Who the hell is Rainbow Dash? · 2:47pm Jun 25th, 2014
I watched this show, Friendship is Magic, for the first time today since, like, whenever. I don’t know exactly how long, it’s not like I keep a ‘ponies I’ve slobbered at today’ journal, but it’s been a long, long time since I’ve actually watched the show, besides the finale, when I had to tape my ass down to the couch so I would have to actually sit and watch. I noticed some surprising things this time around.
Firstly, I really enjoy this show when it’s not being stupid. And a lot of times when it’s being stupid, too. In general, these ponies are a lot of fun to watch. I’m almost as surprised by that discovery now as I was when I first made it however long ago. I’ve come to the conclusion that the finale must have been really bad, because I don’t remember enjoying it nearly as much as I’m enjoying this.
Secondly, who the hell is Rainbow Dash?
I paid particular attention to her. Mostly because she’s really fun to pay particular attention to, and somewhat because I write a lot of Rainbow Dash, and knowing about her would probably help. Probably. I’m not actually convinced of that. I’ve begun to suspect that I can do whatever the hell I want with her, and no one will know the difference between my rainbow-maned fart sack and the real deal. For example, if I told you to read this blog post in Rainbow Dash’s voice, I think you probably could, even though it isn't written anything like the way she talks.
People tell me a lot that I write Rainbow Dash well, which is nice, because, again, I write Rainbow Dash a lot, and it’s nice to be good at things you do a lot. Like everyone else, I’ll start believing something about myself if people keep repeating it to me over and over, and especially if that something is a good kind of something. It doesn’t make it true, though. Except that I believe it and everyone else believes it, and then you have to start asking, ‘What the hell does true mean, anyway?’
But as I watched Rainbow-Paste Lightning-Ass, I realized that she didn’t seem very familiar. And then I realized that I don’t have any clue who this character is at all, and even worse than all of that, who I’ve been writing the past couple years doesn’t actually act much like that sexy blue smudge on my television screen. Which sort of stinks, because, once again, Sexy Blue Smudge makes up about eighty percent of what I write.
So like any good ‘person who composes with language,’ I took some notes, and this is what I saw:
Rainbow Dash has a squeaky voice, and it’s just the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.
Rainbow Dash is excitable, like really, really excitable. Every time she sees or hears or talks about something she’s interested in, she lights up like a kid dressed in a Christmas tree costume on Halloween going trick-or-treating. It’s an infectious excitement. She’s the sort of person that makes everyone else in the room feel excited just by being around her. Listening to her talk about something she likes makes you feel excited just because she’s so freaking excited about talking about it.
Rainbow Dash is a little dumb. I’m consistently surprised by how childish the things she says and the things she does are. Tying back into that previous note, getting stupidly excited about things to the point of hopping around the room like a kangaroo that all the other kangaroos don’t invite to parties anymore is something that children do. It seems like she almost never reasons any of her decisions out. She just does. But she also usually genuinely listens when others tell her what’s up and why she’s being a moron, though maybe not always right away. She’s also perfectly willing to follow orders and do as told, which maybe means she’s more impressionable than stupid, but still means she’s more a child than an adult.
Rainbow Dash has an obsessive personality. This is where all that excitability must come from. Every single one of her episodes, it’s either Wonderbolts or Daring Do. It almost gets grating after watching for so long. Half of everything Rainbow Dash says could be written out of the show if she just carried two signs with her at all times to hold up during conversations instead of talking. One would say ‘I want to be a Wonderbolt,’ the other ‘I like Daring Do.” And there would go half of her dialogue.
Rainbow Dash has a massive ego. This is obvious, but I was surprised by how subtle it is sometimes. She definitely has the hyper-in-your-face kind of ego that everyone notices right off the bat, but she also has a more assumed kind of ego. Most of the time, she seems to take for granted that she can do something and that everyone else around her thinks she can do it, too. And it’s this subtler kind of ego that leads to all sorts of terrible self doubt and loathing when she, in spite of all common sense saying failure is an impossibility, actually fails, and the feeling that she's let both herself and everyone else down.
