The Desire To Degrade · 3:25pm May 6th, 2014
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is, very notably, a show about heroines.
Not merely in the trivial sense of "female protagonists," nor in the functional sense of "extraordinarily powerful females," but in the deeper sense of "awesomely admirable females." While each of the Mane Six has demonstrable in-canon flaws, each of them in her also embodies a Virtue (in a variant of the old Medieval Scholastic sense) called an Element of Harmony, and this is shown as being integral to her character rather than this being some sort of facade she assumes. In addition to her specific Element, each of them is also generally good, and to varying degrees -- based upon her individual character -- behaves virtuously with regards to the other Elements and more prosaic standards as well.
This is not to say that they lack flaws. Each of the Mane Six is a believable personality, and is to some degree tainted by vices as well as shining with virtues. None of them is vicious enough to be despicable, but that makes sense: these are six mares who are the chosen Champions of an immortal Physical Goddess (watch the Friendship Is Magic two-parter and it is fairly obvious that Celestia set things up for Twilight Sparkle to meet the candidate Bearers, and probably (though it's not shown onscreen) backups for each of them as well). Not only would Celestia not have chosen vicious candidate Bearers, but vicious Bearers would probably not have been able to attune with the Elements.
You will note that I am using "virtuous" and "vicious" quite directly here -- I mean no irony by my terms. This is anathema to some who imagine their rejection of absolute morality to be a very new and imaginative thing -- mostly because they know little of history and have probably never heard of the Greek Sophists, nor of the tiresomely many schools of thought throughout history who have duplicated their discovery that with sufficiently clever abuse of language it is possible to pretend to prove that black is white. In the context of a fantasy world in which Virtues take on tangible physical form and allow the projection of powerful magic, the difference between Virtue and Vice is even more absolute than it is in our own world.
Now the reactions on the part of the audience to a direct, unashamed, well-written and well-acted presentation of virtuous characters tends to divide itself into two general tendencies. The first is to admire the virtues of the characters being presented, because virtue is inherently admirable. This is perhaps the response of the majority of the MLP:FIM fan community -- it is, after all, one of the major reasons why the show became popular. When one feels like this, one is impelled to emulate the virtues being displayed -- to behave in a better manner in one's own life. This is what is meant by the term "uplifting." More so than most modern fiction, MLP:FIM is uplifting.
However, there is another likely reaction. This to resent the virtues of the characters being presented, because virtue is a challenge to those who witness it. If one does not imagine oneself as being inherently or potentially admirable, then observing virtue in others stings -- it reminds oneself of what one has not accomplished and what one does not believe one can ever accomplish. This is the response of a minority of the MLP:FIM fan community, but it is a vocal minority. When one feels like this, one is impelled to deny the virtues being displayed -- both to deny that these are virtues and that the characters are actually virtuous by these and other associated standards.
The opposite of "uplifting" is "degrading." The root of the desire to degrade -- both in general and in this specific case -- is a sense of being personally insulted by the challenge posed by virtue. The motive of he who degrades toward the characters he degrades, both in fiction and real life, is to "cut them down to size," which is to say down to his own dwarfish intellectual and moral stature.
To this end, the degrader will focus obsessively on the moral flaws of the admirable characters, not to explore the contours of their personalities (which after all include both merits and flaws) but to find something to seize on and exaggerate, as if to say: "See! She's not so much! She's no better than the rest of us!" The degrader wants to pull all others down to his lower level; the uplifiter to lift all -- including himself -- to the highest level possible to their natures.
This usually involves picking a Vice and claiming that (1) it is really a Virtue, and the supposedly-Virtuous characters being admired in canon are therefore flawed by their failure to sufficiently embody it; or (2) the supposedly-Virtuous characters actually do practice this Vice, and to a high degree, and hence are flawed by their Viciousness. Some fan fictions do both.
Given the fact that the Internet is for porn, the Vice usually chosen is Lust, because it lends itself to erotic art, especially when the artist or writer in question is too unimaginative to see how the characters' sexualities might be erotically-expressed in a more Loving fashion. But then Love is emotionally-complex and requires good writing to present believably; Lust can be shown simply by putting together two characters in Ikea-Erotica fashion. (Indeed, as in the case of one famous manifestation of this, simply by using the word "banging" a lot, with less actual eros on display than in an 18th-century musketry drill).
However it need not be Lust. I've seen the exact same thing done with Wrath -- at least one Ask Blog I've perused reimagines something very close to the canon version of Rainbow Dash as a cruel bully who sees nothing wrong with the horrible abuse of another Pegasus whose main problem is that she's not a very good flier -- this despite the fact that Rainbow Dash rather famously in canon counts as perhaps her best friend a Pegasus who did not become a good flier until Season 3. This without getting into extreme warping of character, such as in the "Cupcakes" version of Pinkie Pie, where the character is turned into somepony who is not even recognizably the same personality.
This hints at one obvious problem with such degradation. It is illogical, and inconsistent with the characters as displayed in canon. Because the writers have a concept of the characters which stretches beyond what is explicitly stated on-stage (this is in fact true of all good writing, that it implies a "larger world" than the parts being shown). I have already made reference to this in "Why I Cannot Believe in a Free-Love Equestria," in which I make the point that -- while the show has not, and probably always will not (because of its main target demographic) show Ponies explicitly discussing or demonstrating Equestrian sexual morality, the show has shown enough to by implication make it plain that it probably isn't a 1960's-70's Countercultural Free Love sort of society (at least not on the whole, though it may and probably does have a Bohemian "fast set").
What is true for a culture is even more true for individual characters. The Mane Six have distinct and well-defined personalities, and viciousness -- especially extreme viciousness -- is inconsistent with the aspects of personality displayed, more or less proportional to the degree of viciousness. Each of the Mane Six actually has displayed some Vices, to various degrees at various times -- obvious examples being Rarity's occasional Greed or Applejack's Pride -- and this has provided much fuel for character exploration and development (the characters' story arcs are in part the conquest of their worst tendencies and the extension of their best ones). Conversely, what we've seen makes it obvious that certain characters have personalities inconsistent with certain vices -- on the whole Applejack cannot be Slothful nor Twilight particularly Lustful, as this would contradict their characters in canon.
