Choice

by AnOrdinaryWriter

72

(You stand on the road outside your house. The ponies on the path are frozen. Friends who were talking to each other are either stuck mid-laugh, or their mouths hang open on whatever they were about to say. Pegasi who were flying through the air hover in place without the movement of their wings keeping them afloat.)

Welcome, reader, to the narrator ending. You may be wondering what the purpose of this is. Well, I'm glad you asked. You see, this ending exists not only to clear up any possible confusion you may have, but also to steer your mindset in the right direction for the type of story that this is.

For instance, this story is a choose your own adventure on its surface. But while the beauty of nature rests on the earth's crust, underground are the treasures it holds: the diamonds, the golds, and the rubies. It's important to pay attention to those details in the story as well, because there are a lot of those, and they shouldn't be ignored because they have a much larger meaning than ‘fun little clues.’

(You start walking forward, the only mobile being in this frozen, timeless world.)

You probably recognize where you are right now. This is the point where your adventure begins, and control is handed over to you in preparation for your first choice ahead. But take the time to look at the atmosphere around you. The town is filled with ponies up early, enjoying the morning air with smiles on everyone’s faces. Not one pony is having a bad day.

Now think for a second. How realistic is that depiction of a society? Surely, early in the morning many people are still in bed and even if there are some up and about, there are some grumpy people here and there. You might say that this is a story and therefore this isn’t an unusual thing. If that’s the case, hold that thought.

(You stop before a branch in the path.)

When you get to the end of the road, you are faced with your first decision. Hang out with Pinkie Pie, or Vinyl Scratch. Many things can be taken into account here, such as the fact that your decisions are limited. You are forced to go with one pony only, disappointing the other in doing so. Why can’t you go with both of them?

The straight-forward answer to that would be because then I wouldn’t be able to tell the story I want to tell. But that’s merely a lead in to the much more complex answer. See, most choose your own adventures have a very simple plot, but your choices determine how that story ends. The simple story in this choose your own adventure is merely a center piece that ties into a much larger story, and that larger story ties into various themes.

In short, the choices in this story do more than just fulfilling the goal of choosing how it ends.

That is probably quite confusing, but no worries, I’ll guide you a little bit. Let’s start with the decision. As I mentioned, you’re only able to go with one of them. Possibly a representation of a lack of freedom, right? How about the fact that the character whose eyes you’re looking through is not the one making these decisions?

That last concept can be said about all stories in this format. The author essentially hands you the set of strings that control the main character, and while you lead them down certain paths, the author controls the world around them. It’s much like a god giving a prophet instructions on how to lead a community.

In fact, if you think about it, when a writer creates a world, they are in many ways the God of that world. They construct the plane that their characters live on, create the characters, and determine their fates. Not only that, but they determine how that world is going to come to a close. Perhaps from there, you can draw connections to other things that sound familiar.

As much as I'd love to tell you what in particular, I’m going to move away from that food for thought because if I continue, I’ll give away the entirety of what this story is about. I’m only here to lead you in the right direction, not give the answers.

You may have noticed many reoccurring things throughout this story depending on how many endings you've gotten already. For example, perhaps the most obvious: ‘you’ never expresses any emotion other than smiling, or how every ending thus far has been a bad ending despite your story seemingly ending well. However, if you've been paying attention, you'd have noticed that every ending has one thing in common. Look back at the endings you've gotten already if you aren't aware of it.

Before every ending, an inky blackness attempts to consume ‘you.’ It's easy to deduce that whatever this thing is is hunting you down. But what it is or what its intentions are don't have the same importance as what the darkness symbolizes. It's actually really simple, and the fact that it only appears during the endings of each path is a huge hint, but just in case you're overthinking it, I'll tell you: it symbolizes the end. Quite literally. It’s always following you, waiting for you at the end of every path. At the end of every story. At the end of every person’s life. No matter what path you choose, it's there, waiting at the end of your story. Philosophical, I know, but that's sort of the point. This story’s theme has an existential meaning, and it doesn't stop there.

‘You’ is only able to smile, and other than that, is only able to think certain thoughts based on the decisions made by the reader. Why can't the main character feel any other emotion? It’s like ‘you’’s only purpose is to be happy and smile even when something terrible happens. On the same topic, why is ‘you’ only referred to as ‘you’, the new pony, my friend, or simply just the pony? Why doesn't 'you' speak? Why does the story occasionally change from the second person to the third person? But most importantly, who is the blue fill̨-͡il͠l-i͏$̴l̢& the answers to all those questions link back to philosophy and the real world, which would be your first clue in solving the meaning of this story.

So you see, everything in this story has a meaning that contributes to a bigger picture. Every author’s job is to construct a core meaning behind their stories, but readers have a job too. Writing is just a foundation, but the reader’s imagination completes the house. To understand this story, like any other, requires you to invest in it; make the effort to pick apart it's details. The imagination’s job is to make fantasy a reality, but if you just treat it like fantasy, how will you ever understand it?

Well, the answer to that is you won't. However, you’re not being forced to read a story a specific way. At the end of the day, it is your choice whether you see a colorful world filled with characters during their day to day lives, or a compilation of words forming paragraphs on a page.

The simplistic title of this story wasn't chosen for no reason.

Hopefully this story makes more sense now. Unless you read this chapter and are still confused, if not even more so. To sum everything up if that happens to be the case, this story is more than it seems. Its core concept shows its identity while its finer details show its meaning. All together, it teaches a lesson to be taken to heart, but you still have yet to find out what that lesson is.

In the end, this is just a fictional story. How real it is is up to you.

Start Over?

Comments

[TigerCat111]

...Wow