Rainbow Dash is abrasive. She’s really… kind of a jerk. Not even ‘kind of.’ She’s just a straight up jerk. She pushes people around or insults her friends all the time, and particularly has a problem of selfishly putting her own desires over those of her friends, but almost never realizes it until the damage is already done. She’s quick to apologize or try to make things right when she realizes what she’s done wrong, and when she actually bothers to think or pay attention she shows a surprising amount of intuitiveness and sensitivity. But when she’s just going about her day, she’s childishly unaware of how her actions affect those around her.
Rainbow Dash is a weird mix of determined and irresolute. Most people make note of how driven Rainbow Dash is, but I was surprised by how often she yields to adversity. She very quickly becomes frustrated when things don’t go her way, and she almost as quickly loses heart altogether. Time and time again, Rainbow Dash simply gives up when faced with an obstacle. It’s like she doesn’t have any determination at all, but only when it comes to herself. When someone else is on the line, she’s Gung Ho Jo until the battle is won, but when it comes to more personal obstacles, she’s incredibly willing to accept that she’s a failure. And then she almost just as quickly turns back around all fired up like a summer barbecue and keeps on trying until she succeeds, sometimes with a little encouragement from one of her friends, sometimes with some inner self-realization, sometimes just because that’s what Rainbow Dash does. She seems to be having a constant inner struggle between totally believing in herself and totally not believing she can do anything at all.
Rainbow Dash is contradiction. Switching between caring and obliviously selfish, then between tenacious and weak-willed, Rainbow Dash is either a very poorly written or a very complex character. At least, she has a lot of conflicting motivations, both interior and exterior, that could make for some great stories. Mostly, she’s not the caricature I, and most others, write her to be. It’s really disappointing how little these dynamics are ever actually used, by me or anyone else. It would probably be to everyone’s benefit if authors on this site took some time to watch the show and actually watch the characters, instead of perpetually writing their own versions of those characters.
I think you do/did a better job of capturing those nuances in character than you think you do, or perhaps it is all of us simply seeing what we see in her. Because she has so many personality traits, it's extremely easy for us to see whichever ones we identify with most in fiction.
I have thoughts:
First, I totally agree with your description. A lot of this is what I was trying to get across when I talked about Shipping-Dash, the version of Rainbow Dash that a lot of shippers use because the closer you are to canon, the more impossible it is to imagine Dash being ready for any kind of grown-up relationship. I did try to use a Dash more fitting your canon description in Love Means Having to Say You're Sorry-- immature, unthinking, and self-centered until she gets a hoof to the head in the form of actually hurting a pony.
There's a lot of room to play with that side of the character, as long as you're not trying to show why your ship is obviously two ponies falling in love forever... canon-Dash is going to have a lot of failed relationships before she's learned enough to to really make one work. I could easily see Twilight, AJ, Rarity, or Fluttershy reacting to an attraction to Dash not with "How do I tell her?" but with "Do I really want to light a match in that emotional fireworks factory?"
Second, the other side of the coin is that no one really has to write that. You mentioned that Dash is either a poorly written character or a very complex one, and the reason there's that ambiguity is that the nature of the show doesn't allow for a lot of reflection on the characters. While the animation does have a lot of great facial expressions, they aren't exactly good at nuance, and in visual media you're cut off from a characters deeper thoughts and self.
In writing, on the other hand, you can dive right into that. Authors can decide how much of canon Rainbow Dash is facade and how much is conviction. They can come up with more reasoning behind the reactions, even if Dash can't express it outwardly or doesn't even understand it.
And that's not even taking into account that most fanfic stories are essentially AU to start with-- we often put characters into more mature situations than they ever face on the show. In those cases, writing the characters as they might act with more maturity (which most authors will interpret differently) is just a part of the setting change. I think this is the key to the "you write a good Rainbow Dash" claim-- most of the time, you have Dash dealing with something that would require more maturity to even approach than she shows in canon, but your approach to her feels (to readers) like a natural extension of parts of the character. We all change as we grow up, after all, so there's nothing wrong with writing a more mature Dash with a less obsessive personality, or more or less determined.
I'm one of these chumps who think you write a better Dash than most, so feel free to take anything I say with a grain of salt.