Here I must emphasize that the degradation of character is not about the admission or even display of Vicious conduct on the part of a fundamentally Virtuous character. It is about the reduction of that character to that Vice, the more so when the Vice is not actually all that characteristic of that character. Uplifting does not mean presenting every sympathetic character as a flawless Mary Sue, it means acknowledging and celebrating the Virtues of those characters as they are displayed in believable action and dialogue.
Degrading is easy. Uplifting is more difficult. This is because Degrading is destructive, and Uplifting constructive -- and it is always harder to create than to destroy.
I'm curious what sparked this, because I don't really see it as the kind of degradation that I see a lot.
Honestly, the stories I find most degrading to characters aren't the ones that play up vices, but the ones that simply remove or tone down their virtues, and remove any character traits that make them strong, potentially defiant characters, for the benefit of a self-insert or a self-insert stand in (often Spike.) This often happens in a romance or sex fic, and reads to me as the author saying "I'd like to date/sleep with Twilight or Rainbow Dash, but not if she's going to demand that I rise to be her equal. She should be less, so that she appreciates me."
This makes me crazy because I find it not only degrading to the characters, but degrading to women in general, and degrading to the men out there who are willing to strive to be equal to a woman as virtuous and strong as the mane six.
This might be the same sort of fics you're talking about, but my problem isn't the vices that are left, it's the dignity that's removed from the character.
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The specific trigger was a comment on Pinkie Sense and Sensibility Scoots2 made regarding Pinkie Pie's inherent awesomeness (especially as perceived by Cheese Sandwich), and the contrast with the Winningverse portrayal of her as weak and almost mindless. This is also applicable to the Winningverse's portrayal of Rainbow Dash as well -- in fact, I could argue that one reason they get paired in that verse is that they are both portrayed as idiots, with Pinkie as an idiotic hedonist ("Woo hoo! Pleasure!") and Rainbow as an idioitic agonist ("Woo hoo! Competition!").
You've put it very well. And that's essentially the same thing, as a character with virtues removed but vices intact is on the whole more vicious. The strength and potential defiance of the Mane Six are among their heroic virtues -- they are what enable the expression of these virtues. Being Honest or Loyal means little if one is too weak to act on such virtues.
The less nasty Degrading stories are those which simply tone down the virtues. The nastier ones also turn up the vices.
I find it degrading both to all Ponykind (as recipients of this treatment) and Mankind (given the species of 100% of the authors). But yeah, specifically such stories are saying "Don't be fooled by the way they seem to behave, we all know they are really a pack of petty, spineless sluts as are all females." And I find this an especially repulsive way to portray such clearly-admirable female characters.
The dignity is removed by exaggerating vices and downplaying virtues.
This is different from "comedy" in that the comic heroine is usually admirable at the core, but displays some weaknesses which show that they are imperfect. When done well, the comic character is all the more loveable for her flaws, because they reduce the envy we would otherwise feel for her very real merits. The Mane Six are comic characters (especially in the Slice of Life episodes) but they are also clearly admirable.
One way that character development is carried out in canon is in stories where a heroine displays a character flaw, takes it to the point of causing some harm to herself or others, and realizes she made a mistakje and learns and grows from this error. This is generally played for comedy rather than tragedy, though often the potentially-tragic consequences should the heroine not realize her error are at least mentioned by implication.
One reason I consider this to be a well-written series is that the characters really DO learn -- they may relapse and make a mistake again given that their mistakes derive from fundamental character flaws, but they do so with increasingly less intensity, showing that they are conquering these flaws over time. This is generally done well -- even realistically. In fact, I would go so far as to call MLP:FIM more emotionally-realistic than the majority of live-action television situation comedies, which simply put characters in stereotypical roles and never let them change a bit.
Showing a character display a flaw and suffer the consequences is not inherently Degrading (though it may well be Sad, Tragic or even Dark depending on the severity of the consequences). To show the great failing greatly is the essence of tragedy. It may even be Uplifting, if the character is then able to conquer that flaw and recover from these consequences
This was the essence of A Robust Solution -- Fluttershy faces up to the damage she did to herself through a combination of flaws, and develops a wiser strategy for the future, which will enable her to open herself to the world without courting her own emotional destruction. And I built that story on an excellent predecessor, Bad Horse's Fluttershy's Night Out, which is a social-realist Tragedy that demonstrates how the combination of being all-loving, naive and ordinarily-lustful can prove dangerous to the one expressing these traits -- even though Fluttershy's lovingness is actually one of her virtues (it's a manifestation of her Kindness) rather than vices.
Fluttershy's Night Out is not a Degrading story. Its point is not "Fluttershy is a slut," but rather "society can be dangerous if one is ignorant about oneself and others." (Indeed, if Fluttershy was promiscuous, the story would entirely lose its bite, as Fluttershy would not then have felt bad about her seduction by "Nosey"). The story is quite Dark, however, because another point of it is that "sometimes society can be cruel even to -- perhaps especially to -- those who are kind."
Nor is it Uplifting -- because the only lesson Fluttershy learns from what happened, at the time, is "other Ponies are mean and I'm unlovable so I should have as little as possible to do with other Ponies." But then, it makes profound sense because we know Fluttershy is emotionally-damaged at the start of the series; it's obvious from her behavior and dialogue -- this story presents a highly-plausible explanation for a source of that damage. I wrote my sequel to Bad Horse's original story in part because I wanted to show how Fluttershy might have begun recovering from such damage -- and I knew that my sequel was going of necessity to be both Sad and Uplifting.
