Friendship Is Absurd Chapter 1 Commentary

Welcome, one and all, to the commentary for Friendship Is Absurd! Here’s where I share my thought processes that went into writing it because it’s fun to do so! I plan to do this for each chapter, though it sometimes might be a while between the publishing of the chapter and the commentary (I may sometimes combine multi-chapter commentary into one post)

Note that you should really read the chapters before reading the commentary, as they spoil things. There will also be *very* minor hints as to what’s coming up in later chapters, so if you’re really concerned about that don’t read these at all. However, usually they’re nothing more than “we’ll find out more about this later.”

You can find the applicable chapter here.

So, here we go! The first chapter. I actually was tempted to skip this and start up with the parody of The Ticket Master, but I figured that if I was going to do an alternate universe, I should actually do the start; that’s what typically starts all those alternate universe stories. So I wrote this. It proceeds at a much more speedy pace than is par for the course for these kinds of stories (some of which have a completely separate story just for the Nightmare Moon retelling!), but everyone knows the basic outline, so I figured I should try to do it quickly. Having the various ponies go through a trial in which each one showcases their element is rather tedious, after all. Retellings of the pilot often have a feeling of “going through the motions,” and I figured if I was going to do that, I might as well go through said motions quickly.

We start off with a bit of exposition. And in case you’re wondering, yes, we WILL get into more detail on the backstory of Sombra deposing Celestia, but here it’s sufficient to just know it happened sometime in the past.

[10/2/2019 Edit: Well, wow. I happened to be re-reading this and realized that I never really did get into much detail on this outside of a brief mention of why Sombra did it in "The Crystal Empire Strikes Back." Huh. Sorry for anyone whose hopes got raised by that.]

I decided to deliberately keep it unclear whether this Sombra was in fact evil or was actually a reasonably nice guy. Thus, the gag of all of his commands being possibly interpreted in an evil way or a benevolent way was born.

After that, it’s an introduction of the main cast! One thing you might be wondering is why Fluttershy is mentioned (albeit not by name) if she never factors into this chapter. Well, while Flim & Flam might replace Applejack as the apple farmer, Lightning Dust might replace Rainbow Dash as the Wonderbolt wannabe that’s on the weather team, and so on, Gilda isn’t really a replacement in function for Fluttershy; she doesn’t care for animals or anything. Thus, I decided to keep the person providing the music to be the same. Plus I thought the red herring was a little fun.

Suri was a bit of a last-minute addition. Originally it was going to be Blueblood who was generosity, but I couldn’t think of a good way to explain why he’d be in Ponyville. The problem is that Blueblood was clearly very self-entitled in The Best Night Ever, and it’s hard for that to make sense without him staying wealthy and “upper class.” But how can he be that way when his sole claim to fame—being a relative of Celestia—means nothing due to Sombra deposing her? And if he did have some kind of high level of nobility still (which would be required for his selfishness to be consistent), why would he be in Ponyville? Yes, as silly as these stories get, I do try to keep some level of plausibility in some areas, and I couldn’t make everything work together right, so Suri was the one picked. She also helped round out the cast by there being an earth pony. Humorously, I incorrectly thought she was a unicorn at first and was worrying about the fact I didn’t have at least one earth pony, then went back and realized she was an earth pony. Problem solved!

I decided for simplicity’s sake to “spoil” all of the Elements immediately, so the fact Magic was one of them is stated immediately.

Trixie starting a thought, then walking over to the Everfree forest before finishing it is a parody of the tendency of some series to have a character start saying something, then finish saying it at another location as a way of putting the scenes together. However, this means the character must have simply stopped talking in between them, which is pretty silly. The series pilots itself does this with the transition to the Everfree Forest; thus, Trixie’s phrasing is a parody of that in particular.

I know it was a bit lazy to re-use the manticore, but I wasn’t really sure what else to use there. I suppose it was a little funny to actually use it again, though. Isn’t it wonderful when laziness produces comedy?

