Princess Celestia had a particular weakness for fall weather. Summer was her favorite season, but fall had a wistful sort of charm to it. It had a sweet sort of melancholy that the Princess of the Sun found difficult to describe—an ending that was sad, yet still welcome. Though she rarely expressed this view, the servants of the castle quickly deduced it from her tendency to sit in the castle garden when the fall came, tending to her duties among the swirling dead leaves.
Normally, the Princess’s duties were dry matters of state, which she bore patiently. But on that particular fall day, she was seeing to a more welcome task. It was the second fall since Twilight Sparkle had become her student, marking her sixteenth month of tutelage, and Princess Celestia could not have been more pleased with her progress so far. She was brilliant, ravenously curious, hard working, and perhaps most important of all, virtuous to her very center. Princess Celestia was certain that, one day, she would make a worthy bearer of the Element of Magic.
But for the moment, she was only a foal, and with that came the practical concerns of raising and educating a young pony. Thus it was that Princess Celestia picked up her marking pen. Holding the essay flat so it wouldn't rustle in the breeze, she lifted the pen to the paper’s corner, and there inscribed a red “B.”
After a moment, she circled it.
“Oh,” Twilight said several hours later, when the marked up paper was levitated into her grasp. She unrolled the scroll the rest of the way, taking in the detailed correction marks that filled the margins. After a moment, she looked back up at Princess Celestia. “But I did okay, right?”
“A ‘B’ isn’t the worst grade in the world,” Princess Celestia answered gently. “But I think you could have done better if you’d applied yourself just a little more.”
“Yeah...” Twilight said, looking back down at the scroll. She bit her lip. “But I did okay, right?”
As Twilight repeated her question, so Celestia repeated her answer, though with a slightly firmer tone. “It’s not the worst grade, Twilight,” she said, “but you could have done better.”
“I know,” Twilight said, her eyes going back to the scroll even though she wasn’t reading. A momentary silence overcame Princess Celestia’s study as Twilight’s ears folded back. “But...” she said, with a tightness in her throat. “Shining Armor came by last week, and-and it was our first chance to some time together for awhile. And he’s my BBBFF. And-and you said we could! You did!” Twilight’s voice picked up rapidly: volume, pitch, and tempo all rising together. “And I thought I wouldn’t have enough time to work on it but you said it was okay—”
“Twilight,” Princess Celestia spoke.
“—and I’m sorry, I tried to do as good a job as I could.” Twilight sniffled loudly. “I did it the way the book did it which I thought was okay and I didn’t mean to mess it up—”
“Twilight,” Princess Celestia spoke again, raising her voice slightly, to no more effect than the first time.
“And.” Twilight forced herself on as her voice started to crack. “And I know the graphs on page two were out of place, but they’re right! I was just low on paper and it was so late and I didn’t want to rewrite the whole thing from scratch and—”
“Twilight!” Princess Celestia said for the third time, reaching out to touch Twilight’s shoulder with a hoof. “It’s okay. You—”
“I’m sorry Princess I’ll do better I promise please don’t stop teaching me!” Twilight cried out, staring up at Celestia. Her expression was absolutely wretched, mouth drawn down, face tight, eyes wide and filled with tears. She actually shook slightly, hanging on the Princess’s every motion and drawing up against her hoof.
After a moment of consideration, Princess Celestia sighed, and drew Twilight into a hug. “Of course I’m not going to stop teaching you,” she said, soothingly. The hug was warm but brief, and when it was over, Princess Celestia pulled back and smiled at Twilight. Her hoof shifted from Twilight’s shoulder to under her chin, and with a gentle pressure, she nudged Twilight’s head upwards. She lowered her head at the same moment, so the two were eye to eye, and face to face. “You’re my student, remember?” she asked, her voice gentle and warm.