Something that really stands out about Rainbow for me is how all-or-nothing she is. She only has two modes, 100% effort and investment or 0%. I find something very telling in Rainbow's part in Suited for Success, where she doesn't have any input at all on her dress other than make it cool. There's a significant amount of trust for Rarity there, because fashion is a 0% area for Rainbow. But she's not opposed to the actual idea of getting dressed up, not in the same way that practical I'll-wear-gumboots-to-the-ball-if-I-want-to-gosh-darn-it Applejack is, because getting dressed up and looking nice is kinda cool, so obviously when Rainbow Dash does it it'll be 100% cool. It's not like something dorky, like, say, reading, or musicals, because Rainbow Dash is 100% not a dork.
So, the really interesting moments for her come when she runs into conflict: she likes reading even though it's uncool, she's nervous before a competition even though she knows she's the best, things like that. And I think you've really nailed that in your latest fic, the oscillation between extremes of emotion. I don't see there being a middle ground to Rainbow Dash at all, which is the thing that makes her come off as childish (or weirdly innocent, if you wanted to put a nice spin on it) a lot of the time by charging headfirst into everything, engaging mouth before brain and probably tracking mud in all over the carpet even though she's been told a hundred times (this week) to please, wipe off your hooves before you come inside. It also makes her easily vulnerable, able to be easily swayed into being self-defeating and attacking her massive ego, which is the thing I find missing from most people's version of Rainbow, but it's always there when you've been writing her.
So, I dunno, maybe we are all writing Rainbow Dash wrong, but for my money you're writing her the least wrong.
I'm gonna be that person and say: What you said about Dash makes sense. But what you said about Dash can be applied to literally every member of the Mane Six. Dash is definitely a fun one, because she is an asshole (which explains how she got along with Gilda so well) but she's also one of the best friends a pony could ask for when she needs to be. She's just really bad at knowing when that moment is and usually only picks up on that fact after she's passed critical velocity, like you pointed out. But really, everything about Rainbow Dash screams dichotomy: She has dreams that will take her far away from her friends, but she'll never leave them hanging. She was a competitive asshole in flight school and yet was friends with Fluttershy. She definitely sees most experiences as a chance to better herself before she sees them as a chance to help another pony out of a tough situation. And, like you mentioned, she's self-assured in the kind of way that means she's constantly re-assuring herself.
But the same analysis should go for all the other characters. Twilight, struggling between who she was and who she's becoming; trying to understand her new purpose in life because being Princess Celestia's student isn't an option anymore and she can barely remember anything else... Fluttershy, perfectly at home with giant creatures but terrified by ponies she doesn't know; perfectly capable in many situations but conditioned to believe she's helpless and useless and should let her many fears win ... Rarity, constantly torn between her desire to be renowned and her desire to stay true to her humble beginnings and down-home friends; always trying to keep her positivity and generous outlook towards others in a business where back-stabbing is the norm ... Applejack, trying to do best by her family, friends and home-town; frightened by the changes she can't always understand or prepare for and having to learn to let her little sister go do dangerous and scary things to find herself... And Pinkie, always trying to leave the world brighter than she found it; unafraid to be ridiculed if it means she gets a smile, willing to go to ridiculous extremes to be helpful and petrified by the thought of not being as special to her closest friends as they are to her...
So I guess I'm wondering, why Rainbow Dash? You write her a lot, but why focus on her complexities and not the others'? Anyhow, rambling over. Continue to go about your day.
The dance between extremes is one of the places good stories come from. I suspect that while you may not have been consciously aware of the things you detailed in this post you had still perceived them to an extent, and have incorporated them into your Dash-related headcanon and portrayals.
It's quite reasonable when re-exposed to something that inspires you - especially after some time away, during which your internal interpretations of it, or even the show's portrayals themselves, may have shifted - to start re-examining how it affects you, and why. I feel the same about Star Wars: I've seen the original movie literally (and believe me, I am using that word correctly) hundreds of times, and yet I still find new things to think about and discuss with people on a regular basis, especially if it's been a while since I (or they) watched it.
