Alcohol, Drugs, and Out of Character Behavior · 11:26am Jul 14th, 2014
There are a lot of stories in this site that make use of ponies getting drunk or high as plot device, sometimes even as an entire plot. Certainly, there is a lot of amusement to be had in reading about cutesy, colorful ponies getting into all sorts of hi-jinks while under the influence.
But is there a point where even being drunk or high won't cut it? Is there a point where you would think 'You know what, I don't care how hammered or high Twilight is, she wouldn't do this shit.' Or is alcohol/drugs the secret elixir of out of character criticism immunity? Can a writer think 'Hmm, I want Twilight to do this, but that's not something the readers will believe she'd do. Oh well, time to frog-march her to the nearest beer keg!'
How much of a free pass do you give a drunk/high character's wild behavior, especially if it's a canon character, until you decide that the author is pulling the plot out of his ass?
Alcohol and the like is way too often used to justify wildly OOC behaviour. It's not a magical personality-changing formula, and I honestly don't get why some amateur authors seem to be under the impression that it is.
Even when I'm literally under the table from how drunk I am, I've still never been known to do anything that I couldn't conceive of doing in a sober state.
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Anime for one thing, there's always some typical scene of the mousy, nerdy girl getting tipsy then throwing herself legs-first at her crush. Unfortunately, I do know people who undergo a Jekyll/Hyde transformation once they get red-faced, but fiction is more on plausibility, not whether it actually happens in real life, so I have to ask the question.
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Well, in any case, you have my answer. If I can't possibly picture a character doing something at all, then no amount of substance intake is going to justify it unless it literally is Dr. Jekyll's miracle potion.
Alcohol tends to reduce inhibition, thus allowing people to do things they refrain from doing for one reason or another. There isn't much on the show to indicate that Twilight, say, really wants to banish Spike to the moon, so if she does that after getting drunk it gets really OOC.
On the other hand, there is straight up character assassination for comedic purposes (See the Daring DONE! series for a great example). In that case, why bother with alcohol at all?
I've been a paramedic for 12 years now and I think I can safely say that there is nothing I haven't seen people under the influence do. However in most cases I think it was at least somewhat the person's predisposition before hand judging completely unfairly on the person in question's appearence and dress. I think the real question is would Twilight do bath salts, Fluttershy drop acid, or Rarity get hammered? I'm inclined to say no.
I've always been of the opinion that, while alcohol lowers inhibitions/control, it doesn't automatically create pure, unadulterated, chaos.
There are some things that I don't think a character would do willingly, but that particular quality (willingness) gets fudged a bit with booze.
* I'm pretty sure we can all agree that cannon Applejack wouldn't rob a bank.
Buuuuut, would sloshed Applejack?
Canon thought would probably say 'no': it's too far out of her personality/character traits for it to be reasonable. This makes characters consistent.
That being said, where I think it becomes unbelievable isn't related to cannon specifically, but rather to plausibility given a situation mixed with the personality of the character.
* Smashed Applejack (still the element of Honesty and a VERY straight forward pony) might not consider all the steps required to buy a cookie at Sugarcube Corner... only realizing that she's short a few bits after the last 8 rounds at the Cider Barrel (Not Apple-Family... so it's cheap, but in volume adds up)... and wakes up later in the Royal Guard Barracks with Twilight and Shining Armor looking embarrassed and worried.
Could I believe that? You better hope so. A stream of events and thoughts can dramatically alter how a situation is received... and booze/drugs tend to be good ways to break the rigidness of those normal expectations. Would I expect Applejack to ever intentionally kill someone without reason? No. Could I see her under the influence/desperate/protecting another/etc.... yes. Let's not forget that your major stories here are great examples of where cannon characters grow and change given unusual circumstances...
...And the sad part is that, like real life, once that state wears off, the consequences and understanding of those events come crashing back on the suddenly-aware pony.
And if you're more asking if Smashed-Twilight/Smashed-Applejack trying to get all active with your wolfish costar would be pushing it... I'd say it would be believable if handled well.
Twilight doesn't have much in the way of social experience... thus less knee-jerk reactions to 'whoops' moments.
Applejack just seems like a bit of a stalwart drinker to begin with... I could see her relaxing some but holding back out of a foggy memory about something that tells her it wouldn't be right (you know... hurting her friends, Apple-integrity, personal honor...whatever).
I could also see Vangaurd Clash stopping the drunk mares if he was still in command of himself.
... but yes, I could see any, or all, of them ending up drunk/drugged enough to end up engaged in something that they would be VERY surprised/embarrassed/happy/etc about once sober.
TLDR:
Is there a line? Yes.
Is that line absolute? No.
Why? The totality of the situation makes it work... or fail.
Twilight/Clash or Applejack/Clash sloshed hookup? <shrugs> If well handled.... yheah.
Twi-Jack-Clash under the influence hookup? <awkwardness ensues> ... um... I could see it.... um... yheah... I'm going to go hide with Fluttershy now.
Was this blog written directly about me, lord of creating perhaps the best extended mythology in all of ponydom? I doubt it, but considering this is entirely my running gag, I think it's my duty to give my input. You've been doing a lot of blogging recently. I like this!
First off, I really haven't noticed a 'lot' of stories using them getting drunk or high as a plot device, but then again, I guess I don't actively look, but from what I've seen it might not be as big as you think. Again, don't quote on me on that. Heck, I don't think I've read anything other than Maximus' stories about bar confessions that are heavily alcohol dominated, so I guess I haven't actively looked at all. Meh. I'm honest!
