Some headcanon explinations · 6:58pm Aug 19th, 2013
So, I've recently received some very harsh critique about my latest entry into The Golden Armor: Part II. It seems you all are very upset about my newest creation, Samson Coldclaw, and the actions taken following his incursion with Angel and Comet. While I stand by my chapter 100%, I feel the effects of my lack of world-building coming down on me, so I would like to explain the relationship between the Gryphon Kingdom and Equestria before I continue.
This may be pretty long, but I hope this will clear up any issues taken with my story, at least those revolving around Shining Armor. Samson is a whole other can of worms that will be revealed later.
The Gryphon Kingdom
You see, I view things in a very white and black manner. In Gryphon the brush-off, the episode featuring Gilda, I felt her brash personality came from one place, an overly-masculine population. Her easy irritability, constant need to show off or be cool and arrogance all bore the tell-tale signs of her being raised by wolves, so-to-speak. Gilda felt like she had very little real female interactions, making it hard for her to stand Pinkie Pie, who is almost overly girly. Gilda, while not present in my story, has always been my personality layout for Valyrie. Her brashness, quick temper and general headstrong-ness is almost fully inspired by Gilda and the world I think she comes from. With that said, you may get the idea of how I think the Gryphon Kingdom is socially.
Needless to say, Equestria is highly feminine. Everything there seems to be calming, relaxing and generally girl friendly with lots of flowers, very little distrust and bright days all around. Now, the Gryphon Kingdom is almost the polar opposite to them in my headcanon. Their homeland is built upon the manly stereotypes: lots of rugged mountains and deep, uninviting forests, along with fortresses, machinery and all sorts of things Equestria lacks. Monsters freely roam their homeland, their only bane being the tough and hardened warriors who take them head-on. Think of it like Sparta and Asguard had a baby with tons of hair on its chest.
Now, imagine what lives in such a place. The gryphons in my stories are practically barbarians, tough brutes who solve everything through violence. They leave very little for feminine influence, squelching it with more testosterone. Every gryphon learns that being an adult in their culture means fighting impossible fights with righteous fury, battle scars are more valuable than gold and honor is everything. What ponies believe in friendship and harmony is what gryphons believe in arrogance and brute strength, whereas the opposite is true for both, meaning gryphons hold almost no stock in love and tolerance.
What about their hierarchy? Well, the king of the gryphons is everything Princess Celestia is not. He rules with an iron claw and takes no crap from anything, whether it be gryphon, pony or dragon. What he wants, he gets or something bad happens. He is in complete control of an army that easily rivals the Royal Guard of Equestria, only his troops are ready to war at any second. He also views himself higher than Celestia and Luna because he is a gryphon and they are ponies, and that's that. Even if they move the sun and moon, he doesn't care. Any slight against him or his kingdom by ponies is an act of war and he demands to be appeased, lest the gryphon army marches on Equestria.
Angel's dismissal and Shining's actions
With that out of the way, I'm fairly sure you all are getting the picture of why Shining Armor bent to the wishes of the gryphon king, even when Angel acted within legal parameters. It was not because he is weak-willed or that the ponies are pansies. The king demanded Angel be executed for her actions since she dishonored the Gryphon Kingdom by striking a member of it. Shining, however, turned around and only had her relieved of her command, a far less punishment. Should the ponies simply bend to the demands of the gryphons, why would the ponies even have their own country?
Still, I think you all missed a huge point in the story. I had Shining specifically say Angel marshaled her own forces without notifying Shining. Since Angel was in command of Princess Luna's personal guard, would it not stand to reason that if she gathered her force without telling anypony once that she might do it again? And what if she felt slighted or disagreed with another pony on something? While she would never use the Zodiac to settle a personal score, her rallying them without notice or approval is a very big problem. What if she was impersonated and her guard lead a coup on Celestia, Luna or Shining?
You see, I am going to elaborate more on why she was dismissed because, as many of you have surmised, Comet is NOT happy about this. There is still plenty of Shining Armor and Comet to come, but for now I will leave you with this: Angel didn't follow the rules.
So, I hope that clears up any lingering hatred you feel towards me or the story! If you have any further questions about this, please mail them to me to avoid spoilers. I really am glad you all have connected with my characters so much that an upsetting event to them is upsetting to you, but I promise I am not going to just leave them in dark places and call it a day. Everypony deserves a happy ending.
Regards to you all,
C.B.
I guess this wasn't obvious to enough people that it had to be spelled out. I got most of what you said from the story and while I wasn't thrilled about what happened to Angel it did make sense.