Self-doubt in creators is also quite normal, especially when their creations are so regularly perused and judged as stories posted in FimFiction are. Your headcanon, however well received in the main, isn't everypony's, and there are bound to be conflicts of concept whenever two or more shadows are compared with each other and with the original. Perhaps especially when the original is so hard to understand deeply due to the limitations of both the medium and the style and depth of storytelling the show uses due to its target audience and overall approach. The important thing is not to let that self-doubt paralyze you, though based on what you've written here I hardly think that's the case for you.
Your last point is certainly valid: authors who want to play in the MLP universe (or even alternate versions thereof) most certainly should spend time researching and actually thinking about the entities they intend to portray in their stories. Even if they're going to introduce a wildly different version of the world, the characters, or whatever, it would likely make writing and understanding said writing easier if there were greater understanding of its foundations.
The only challenge there comes right back to headcanon: because there is so much ambiguity in the characters due to their simplicity and/or deep complexity each observer's conclusions as to a specific pony's "true" character may differ wildly. Two authors writing Rainbow Dash may both write her very well even if their characterizations are vastly disparate. And you know what? That's okay. And I think many critics - and some in particular, such as the type that believe their filtered view is the One True Canon - would do well to remember and internalize that.
So who the hell is Rainbow Dash? Well, I think between your analysis and the comments you've received that's starting to become a little clearer in some ways. But to me, as one who likes reading pony stories - and likes reading your pony stories - the more important question is 'who is Rainbow Dash to you'.
You obviously already have a pretty good idea as to the answer. That you are continuing to try to refine that answer is, I think, an unambiguously good thing.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and have an excellent day and then some!
Light and laughter,
SongCoyote
2233155
I like your thought about "I could easily see Twilight, AJ, Rarity, or Fluttershy reacting to an attraction to Dash not with "How do I tell her?" but with "Do I really want to light a match in that emotional fireworks factory?""
That seems pretty darn true. I don't think canon Dash is necessarily doomed to a whole bunch of failed relationships, though. And given the way she reacts to failure, I think that one is all it would take before she starts to make major shifts. If she even "fails" the first one.
Because, like in the show about the friendships, their are going to be fights. But in the MLP world, they tend to get better after that.
Though perhaps I should take a minute to mention a bit of my own viewpoints - I think that calling the ponies more childish or immature than us is a very limited viewpoint and way of thinking about it. Especially since, quite often, they act much more mature than the average person in real life situations.
Though that's how I see it. At the end of the day, this is a fanfiction site, so I'll agree that a lot of how people interpret characters and choose to use them is up to them, and not necessarily "wrong." I know that I myself have enjoyed reading different and interesting takes on the same character, none of which felt "wrong" with the show. Anyways, like HBAO said, MLP is good times.
Rainbow Dash is Sterling Archer toned down and an actually pretty morally decent person, is a good sum up.
While this analysis is apt, I think you have it backwards. People don't write fanfiction in order to perfectly emulate the characters (or at least, the majority don't). Rather, people are attracted to verses that have archetypal, malleable characters--ones that give them freedom to write in many ways while still being believable when compared to the canon version.
Like 2233155 and 2233566 said, just about every story could be called AU by default, because authors inject something of themselves into whatever they write, and everyone has an individualized headcanon.
I like to think of this as a strength of fanfiction as a medium, not as a weakness of authors or readers. I've had the same thing happen to me when writing Celestia and Luna--the show is so vague about them that I can write them goofy or emotional or hedonistic or even violent, and people can still say "yes, these characters are well-written." Not necessarily because I wrote them well, but because the show provides just enough evidence--and enough non-evidence--for each of those portrayals. The great thing about FIM is that every character has that helpful vagueness about them, in some way or another.
Volare: Man you hit the nail right on the head about her...on everything, really! She can be a real grating pain in the flank, but at the same time, there aren't many other ponies I'd rather have in my corner when the chips are down. Cuz although she may not admit it to your face, she's got a big heart under all that bravado, and when she puts her mind to it, there's not much that she can't do to help out a pony in a jam.
