Ponies Aren't Perfect · 4:27am Aug 8th, 2014
I'm going to state another self-evident fact.
Ponies aren't perfect. Some of them behave well. Some behave badly. Some are good. Some are evil.
Not only that, but even heroic Ponies often have flaws. Sometimes these are trivial flaws which simply make them more interesting characters. Sometimes they are tragic flaws which blight their whole lives. And even Ponies who do not have a particular flaw may make a mistake in the application of their reason and morality to the challenges with which life presents them.
This is absolutely true in canon. The most typical episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic involves one of the Mane Six -- who are very good Ponies indeed -- manifesting some character flaw which causes her trouble, and then having to come to some realization regarding this flaw. What's more (and I love this about the show) the flaw doesn't go away in a single episode. It persists over time, gradually being reduced by self-awareness that this is a flaw.
Now I'm not going to write Equestria as the South Bronx or the Ponies as a bunch of moral degenerates. Equestria is an enlightened culture and the Ponies are a kindly and often even noble species. But I am not going to write them as a species of utter pure pureness who never ever make any mistake more serious than using the wrong fork at dinner. That's more or less the way the G3 Ponies worked, and they worked that way only because they had a Paracosmic Artificial Intelligence removing most of the causes of moral temptation from them and helping them at every step of the way. Even the Daughters of Paradise don't have that, not in the G4 world.
Ponies do not feel real if they are perfect. They are not perfect in the show, and they're not perfect in my fanfic either. That's just the way life works, even in the Magic Land of Equestria.
Is it any wonder that pinkie pie sometimes pins for her old world?
I remembered a short description of the show 'Steven Universe', something about the gems knowing they aren't perfect and being perfectly OK with it. That's the way I like my characters.
Not to say that I don't find dramatic struggles for self-improvement entertaining, but must we really have every hero going through a Blue Screen of Death each time they break a glass? Some times, 'imperfect' heroes get unrealistic. Or overdone.
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Well yes -- Pinkie misses a simpler life.
I don't think I actually write Equestria all that dark, do I? Just imperfect ...
Anything in particular that inspired this? I've been recording the Mare-athon this week, and was extremely annoyed to discover that I had it set only to record and save the last five episodes. Fortunately, by the time I checked, Pinkie Pride was still on there. Anyway, tomorrow they are showing the three G3 movies and I am recording those, because I do NOT know the earlier generations and I am interested in them.
Exactly! Many people consider this a weakness of the show, and I consider it a strength. You do not learn a moral lesson and then move on, character permanently altered for the better. There are limits, of course: nothing can convince me that Pinkie Pie would contemplate giving up being a party pony twice within, apparently, a few months. "Yes, I am a party pony: this is who I am" is not something that needs perpetual relearning, whereas learning to speak in your inside voice and respect personal space probably does.
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I don't think that the canon heroines go Heroic BSOD over every little flaw. I also think that some of the BSOD's are actually PTSD -- being Discorded, or swarmed by Changeling Warriors who look like your best friends, or fighting an evil Unicorn King who has half-transcended normal Pony limitations with his black magic, or standing against a super-powerful magic draining giant monster, all sound like things for which back in my Call of Cthulhu Referee days I would have imposed some serious SAN losses. The only reason why the Mane Six are still sane is that they are strong, and that Equestria is the kind of culture which offers a lot of opportunities for emotional healing.
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Oh, right, right! I was speaking in broader terms, general stuff, beyond FiM.
Ponies seem to... break... more often than people, but they seem to heal much better, too. Plus, I bet that magic is sort of like additional senses, like, you can literally feel the kindness with your body.
Plus, SAN damage isn't permanent in real life anyways.
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Specifically, being told on another thread that there is no way Discord could have once loved Celestia and now love Fluttershy (for some reason, the critic has missed my Fluttershy's rather obvious polyamory, but I guess she really is so darned cute that nobody can criticize her for anything she does -- I wonder if I could write a crazy dark-as-all-hell axe-murdering Fluttershy and everyone, Human and Pony would still go "D'awww" as she sliced and diced Ponyville to bits?) Anyway, I like my Fluttershy and think she's a sweet kid even if she isn't monogamous, but more to the point Discord is a bastard IN CANON, he's just a slightly nicer bastard since he decided to play nice!
Sorry, that was a bit of a rant.
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Which two eps? Cuz "Party of One" was all the way back in 1501 by my chronology, and "Pinkie Pride" is 1504, which is one of the benefits of the long count -- it makes it more plausible.
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On a relatively unrelated note, did you read the comic where Trixie became queen of the diamond dogs?
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As I said, the Mane Six are subjected to unusually frequent and severe stresses. Most Ponies live rather mundane, boring and safe lives, they don't go beard dragons in their dens or rescue hostages from mad Changeling Queens or do half of the stuff that the Mane Six get into every few months (the adventure eps as opposed to the slice of life ones).
And actually, you can get back SAN in Call of Cthulhu too. It's just that most of the fun stuff you can do involves losing it faster than you recover it!
