Random TSC confession number 1 · 4:56am Oct 13th, 2015
So, I'm re-reading some of the chapters... and while reading The Immortal Game chapter, I remembered why I had so much trouble with it.
It wasn't just the fact that I had very little feedback while writing it, but what struck me after re-reading the original story a couple of times were two things in my opinion:
1) The story got progressively less interesting as a character piece the more Titan was involved. He was all-knowing without it being written in a way that logically would grant him the knowledge he had about everything, according to the logic of the story.
So, earlier when delving into the development of the story, I talked it over with AB and I was actually really glad that he suggested the period of time that Esteem was left in charge by himself.
Personally, I thought the biggest strength story-wise for Immortal Game, was the initial saga up to the recovery of Twilight.
Which brought up the next problem:
2) Esteem himself.
You see, to me he is definitely a deplorable villain, but not a real threat. Why? Well... he never won a single battle, to begin with. His love of fighting and his Bladecasting technique were his main traits when it came to actual ability on anything martial, but we never saw him achieve any objectives.
By no means am I saying that he was a flat character. That honor goes to Cadet, but we don't care about him. Esteem had plenty of character buildup behind him. A solid history, quirks and was basically designed so we could hate him and never empathize with him... but he was more of a Cobra Commander.
Like, we were supposed to know he was dangerous. And I guess he was, in a fight, but not as a general threat more than your regular berserker. There was no "genius" or even a "military general" behind his choices. No real plan. The scope of his plans were so simple that after the things Twilight's Fragment put Sweetie through before, it would have been laughably easy for Sweetie to get away and join the right side of the war.
So when I was writing him, and then measured his honest incompetence as a leader vs the actual rapport, effectiveness and cohesion of Twilight's group? Yeah. I had to change him a bit. Make him a threat on a psychological level as well... something beyond a guy that would drop everything to get Rarity in pony-to-pony combat and forget about everything.
I dunno, I realize it wasn't the best chapter and I missed a few details that would have added more of the original flavor of the original story, but... well, at least I'm glad that whatever else wasn't the best in the chapter, Esteem at least came out as a real villain.
Also, I realize this sounds a bit like I'm blaming The Immortal Game, but I'm not. Honestly, the real issue with those two problems as I saw them, was that it just complicated the writing for me.
The lesson learned?
Don't be too harsh on characters, because while you try to fix stuff you assume you need to fix, you lose sight of other details in the story.
Edit: And maybe another lesson: As much as I try to understand a character, no one writes them like the original author.
avid reader confession:
i never finished The Immortal Game
couldn't do it, mind would fry and i'd be staring into space everytime i opened up any of the chapters
and this comes from a guy that finds it mentally painful not to finish what he starts
I adore The Immortal Game - it was one of the first fanfiction stories I ever read, and certainly the first truly good one - so I was really looking forward to its depiction in TSC. After reading it, though, I felt a bit... disappointed. I can't point to any particular reason. I guess it just didn't feel like it had anywhere near the TLC of, say, The Best Night Ever chapters. Just felt a bit rough. Seemed to be missing the brilliance of some of TSC's other chapters.
It's been a while since I read that chapter, though, and a really long time since I read The Immortal Game. Maybe my memory deceives me. ~ Sable
P.S. Oh, and as for Esteem: I remembering adoring all of TIG's main villains, Nihilus, Esteem, Terra, and Titan. Along with the serial escalation, they were my favorite parts of the story.
Making Esteem the villain makes sense due to his relation to Sweetie Belle, but if you felt that he and Titan were subpar characters, maybe you might have tried to work Nihilus in there somehow instead? I know I'd rather read a passionately well-written villain rather than a merely conceptually obvious one.
3466442 I think it's less that they're subpar and more that I didn't understand them right. Perhaps Nihilus would have been a better choice... since I certainly liked her. A LOT. When I originally planned the chapter, she was still not free... TIG was about... 3 chapters in? Just plans changed when I finally got to the chapter and I got so caught up in the issues I had with two characters, I let everything else sort of drift around.
The issue wasn't TIG, it was like... forensic science. I was trying to fit the characters to the plot, rather than the plot to the characters, if that makes more sense.
3466375 Same here. I don't know what it is, but it got boring at some point to me. And then whenever I tried to get back into it, my eyes glazed over from not remembering anything, and causing me to just not care.