I guess that's why she's the Element of Loyalty
I think a lot of people are like that, honestly. If you are really awesome, you get used to succeeding at everything, which works great until you're put in an actually difficult situation; at that point, because you're always used to succeeding really easily, suddenly when you can't just automatically succeed by dint of being awesome, you never built up the skills necessary to persevere. A lot of people, especially impulsive people, will decide if they fail at something once that they're bad at it and give up on it forever, and Rainbow Dash is very impulsive. That's especially true if it is outside of their area of expertise; if you're supposed to be the best X ever, you might beat your head against the wall endlessly doing X, but you don't think of yourself as being good at whatever else so you don't even really try.
I think that really is why Rainbow Dash is the way she is; she sees herself as being the best flier ever, and she succeeded at doing the Sonic Rainboom the first time she ever tried it; the reason she won't give up on it is because she knows she can do it, so it makes her ANGRY when she isn't succeeding. But if something is outside of her realm of expertise, she just gives up right away when things get tough because she's never really gained the skills to persevere; when she did the Sonic Rainboom, it was basically her beating her skull into the wall over and over again, which works okay for athletic stuff but works terribly if you're trying to do something clever, because being clever is about changing your approach to things. Rainbow Dash is likely to just do the same thing over and over again until it works or until she gives up; she decided she was bat at schoolwork a long time ago, and thus that she is stupid, not because she actually IS stupid, but because she actually had to work at it and it wasn't something which came natural to her.
A lot of people in the real world have such contradictory behavior. Hell, I was an example of that - I am ridiculously smart, but that meant that I could, basically, just read the entire textbook for a course at the start of it and then pretty much coast. The only class I really had to try hard at in high school was AP Physics, but when I got to college, I couldn't just win by virtue of being really smart - I had to actually study shit, because I didn't already know a huge amount about everything.
I crashed and burned pretty badly and got a pretty meh GPA, and really didn't develop proper work ethic until... probably after I graduated, honestly, and went to later stuff. I was ashamed but never really built up the skills to deal with it properly. And I avoided talking to people about it because it was embarrassing; I would just avoid stuff if I wasn't doing well, which of course didn't make the situation any better. Heck, I skipped a few classes I was doing poorly in because I was ashamed to show my face in class. Avoidance is stupid as hell.
So it is definitely a real world thing. I just learned to deal with it later on. And it really weirds people out who know me, or who meet me. I seem very outgoing and confident; many people think I have an enormous ego (and let's face it, I totally do). But the truth is that I have always been that way, ever since I was a little kid; I actually used to be really shy and awful at public speaking and basically had to learn how to do it. It sucked, but I did it by, well, doing it a bunch and figuring out that it wasn't actually that hard.
But I had a horrible time looking for work after I graduated from college because I felt like asking people for a job was basically asking them to do me a favor, which sucked. I hate that feeling; helping others feels good, asking others for help sucks. I've been getting better at it over time, but every time I have to ask anyone for help, I feel something in my guts that is like "you're burdening them, you shouldn't do that." I can kick it in the face NOW, but... yeah.
I mean, heck, it even goes down to how I do writing for this site. My writing output, when I don't force myself to write every day, is basically nothing for ages, then thousands and thousands of words within a couple days. Like today, totally on impulse, I wrote over 3,000 words in under 2 hours in the middle of the night just because I felt like it. But I still haven't fixed two stories which are nearly done and could be rather easily fixed.
As far as her whole caring vs selfishness thing goes, I think a lot of that just goes back to the fact that she's really impulsive. Her first instinct is to protect/further herself and her ego, but she really does care about other people, and she feels terrible if she hurts someone else or lets them down. She gets tunnel vision, and then suddenly when the tunnel vision is gone she sees what she did. When she has no investment in it beforehand, she is really a super awesome friend; when she was doing the whole water lifting thing, it was all about helping out everyone else, and so she saw that she needed to support Fluttershy. But when she's personally involved, she gets swept up in stuff and only when she has time to sit back and look around that she really gets the consequences.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/FriendshipIsMagicRainbowDash The tropes pages about them are actually quite on the dime. But yeah I personally like the Fanon version of RD than I do the canon. Mostly because:
1) Canon Dash after taking Scoots under her wing, and building it up for ages. Simply forgets about her and treats her like a non-entity. Then the one time we do see her after her Sister-sub arc. She goes on to say that it doesn't matter if Scootaloo can ever fly. [Something that is her dream and she strives for].