True Degradation of a character is neither the failure of Virtue nor the victory of Vice. It is the complete denial of the reality and value of Virtue, it is saying that Vice is all there is. And it almost always derives from self-loathing on the part of the author, who feels threatened by the possibility of real Virtue, because he imagines himself so Vicious that unless reality as a whole is equally Vicious, he is uniquely damned.
I don't really have much to say about the central premise other than agreement, but the comment about backup Bearers got me thinking. At the Summer Sun Celebration, each of the Bearers has an associated task for Twilight to inspect with the notable exception of Pinkie. She happens upon Twilight through happenstance. One could read that as Celestia knowing Laughter could not be so easily manipulated, trusting fate, or simply crossing her nonexistent fingers and hoping.
)
(Or, in your stories, remembering a friend from a World that Never Was.
Sorry for focusing on an ancillary topic, but you got me thinking. The most I have to say about the core of the essay is that all of the capitalization makes me think of New World of Darkness.
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Alex Warlorn actually thought of that, and I got the idea most explicitly from his Season Four: Generation Transitions & Origins. Basically, several things about Pinkie Pie's behavior in the season opener are suspicious and hint that she's being moved in occult ways, possibly ones occult even to herself:
(1) The fact that she has such an extreme reaction to her first sight of Twilight implies that she knows that Twilight is destined to be (and may have already been) very special to her. We later see how she normally greets newcomers -- she's aggressively friendly, but not quite so overwhelmed with excitement. Her reaction only makes sense as Recognition.
(2) She gets frightened the moment she sees the plasma start to shine in the Town Hall, long before she has any reason to believe that there is any threat other than a perhaps-odd bit of stagecraft by Princess Celestia. In the PonyPOVerse (whose continuity I follow in my own version of the scene in Nightmares Are Tragic it is because one of the Destroyers of the World That Was Not has come again. Sort of.
(3) She speeds up the Quest (which she has inserted herself onto for no obvious reason) by quickly finding the information Twilight wanted (she will do this again in "Sonic Rainboom" and something similar in "Apple Pie"). This implies that she has more than ordinary powers of information retrieval, and we know from other eps that she is a precognitive.
and
(4) The "Giggle at the Ghosties" scene. Nightmare Moon had to have enchanted that wood with a more than ordinary Fear spell (it was overwhelming everypony, incluiding the magically-adept Twilight and the fearless Applejack and Rainbow Dash) and yet Pinkie essentially Mass Dispelled it in about a minute. Pinkie PIe is an Earth Pony -- they are not normally capable of that sort of magic. (Of course, in Pinkie Sense and Sensibility I am outright stating that she is much more than an ordinary Earth Pony).
Well, I'm capping a lot because I'm trying to speak in semi-Archetypal terms here.
All I can say about this is, one thing I truly like about the series is the way it depicts admirable, likeable, virtuous characters (mainly the Mane Six, but others too) who nevertheless have flaws. Sometimes severe flaws. And yet they are still likeable and admirable. All too often if both fiction and historical writings I've seen the idea that 'bad people cannot have ANY admirable traits, and good people never have ANY flaws; therefor if someone has flaws, be they severe or not, they are b definition utterly vile'. It's probably just me, but something about that always seems so childish to me.
And a great essay here as always.
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(*nods*) Each of the Mane Six has at time behaved badly, in certain consistent ways indicating character flaws. To take Rarity (whom I emphasize that I admire greatly), she on one occasion displayed a level of greed that nearly got her and her friends killed -- in "Dragonshy" where she almost succeeds in talking the Dragon into leaving peacefully -- until he notices that she is actually looting his hoard. She's clearly obsessed by her own romantic prospects, and sometimes acts as if she is desperate for male attention -- on two occasions she developed severe crushes on strangers, which in one case got to the point of becoming hostile to an innocent friend (Applejack). She over-dramatizes her life and inflicts this drama on her friends.
I could very easily, if I wanted to, write fan fiction about Rarity that exaggerated these vices and ignored the many virtues which more than balance them to make her not merely a decent but an extremely good pony. Rarity is also, after all, intelligent, imaginative, principled, brave, kind and loyal to her friends, generous to a fault, and incredibly skilled and hard-working. A Rarity with her virtues removed would be greedy, manipulative and promiscuous -- the more so because in many cases the canon Rarity's virtues act to check her vices (for instance, Rarity normally seeks wealth through creative hard work, and she behaves decently because of her principles and the determination and intelligence to live by them).
That's actually what a lot of Degrading stories do with those characters. I've seen fanon versions of Rarity who were essentially sleeping their way through Ponyville and the elites of several other cities, because the writer noticed that Rarity has a strong sex drive but missed that she also has strong morals. This is of course not accidental on the writer's part: he's trying to cut her down to the limited strength he can imagine, instead of reveling in the inherent fascination of a female who is passionate and principled, with all the potential for internal emotional conflict that can create.
Likewise but in a different specific direction, the frequent Mad Scientist Twilight Sparkles, who have Twilight's intense curiosity and courage when facing the unknown, but forget Twilight's strong code of honor and concern for the lives of friends and innocents. They wind up performing insanely dangerous experiments which have hideous consequences, For Science! The canon Twilight Sparkle, of course, would never do these things. (This is of significance to the series, because apparently the main reason why Starswirl the Bearded never Ascended was that he had Twilight's intellectual curiosity and a similar great magical power without the ability to make emotional connections to most Ponies -- he was a great friend of Princess Celestia's, but had little caring for normal Ponies).
The show also shows villains of every stripe from the inherent to the situational. Queen Chrysalis and King Sombra, for instance, appear to be inherently evil (I argue that Sombra was once good, but in any case the Sombra we meet in "Crystal Empire" is thoroughly corrupted). Discord was certainly very evil, but may be changing for the better under Fluttershy's influence (we'll see to what extent he really has reformed or not this season finale, I bet). Nightmare Moon was simply Luna lost in or posssessed by evil; Luna herself is not evil.