“But I messed up!” Twilight squeaked, trying to force the tears away and succeeding only in driving them down her face. “You took all the time just to teach me and I was lazy and dumb and didn’t do a good job and—”
“Twilight Sparkle!” Princess Celestia said sharply, and Twilight instantly fell silent. “You are not lazy, and you are not a bad student. You are my faithful student,” she emphasized the words by gently laying a hoof across Twilight’s chest. “Do you understand how important that is?”
“I’m your fai...” Twilight started to repeat the words, but then quickly fell silent. She sat up straighter, trying to wipe the tears away with the back of a leg. “I mean, yes. I know how important that is. Of course I know.” She swallowed, trying to force her voice back to normal.
“That’s right,” Princess Celestia said, moderating her tone from a sharp to merely firm. “And I know the faithful student of the Princess of the Sun would never be lazy or stupid. It’s important that you spend time with your family, including your brother. I’m not angry.”
“But...” Twilight sniffled, though this time she tried to hide it. “If you know I didn’t mess up, why did you give me a bad grade?”
“Because grades are very important, Twilight,” Princess Celestia said, moderating her tone still further to a soothing calm. “I know that you’re smart and hard working, but grades are how you prove it. I can’t just give you an ‘A’ every time because I like you.” She smiled gently. “You wouldn’t want to get a score you didn’t earn, would you?”
“No!” Twilight blurted out at once, the force of her outburst freezing the smile on Celestia’s face. “I mean, no. Of course not. I can... I can prove that I’m a good student.” Again, she reached up to her face, wiping the last of her tears away. Though her voice still gently wavered, it was with a calmer tone that she added: “I’m sorry for crying.”
“You don’t have to be sorry, Twilight,” Princess Celestia said. “Little fillies are allowed to cry and get hugs from their elders.”
“I’m not a little filly,” Twilight said.
But she took another hug anyway.
“—equal to the sum of the square of the two remaining sides,” Twilight spoke with confidence, her eyes squeezed shut in concentration. When a response was not immediately forthcoming however, that confidence wavered, and she dared to gradually peek open an eye.
“Correct,” rumbled the pipes around her, in a low drone.
“Oh, good,” Twilight said, sagging with relief. It was only then that it occurred to her to look around, and to ask a question that was, perhaps, slightly more important than her geometry problems. “Uh... Actually, where am I?”
“You are in the dream realm,” hissed the pipes around her, in a voice made of escaping steam and gurgling fluid.
“Oh,” said Twilight. It was an odd answer, but perhaps odder still was that she felt wholly comfortable with it. There was a familiarity about this place, and a sense of safety. “Have I been here before?”
“You come here every night,” the pipes said. The sound they made was strangely beautiful, though Twilight could not quite say how. Each individual sound was rough and industrial: steam hissing, fluid bubbling, gears grinding. Yet somehow, all together, they made clear patterns, or even words. Like a pipe organ made of industrial equipment. “I am your teacher.”
“That’s... right,” Twilight said slowly. “You’re... you teach me magic. You’re... Llll. Starts with L. Lllll...”
“Princess Luna,” the pipes said.
“Luna!” Twilight exclaimed. “That’s right. Princess Luna. Now I remember you. Sorry, it’s really fuzzy...” Twilight rose to her hooves, looking around the room again. “Where are you, though? I remember...” Twilight realized she didn’t actually remember a thing, but still, Luna’s absence felt wrong. “Aren’t you usually around?”
“Go to the window,” said the pipes. Obediently, Twilight moved across the metal flooring, climbing up the outwardly curved walls and up to the little window. Sticking her head outside, she found herself looking out at a slowly moving landscape far below. She was high above it all, inside the barrel of a great clockwork creature that lumbered across the landscape—a mechanical pony the size of a town, with legs of steel and wings of silver and a gut filled with boilers and cogs. Slowly, its head turned, revealing eyes made from observatory telescopes and a horn hewn out of a massive redwood.
And Luna looked back at Twilight.
“Oh, wow!” Twilight exclaimed. “You’re huge! How does that work?”
