Solitair Reads The Immortal Game: Chapter 14 · 7:26pm Sep 6th, 2014
I had to sit on this post for a while because I had to sort out my feelings for this particular chapter. The post was going to begin with a long-winded explanation on getting a balance between a writer being completely predictable and throwing logic out the window to focus on surprise. But that tangent was really only inspired by the fact that some, though not all, of the chapter was predictable. The more I thought back, the more I realized that the events were still mostly satisfying and made sense from character standpoints, and there were a couple of little moments that surprised me. Really, it only suffers in comparison to the end of the story’s first act, which managed to be triumphant and satisfying in a way that I didn’t see coming.
I’m going to nominate as the funniest part of the chapter Unimpressive’s interaction with Fluttershy here. Poor Fluttershy hasn’t been getting very much focus, because this is a shonen anime tribute with lots of flashy fight scenes, and Fluttershy is very much a pacifist. There has been one time in the show when she’s had to struggle with a more aggressive side to her personality, which has been hinted to still be a part of her one more time, but I’m betting those all happened after The Immortal Game got written, so as far as we’re concerned Fluttershy doesn’t have a violent bone in her body. And so she’s mostly stuck as a medic, and of course Unimpressive picks up on her supposed uselessness… only for Fluttershy’s Stare to take out a puppet he was having a bit of trouble with. Heh.
Unimpressive is tolerable as long as he keeps getting shown up like this, and it’s made me think of what kind of character he is, exactly. His constant disbelief at all of the main characters’ quirks and idiosyncrasies clearly mark him as an outsider character. I’ve seen such characters before, in the form of human characters who have somehow wound up in Equestria and are baffled by what they find in it (obviously if they’re fans of the show they don’t count). And yet this initial interpretation doesn’t jive with his earlier angsty history with the bad guys, so instead of coming from real life, he’s coming from another story, one with much less quirkiness in it. Maybe sometime later I’ll figure out what his purpose in the story is exactly beyond teaching Pinkie and Dash how to fight bladecasters.
Speaking of angst, the main, concluding thread of this chapter, and the one that I ended up grousing about the most, was the resolution of Twilight’s conflict with two opposing halves of her personality. I knew that the problem would be resolved when Twilight’s options would be reduced to either dying painfully or getting over herself and finding the strength to fight back and strike a balance between being a complete wuss and a sociopath. Don’t get me wrong, I still love her as a character, and her escape from Titan’s grasp was sweet enough for me to wish this was a comic so I could see the look on Titan’s face when it happened.
When I compare Twilight Sparkle’s mental trauma to Rainbow Dash’s, it becomes apparent to me which one is immediately more sympathetic. It all has to do with the source of those problems. Both cases involve these mares coming to a sobering realization about just what evil acts they’re really capable of. In Twilight’s case, she keeps getting hung up on how vindictive she was to Nihilus in her last moments. Rainbow Dash was ultimately willing to hurt her friends, even killing them, to keep the unbearable mental pain that the spell she’d gotten hit with would inflict on her for disobedience.
The main difference is that Twilight’s problem is wrestling with dark powers at her hoof and the morality of how to use them, whereas Dash’s is frustration at her own powerlessness. Tell me, which of these basic struggles are you more sympathetic with? And Twilight, I’m sorry, but Nihilus had it coming. I really can’t see a possibility of her reforming, and the effects of the Elements of Harmony would have obliterated her regardless of whether you took vindictive glee in that destruction or not. You used all of what you had in order to trick her into doing what you wanted, and now that you’re in a much better position to help other ponies, you aren’t using yourself to your full potential? It’s a good thing you got over yourself just as I was starting to get sick of your internal conflict.
Dash’s trauma is harder to brush off, and harder for me to predict a resolution for, because I can’t think of a solution as easy as the one Twilight got. I was expecting Dash to come to a bad end, giving a Titan avatar the Leeroy Jenkins treatment, but she was surprisingly smart in fighting him, just keeping up the distracting role and letting Luna do all the heavy lifting.
As for the other big fight of the chapter, Esteem vs. Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie, the only thing I can think of to note about it is Esteem’s insistence that Rarity’s faith in her friends is her weakness. You’ve heard it before, and it occurs to me that Esteem is particularly full of shit because he is a general, in charge of an army, which pretty much relies on teamwork to get shit done at all! It’s not like Esteem is launching a one-stallion invasion of the Canterlot tunnels. He’s got soldiers working together under his command? Jeez, how the hell did he even get to be a general with this attitude? I can’t wait for Rarity to shove his own horn up his ass.
You said you read this story and wrote these reviews long ago, right? Well, spoiling my comment just in case.
That's especially hilarious given what actually does happen to him. Not his horn, and not his ass, but close enough and nicely poetic too.