be as affecting to a pony as it is to a human. I'd like to demarcate here between mourning and trauma. Remember Up? Carl was traumatized because he couldn't move on. It wasn't until the movie's climax that he managed to overcome that trauma and move onto something healthier. You can have a life after the death of someone close to you - in fact, if you stop, in stasis, at the moment of that death, you're essentially dead too. That's not mourning, that's trauma. And that's trauma in part due to the fact that death is so taboo that it's sidelined and pushed into the most unnoticeable corners it can. There's not condemnation there, since I expect that's at least half biological, it's just a fact. Pain is worse when it's the first pain you feel.
So the deaths of Twilight's friends in an immortal-Twilight situation will be tragic, yes, but it's not a world-ending event.
Second, assigning the mane cast as Twilight's-best-friends-forever-and-ever is sort of an assumption of stasis on her part. Certainly the mane cast will be her closest friends, and Spike has a life expectancy to match hers, but assuming a long and fruitful life as a princess she's going to have a reasonably large social menagerie by the time any of the others get old. And I use menagerie on purpose because there are so many races in the setting. Eventually the others will have to step down as advisors (or may do so voluntarily to pursue other interests) and there will be ponies or gryphons or dragons or whatever to take their place. It's unlikely the change will be a sudden and sharp demarcation from status quo to novus ordo mundi.
Third is my general theory of alicornization, which seems to be an understanding of the fundamental physics of the world. Which is to say, emotion. MLP runs on emotion - friendship and love are crazy powerful, reality-bending powerful, so the understanding is more than just knowing math, it's being in a very real way part of the order of things. And you really cannot understand friendship and love without understanding their loss. If you can't deal with loss, you're not going to be able to understand, and you're not going to be an alicorn. Even if you don't agree with my theory on alicorns, you have to admit that granting that power to someone who's going to be emotionally unstable (note how far Twilight came in her general ability to deal with things since Lesson Zero) is a terrible, terrible idea. To the point that if it tended to happen the world would probably be a scorched desert or tiny fragments drifting through space.
And my last point is that generally...the idea that she'd be so horribly scarred seems to underestimate Twilight. She's not as fragile as she seems. Oh, she certainly has issues, as everyone does, but given that she wasn't cast into a void to deal with something there's very little she couldn't work through - she knows she needs friends and she'd seek them out, old and new, in times of emotional distress. She's overcome pretty horrible things emotionally - all her friends turning against her? All of her friends acting like someone else (tell me that's not a fridge horror)? Even if she had nobody else, there would still be Spike, Celestia, and Luna. There's essentially no reasonable narrative where she's alone. And I just don't think that, in the end, it's an issue for her.
Note well: "Lesson Zero" takes place right after The Return of the Elements of Harmony. In other words, Twilight is still recovering from one of the worst experiences of her life -- having all her friends turned against her by Discord. It's not surprising that she's not at her sanest for that episode.
Yes. Just because fanfic writers may have problems inventing plausible OC's to take the places of Twilight's original friends doesn't mean that Twilight can't find such persons, over decades of time.
IMO Twilight is very strong. She just has to deal on a regular basis with things which -- were I running this in Basic Role Playing, I would assign SAN losses for even viewing, let alone being attacked by. She is caring, honorable and sentimental, but she is very much Silk Hiding Steel.
Very well stated.
This this this.
Thank you for writing this post. It has been annoying me as well and leads me to suspect that authors of such fics have less experience with loss than I have. I have had best friends die and, while it is heartbreaking, I eventually moved on and made more friends. I see no obstacle to continuing this indefinitely with the total happiness gained from the friendships outweighing the pain of loss.
There was this comic strip.
Twilight written by 20yo. Oh how will I ever deal with death of my friends?
Twilight written by 30yo. In your face, grim reaper!
I was once challenged by someone, 'alicorns are impossible because grief of loss will drive them insane'. My reply was: 'That would mean all 90yo people are insane with grief already'.
Thanks for this. Emotality fics tend to suck terribly and when I read them points similar to those you raised tend to rattle about in my head. The most egregious examples have her moping thousands of years down the road about her original friends who by that stage had probably begun fossilizing. It's ridiculous.