“We are in a dream,” Luna said. “It works however I say it works. And tonight it amused me for it to work this way.” Slowly, she turned her head forward to watch where she was going. She hardly needed to look at Twilight to speak to her, after all; the rumblings of steam in her barrel carried her voice clearly. “Would you like to experience it for yourself? It would be a wonderfully enjoyable lesson on basic mechanical principles.”
“Yeah, I...” Twilight paused, lowered herself from the window, and looked back into the pipe room. Though the room had been empty a moment ago, now it contained a table, and several geometry textbooks. “I mean, no. I need to study. Thanks though.”
“I do not believe additional study on this topic is necessary,” Luna replied, her words making the room gently shake around Twilight. “Your understanding of the basic principles of geometry is very strong.”
“No it isn’t,” Twilight said. “I still haven’t finished memorizing the essential properties of the twelve geometric shapes most often used for spell targeting.”
“And what matter is that?” Luna asked, a jet of steam ruffling the papers on the table. Twilight gradually became aware of the room’s gradual swaying with Luna’s steps, and reached out to hold her books down before they slid away. “You understand the applications of pi, and radians as a unit. You can apply the pi and pi over two rules. You know how to use sine, cosine, and tangent tables. You could calculate the essential properties of any geometric shape, given time.”
“But I don’t know them off the top of my head,” Twilight insisted.
“Knowing them by rote is only useful if you are applying a spell in combat, or in another situation where time is of the essence,” Luna replied. “At this early stage of your education, memorizing tables of facts is likely to do more harm than good. You must focus on the underlying principles. There will be time to hone your technique later.”
“But working them out takes time.” The room leveled out as Luna moved into the swing of her next step, and Twilight opened her books once they were stable. Her eyes went to the page, though she found it hard to focus on the words. “What if I’m taking a test?”
“Then work out as many as you can,” Luna said.
“No! That’s not good enough!” Twilight said, letting out a growl of frustration. “What if I can’t work out enough in time? What if I fail?”
“I highly doubt you will fail one of my exams,” Luna replied. Outside, her hoof crashed through an old growth forest, a distant snapping audible to Twilight as it crushed trees and animals alike with its passage. “But if you do, I will simply take it as an indication that we need to go back and review the material.”
“Yeah, but what about Princess Celestia’s exams?” Twilight pointed out. Again, she tried to focus on the page, and again she failed.
“Will Celestia not review the material with you?” Luna asked.
“Of course she will!” Twilight snapped, slamming the book shut. The outburst caught her off guard as much as it did Luna, and for a time, the only sound in the little room was the deep thud of hooves and the snapping of distant trees. “But I’ll still have a bad grade,” Twilight said. “And grades are important.”
Luna gave no answer to Twilight at first, but gradually, the snapping sound below her stopped. Then, the deep thud of her hooves fell silent. As the great mechanical pony came to a standstill, Twilight could hear the steam pressure escaping from her joints. Luna gradually came to rest in the standing positions, her knees and elbows locked. She was still as a statue, only the quiet gurgling in the pipes marking any animation left in the great pony. In the quiet, Twilight tucked her tail up around herself, and felt very alone.
“Luna?” she asked quietly.
“Do you know what important means, Twilight?” whispered the pipes, the lack of steam pressure greatly reducing their volume.
“It means... uh,” Twilight frowned. “A big deal?”
“A task is important,” Luna answered, “if something very bad will happen if that task is not handled properly. Eating is important because if you do not, you will starve. Sleeping is important, because if you do not, you will be tired and sick. Good grades are important, because without them...” Luna trailed off, and the room again sunk into silence.
“Without them, what?” Twilight asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Luna answered.
“Well, because...” Twilight struggled for words. “Grades help you get into good schools!” The words game suddenly, with a new surge of energy. “My good grades got me into my entrance exam.”
“That is a reason grades were useful to you before. I asked why they are useful to you now. Are you not already in the most prestigious school in the entire world?” Luna said. “Are you not already Celestia’s student?”