Gilda was a jerk rather than a true villain, and what's more she was afraid of losing Rainbow Dash's friendship (which proved a self-fulfilling fear as it drove her to act in a way Dashie couldn't tolerate). Trixie doesn't seem to have been evil at all; she just wanted to put on a magic show and rubbed some of the Mane Six the wrong way because she's also a bit of a jerk -- we only see her acting evil under the Alicorn Amulet's influence.
(In An Extended Performance, I show Trixie as an anti-heroic hero without really changing her personality -- she's still a jerk, but she's facing something that is really evil).
What I like about this is that this is moral complexity without moral denial. There is no moral denial -- it is wrong for Rarity to try to loot the dragon's hoard, or for Gilda to intimidate and steal from Ponies -- but that doesn't mean that either of them is evil, overall. In the case of Rarity, of course, we know that she is if anything idealistically good, overall; in the case of Gilda, we might have a very different perception of her character if she had gotten more than one speaking appearance (you may or may not know this, but Gilda was briefly on-camera in the most recent episode, but she never got to actually speak to any of the Mane Six).
And yeah. Some people claim that the show is morally simplistic, but it's not -- it's like some of my favorite American animations such as Gargoyles and Adventure Time in that it depicts admirable but morally-complex characters. Which is one of the things I really like about this show.
An exceptionally well-considered essay.
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I believe you have heard of tv tropes, it's good to see another author who balances both sides of a story, as you call them the vices and virtues. Gilda and Trixie weren't evil, in fact for most people they were barely jerks. Gilda just wanted a friend and Trixie wanted to demonstrate her talents albeit in a manner that boasted her own ego. They were both expressing their character and were misinterpreted for their actions, something that happens every day in life no matter what actions you take
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(*nods*) I haven't yet done a Gilda story yet, but my completed story An Extended Performance should make it rather plain that I consider Trixie to be more a heroine with some serious flaws than any kind of a villain. You should read that story if you're aTrixie fan; I also have two (very incomplete) direct sequels, one about Trixie and the other about her friend Piercing Gaze.
It is notable that in "Boast Busters," Trixie actually does nothing to harm anypony who does not directly challenge her, and all she does to them is to make them look silly. The attack of the Ursa is not only not her direct fault, it isn't even a probable consquence of any of her actions. And when it happens, she tries to save Snips and Snails, rather than abandoning them to its mercy, even though she is fully aware that (1) the beast is well beyond her power and (2) it's their own fault it's attacking. She behaves much more viciously in "Magic Duel," but she's being corrupted by the Alicorn Amulet at the time. And even then, she doesn't kill anypony. Or even seriously try to kill anypony.
As for Gilda, she behaves much worse than does Trixie (she outright steals and directly threatens innocent bystanders). But in doing so she commits only the most minor of crimes -- mostly misdemeanors -- which at worst would make her a very minor and reformable villain. The worst things she does are to Pinkie Pie, and she does this out of clear jealousy -- it's obvious she's afraid of "losing" Rainbow Dash to her. I think Gilda had some sort of gigantic crush on Rainbow -- one whose existence Rainbow doesn't seem to have fully grasped -- and could not handle the emotions thus provoked. Gilda's a bit nasty, but I don't see her as evil.
Personally, I like Gilda. It took me a few tries..if I was in a new place, I'd be scared too. Someone taking my friend away would be very annoying. I have no trouble sharing friends, but on the occasion someone took away ALL of my friend's time I'd be annoyed too. Beyond annoyed, even though I actually don't approve of stealing
:)
But..It was one apple. One, not two. Or twenty, or a house. One apple and yelling on a bad day, that's not the actions of a villain. They're those of someone who is in a new place and is confused. Very confused is an identifiable trait for me
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Yeah ... well, as I said, I don't think Gilda was a villain. More like a bully or a jerk. And she seemed to be acting mostly out of fear that she was going to lose Rainbow to her fellow Ponies, a fear which became real because she acted mean to everypony.
This makes her behavior worse than that of Trixie though -- all Trixie did was to set up her show and then deal with hecklers. Trixie was unnecessarily nasty about it, which is why she didn't get much sympathy from the Mane Six when the Ursa wrecked her wagon.
One difference is that Trixie actually tried to be heroic in "Boast Busters," while Gilda didn't try to be nice to anypony in "Griffon the Brush-Off." But then that may have been a matter of differing opportunities.
I suggest in An Extended Performance that Trixie sees herself as a heroine and that therefore her first impulse in a situation where, say, two stupid little foals are in danger, is to save them rather than purely look to her own skin. But then maybe Gilda sees herself as a heroic Griffon warrior and might do the same thing given the chance.
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Forgot to respond to this part of it before, but -- yes. I totally agree with you.
(in the following I assume male lover, female beloved because that's generally how this sort of story works when applied to the female-centric MLP:FIM verse).
If I was going to write an OC who became romantically-involved with one of the Mane Six (or, really, any character whom I found admirable in any way, shape or form) I would either:
(1) Make him someone worthy of his beloved, which means create a character equally or more admirable (which can be difficult, which is part of what I meant when I said that uplifting is harder than degrading); or
(2) Make him someone unworthy of his beloved, which means create someone less admirable: which is easier, but then leads inexorably to other questions, to wit:
(a) Why does the beloved fall in love with the unworthy character?
(the reasons generally boil down either to the unworthy lover concealing his lack of worth, or the beloved not realizing her own worth).
(b) What happens when this unworthiness is revealed, to either or both of them?
(there are three general possibilities, which can be classified as "the beloved accepts the unworthy lover despite his unworthiness," "the beloved rejects the unworthy lover," and "the unworthy lover strives to become worthy of his beloved.")
All these questions and answers can generate further drama. Some resultant paths are sad, tragic or dark -- one of the ones I mentioned is actually uplifting.