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Oh yes. That was hilarious, and they got Trixie's personality down pat as well. She got into trouble through no real fault of her own this time, but then Trixie draws trouble. It's her nature.
I also liked her bonding with Rainbow Dash, that was pretty nice.
That mention of G3 actually had me thinking more than it usually does. I just started (finally) reading the Pony POV series and I just finished the Pearls arc. (Season 2) This just reminded me how she reacted to Princess Gaia's offer. (Or Nightmare Whisper. I'm still not sure if they're the same pony or a different pony.) And it also reminded me how she looked sad when she saw the animated doll things of the G3 verse when they got near the castle. (Yes, I wrote this whole wall of text just to say that. Deal with it.
)
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I saw that one! I found that Trixie was really cutely drawn in there.
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In my headcanon, Cherilee puts that bust-down-a-barricade-with-contemptuous-ease strength of hers to use more often. She's a schoolmarm, and they do live near the Everfree...
And most of my knowledge of CoC is third hand at best...
Good to know, though.
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Oh, Cheerilee's one of the Ponies I like the most. If you've read my stories, Cheerilee as a filly has something of a Crowning Moment of Awesome in the last chapter of Collateral Damage -- she basically saves her whole family from being broken up. At nine.
Her life will unfortunately contain some more suffering -- this is absolutely necessary to get her in the position she's in by the "Hearts and Hooves Day" episode. But I intend her to have a happy ending -- or at least, protracted happy part of her life, given that "nothing really ends."
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My backlog is huge and growing faster than I can shrink it.
Still, I'm getting there...
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Be sure to read the season 7 Dreams/Nightmares, it's technically in listed as a .5 season before or after dark world.
2352902 I will. I'm just starting Season 3 though, so it might take me a day or two.
A long time ago, Bad Horse brought up the idea that the mane six didn't have flaws, per se, but rather character traits that could be positive or negative depending on the situation. So, for example, Applejack's stubbornness and pride is the reason she insists on accompanying Twilight in the first episode, the cause of her problems in Applebuck Season, what keeps her from quitting when she's up against Flim and Flam in Super Speedy etc, and what forces her to leave home in The Last Round Up. She'll never learn to not be stubborn or take pride in herself, because sometimes it's good to be stubborn and she deserves to be proud. What she learns is how to moderate it, to use it for positive things and control it in situations where it might cause problems.
Most of the mane six's "flaws" are like this, in that they're not just logical extensions of their good traits, they often are exactly their good traits taken to extremes or displayed in the wrong situations.
I just thought that was an interesting way of looking at it.
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Enjoy the stories. I promise you won't be disappointed. No matter how dark things get, there IS a happy ending at the end.
2352857 It's the Pinkie Pie chapter book: Pinkie Pie and the Rockin' Ponypalooza Party!, which is where the Pie family's canon names were first revealed: Igneous Rock, Cloudy Quartz, Limestone and Marble. G.M. Berrow has to have been familiar enough with Season 4 to mention "your other sister," and it's definitely set after Season 3, because Twilight is already a Princess, which doesn't leave lots of time between the time of the book and Pinkie Pride.
The plot revolves around the Pie family showing up in Ponyville, afraid that they are going to lose the farm, because ponies are now using Crystal Empire sparkly stuff instead of rocks to decorate their pathways and gardens. Pinkie suggests a benefit party, and her father in particular says some really crushing stuff about how she isn't serious enough, so she puts on some glasses and gives up partying and becomes determined to show that she is Pinkie Serious Pie. In the end, her parents apologize about being so repressive and she goes back to being a party pony and throws a heavy duty party and Saves The Farm.
Now there are some things I legitimately like about the book, and I've used them. I like the way she's shown as really danged SKILLED at throwing parties, and not just in a "here's my party cannon!" way. I seem to remember a couple of characters (probably Twilight) thinking "holy crow, she is GOOD at this." But as is often the case with the books, I find myself thinking, "no," on some stuff. The small quibble, and admittedly there's no canon evidence to disprove this yet, is how impressed Igneous et. al are with Princess Twilight. They don't want to talk to their daughter, but the Princess, because she's a Princess and therefore she knows. And this seems consistent with some of the Canterlot unicorns we saw at the beginning of Princess Twilight Sparkle, but it just feels wrong for Cloudy and Igneous. Maybe that's because of the way Igneous is costumed. Amish or not, he's wearing Plain clothing, and having grown up going to Quaker schools and with a dad who's been the clerk of a Monthly Meeting, one of the distinguishing features of those churches is that they do not give a flying feather about rank and refuse to acknowledge it. Neither Pinkie nor Maud seem to be particularly impressed by rank, although Pinkie's certainly able to exploit other ponies' awe for royalty in Trade Ya. So that felt off.