Can't wait for the next chapter to see more of how the characters react. Maybe Angel and Comet can actually publicly date now that she isn't in the guard and their shifts aren't the exact opposite. Maybe she will get a job in Canterlot as a Waitress till they manages to sort things out.
People are causing a stink about it? Really? Seemed pretty clear to me - you made the gryphons a masculine, patriarchal dominant society. That sort of behavior historically was very common, and the downplaying and having to do something also accurate. And the dismissal for the actions seemed pretty well explained in-doc too.
With that, I don't get how they're complaining, but this is a worthy note into how you work with your characters, and thank you for writing it up!
That's some wacky (and to be blunt, somewhat baseless) headcanon regarding the ponies and especially the gryphons, it's no wonder there was so much pushback. Did you miss the only other gryphon we've ever seen in the show, who happens to be a baker? Or the historically militaristic pegasi described in the hearts-warming eve pageant?
On a separate note, I don't really buy the existing, long-lasting balance of power described here. Either the gryphons would have long since conquered Equestria, or Celestia would have long since gotten tired of their crap and dropped the sun on their homeland and rolled it around a little.
People are angry about this?
Angel attacked an honored guest unprovoked. That would be the RL equivalent of a general(maybe Lt. general?) attacking a foreign, allied diplomat. They would most likely be suspended without pay or relieved of duty because of it. An attack like that is extremely unprofessional and makes the nation they're under look bad. Had the griffons not sent any demands, she likely would have faced disciplinary action anyways.
Honestly, I just figured that because of the line saying Angel didn't tell anybody above her in the command structure that she was mobilizing her armed forces, to which then subsequently led to her attacking the leader of a rather very warlike country, she was a liability and at bare minimum was going to get dishonorably discharged if my perception of military discipline is at all accurate.
1295577
just my two cents, but the fact the gryphon baker was even in Equestria and trying to win essentially a confectionery contest with eclairs could be taken to mean he's not really like the rest of his kind. Plus, in a super-man-culture oriented land, the fact a male was making deserts in a place probably socially viewed as a place for married female gryphons who had families to feed probably wouldn't go over so well.
Also, it's not being said that Equestria has been super-girly and opposite for all of its existence. I guess a better comparison here would be to equate Equestria and the Gryphon Kingdom to the ancient Greek cities of Athens and Sparta. Historically, we know Athens was much more peaceful, political, and intellectual in nature while Sparta literally was mostly focused on having the most badass army ever to the point of encouraging children to steal from others and be as aggressive as possible, paying little attention to the arts or even basic education beyond what was needed to keep the city going. Not all Spartans were miniature Kratos-clones and not all Athenians were law-abiding goody two-sandals, and the same applies to these fictional countries of quadrupeds.
1295667 Regarding the baker, so what that he was in Equestria? So was Gilda.
Failing to see how this was hard to comprehend, you explained it pretty well.
1295768
And she left pretty quickly.
1295864 She left Ponyville, and that's it. We don't actually know where she went or that she left Equestria at all.
Look, I don't mind people having headcanon, even wacky headcanon. But if it's poorly established compared the show, or if it picks and chooses canon to use and canon to ignore, don't be surprised when people get upset at you bringing it into an otherwise unrelated story.
Two problems with that:
First, you did not make it clear that Angel's dismissal was due mostly to her decision to marshal her guard. Shining Armor barely mentions it and then goes off on how the Griffons are demanding this or that and yadda yadda yadda. You did not emphasize it through the characters' words or actions, and so portrayed it as being a side issue that doesn't matter. We are not in your head, so you have to tell us what's important, so you need to have the characters emphasize and elaborate on key plot points. And if it's that important that it plays a major part in Angel's dismissal, then you need to have that laid out plain and simple and front and center, and not have it be a footnote to "the griffon king is an a-hole".
Second, the nature of the Griffons and Equestria is not something that would come to pass. The only thing nations like the Griffons' respect is power, and would attempt to conquer the ponies if they thought they could win. Which means that for the Griffons to be as aggressive and militaristic (I reject this idea of the nations being "masculine" and "feminine" as that's based on stereotypes and new age mysticism) and NOT have conquered or attempted to conquer Equestria is that either A: they already attempted a conquest in the past, and found out they can't do it, or B: For some idiotic reason they haven't tried. Even though Equestria is a virtual paradise compared to their monster-choked hellhole homeland. Wars and invasions have occurred in history for far less motivation than to get your family someplace where they might not be eaten alive. Cite "pride" all you want, but the mass migrations of history from the Aryans to the Hittites to the Germanic tribes rampaging through the Western Roman Empire to the gorram Mongols show that an aggressive race will not tolerate being forced to live in a terrible location when they see a nicer land occupied by a race of people they consider their martial inferior. They think "we can take 'em," and then try. The only time they don't is when they know they'll get spanked, which is why North Korea, of all the batcrap insanity of its leaders, never does anything more than a few incidents and even their dictators know not to even try to send their divisions south because the ROK army and US Army and even their ChiCom backers WILL BEAT THE SNOT OUT OF THEM.