For instance, in the case of an unworthy lover who conceals his lack of worth to exploit the beloved, the outcome is likely to be bad. This is actually used in-canon in A Canterlot Wedding -- both in Twilight's fear that Cadance has become corrupted by her own social status and the worse reality that it's actually the alien impostor Chrysalis. In both cases the motive is to exploit Shining Armor -- in her fears because he's an attractive stallion, in reality because Chrysalis can drain his love and Stare him into dropping the shield. The situation is saved here only by Chrysalis' rescue of the real Cadance and their defeat of Chrysalis -- the real Cadance and Shining turn out to be quite worthy of one another.
Another example of this sort of plot can be seen in Disney's Frozen, in which Hans pretends to love Anna in order to marry into the royal family -- he intends then to murder both Elsa and Anna to seize the kingdom! Here, the intervention of Kristoff saves the day, but afterward Anna is (necessarily) less innocent because she has learned that a lover can seem sincere but be false
The beloved not realizing her own worth is an extremely sad concept which can lead to some terrible outcomes. This is essentially the plot and conclusion of Fluttershy's Night Out, which ends with Fluttershy emotionally-devastated and convinced of her own inherent worthlessness. This is only degrading if the author agrees that the beloved is worthless, and worthless in spite of or BECAUSE OF her virtues. It's not degrading in the example given, because we (the audience) having seen the TV series know that Fluttershy is far better than she imagines herself to be.
The actually-uplifting variant of this is when the beloved eventually does realize her own worth. That's the conclusion of A Robust Solution -- Rarity is not in love with Fluttershy but does love her dearly as a friend; she successfully convinces Fluttershy of her own worth, which enables Fluttershy to realize that she was not rejected for unworthiness. Note that in both parts of the arc -- Bad Horse's and mine -- considerable emotional drama is generated, but that this wouldn't have been possible if this were just wish-fulfillment fantasy.
If the beloved accepts the unworthy lover despite his unworthiness, this can range all over the place from happy to sad and uplifting to degrading, depending on just how unworthy is he in truth. A novel about a wonderful woman who foolishly falls in love with an idiotic violent drunkard and then works hard to keep him in liquor while accepting regular beatings from him would be quite a dark one -- I wouldn't call it a "happy ending" if we learned that they remained married for decades until their deaths! It is different if the gap in worth is less extreme -- for instance if the man is just a little bit silly, occasionally over-indulges, and on one never-repeated occasion slapped her, it's quite possible that the overall course of their lives might be a happy one.
This gets into the scenario you dislike. Usually in this case the beloved is quite superior (each one of the Mane Six is in her own way exceptionally-good and competent in canon) and the lover is fairly ordinary (the "everyman" audience stand-in). If they are presented in this fashion, the obvious question emerges as to just why the beloved accepts the lover, and the solution you (and I) so deeply dislike is to downplay the good qualities of the beloved.
The reason why this is (literally) degrading -- even if it isn't also "degrading" in the sense of having the beloved behave in some humiliating or low fashion ...
("Oh!" cried Twilight Sparkle. "I've never had the chance to be ravished by a pasty-skinned barely-sapient ape-thing from another dimension! You've expressed mild interest in me! I find myself overcome! Take me, bizarre mutant of an alien evolutionary life-path!")
... is that it makes the beloved less than she is supposed to be.
The second possibility, "beloved rejects the unworthy lover" is inherently sad, because it is about romantic rejection. It is even sadder if the realization comes after an initial acceptance. This general course is unpopular in wish-fulfillment romantic or sexual fantasies, because few fantasize about meeting a wonderful potential mate only to be rejected by her.
(Interestingly, this is what Piercing Gaze thinks happened to him -- in the sadder variant -- with Trixie in YOH 1499. Namely, that Trixie rejected him because she realized he'd seduced her and thought he didn't really love her. He does not grasp that the problem there was at least half Trixie's).
The third possibility, "lover strives to become worthy of his beloved," is actively uplifting, because instead of trying to cut her down to his size, he attempts to grow to hers. This is actually the ur-Romance plot because it is the whole point of the cult of Courtly Love, and of the very many stories it generated which became known as "romances."
In canon, this is what Spike is trying to do with regards to Rarity. This is emphasized by the fact that in "Dog and Pony Show" he actually fantasizes himself as a medieval knight-errant, complete with plate armor and lance, rescuing Rarity as his Damsel in Distress (one of the classic Courtly Love scenarios which has survived to the present day). He more than fantasizes this too -- he attempts to actually do it, and proves very successful (Rarity ultimately frees herself, but not due to any lack of action on the part of Spike or her other friends).
More significantly (and closer to the most sublime tendencies of Courtly Love), Spike has been able to overcome his own worst tendencies -- such as his Draconic Greed -- due to the inspiration of his love for Rarity and awareness of the fact that at least the non-sexual components of that love are returned. We see this most dramatically in "Secret of My Excess," but it's been quietly shown in several other episodes -- Spike is becoming a better person in part because he wants to be worthy of Rarity. Spike, of course, would be horrified at the notion of cutting Rarity down to a more manageable moral size.
I'm going to go into what Rarity thinks of all this in a future story (to make a long story short, though she thinks highly of herself, she secretly thinks less highly of herself than Spike does, fears that she falls well short of his ideals -- and is afraid that he will be deeply hurt when he realizes just how fallible she can be -- and this is entirely aside from the fact that she can't feel sexually about him yet, because she still sees him as a child). The point is that Love here is seen as uplifting rather than degrading -- and I think the romantic friendship between Rarity and Spike is meant to be taken that way in canon, too.
(It's uplifting for both of them, too, in that Rarity is actually also being driven to be a better pony because she doesn't want to disillusion him. Not that she was exactly a bad pony to begin with -- just that her awareness of Spike's idealization of her makes her strive to be more worthy of his admiration. And yes -- Rarity definitely loves Spike -- just not sexually. Yet.)
The sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy fictions of which you speak rarely address any of those issues, because, as you point out, they're all about "I get to be with her." This is a rather adolescent approach; it assumes that being accepted by the beloved is the ultimate end of romantic love, while in fact it is but the beginning -- for love to succeed, the lovers must prove themselves worthy of one another on more than one occasion, and in a sense testing never really ends until one of them dies. Even decades-long marriages may face times of testing.
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First, this is an absolutely wonderful summery of the situation, and one I would link to anyone planning to write an OC x mane six romance.
Second, this made me laugh out loud:
...and also, if you replaced Twilight with Rainbow Dash, is the best summery I've ever read of the first chapter of Xenophilia. I'm not sure what path the rest of the fic takes, because the first chapter annoyed me so much thanks to Dash being so OOC and, as you point out, degraded in the literal sense.
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Why, thank you!
As to my brief parody -- well, yes. Too many HiE romance (or porn) stories assume that some member of the Mane Six will fall in love (or have random sex with) the human character -- for no adequately explained reason other than that he's interested in them.
This fails the logic test on at least three grounds. First of all, there's no reason to think that the Mane Six are promiscuous, or even love lightly (the closest thing to this in canon are Rarity's crushes, but there's an obvious "type" Rarity tends to develop these toward -- fashionable high-status stallions -- which the HiE does not fit). Secondly, the writers seem not to grasp that the Mane Six are high-status within their own world -- Twilight in particular is an acknowledged, crowned Princess of Equestria -- and hence are probably not desperate for mere male attention, they could get as much of it as they desired if that was ALL they wanted. Thirdly, the species and cultural barriers are significant ones -- even if we assume that Humans and Ponies have similar enough body language to read each others' emotions and that both are enlightened enough to see the other as being "like" themselves in the sense of sapience; there are still probably some fundamental differences in emotional nature, and even in canon we've seen some differences between the culture of Equestria and even Western societies.
A lot of the writers who write wish-fulfillment HiE stories I would wager are themselves adolescents or young men who either are (or perceive themselves as being) low-status and are desperate for acceptance by members of the opposite sex. Because they like the Mane Six, they may not fully grasp that the Mane Six are not desperate in any such fashion -- yes, the Mane Six are single, but in the context of their social roles within their society this must be due to some combination of high standards and romantic disinterest.
If Twilight Sparkle just wanted to "get laid" (as at least one writer has so poetically put it) it would be absurdly easy for her to do so. Yes, she's romantically shy, but all she'd need to do would be to express interest in some suitable stallion and -- unless he were himself very monogamously attached -- he would almost certainly go for it. And while Twilight is modest, she's not that modest -- she would among other things in reality be the recipient of occasional unwanted attentions of that sort by ambitious or love-struck stallions. So yes, she'd know it.
The same goes, with appropriate situational modifications, for any and all of the Mane Six. All of them are physically attractive. All of them are socially-prominent (even ones who don't want to be, such as Fluttershy, who more than makes up for her shyness by being the canonically most beautiful of the Mane Six). None of them are stupid (Rainbow Dash is a bit oblivious, but not to ego-boosting admiration). One of them (Pinkie Pie) is so weird that her attitude toward love is usually unreadable, but then she's also so friendly that she would have little problem finding somepony.
So, no, it's not like the OC is going up to the shy girl who's never been asked out. It's more like he's going up to the brilliant and beautiful, nationally-heroic daughter of a millionaire Senator and asking her out. She may be a very nice girl, but she's not desperate -- if she's virginal or single, it's by her own choice, probably because she has high standards. Which gets into my whole point regarding "worthiness."
Too many writers write Twilight as if she really were thinking along the lines I wrote in parody. And it works for Rainbow Dash, or any of them, as well.
I have heard of this story but never read it. What I heard is that it somehow led to the main character becoming the lover of all the Mane Six, and numerous other characters in addition. Which seriously strains any concept of verisimilitude, unless it's being played as surreal comedy.
Another thing that's occurred to me here is that maybe there are a lot of people out there who don't get that the reason why the situation in Tenchi Muyo is even remotely plausible is that no matter how normal Tenchi considers himself, he's actually a super-powerful alien aristocrat who acts like a gentleman even after he discovers his true nature. And the story is in any case basically surreal comedy.
2085813 ("Oh!" cried Twilight Sparkle. "I've never had the chance to be ravished by a pasty-skinned barely-sapient ape-thing from another dimension! You've expressed mild interest in me! I find myself overcome! Take me, bizarre mutant of an alien evolutionary life-path!")
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Thank you for appreciating the parody.
Yes -- there are stories and pictures which would horrify Twilight. Maybe her more than most of them, because she'd be the most likely to read them, and she's also somepony who takes everything very seriously. Other members of the Mane Six who would I think be especially annoyed would be Rarity ("They're saying what about me!") and Fluttershy who is just really easy to embarrass because she doubts her own worth at time. AJ would think it was stupid and not worth paying attention to, Rainbow that it was hilariously strange (until she found the one about herself) and Pinkie Pie just plain silly (save, perhaps "Cupcakes.").
2087255 One shudders to think what the Princesses would think of some art by their 'admirers' -- let alone Discord, since unlike almost every other of the characters mentioned, he combines the power to actually do something about it and the sheer pettiness to find it a worthwhile effort.
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Discord, remember, interfered with that letter Commander Windvane sent me. By the way, I wonder if Derpy had to get help from Time Turner to deliver that one?
2087991 Ah, I forgot! Which story did this all get recorded in?
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I didn't -- I did it as a blog post. "Intercepted Mail - A Letter From Windvane." Incidentally, that blog post is meta-on-this-topic since it amounted to in-universe hate fic by Windvane regarding Fluttershy, whom he was obviously attempting to discredit.
2088630 Just read it; very nice (I mean that sarcastically). One wonders just how much Discord interfered with the message, and to what extent?