I don't know if looking at my responses to you and seeing how the fuck I got four hundred followers doing it, or it randomly came to your mind, but as someone who wrote - and plans on writing two to three more - a novel that was entirely based on that, I did it for comedy reasons, and I'm not saying I'm a canon nut like you and many other serious writers are.
I love the show. I've watched every episode three times, and do plan on writing a more concrete and canon story in the future, but the fact of the matter is my writing, and maybe the drug and alcohol writing in general, is to show the more adult sides of their personalities and get away with more. It's all about the suspension of disbelief and the universe you are writing and what spin you are putting on it. I pull no punches in admitting that my story is a heavily R rated interpretation of the show that started on three basic premises. Real people swear. Real people have sex. Real people drink. That's it. To accomplish that with MLP, I had to damn most of their childish personalities and try to view them in a more realistic light. To my readers, I succeeded because of quick writing, sarcasm, and because it was funny. I write the show as if it was on FX, or Adult Swim, and it wasn't until after writing Ethanol, Elements, and Estrogen I realized I write frightfully like a crappily written Archer. I bend all of their personalities to match that light, and shamelessly admit it. I add bits of myself to them for hopeful laughs. That's it. If that suspension of going 'Twilight would not suckerpunch Rainbow in the face drunk' doesn't work, it's entirely my fault, not your own.
I'm not trying to stay hyper close to canon, I'm extrapolating their personalities to make it sorta believable for the lolz. I push all of their personality traits to the extreme for comedic effect. That's it. I'm not some grand writer like you, and I mean that in all sincerity; I'm a satirist and comedian. If I can make people laugh, I did my job. And apparently getting them drunk off of their asses, stoned, and bang each other is how I do it.
I bow to people, like you, and so many other of my peers, more clever than I am. I really do, no sarcasm there. I found my niche and what not only I enjoy writing, but what people enjoy reading, and that's R rated ponies jabbing each others' self esteem, egos, and getting drunk. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I've read a few stories where someone gets drunk and all of them go too far with it and make the character fully stupid with the exception of the one I like the least. I can forgive them and enjoy the comedy because that's all they are-comedy.
I would never call any of them good literature, but they can be enjoyable as cute little comedy pieces.
It's honestly all about striking a balance between a character's personality, and the effects of whatever substance they are on. It shouldn't be used as a free pass, simply because it comes off as lazy writing. This is most prevalent in stoner movies where the "characters" aren't particularly well defined, and are just a vessel for spouting pop culture references.
Well, I think allot of people have the view of drugs (and to a lesser extent alcohol) as an evil satanic substance which causes you to instantly start acting like a total maniac, like that joke in that one reefer madness spoof that came out a few years back where the girl smokes one joint and she's instantly a whore. I mean that is how those things are often portrayed in the media, and I think its not unreasonable to assume the MLP fandom has had less real life experience with controlled substances then some other fandoms.
Beyond that, well I personally don't know that many hard drinkers so I'm no expert on how much being drunk changes your behavior (I did however see one guy who was deathly afraid of heights down nine glasses of hard liquor, climb a tree, and then fall and break a leg, so at least I know it can change your behavior that much). Generally for me if the story is funny enough, I'll forgive all kinds of things. On the other hand, if its not funny or if its played for drama then I tend to get really picky about how the character acts.
in general some liberties can betaken, the writers do to some degree, but overall the character have to be in charact.er than means as competent and intelligent and their reactions working.
when it comes to drug use in particular, I can buy certain exaggerrations. I could be convinced that applejack and rainbow dash, maybe rarity, and willing to drink, but I would not say they would be complete drunkards.
drugs however is where things can get interesting, especially if they re taken without full knowledge of their effects or even taking them. I once thought of a story where the entirety of ponyville had a drunken riot of a party. however it turns out the reason that happened is because flim and flam sold cheap hard cider that was accidentally labeled as normal cider.
As far as the "weird shit they do," I don't really have any problems with them. People do insane shit while they're drunk and/or high, so a fic would be hard pressed to write a fic where I'd go "okay, that's just too much..."
What actually tends to bug me is when people do these fics in ways that feels anything but authentic, such as those very blatantly influenced by movies such as The Hangover. The thing that people get wrong is that the effects of most such substances, alcohol in particular, are not "funny." They're ugly.
Yes, even pot, my dear "legalize grass" friends. Like it or not, what these things do is take control of your body, and through it, they indirectly control your mind as well. And while, among other things, the removal of inhibitions may sound like a good thing, it's ugly because you're cheating by using a substance to avoid your own conscience rather than trying to face it while sober. Sure, the results may end up being "funny," in the same way that a slapstick comedy looks funny when it features, say, a house being destroyed because "somebody did an oopsie..."
But now imagine yourself becoming a victim of said slapstick comedy. Suddenly, the thought of not having a house anymore isn't that funny, is it? The use of such substances is the same thing: it's all fun and games when it's a party and people get a little wasted, but then you get to the part that 99% of people say stuff like "I'm never drinking again" the following day.
It's also annoying that when people turn this stuff into comedy, it promotes the idea that losing sobriety is necessary in order to have fun. It isn't. Pinkie Pie doesn't need cocaine or sugar or whatever to be hyper. She's just full of life. Substances just cheat you into an illusion that makes it look like you're full of life.