“I’m her faithful student,” Twilight growled defensively.
“Then, finish the sentence,” Luna commanded. “Good grades are important, because without them...”
“Without them, I won’t be able to show how much I know,” Twilight answered. “What if I want to...” She didn’t actually know how grades were related to jobs, but she vaguely recalled her parents telling her to study hard or she’d end up a janitor. “What if I”—she made a vague gesture “—want to be a wizard and I need to prove I’m any good?”
“You’ve met wizards before,” Luna replied. “How did they prove they were ‘any good?’”
“They... cast spells,” Twilight answered, but her voice fell in anticipation of the reply she knew was coming.
“Really? You didn’t need to ask about their foalhood geometry exams?” Luna’s voice never shifted, never changed, never showed the slightest trace of sarcasm or doubt. Twilight flinched anyway.
“Grades are how I let my parents know I’m working hard,” Twilight whispered, looking at her hooves.
“Celestia doesn’t tell them as much?” Luna asked, still without ever shifting from her flat intonations.
“Fine!” Twilight shouted, sharply lifting her head. “Fine, I get it, okay!? La-dee-da, fine! Grades aren’t important. You win. Just leave me alone!”
“I do not want to ‘win,’” Luna answered. “I merely want you to think. If you really believe that grades matter, I will not stand in the way of that. You can decide for yourself.”
“Fine, I will!” Twilight yelled at the pipes, angrily flicking her tail.
“Very well,” Luna said. And then the pipes were silent.
“Yeah!” Twilight shouted. “I will decide for myself, and uh...” Twilight stammered for words, but as she did, she became aware of another sound in the little room. There was another pony, sniffing loudly, and when Twilight turned, she saw her. It was a little purple unicorn filly, with a star on her flank. Twilight felt she knew this foal. The little filly was familiar somehow, and yet, when Twilight tried to identify her, her head went fuzzy.
“Here you go,” the little foal whispered, using her nose to nudge something Twilight’s way. It was a little rough bound stack of papers, the title Introduction to Magic Book Reports carefully written at the top in blocky letters. “Did I do okay?”
Twilight levitated the report off the table, and carefully read through it. It was a good book report, but the little foal had made a few mistakes. They were nothing severe, just some common misunderstandings, but they changed a few of the key lessons of the book.
“Well,” Twilight said, “you got it mostly right. Here, let me show you want you did wrong.” She turned to the table, and suddenly found a red pen in easy reach, levitating it up with her magic. “Don’t worry,” Twilight told the little foal. “I can tell you’re good at this. You just need a little bit of help.”
Had Twilight been in the waking world, she would have been struck by the absurdity of this turn of events. But in the dream world, it wasn’t absurd at all, for dreams worked the way Princess Luna wished them to work.
And on that night, it amused her for them to work that way.
The next morning, Twilight awoke with no recollection of her dreams. She hardly had time to waste dreaming anyway, for a busy day was ahead of her. First, she had a morning review with Professor Chalk Pants, then spellcasting practice in the mid-morning, then a test with Professor Weed Out, and then Princess Celestia was going to take her back to her family for the weekend. That meant that her test was at noon instead of at the end of the day, giving her only half the time to complete her final day-of test review studying checklist.
She’d planned to spend breakfast reviewing, but as she climbed out of bed and checked the color-coded schedule on the wall, something struck her. Precisely what, she couldn't say, but when she reached up to the shelf for a book, she hesitated. Gradually, the glow of her magic faded from around the geometry textbook without it having moved an inch.
Twilight started at the book for some time, lost in a daze. She wasn’t sure why she was hesitating to take it. She wasn’t sure why taking it had seemed so vitally important last night. Seconds seemed to stretch on forever as she weighed the decision.
Finally, her horn came alight, and her copy of Daring Do and the Sorcerer’s Saddle flew down beside her. Regardless of her confusion, it wouldn't do to spend all of breakfast doing something as trivial as eating, and she was eager to see how the book ended.