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As I mentioned elsewhere, I should have sent you to "Legal Notice from High Lord Windvane," in which it becomes evident that Windvane really despises his niece Fluttershy. Probably because Fluttershy is actually the legal inheritor of the title of Commander of the Pegasi to which Windvane pretends.
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Discord hates Windvane, largely for the one screamingly-obvious reason that Windvane hates Fluttershy. Fluttershy made him promise not to attack him.
2088910 Hmm, one wonders if Windbag knows that the only reason he's still alive and un-transformed into something horrible is because of his niece.
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Windvane, on the other hand, has a Discord-level ally of which he is largely unaware. It's (very) incomplete, but you really should read the two chapters I've published so far of [i]Love Amongst Monsters. I think you'll spot to whom I refer.
But yeah -- if they let him loose (in the moral sense of the word) Discord would probably severely mess with Windvane. Not that Discord feels the same moral revulsion you probably do at Windvane. It's more that he really likes Fluttershy and hence is inclined to harm anyone who hates or harms her. Another Pony who should be glad that Fluttershy's made Discord promise to play nice is "Nosey," though I don't know how much Discord knows about the details of that. Discord can, of course, sense the psychic scars on her.
Of course this is wholly unfair on Discord's part -- he's done far worse things than has "Nosey," and even than Windvane wants to do (which is saying a lot, because among Windvane's plans are to commission the Pegasus Device and use it to drain the lifeforce of innocents to power his schemes of domination). But then, who said Discord was even remotely fair?
2088944 I could see Discord turning 'Nosey' into a mare and setting a herd of lust-crazed stallions on her tail. Probably all illusionary (Fluttershy would be furious otherwise; come to think of it, she probably still would be angry), but Discord is no one to anger!
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That would even fit his cutie mark, in a sick sort of way.
And I see that "Nosey" continues to be a huge Hate Sink. Not that he doesn't deserve it.
It has also occurred to me that given my assumptions as to how magic works, any seriously-adept enemy of Fluttershy's, especially one who wanted to control her, could make use of "Nosey." Law of Contagion, and all that. And I know of one such enemy in my fanon ...
You offer a lot of food for thought. I concur, after reading the whole thing and the comments.
Linklinklinklinkliiiiiiiiink~~~~~
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The blog is Ask Jade Shine, and it's actually a fairly well-done blog. It just takes a rather negative tone toward The Mane Six and Equestria, to lengths definitely not supported in the series.
Jade Shine is a rather gentle, confused, and fairly easily-intimidated young Pegasus mare. She's a mechanic and for some reason is afraid of flying; she wears a tool belt in a fashion which confines her wings to have an excuse not to fly.
In one scene, set during the period in which Rainbow and Gilda were pranking the town, Gilda attacks Jade Shine and claws her. Rainbow Dash sees nothing wrong with this because she is contemptuous of any Pegasus afraid to fly.
This is not merely out of character but opposite to character: Rainbow Dash's faults can not include intolerance toward Ponies who merely have problems flying. Specifically, two of Rainbow Dash's best friends in canon are Fluttershy, who at the start of the series is a weak flyer whose wings tend to freeze up in moments of danger; and Scootaloo, who can't fly.
It's even probably out of character for Gilda, who was nasty but not severely vicious in the manner shown. The only character whose life Gilda was willing to endanger in "Griffon the Brush-Off" was Pinkie Pie, whom Gilda perceived to be her direct (and probably romantic) rival. Just because a character is an antagonist doesn't make them an out-and-out villain.
There's also a sequence where Jade Shine has a crush on Big Mac and Applejack behaves very nastily toward her by way of warning her off her brother. While it's true that Applejack in canon is protective of family members, Big Mac is her big brother and Jade Shine has displayed no behavior so repulsive that AJ would regard her as an outright threat to his happiness or well-being. (Jade Shine later in the series acts rather promiscuously, but not only hasn't this happened yet but AJ doesn't reference promiscuity as one of the reasons she doesn't like Jade Shine).
I also think that Applejack would be more likely to talk to Big Mac rather than to the mare in question. Big Mac might not like it if he knew that Applejack was trying to scare off all his potential marefriends. While an insanely-protective Applejack could be one reason Big Mac is single, and Applejack does have an economic motive to do this if we make my matrilocal assumptions regarding marriage in Equestria, the first has not been supported in canon and the second would be highly Dishonest behavior on AJ's part.
I'll try to find you the page references for these, because I know it's kind of unreasonable to expect you to read the whole series to find them. My point here is that in both cases canon vices are being exaggerated -- or even virtues inverted into vices -- here to cast the Mane Six in a poor light.
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Here and here's the story arc of Ask Jade Shine in which Jade Shine gets severely injured by Gilda and Rainbow Dash. Note that this is a far more blatant and vicious attack than anything either of them were shown as doing in the episode "Griffon The Brush-Off," save perhaps in that Gilda might have assumed Jade to be Pinkie's ally. This is Friendship Is Magic GrimDarked into Game of Thrones territory.
It also implies that Rainbow Dash is fairly pyschopathic, and Ponyville is pretty damned lawless. As you see, it's a pretty serious attack -- Gilda claws Jade Shine over an EYE (which could have half-blinded her) and Rainbow Dash is double-rear-kicking her in the ribs (which could have caused serious internal damage). In fact, Jade wants up in the hospital. Nopony else seems to notice or care.
Why do I say "lawless?" If I went out onto the street right now and did this to some hapless passerby, I think there'd be a pretty good chance of me winding up in jail -- possibly even prison if I maimed my victim. There seems to be no consequences for this assault for Rainbow Dash. (If I want to be really cynical I'd say that as one of Twilight Sparkle's henchponies she can get away with this, because Jade Shine is nopony important -- but in the series, none of the Mane Six act this obnoxiously.
It is true that in canon the Ponies have a tolerance for "pranking" that goes well beyond that which any human culture does -- probably because they are less aggressive and hence pranking is less likely to result in serious violent assault -- but what's shown here is "serious violent assault" -- and it doesn't seem to shock anypony. And the whole point of the scene seems to have been to show that Rainbow Dash is a violent lunatic.