So if the Griffons aren't already at war with Equestria, it's because they tried and failed before, and know they can't really win, or they're behaving in a manner completely at odds with the basic survival and filial protection instincts that all species inherit or end up going extinct. So the king's blustering is just that: blustering, bluffing, a temper tantrum calculated to get what he wants. The ponies don't have to acquiesce, but they do anyway because hey, that whole bit about standing up for each other? Far too much effort, just toss the ***** out on her arse and write her off, it's better than having to endure an earful of complaining or even just a brief display of power to show the griffons that they should think twice.
This is why I call bull on the story. Now, you can say I need to suspend my disbelief, but when you start bringing any sort of high level politics into it then you've brought in a new level of disbelief and sometimes that's far too much to swallow, even for technicolor talking magic ponies. I am willing to forgive a lot in stories, but a naive misunderstanding of history is not one of them.
1295917 You know what, that actually sums the whole mess up pretty well, looking back. It's not that the headcanon is especially bad, it's that it wasn't established well enough for everyone.
Not that the clues weren't there, but that some readers missed those clues.
1296055
How is this not a completely plausible scenario, given that it's exactly what's happening in North Korea? If you feel this bit of storytelling wasn't handled well that's a completely valid opinion; if you feel it's unrealistic I believe you're going too far.
1296129
Because we don't need to take that approach with them, and in fact shouldn't. And the ponies, whose continued existence is due to them displaying friendship and camaraderie in the fact of outside threats such as Windigos and Discord and Nightmare Moon and the like, this should be second nature for them to stand together. NOT to dump someone because it's politically convenient.
1296167 Okay. Your opinion is completely valid. I disagree, but that doesn't make you wrong.
and here I thought it was crystal clear why Angel was dismissed
still, we got a glimpse into your head, so I can say that's still a win, right?
1296055 Pretty much exactly this. The political situation you've presented isn't one that would persist over time, and yet we know that Equestria is a minimum of a thousand years old. Hell, they haven't even changed their head of state in that time, so it's pretty doubtful that their approach to international diplomacy would have varied much. So either the gryphons are brand new on the world stage and have yet to actually test Equestria militarily, or they would have already done so and either won or lost.
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Another thing I was going to address later in my story.
"Think of it like Sparta and Asguard had a baby with tons of hair on its chest"
I burst out laughing at this!
Also, Here's my complete opinion of the story and your recent chapter. I love the story to hell! The characters are amazing, including Samson Goldclaw. I pretty much imagined the Gryphon Kingdom as everything you explained in this post and I have to say, it makes me more interested in the story knowing that we thought similar about what it is probably like. I have no hatred towards anything you put into this story because all the work and effort you put into it made something great! How could I hate great work? You were able to spark something in your readers too! Your writing is something great. Keep on writing, Comet. /)
If I were to rate, this would be what I would rate it.
(9/10)
1296926 I see no need to level criticism as such, but I do find it interesting that you made the griffons so... barbaric. I get it, but for there to be any relations with a culture like theirs there must be some give and take. The posters below me have some points, though I think some are reaching way too far into real world implications.
A point I'll make is that for any relations to exist, each party must be willing to show emotions and make deals. Your griffons have shown they have restraint, if forced. But few societies would tolerate that behavior and do nothing. As much as it hurts to say, if their society is viewed as so barbaric they are more akin to feral beasts than actual sentient creatures, I have no trouble believing the ponies of Equestria, or perhaps some other kingdom (if there are others in TGAverse) would simply exterminate them. No more griffons = greater harmony and peace. NMM for instance wouldn't tolerate that nonsense.
As for Angel' situation, well... I'm intrigued. Now she'll be exposed to her mother and father again and we'll get more info there.
Horrible possibility: the bat pony situation has gotten so bad that they won't simply allow angel to choose to be the mother of the colony, they'll force her. Then Comet to the rescue... hopefully.
Final thing. For me, one big thing about stories that make or break them is payoff. Payoff being if an author goes out of their way to set up something in the story I believe it should be followed to some sort of conclusion.
Ex: Samson is an enormous douche... he should get what's coming to him.
Ex: You purposely left Gorgon alive instead of having her killed or taken out of the story in some way. Usually when that happens to characters they return in some way or form.
I'll keep reading regardless of what happens.