Advice needed---down the writing rabbithole · 1:21am Oct 9th, 2015
I puzzled my puzzler til my puzzler was sore, and now I think I've opened a can of worms without realizing it. If you haven't read Little Bea and Three Steps Back, this probably won't make sense to you.
In Little Bea, Trixie's mother is identified as "Mrs. Lulamoon". I don't think Trixie ever said her last name in TSB, but it's at least understood she still goes by "Trixie Lulamoon", since that's her canon name. Now, given what I've set up about Trixie's horrid past with her father... why would she have kept her father's name?
At first I thought that maybe Equestrian society used a matrirchal naming system, but I gave Soarin' a last name that implied he got it from his father---I'm trying to be consistent. I know some people (estranged from their families, radical feminists, etc) who changed their last names for various reasons---but, then again, I know someone who was terribly abused by his father who nonetheless kept the guy's name. Even if I hated my father (and I don't---he's the best man I ever met) I would still keep my last name because it represents my lineage. Maybe Trixie had the same reasons? (It's a cult fan theory that she's distantly related to Starswirl the Bearded).
What do you think?
The lineage thing makes sense to me. Maybe have some famous Lunamoons in the history books, or have her be on good terms with someone on her father's side of the family so she associates her last name with more people than just her father?
Or alternatively have unicorn and pegasus ponies use different naming conventions from back when the tribes were separate and present day ponies still follow it out of habit/tradition.
Well, there you go. Sometimes the smart and the logical align, and sometimes they don't, and sometimes even when they do, people have other reasons. It might be good to get those reasons straight in your head, but it might have just been one of those things that happened, and if it's not a major plot point it can probably be lampshaded and glossed over.
3454226 I like that reasoning that there is something more to the name than her father. Trixie holds the name because it represents something more than the shame her father brought to it. "My father shamed the family, not me."
I also like the idea that lineage choice may be selective with the stallion and mare deciding which lineage they'll honor. Of course you know I use the -foal- by -sire- by -dam- naming convention in my own works (horse thing
), it helps to keep the concept of 'surname' ambiguous in some ways. Of course Trix may very well go by Trixie Lulamoon out of (okay I forgot Mom's name here) and omit her father's name completely in an act of disownment of her sire, but not the legacy of the Lulamoon line. Hence she's typically known as Trixie Lulamoon.