It was that afternoon that Twilight rushed out onto the castle grounds, her little saddlebags stuffed with all the books she couldn't bear to be parted from until Monday. Princess Celestia was already waiting there, along with her chariot.
“Hello, Princess Celestia!” Twilight called, quickly pulling herself up onto the chariot. “I’m sorry I’m late. Professor Weed Out’s assistant lost the test and we were late getting started.”
“Yes, he let me know,” Princess Celestia said warmly, scooting aside to make room for Twilight on the chariot. “So how did the exam go?”
Twilight froze to the spot.
“It went fine,” she finally said, her voice rigid. “I got all the questions right, but didn’t finish the last one.” She swallowed. “So I got a B.” She forced herself to breathe, though her barrel felt tight as a vice. “And Professor Weed Out gave me some practice problems.”
“Weed Out is a tough teacher,” Celestia said, “But he’s very eager to see you learn. Do you feel ready to start spell practice next week?”
After a long moment, Twilight answered, “Yeah.” After a moment she added, “Yeah, I feel good about it.”
And for the rest of the ride home, she did.
Luna's lessons are actually making Twilight saner? Now that's a surprise.
This is a very good lesson for anyone to learn at any age. Well written.
I don't know why I find Luna's methods so... repulsive. I physically feel sick.
5745761 I am not certain, but I may have an inkling.
When I was in High School occasionally someone would come to me for help. They normally wouldn't come back, because they would ask for answers, and I would ask them questions to let them get to the answers on their own. They wanted just the answers and expected to be alright without having to practice any real problem solving skills, instead of working to better themselves.
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You know, when an adult comes to me looking for help with their math, I find they don't like essentially being told "research how to solve your problem better." What do they think I am? Someone payed to help teach them?
They are however fine with being walked through the process, showing them directly (not just saying look up x, manually looking it up with them)
I don't blame you for trying to help someone help themselves, but don't blame them when your scheme doesn't work.
That Howl's Moving Castle.
fc01.deviantart.net/fs29/f/2008/084/6/b/Howl__s_Moving_Castle_by_D_TAILOR.jpg
You certainly got my attention. Curious to see where this all ends. Do you have an ending for all this setup already? Not that I want this to end all too soon.
Best of luck, hope to see more soon.
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While Luna's lesson in the last chapter was kind of questionable and possibly wrong, I don't understand where she is at fault here. Luna is teaching Twilight independent thinking. Of cause it's easier to just tell a person what is right and what is wrong, what is important and what is unimportant, but in the end it is the wrong approach.
I actually find Celestia's approach way more sick here. She is using the high regard Twilight has for her to create a fake moral compass that makes tests and grades a primary goal in itself. The lesson she gives Twilight is not one she needs and can very easily lead to unnecessary and harmful obsession in long term.
Luna does the correct thing by putting this right. Yes, it is hard on Twilight, but thinking for herself is a lesson she needs to learn.
This is what happens when one uses half the CircleConstant as the CircleConstant. The 1 True CircleConstant is τ (Tau):
τ = c / r ≈ 6.283185307179586
A Circle has τ-Radians. None of this multiplying and dividing by 2. The equation for the interior of an n-Sphere:
( d - 1 ) / d τ r ^ d
Where d is the degree of the embedding dimension.
Let us take the example of the volume on a UnitSphere:
2 / 3 τ r ^ 3 ≈ 4.188790204786391 Cubic Units
Mathematics is so much easier if one uses the 1 True Correct CircleConstant.
Hello! Just chiming in to fix a mistake (interestingly, in a paragraph about fixing mistakes). I'm particularly enjoying the story so far.
“Well,” Twilight said, “you got it mostly right. Here, let me show you want you did wrong.”
I have to disagree with Luna's definitions here. Something is important if it matters to you.