Lightning Dust’s trial sums up what I always felt about Rainbow Dash’s trial. Actually, I think Applejack’s was the silliest (as it ultimately showed nothing about Honesty… if anything it was outright dishonest, because she withheld the important information that Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash would just catch Twilight), but Rainbow Dash’s bothered me too. The problem is that it didn’t seem to show loyalty because the choice was between “join a team and let the world, including you, be doomed” or “possibly save the world and yourself.” It’s kind of like being given the choice between some gold and a SCUBA kit if you’re going to be underwater for 15 minutes. Choosing the SCUBA kit doesn’t show loyalty to the manufacturer; it shows common sense. Additionally, the Shadowbolts were of the Obviously Evil variety. It just felt more like a trial of common sense than loyalty. Lightning Dust expressed these thoughts in the story.

Trixie’s criticism of Nightmare Moon is also a case of me sort of expressing my feelings. Nightmare Moon was actually a pretty stupid villain when you stop to think about it.

The Elements of Irony are, naturally, named for the fact that everyone embodies their elements in an ironic way, and in fact are generally speaking the opposite of their elements. I originally thought of calling them the Elements of Harmony and have them be “corrupted” somehow, but I figured just straight up calling them the Elements of Irony was more funny. Also, corrupted Elements of Harmony is an idea I have for a completely separate story (which I may or may not ever actually write), so I’ll be keeping it for that.

Shining Armor bursting in was done because I thought it would just be absolutely hilarious for someone else to barge in, defeat Nightmare Moon, and end up getting all of the credit. And as he notes, it is pretty odd if after a thousand years you haven’t developed something at least as powerful as the weapon you had before!

Naturally, with no Celestia to suddenly offer friendship, the scene with Shining Armor and Luna is much more cold. I wasn’t entirely happy about the serious turn the story suddenly took with that, but I tried to make it fast, and it’s referenced a bit with Shining Armor mentioning how he’s normally not as serious.

The bit about the permit for the Elements was something I came up with while in the middle of writing and thought it was so hilarious I had to include it. I think it might actually be my favorite joke of the first chapter. Also, if you look at it objectively, deciding to strike out on your own and find the Elements was a pretty dumb idea; why not try to alert the authorities? Then again, who even knows what Celestia and the Royal Guards were doing at the time; a big issue I have with the second part of Friendship Is Magic is the fact there’s no indication whatsoever given for that.

Actually, Sombra’s apparent plan of developing some high-tech weaponry to beat Nightmare Moon and immediately try to find her upon her release seems to make a lot more sense than Celestia’s “hope to heck that Nightmare Moon throws obstacles in the way of the main characters that happen to let them demonstrate their elements, and that she won’t simply kill them before they get to the castle, and that she won’t simply destroy the elements before they get there, and a whole bunch of other things that have to line up perfectly right” plan.

There is no meaning behind the number 14887. Sorry. If memory serves right, I couldn’t think of what number, so I just went to random.org and had it pick a random number between 1 and… I can’t remember what the other number was, but I ended up with 14887.

I almost had a little “_______ will return in…” gag at the end (it would have been an author’s note), but decided not do. For whatever it’s worth, it would have read:
Sunset Shimmer will return in “Master of the Ticket.”
Luna will return in “Lunar Eclipse.”
Shining Armor will return in “Some Canterlot Wedding.”
The “______ will return” gag will return in “Boast Buster.”

While I did think it was funny, I decided to cut it because I’m not 100% sure those are actually going to be the applicable chapter names, and I might find reason to include Luna and Shining Armor in an earlier chapter than they’re listed here. I suppose I could go back and edit it if that’s the case, but that seems kinda wrong. This was planned to be a bit of a running gag in chapters (for example, the “Boast Buster” would have a character at the end be declared to say “This character will return in…”) but it looks like it wasn’t to be, especially because in some of those later chapters I might not want to spell out exactly when a character will next reappear. Maybe I’ll go back and edit it in later if I change my mind.

And that’s pretty much everything I have to say about this chapter! Next up we’ll see my rather absurd take on The Ticket Master.