Cognitive Rebellion: Why The MLP Universe Remains So Enticing To Me

I'm probably not a good example of the typical brony.

Ok, that's probably generalizing too much about the brony community. There's probably plenty of people in my age group dealing with the closet brony thing. I'm probably not unique in my thought processes. I don't claim to be the most educated brony around, but I'm lucky enough to have an education. I'm not currently threatened or bullied and I have no (imminent) financial problems.

I am not a beautiful or unique snowflake.

No, I'm not in a Fight Club either (that would probably lean more towards unique ironically).

Yet, I keep seeing all the brony retrospectives, the interviews, the personal stories, and none of them seem to quite match up with my own.

Sure, I got into the fandom similar to a lot of other people. I had been hearing a lot about bronies and saw they even got their own page on the Cheezburger network (since I don't use 4chan), but I didn't really want to give it a chance until I saw the mod that replaced all the dragon shouts in Skyrim with the voice of Fluttershy. Seeing Whiterun bombarded by 15 flying terrors all halfheartedly shouting, "yay!" was just funny enough to get me to grind through the first few episodes. I binged on episodes in the dead of night like a bunch of people. John de Lancie solidified my love for the show. This is all familiar. This is normal. Why am I still typing?

Because no one mentions the primary reason I still am here. The writing truly is great. The characters are fun and dynamic. The animation is spectacular. The morals are meaningful and the episodes give you that feel-good sensation that everyone loves after a hard day.

But I am not here for that.

I used to be very into Harry Potter. Got into some serious discussions with people on shipping and time travel. Constantly read fanfiction. Even wrote a short one or two (most gone forever due to forums revamping and not under this name). I had lots of fun with the series while JKR was still writing, but I continued to read fanfiction for years afterwards. Why? It's the same reason I'm still here on Fimfiction. The same reason I keep watching MLP episodes.

MLP, just like Harry Potter, is infinitely expandable with a minimal barrier to entry.

Think about it. Why are there so many diverse fanfics on this site? Why do you keep looking for more? Why is your Read Later list full of 100+ if not 1000+ chapters? Why is your favorites list the same?

Because you don't know where the other writers are going. There's always something new to find on the front page or hiding under a rock.

I live for that. It's not something I've really put into words before, but the thought has crossed my mind quite a few times. I've explored hundreds of worlds that none of my other friends will ever see, dived head first into themes only glossed over in the normal American curriculum, enjoyed characters on par with Heath Ledger's Joker performance.

And they all came out of Harry Potter or MLP.

How?

Clearly it takes some well written source material and an enthusiastic fandom (and we have that in spades), but why this show? Why those books? There are others just as popular and well done. Fair warning, this is where I'm going to diverge from lots of bronies.

Because of what is not said in the source material.

Go look at a review/analysis of the Canterlot wedding. Notice how many of them mention all the "mature" themes in the episode? See them compliment putting in all those quirks and action scenes for the older audience, yet holding back enough to keep it a kids show?

There's the hidden gem. We are shown a 20-30 minute scenario just ripe for expansion, and not just expansion! In that short time we were introduced to an invasion, mind control, the idea of perfectly impersonating someone to eat them, the fallibility of the Princesses, and the idea that sometimes even the Elements of Harmony can't quite save the day. This isn't even mentioning some of the fantastic theories people have come up with for Law/Good vs Chaos/Evil (see why people like Sombra).

That's what I'm here for. That's what I crave. So much said in so little, so now we get to fill in the blanks.

And it's easy to do so too! The characters are so well defined that I have to try hard to make one sound like the other in my head. The settings are all there for us. But that's just the definition of fanfiction: using a pre-defined world to carry your literary idea. That's what makes it easy right?

Not quite enough in my book. I think what tips the scale is the lack of rules on magic.

Not once in a Harry Potter book did one of the professors truly explain magic or the limits of a caster. Never has someone defined how Twilight casts a spell. Jeez, until Season 3 came around, the only requirement I knew of was that unicorns had to channel through their horns, and even that's been called into question by the written spells we've come across.

Now we've gone from "I can rewrite their story with no consequences" to "I can rewrite their reality with no consequences."

We make our own rules. We build our own worlds. We write, we read, we explore.

It never ends.

Comments

[horizon]

This is very true; what drives fanfic is not what is shown, but what gaps exist for us to fill in.

The show grabbed me within the first minute of the first episode, when they described what I've taken to calling the Celestial War — an event which they have dropped a few hints to, but right up until Season 4 wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. That's fanwork gold, that is.