There's nothing bad about missing a sports game. You can watch it later on tv, and you can spend time with your friends another time. It is at most an inconvenience, but most people feel that attending is important. A billion things people consider important have penalties upon failure that are so lackluster that they are hardly worth consideration, but because of how we place value on things what constitutes "bad" is widely varied. There are people all over the world who will give up things like sleep or regular meals in order to follow their passion, when the consequences of not doing so are nothing more than not following that passion. For them, telling a story is more important than their health--which is fine. There is no inherent value in anything, only that which we, as a culture or individuals, decide that something deserves.
And grades are important, although from a filly's perspective it is understandable that Twilight wouldn't consider it. Grades are a mark of your knowledge and achievements; they allow others to know what you know and are capable of without needing to speed months or years in your presence to learn about you. An absolute genius with terrible grades would almost never be accepted into the types of schools that typically attract his/her intellectual peers, regardless of how smart he was or what he knew, because the people in charge of enrollment can't accept on trust that this strange kid is as knowledgeable as he says he is. Of course, he could prove it to them on the spot... requiring a form of examination, the results of which must be checked for accuracy--and whether they give him a letter or not, simply saying "he got everything right" is a grade in and of itself--although one only of significance to the test taker and the test grader.
A degree is just the evolution of grades. Rather than telling people you got A's and B's in biology, anatomy, chemistry, and physiology, you tell people you're a Doctor of Medicine. And having a degree will vastly change how the world responds to you, unless you keep it secret for whatever reason. Even if you are humble, people knowing that you are knowledgeable, knowing what you are talented in, and knowing that they can trust you to act responsibly and intelligently in your field of study is important. Considering how focused most ponies are in their special talents, degrees and titles become more important for any skills outside of those signified by their cutie mark, as the lives of ponies generally revolves almost entirely around that skill and few would consider talking to a mage when what they need is someone who studies [insert any of Twilight's many nonmagical fields of study].
Even if someone has studied a subject to the point that they are one of the foremost masters in the world, who would let some joe shmoe without a doctorate perform emergency heart surgery on a four year old kid who [insert disastrous situation here]? Although that is admittedly an extreme example.
Finally, memorizing things to the point that you don't need to devote any significant amount of time to them is important. Admittedly, rote repetition is a terrible method of learning things and discourages creativity. But imagine she saved, say, two minutes a day with proper memorization of the more important of the hundreds upon hundreds of equations needed in math and the sciences (considering her studies, I believe she'd use fairly advanced math on a regular basis). Over the course of 80 years, that totals to more than a month of time. Can you imagine how dragging and painfully long math would be if you had to always deliberately recall the answer to all single digit multiplication? The more advanced the studies, the more someone needs to be able to recall without needing to devote time or effort to it. Answering a problem a bit slower? That's a tiny inconvenience of time. But when over the course of your life you run through that same tiny inconvenience a hundred thousand times, it grows into a huge time sink. And unless Luna has intentions of alicornizing Twilight, time is something Twilight has precious little of. It is, after all, the most nonrenewable of resources.
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Actually, I think that this definition here is correct: "Something is important if something bad will happen should you not do it." The reason why it works is because of the ambiguity of "bad" which translates to the ambiguity of "important". It leaves the definition highly contextual.
Luna actually gives a reason for grades being important when she confirms the importance of Twilight's entrance exams. Since having low grades would mean she could not enter, which would be bad ... for Twilight. Again, Luna covered why grades weren't important for Twilight, not that they aren't important in general (which as you described they are).
Celestia would vouch for Twilight's intelligence regardless of her grades and she could prove herself a capable spellcaster through application. The degree and grades may be important to other students who would need recommendations from the school to get hired for work, but for Twilight, the only thing she needs to worry about is ensuring that Celestia is happy with her progress, not her teachers or the institution.
This is a very nice story, but this chapter really hit a chord with me.
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Of course, Luna does so without Twilight knowledge. That is very close to brainwashing in my book.
5749013 If Luna's approach looked like brainwashing, I strongly encourage you to avoid any material that describes public education for young children. You will find it upsetting.