2) Until S3, she was a major bitch [Techncially a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but the gold part didn't come until later]. Loved her at parts, but between insulting her best friend (Flutters) like no tomorrow. Her ... well as you said oblivious selfishness [other writers call it her "Loyalty Switch" since she goes form Loyal to Self-serving in a dash]. And her treatment of Scoots. I didn't really like Canon Dash until S3 [even though I'm still disappointed with her lack of relation with Scoots]. While Fanon shows her more loyal side, and the better parts of her for the most part. And the bad parts aren't usually as Dkish.
and
3) The writers simply ignore lore they set up and character building when it comes to Dash and Pinks. In fanfics though there's a certain degree of constancy. But yeah what you've put was basically what's been on her Tropes page. Still love Dashie, but yeah that was a good question in asking who she was.
My view of Dash is that actually she's plenty smart, she just almost never takes the time to think things through. In fact in my stories she's literally a genius and has a doctorate. In her words it's in "math stuff" but of course she doesn't remember the actual specific subject, and just because she has an advanced degree in mathematics doesn't make her an egghead. Otherwise Dash is insensitive not because she's a jerk, but she never thinks about how what's she's saying actually sounds, or how what's she's doing might hurt others. The second something causes her to actually think about it she immediately realizes she screwed up, and tries to correct it.
Before I start, I want to say that you are not alone on the season 4 finale. It was a total abomination that can be best described as "MLP as directed by Michael Bay" and has killed my motivation to watch more episodes, although some of that is also a result of too little free time. I could go into excruciating detail on why that episode was terrible, but the subject at hand is Rainbow Dash so I will move on to the lovable little fuzzball.
I think a lot of your confusion stems from a single misunderstanding. You said that you thought Rainbow was dumb, but you could not be more wrong. If you look closely, Rainbow is much smarter than any of the other characters with the exception of Twilight (and possibly Pinkie who I do not even attempt to quantify for sanity's sake), and even there I am not sure who comes out on top. The real difference is that Rainbow has no interest in academics so she never put any effort into school like Twilight did, and she tends to act before thinking which is a critical skill for the kind of high speed stunt flying she does because there is no time for her to think about what she is doing, she just has to react. This creates a huge smokescreen and makes her look very stupid in a lot of situations because she is acting without thinking.
The evidence for this is hidden in a lot of those contradictions you mentioned. Rainbow is genuinely bad at understanding the social expectations and emotional impacts her actions have on those around her, but her impressive intellect allows her to overcome this when she puts her mind to it. She is also extraordinarily confident when she is acting and running on instinct, but she tends to crack when she lets her brain take charge and it starts telling her just how many ways whatever she is doing can go horribly wrong and what the odds against her are. I want to encourage you to go watch those contradictory scenes and look for the moment that she kicks her brain into gear because it is usually obvious if you know what you are looking for and it effectively resolves most of the issues (there are still a few exceptions like Mare Do Well, but that was a total abomination that is best ignored).
This duality is really the root of her entire character and is why you get things like her obsessive and excitable nature when she is running on instinct on the one hand, and her fragility and sweet side when she is taking the time to think things through. It is also why she desperately needs a stabilizing force like her friends in her life, although that individual or group needs to be able to see when she needs support because she is really bad at asking for help and needs to have a thick skin and patience to deal with her unintentional nastiness. Also, on the subject of thick skins, the best defense on that front is to be good at laughing at yourself so you find most of her shit hilarious instead of hurtful.
I hope this helps.
wow. now that you've said it, I'm really seeing it all, like I have seen ll these things and just didn't bother thinking about them too much, but now I've seen someone else really write it out... Rainbow Dash is me. Exactly me. Like, you have literally just explained to me exactly why I have no friends and can't do anything useful with myself. Thank you.
Where's the Like button? I can't find the Like button. What's that? Blogs don't have Like buttons on this site? Why not?! After reading this, I need to click a Like button for it!
I guess I'll just have to pretend the "Add Comment" button is a Like button...