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Reading further, I come to the part where Jade Shine gets a crush on Big Mac (because he's the one who took her to the hospital after she gets beaten up by Rainbow Dash and Gilda), and Applejack is furious at Jade Shine for -- basically -- talking to Big Mac.
Here we see Jade being a goofy chatterbox to Big Mac (she's talking shop, but it's basically because she's trying to connect with him). Here Jade mildly stalks Big Mac, and Applejack -- apparently because her "somepony likes my brother" Sense is Tingling (seriously, I have no idea how she knows Jade is stalking Big Mac at this point), gets mad at Jade for doing this -- and confronts Jade.
Over here Jade, who basically has a very low opinion of herself, decides Big Mac couldn't possibly like her back. Apple Bloom tries to act as go-between, but Applejack then steps in, physically threatens and actually hits Jade Shine. The reason she gives for why Jade Shine can't court Big Mac is that Jade is "a pegasus who can't even be true to herself."
Compare this with Applejack's in-canon behavior in "Dragonshy," where she uncomplainingly nurses and even carries Fluttershy up a mountain, because Fluttershy is too terrified to be physically capable of flight; and the fact that she has no hostility at all to Scootaloo, who also can't fly. Apparently Applejack has been handed a Meanie Ball for this arc, and is following the instructions to despise Jade Shine. This leads her to disregard her normal niceness to other ponies, her code of honor and her strong in-canon tendency to help Ponies in trouble. All to protect Big Mac, who hasn't actually been threatened! (Jade hasn't so much as kissed him).
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A-all I did was ask for a link...
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The arc concludes with Applejack threatening Jade Shine some more and -- because Jade doesn't totally want to explain the reason why she hasn't flown in four years -- Applejack concluding that Jade Shine is dishonest. Jade then privately (in her diary) agrees with Applejack's low opinion of her, writing
which is taking Jade's Woobienss Up To Eleven.
Now, I have nothing against Woobie characters. I've been writing a freakin Flutterarc, and Fluttershy is the biggest Woobie in the show. The thing is, that one should not make one character a Woobie by writing all the other characters OOC. Which is what this blog is doing.
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Yes, and you got several links plus an analysis of the plot and characterization. It's not as if you have to follow or read them if you don't want to!
2123177
:P
That was interesting to read, actually, so it's all good.
2123227
Oh ... ok ... thank you!
I'm not actually sure what the ask blog was getting at because I think the story petered out. Apparently, Jade Shine had done something in the past which she considered shameful and which she was keeping secret from everypony else, but I don't know what it was so I have no way to judge how reasonable were her opinions on the matter.
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Tumblr seems to use reverse chronological order by default, so your links will no longer point to the right place after a few more posts. It's better to use the /chrono links (normal chronological order) or direct links to the posts (/post/ links). Here, these links are more reliable: page 2 page 3 diary.
2127876
Oh, thank you -- didn't know that.
Interesting observations!
You have a writing style that is...hard to describe even as it is touching. The most I can say is that it reminds me of a more understated John C Wright, but it is...good to read.
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Why, thank you. John C. Wright is a really good writer -- I'm honored by the comparison.
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That’s not really an accurate description of Xenophilia. Lero (the main character) (short for Bellerophon (insert “In Soviet Russia” joke here)) ends up in a herd with Dash, Twilight, and Lyra—that’s it—and the herding is portrayed as driven by Dash, not Lero, who would’ve been happy with monogamy. RD is shown as being somewhat insecure about her attractiveness, due to being athletic in a society that values voluptuousness, and romantically constrained, due to being straight in a society where Everyone Is Bi. (She doesn’t think she’s pretty enough to attract the interest of a stallion, and she can’t do what most single mares do and settle down with a marefriend.) She also has a bad experience in her past that severely hurt her confidence in this area—not quite as bad as Fluttershy's Night Out, but similar.
Twilight and Lyra’s motivations aren’t as thoroughly explored, but their joining Lero’s herd never struck me as arbitrary wish-fulfillment either.
See also The Xenophile's Guide to Equestria for extensive world-building notes on (among other things) herd behavior in this version of Equestria.
2240703 I know this's two years old, but I happened on this link again, and... since you're a John C. Wright fan, what would you recommend of his works? I loved The Golden Oecumene, but I haven't been able to find anything else remotely as good. I couldn't connect with the characters in Count To the Eschaton (though, admittedly, I started on the second book and gave up halfway through), and Orphans of Chaos started out great but degenerated to bring in a lot of sexually-tinged weirdness. I don't want to give up on an author capable of such heights, though - is there anything else you'd recommend I try next?
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John C. Wright is great. Both in terms of his sweeping concepts, which are Van Vogtian, and his strong and interesting characters. Yes, there's a lot of sexual weirdness in the Chaos series, but then remember that the kids aren't really and entirely human, they are just plain weird in a lot of ways. And the romantic arcs actually go in the direction of classic resolutions, in that series. In most of his series, really -- though they may travel over some very strange places first, because his characters find themselves in some very strange situations.
Wright is personally sexually conservative and in a successful marriage with his wife, who is also a sf/fantasy writer. And a really nice lady.
I agree; one thing that definitely hasn't failed Wright is his skill at creating broad, sweeping universes and painting them in ways that truly stick. (One thing that I loved was how what's-his-name in Orphans of Chaos repeated the Michelson-Morely Experiment... and it failed.) If only he populated them better...
Though, I'm glad to hear that the Chaos series ends up at sensible resolutions. I've no objection to including weirdness as long as it's put in perspective; just look at the story I published earlier today with distinct inspiration from Heinlein of the Weird Romantic Arcs. (In fact, please do look at it; I think you'd enjoy it!) So, with that reassurance, I just might pick up Wright's second Chaos book. Or is there something else of his you'd recommend as well?