This time Luna was less rude than last time, but why she never shows her something beautiful? Why is never them standing outside over a hill, watching falling stars under the full moon?
5745761 Sometimes presenting something in a different light can jar a person from the comfort zone they're used to. In this case, Luna is being practical, if flawed.
And then like me, Twilight spent too much time reading pony fiction, let her grades slide, and dropped out of
universityMagic School.5746702
The problem with trying to get young children to think through what's important is that they usually can't. Even the smart ones lack the context to judge what the true long-term consequences of their choices will be, and they tend to be fixated on goals that don't correlate to their long-term welfare ("what gets me the most cookies in the short-term?" would be one such goal).
Even _adults_ have trouble doing this. Usually they instead optimize for short-term progress towards a proxy goal ("what action will get me the most money in the near future?" would be one such proxy).
I've taught children. Most of you probably know someone who works with children; check with them for what their experiences are like. The purpose of arbitrary goals like "grades" are to give a proxy-goal that the child can understand which has at least some correlation to what they can accomplish in the future. In order to _get_ the grades, you need to develop decent work habits, and grades are used as a proxy by adults for judging the extent to which a) you've developed those habits and b) you understand the material.
Proxy measurements (like grades), and proxy goals (like "get good grades") for encouraging some form of desired behavior, are pretty much the only way you can steer most children into anything remotely resembling decent academic habits. This sort of proxy is also used outside of school.
Twilight might be self-aware and introspective enough to not need that as a crutch... but in this fic, she's a young filly, and is shown thinking like a young filly. I think Celestia is doing the right thing by using those proxies.
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Because she's Nightmare Moon, and is working to instill cynicism and disillusionment in filly-Twilight.
Some of her lessons are valid (albeit disillusioning). Others, like the one presented in this chapter, are half-truths (or in this case, a truth missing context - as others have pointed out, her measurement of "importance" does apply to grades under some conditions but not others). The subtext to all of these lessons has been "don't trust Celestia" and "don't trust the adults around you in general", which serves Nightmare's goals wonderfully.
I'm very much enjoying this fic; it's a wonderful take on how a _smart_ villain would go about bending a potential hero to a way of thinking that brings them closer to the villain, or that at least makes them less likely to act at the behest of the villain's enemies.
came suddenly?
...
Still not really liking Luna or her 'lessons' in this story. They seem to be doing more harm than good.
7242773 Really? Why not? They all make sense. She has given supporting points to everything she said. I saw no logical fallacies either. Why do you not like Luna's teachings? Sometimes children have to learn the truth early so that they can have more time to cope with it. This turns them into stronger adults.
A lovely homage to Howl’s Moving Castle there. Steam pony Luna makes for some nice imagery.
Depending on the number of questions and how the grading is done, getting every question but the last one right is still worthy of an A-level grade. Maybe not an A+, but certainly an A or A-. Assuming Equestria uses the American grading system, then 100-90 would be A, 89-80 would be B, 79-70 would be C, 69-60 would be D, and 59 and below would be F. So for Twilight to get a B for missing one question, that would mean each question would be worth more than 10 points, meaning the test had less than 10 questions. Otherwise, she would have at least an A-.
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Or celestia curves the test.
I've never given any thought to Twilight's title, the Faithful Student, and what that could mean. It's an interesting interpretation of Celestia as fostering unwavering trust in Twilight, repeating how Faithful she is until that's how Twilight sees herself to the point that anytime Luna even questions Celestias teachings then Twilight gets angry and defensive. Celestia again thinks of how splendid an Element bearer Twilight will make to the point that she doesn't really see the child Twilight is, only the useful tool she will be and so Celestia grooms and refines Twilight better to that purpose. It's unfortunate that this includes planting Twilights anxiety and perfectionism traits whereas Luna continues to encourage independent thought. It's been years since anyone last commented but as others said this may be to distance Twilight from Celestia but that doesn't mean it's wrong.