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Well, you know -- I think she'd sometimes be sad about the friends she's lost. But that doesn't mean that she'd be spending her very long life in total despair. Most of the time, she'd be busy enjoying the company of the friends she currently has. And, of course, helping to run things.
I am so glad that I'm not alone in thinking this. It's obscene how many immortal-Twilight fics think she's incapable of grieving and then moving on. Spike and the other Princesses aside, she's going to make new friends even as the old ones fade away to distance or time.
It's just an excuse, now, to write some cheesey sadfic or DarkTwi thing. I think maybe ONE fic recently caught my eye with an unexpected synopsis, but I don't recall which one.
Anyway, thanks for not just posting the opinion but giving very good reasons why the obsession with this is silly.
2212047 Yeah, it's fair enough that she would dwell on her first few friends and feel a little bittersweet about it all -- I totally agree -- but oftentimes people basically flanderize the shit out of Twilight by making the relationships she shared with long-dead ponies the whole focus of her world thousands of years removed from the events of the show. She's a person, and people have interests and obligations outside of their friends and family.
2212006 I did see that comic strip! I considered referencing it but it didn't fall naturally from the flow and also I didn't feel like fishing for the link.
(also someone seems to be going through and downrating comments on this post? Wat?)
Can you really understand anything without understanding it's opposite?
Every time I see a story that relies on Twilight breaking down over the idea of outliving her friends sometime in the future, or over their deaths long ago, I have to roll my eyes. I'm sure there might be one that does well with it, but it's heavily overdone, and never struck me as correct, anyway. If someone were to make the argument that long life or immortality isn't worth it because of how everyone you know would die, I'd point out that, statistically, probably half the people you ever know will die before you do, anyway. That or I'd reply with a list of people I knew that have died, or if I know the person in question particularly well, people that they knew.
Heck, one of my friends was murdered, shot in the back of the head, while we were face-to-face and about three feet apart. I also got to watch my step-dad slowly deteriorate from pancreatic cancer, going from a big, strong, active manly-man to a skeletal old man that couldn't even sit up on his own.
Loss hurts, but even a painful ending doesn't remove the happy times before then, nor does it keep us from having happiness in the future.
Death happens, but that doesn't mean we should be afraid to live.
To be fair, Twilight having psychotic breaks on occasion can be read as totally canon.
That said, I'd think that in general, she already has two immortals who have managed to deal with outliving people for thousands of years as pony princess role-models, so it shouldn't be impossible for her to deal with.
I like to think it'd be like this, minus the glasses part. No more pesky friends getting in the way of knowledge.
Oh, I definitely agree, though I think anyone who has read Sharing the Night knows my stance on the matter. I do actually have one incomplete story where Twilight's immortality plays a big part in traumatizing her, but believe me when I say it's a special case that hardly counts.
People always make the case that immortality would be terrible because you'd have to watch your friends and family grow old and die. I've never really understood that argument. That's going to happen anyways, for the most part; being immortal wouldn't somehow decrease your ability to handle the losses. True, you'll inevitably die before your younger friends and family, but that's hardly a positive, considering that places them in the same situation of watching their friend die. If you're immortal, your friends never have to go to your funeral, but that's not even the important part. They'll still experience other losses, they'll still have to deal with it in general. The important part is that you'd have the opportunity to make so many friends that you would never have had the chance to meet otherwise. Countless people throughout the rest of history who'll enrich your life, and whose lives will be enriched by you. The rainy days would suck, but there would be just as many sunny days. I don't understand why people would focus entirely on the bad and ignore the good.
So I usually just ignore the 'immortality drives x crazy' stories.
Is Twilight necessarily immortal?
People have been assuming Twilight became immortal upon alicornification because Celestia is at least 1000 years old. And under the original season 1 canon, where Luna and Celestia are unique and their origins are mysterious, "alicorn == immortal" is a reasonable conclusion. But in order to accommodate Cadence and now Twilight, there have been a number of... clarifications to the canon surrounding alicorns. I don't think we've ever heard the word "immortal" used to describe alicorns, at least not in the show itself.
We HAVE learned that alicorns generally have super-powered magic; that Celestia in particular is skillful enough in magic to head Equestria's foremost institute of magical education in her spare time from being head of state; that alicorns are (at least sometimes) regular ponies who experienced a magical upgrade; that age manipulation spells exist but take great magical skill and power; and that the founding of Equestria, Celestia and Luna's rise to power, and Luna's banishment all happened within the lifetime of the presumably-mortal Star Swirl the Bearded. We can also conclude that Celestia feels very responsible for both her country and her sister, and that she probably knew of Luna's return, and its date, in advance.
