A Bit for a Kingdom Review--Story by Final Draft

• A Bit for a Kingdom is one of the saddest fanfictions I have ever had to read, but I am sure glad I read it. I’ve never really done much thinking about greed being in the context of the show despite Rarity being the Element of Generosity which is somewhat of an antithesis to Greed, though not completely. I will get to that soon.
• The premise is that Sweetie Belle wakes up one night and finds a cursed kingdom of ponies that only appears every one hundred years right before Midnight. The curse was set upon them because of their greed that they eventually grew out of because of the millennia they remained hidden from the world. The only way the curse can be broken is if somepony buys something from them.
• One of the most interesting things I saw from this story is how all of the citizens of this Kingdom are very generous, even allowing Sweetie Belle to keep something without paying for it.
o I will mention that the pony giving Sweetie Belle the gift did expect payment at first, but that was just their eagerness to be freed from their curse, which shows that sometimes greed can be a good thing. The desire for profit and revenue is exactly what has made humanity great. The profit motive is the main reason people start businesses.
o This brings up an even more interesting tid-bit about how many bronies and general people believe generosity and greed are complete opposites. They aren’t. Generosity is the will to give someone something without asking for something in return. Greed is the exact same thing except you do want something in return. There are in fact varying degrees of greed, I will admit, but many people give the term Greed a negative connotation to it. Greed is only as dangerous at how far it goes; Generosity is the same way those it is more inversely negative. If someone is generous beyond control and they just give everything to their name away to random people, what will happen to them? That’s why I get frustrated when I hear people say, “I’m generous to the core.” I like to say, “Can I have you shirt and pants please?” “No, dude! I need those!” “Then shut the fuck up.”
• Halfway through the story, Sweetie Belle finds a penny, or bit (whichever you prefer), in the sand, but leaves it because she thinks of it as insignificant. I read through this story twice because I had some stupid, childish hope the story would change and Sweetie Belle had picked up the coin and freed the ponies, but it didn’t. It got me thinking, why did I want that to happen the second time, and not the first time? It was because I didn’t care the first time through. I didn’t think the coin had much significance either. I thought it was just a little tid-bit, no pun intended, from the author to reference his title…until I read:
o “Will the curse be broken if I buy something for one bit?” Sweetie Belle asked quickly. “Yes, do you have it here?” Luna asked excitedly.
• I had never wanted a penny more in my life. As I’m reading the first time through, I have high hopes for Sweetie Belle to free these ponies, but was truly saddened when she failed to find the penny.
o This theme might need a little explaining: Sweetie Belle thought the penny was worthless, but turned out to be very important. This shows that we tend to take things like money for granted until we absolutely need them. I’m about to go into college and I can say that money has never been an issue in my family. But with college coming up and my lack of funds, I’ve only recently realized that I really need money now, but I don’t have any. It’s like having a puppy your entire life but you hated the thing so much; then it dies and you’re so miserable without it. Ergo, I am technically greedy, but not in the same way as people may call it out as.
o This entire section was very emotional for me because it resonates with me, and many others I know, very well.
• I just loved the symbolism throughout this story so much because it was easy to get and it makes you think about things that despite being thrown in our faces every day, like not taking things for granted, you just can’t ignore because we’ve all come to love these characters and you cannot ignore it like we do every day. Here’s an example of such a time in my life:
o We are all told to respect our crippled and mentally challenged brothers and sisters but many of us ignore it because it is shoved in our face constantly and being the spiteful humans we are, we don’t tend to do that. Then when it became canon that Scootaloo was crippled, I started to show much more respect for people like her. I’m not proud to admit it, but I was a dick to cripples sometimes, often joking about their injuries. I didn’t truly mean the things I said because I make fun of everything, but I went too far sometimes.
o And here with A Bit for a Kingdom, it’s telling us to note take things for granted, even just pennies, and it’s so very powerful for me because I love the Crusaders and imaging Sweetie Belle cry because she couldn’t help someone despite having their salvation in her reach not even five minutes prior…it just…hit me right in the heart.
• I loved this story. I wish more people read this story because I know that the author Final Draft hasn’t had much traction with it. I can actually point out why though. This story is about one of the Crusaders and while reading it you think that everything will be alright in the end, but when it isn’t alright in the end, it upsets a lot of people. They don’t like watching Sweetie Belle get sad or just barely fail. It throws us away from the tone of the show and into a group of feelings we aren’t accustomed to with Crusader stories.
o This also creates something I call the “Hear-say-I didn’t mean it like that” effect. There weren’t too many dislikes on the story on FimFiction and a rather large amount of likes. This means that some probably enjoyed it but when someone asked if it was a good story, they replied, “It’s really sad.” The person receiving the answer believes that they were warned against reading the story and avoids the story completely, therefore leaving the story to age and die.
• If you want to read the story for yourself, I’ll leave the link at the bottom, and please take a look around the site. Look at some of the stories that aren’t or receive a lot of hate. Take the time to read them or even just one. Leave some feedback even if it is just you telling why you disliked it. Everything always helps…
o Except stories with black and red alicorn OC’s.
A Bit for a Kingdom
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I want it to be known that this was written as a sort of script. The future reviews will be much better and more "less-bullshitish".