Pony POV Series, Nightmare Gallery annalsys by Ekdeans · 9:15pm Oct 15th, 2023
The following was written by Ekdeans as they are working on the False Ponyville arc adaption.
"Something interesting I'm realizing is that despite all of Manacle and the other nightmares' guilt, they literally didn't do anything evil. Like yeah, they helped Eclipse and failed to drag her out of her delusions (not for a lack of effort on Mirror's part), but the number of reset timelines would've stayed exactly the same regardless of their help. All they did was increase her efficiency in squashing the "rebellious movie props," but an extra few hours here and there is nothing on that timescale. She had no chance of losing without the combination of Rancor's spear and her own future self guiding Twilight, she could always just reset the damages. When you've got access to infinite save states every fight becomes trivial, all the other Nightmares did was throw a few extra punches and take over the Discord torture sometimes.
On the other hand, Manacle and Whisper actually did a lot of good by saving the scoots army and the other handful of ponies in fake-ponyville. Like, it's not much compared to what Eclipse destroyed, but a few dozen is literally infinitely better than the zero Eclipse would've wanted. And I think Manacle in particular partially took on the burden of nightmarehood to prevent other Rainbow Dashes from being forced into the same fate, which I feel she'd get some satisfaction out of if she ever wrenched herself out of her own self-loathing.
All that being said, I have to wonder if the "punishment" of being put on the new universe construction crew is less "retribution for your sins" and more "yeah sure here's something to make you feel like you're being punished so you can stop wallowing in guilt," especially given the irony of Eclipse-turned-Amicitia receiving no such punishment (though one could argue she chose her own sentence by leaving her home world to fix nythy's toys).
There's no point to this I'm just thinking. Character analysis is great when you're not fourteen and have perspective on things."