"Celestia is immortal" is one conclusion that fits what we've seen. Based on the above facts, though, I think there's another: Celestia has spent a millennium casting youth spells on herself, perhaps taught to her by a magically long-lived Star Swirl, out of (her perception of her) duty to her nation and a desire to defend against, redeem, and make amends with her sister one thousand years in the future. This isn't the best, only, or most interesting interpretation of the facts, but if I were asked to write a show or comics arc making the nature of Celestia's immortality explicit, that's what I'd go with.
It also raises plenty of questions that make good story fodder: Does Celestia still want eternal youth now that Luna's back and she can guide a new generation of royalty? Does Luna? How will Cadence and Twilight handle this option? Can alicorns cast the spell on others with equal power, and if so, why did Celestia (apparently) never decide to do so? Starting from this premise, it's plausible to have Shining decide to join Cadence in eternity even as Twilight chooses to remain as mortal as her friends, which could be a window on romantic love vs. friendship.
Sorry to make a comment that's so tangential to the post's topic (and, on preview, so incredibly long), but I've been kicking that one around for a while and wanted to write it out.
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Well, given that Celestia and Luna seem to be one step up from Cadence and Twilight (they are literally incarnations of day and night - witness the beginning of S4. And that's just canon) they might operate on different rules.
Again, given how stupidly powerful alicorns are, them being subjected to the normal rigors of age is probably a bad idea. Someone who can literally crack the world in half is not someone you want developing dementia.
I obviously prefer my take on Alicorns (see part five of my series in addition to my stories), but simply casting youth spells on themselves is pretty mundane for beings that don't need physical form, can walk through dreams without apparent effort, and otherwise bend the sometimes-shaky physics of the setting.
I usually don't like fictions about Twilight's immortality, but there is one that I loved because it's totally different from the average Immortality fic. Also: Discord.
The fic is A Draconequus' Guide to Immortality and I put a little excerpt here under spoiler:
_______________
Daetrin, did you see that "Off The Edge Of The Map" is now #3 in Top of all time?i.imgur.com/wBO7RbK.png
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I actually read that fic. It was pretty good.
And no, I didn't know. I did not know there was a top of all time list to begin with... o.o
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I don't know that that necessarily means Celestia and Luna are a step up. Like you said, emotions seem to be a fundamental part of the physics of Equestria; I think "incarnation of romance" and "incarnation of friendship" could easily be on par with "incarnation of the day". Though, being younger, they certainly have less prestige so far.
There is semi-canon evidence (in the form of a book recently released) that Celestia and Luna were born alicorns (alas – I thought ascension was more interesting), which might mean that they follow different rules, yes. It also makes reference to "the alicorns" as a group, who seem to be absent today. Or so I've been told; I'ven't read the book myself.
2213110 Two things. First in my silly little AU the main six are told not too long after they fix Luna that they might be immortal, but then there are various comments about it not being a sane thing to test. Second of course is there is immortality, and then there's unaging. For that matter, there can even be mostly immortal, and immortal as long as you're not stabbed by the dread spork of ur. Whereas you get the feeling no matter what you do Discord he will come back regardless.
Personally my feeling is the grieving process might last longer just because if your'e immortal there is nothing to stop you. That's why I have Queen Art Hair, and other knights of the round table analogues build and rule Canterlot right after the defeat of nightmare moon, becasue Celestia is just barely doing her job. Sometimes not even having the sun up long enough. (That's why it was called the dark ages obviously.) The point is while yes Twilight could certainly grieve for a bit longer than most mortals over the loss of her friends, obviously she would recover.
Finally one thing to think about is how Twilight acts when she has a real problem that needs solving. It is possible Twi might decide that she has to get her friends back, and devote her whole life to achiving that goal, but there are two problems with the way it is in most stories. Unless it is literally impossible it should only take her a decade or two. If it is impossible then maybe few centuries, but probably less. But the main thing by the time she succeeded, she'd be over the grief, and focusing on fixing the problem. In other words searching for the solution to that pesky death problem would be a coping mechanism.