The big one, though, is that if this is before Pinkie Pride, then Pinkie's just had an enormously affirmative experience in which her skeptical parents and the entire town acknowledge her skill and the truth of her vocation. Even the same town getting all excited over Cheese Sandwich wouldn't be enough to shake her after that, I think. And after Pinkie Pride, it really doesn't make sense, given that the premier party pony in all of Equestria just flung himself at her hooves crying "sensei!" So, no. I can't make that one work in my head, and because I can't, I feel free to let that part of it slip.
2352960 I know. In the nightmare chapter of Season 0, I thought I was gonna hate it, but I decided to hold off on the judgement until the end. I'm glad I did.
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Thank you. I had a guy who vicious quit after the second chapter of season 1.
2352999 No problem!! I liked the way you wrote the previous chapters, so I wasn't about to elt the idea of a sad ending throw me off.
2352850 Oh, drat--I haven't commented on Chapter 13 or your last blog post yet! My bad. Or maybe I did or I thought I did. Yes, that particular argument did not make a lot of sense to me.
The only strikes against Dislestia I can think of are that--
--the comic book makes it look an awful lot like Sombra is Celestia's first love. Her naivety and the kinds of mistakes she makes are consistent with that.
As for after Discord is un-petrified, I think it's abundantly clear that Celestia does not consider Discord a "friend" again. She's a gentle character herself, but he is very much on probation.
This can be tweaked, of course.
I like Fluttershy very much, but sometimes I find her champions worrisome.
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Oh, I get it. That plot doesn't make character-sense to me either; even in canon one would think that Pinkie's family would know that she was enormously competent and respected -- it's hard to imagine them following the news from the wider world and not paying attention to the fact that Pinkie had become a national heroine. Even if they scorned fame and fortune in the wider world, they would be bound to wonder why other Ponies admired and liked Pinkie so much. And be glad that she was successful.
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Or it could be that Good Sombra is the sort of love she had always hoped for -- and perhaps given up on after betrayal by Discord. Or somepony else. A lot can happen in centuries.
In my fanon, Celestia and Discord were friends since infancy, and lovers for a very short time (a week or two). Then, they were active enemies for a millennium. Or, at least Celestia was Discord's active enemy -- his concept of what he was doing with Celestia and Luna was "playing with my oldest and best friends."
I agree. I think that Discord wants to be Celestia's friend again, but she doesn't trust him enough any more. If she ever did. (In my fanon, of course, she did -- before he Awakened).
2353451 It's the double abandonment of her identity that worries me. We're not just talking about a job change, but her stopping being a party pony altogether. Possibly only Cheese Sandwich can appreciate the full ramifications of that--even in canon, he's aghast-- but her friends are, too.
I suppose you could see that as her moment of self doubt about her vocation being over when she sees the picture of her family, but then that's affirmative because her family enjoyed her first party. The next thing is leaving Ponyville. Come to think of it, purely in my stories' canon, a party pony dragging a cart is an ominous sign.
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Well, the Mane Six are extremely good Ponies. Which doesn't mean they're perfect, though. Any good trait could be taken out of context with its sphere of application and amplified into a nightmarishly bad trait. (Imagine Pinkie Pie insisting on throwing parties all the time, without concern for the situation of the stamina of other Ponies). What's more, even good Ponies can make mistakes, sometimes bad mistakes, out of inexperience with the world or simply making a bad decision.
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Come to think of it, isn't one way of summarizing the original version of Fluttershy's Night Out as "a young and naive Fluttershy decides to be Kind in the wrong way to the wrong Pony"?
As a bit of black comedy this would be great. Especially if we get Cupcakes Pinkamena in there at one point complaining how everypony got so huffy when she did it. Call it 'Choppershy' or something, go with the usual bad slasher movie tropes, and have at it.
So would you say that Ponies are more likely a good race by default like Elves in Dungeon&Dragons or more flawed as human race where they basically take evil and good as equal paths?
Ponies seem for me to take their moral code more seriously. Like the fact that police doesnt seem to be neccessary anywhere or when in Twilight kingdom Tirek was attacking his first victim, there seem to be food in boxes and carts even though owners probably left them for a night. That mean theft is a very rare thing and no one really investing in locks.
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I would say that, compared to Humans, the Ponies of Equestria would be neutral with good tendencies. They are definitely nicer, on the average, than we are. The extent to which this is biological versus cultural is debatable. As Princess Luna observes in Nightmares Are Tragic:
The Ponies of six thousand years ago were more peaceful than Humans, which had the advantage that they killed each other less frequently, and the disadvantage that they were falling victim to predatory sapient races. Wind Whistler and Firefly were exceptions to this rule, and it took The Megan to teach Ponies how to fight back against their oppressors. So it might also to some extent have been biological.
Yes, I agree with you that the Ponies of Equestria form, by and large, a very decent, law-abiding and moral society. This varies from place to place and Pony to Pony, but the average level of virtue is probably higher.
The flip side is that the average level of initiative is probably lower. One of the reasons why the Mane Six are so important is that they are outliers in terms of high initiative -- they are willing to do things and and take risks that most other Ponies would never dream of doing or taking.