3466597 eh, for me i think it was something in the writing style
it had that "put me to sleep" sort of style that some folks mention
though to be honest, that's the only book that has actually made me fall asleep
3466601 Well, 'boring' and 'put you to sleep' are pretty similar. I think I almost feel aleep as well, so maybe I was bored because I was falling asleep.
3466603 well, it wasn't boring to me, so that's why attribute it's magical sleep inducing powers to the style the words were in, rather than the words themselves
I was never interested in The Immortal Game, and I didn't read anything about it going into the TSC. I plowed through that chapter, and while I didn't enjoy as much as many of the others, it certainly bad.
Reader Confession: I lost interest halfway through the first 'Backwards through the Mirror' chapters and stopped reading. It wasn't until the guest spot in TPC happened that I started paying attention again. And even then I only went back and started from Mendacity.
The Immortal Game is one of my favorite story's. And I did like the TSC part you wrote for it.
Esteem himself.
"Well... he never won a single battle, to begin with." Esteem won more battles then the main 6 .
He is the one who freed Titan at the start of the takeover ,he crucified the supposed leader of any future resistance and was
killing resistance fighters the whole time until the barriers went up.
We do not see him fight anyone except Twilight's parents (who could not do any damage to him and needed to run away) and
AJ, PP, Rarity who all 3 where barely holding off him killing one of them. The only thing that made him run was Luna.
His obsession was the one thing he could not have and that's Rarity. An you cant forget that Titan order him not kill all the rebels . He did not become second in command of the Equestrian army for nothing, in one attack he kill off 1/3 of the rebel army (after they recruited) and would have killed AJ and PP if not for Luna.
His "fighting and his Bladecasting technique" where more then anypony that did not have alicorn powers could beat.
He is one of those individuals who would make you fight a whole army at once just to prove your good enough to fight him.
Yes he was designed so we could hate him and be glad that the good guys kill him, but he is no pushover.
3467227 Titan also pretty much tells him later on that the only reason he's there in that position is because he released him. But even if we ignore the M6 battles alone, we didn't hear or see any actual victories. Just overwhelming force that each time he fought someone significant never amounted to anything other than proving he was strong.
When he crucified his previous commander, he didn't do it because he won a battle... basically, he was executing prisoners that surrendered when Celestia was brought down by Titan. Let's not forget he was sent away in the first place because he was too trigger-happy.
Like I said, he's deadly—but he's also a very controllable threat in reality and less of one than were intended to believe because we see no actual evidence of his supposed prowess outside of personal battles, in which he was pretty much only topped by Luna and Twilight due to power and matched by Rarity in technique.
He was basically a bully, all things considered, and very much not in control of himself as evidenced by his power-trip-verbal-smack down with Empyrean.
This is not saying that he was subpar, tho. I mean, it's clear that he was an effective villain. But again, the issue wasn't him exactly, but my expectations of the character and my inability to use him as he really is, instead of trying to make him what I wanted him to be.
3467248
I agree
A shame, would have been a good read.
The Immortal Game is, and has been ever since I finished it, my favorite story in the fandom. Is it the best? Nah, but I love it all the same. That being said, TSC's chapter of Immortal Game was not my favorite, and for me, it marks a sort of turning point in the story. I loved TSC prior to the Immortal Game chapter, so much so that I thought it was going to overtake it as my favorite fic. Right now, not being caught up on This Platinum Crown, I'm mostly following TSC out of morbid curiosity.
Don't take that as a slight, as I still think you're a strong writer. But TSC never quite grabbed my interest and held it after the Immortal Game chapter.
3467498 meh I saw the immortal games chapter as an area to gain her fightin skills and slightly beggin that mind braking honestly she didn't get that involved with the war she never saw evil twilight she never saw the two god ponys she was just kinda running in the background so I can forgive any errors in it again it was more of a pit stop needed for story progression. And as for favorite fics mine would have to be "the end of ponies" but TSC and immortal games are both god tyre fics on the list.
I've done my best to try and read every story that TSC has had a chapter based on either before or immediately after the TSC chapter and to be honest I found the Immortal Game to be a very throw away chapter. It does have a couple of hooks that pop up later on in the story but it didn't have that magic that other stories had.
I sort of wish that you had gone in to the End of Ponies right after Immortal Game as being in the wasteland would have added more gravity to the events of Immortal Game's chapter as Sweetie would have been forced to survive and contemplate everything rather then just moving on to events that seem to be pilling more and more on her as we go.