Harmonia Pie, Pioneering Industrialist or Emmortal Enchantress? · 10:23pm Nov 20th, 2014
Harmonia Pie (?-1308) was born either in South-Dunnich (in the Province of White Tail), North-Dunnich (in the Province of Morgan) or the city of Morgan proper. There is some confusion about her origins, because there are two conflicting stories.
The first and more believable story is that she was born in North-Dunnich (or somewhere along the Miskatrottic River) or Morgan in 1240, the matrilineal descendant of the Harmonia Pie who was born in 1140 in South-Dunnich, and in 1277 eventually decided to emigrate to her family's older home in South-Dunnich. The second story, which seems improbable, is that she was really born in 1140 in South-Dunnich, left town to study at Morgan, dwelt some time in North-Dunnich, and at some point developed or learned magics that greatly retarded her aging.
What is interesting is that the Harmonia Pie who was born in 1140 married a South-Dunnich stallion, Adventurine Miter (born 1133), and that the Harmonia Pie who came to South-Dunnich in 1277 was married to a stallion named Adventurine Miter. There is also the odd point that Adventurine had a sister named Honesty Miter (born 1147), who was one of Harmonia's best friends -- and when Harmonia came to South-Dunnich, her most loyal follower outside of her husband was none another than an Honesty Miter. Stranger coincidences have happened, but this is certainly an odd one.
What seems unbelievable are the wild tales that Harmonia had learned to somehow make a magical Food of Life, which retarded her aging process, and presumably the aging process of those with whom she deigned to share this enchanted feast. And what is even more unbelievable are the dark rumors that the Food required equine sacrifice to empower them. Certainly nopony would do anything like that.
It seems improbable, for there was never any hard evidence of any murders. Though it was noticed that various bandits and other serious malefactors around South-Dunnich tended to have short careers, eventually disappearing from those parts -- but that was hardly treated by the provincial authorities as a problem.
In any case, the Harmonia Pie who came to South-Dunnich in 1277 was a well-educated and highly-talented mare, as were her companions Adventurine and Honesty, and their brood of offspring, of whom the Pies included Proserpina, Crucible and Cupcake (born either 1182 or 1232; 1185 or 1235; or 1212 or 1239, depending on which version of the story one believes) and their own families . Harmonia and Adventurine also had five sons, none of whom came to South-Dunnich with them. She came with much-needed monies, for South-Dunnich was then in a decline, and many of the older families were in danger of dying out. It was Harmonia herself who re-established the fortunes of the Pies in South-Dunnich, and Honesty the Miters.
Surviving paintings show her to have been a compact, muscular mare with a slight tendency to flab, a pink coat, blood-red long straight mane, and red eyes. Her facial features bear a remarkable resemblance to that of her many-times-great granddaughter, Pinkie Pie. Despite the fact that she was in her late sixties (or, if one believes the more absurd tales, hundred sixties) when she died, she showed little sign of her years, looking rather as if she were merely in early middle age.
She was known to be coldly intellectual and even rather callous toward most Ponies: despite her skills and industry, she was unpopular, being more respected than loved. The great exception to this was of course her own family: in particular, her affection for her husband Adventurine was apparent to all who saw them together
Among her many talents, Harmonia was a glassblower, alchemist, musician, and baker, and she was a natural leader who organized industries. With the aid of her companions, in 1278 she built a bakery, in in 1280 a water-powered sawmill, and over the ensuing decades she and her daughter Proserpina constructed other industrial works, including a fulling mill in 1295 and a glassblowing shop in 1298, producing wealth and attracting trade and settlement. South-Dunnich began to recover some of its former glory.
In 1308, Harmonia and her husband died rather suddenly, perhaps of a respiratory disease. She left the bulk of her estate to Proserpina, having become somewhat estranged from her second daughter Crucible. Her third daughter, Cupcake, was happy to inherit the bakery. As the disastrous feud between Prosperina and Crucible showed, Cupcake -- the ancestress of the Pie Sisters -- was the lucky one of Harmonia's three daughters.
Cupcake. You named the ancestor of Pinkie Pie and daughter of a possible cannibal "Cupcake."
My reaction to this can be summarized thusly:
.
And I did so with malice aforethought.
2607290
2607302 And my reaction to that is:
mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw8196-come_on__by_junkiekb-d5ha2cn.png
And:
mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw8401-e5e.png
And:
mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw2503-ea6.gif
NOW look what you did!
Seriously, I don't even call that fic by its name, I loathe it so much. I call it THAT FIC or The One About Baked Goods. That is the fic that made me sick to my stomach for an entire weekend, thinking I wouldn't be able to watch the show again, and I mean literally sick to my stomach. I actually thought, "I exist on the same planet with this fic. Eeeeew." And I didn't even read it. It's just that you can't avoid falling over it in this damn fandom, and some wiseacre always ASKS about it, and then some other wiseacre always posts a freaking QUOTE. It flusters my jimbobs in a way Rainbow Factory and some of the others don't, and I'm not exactly sure why. And it's the A number one reason I support things like Safe Search Wrap Up, because art related to it is too easy to find and is exactly the kind of thing I don't want a kid coming across by mistake.
My Pinkie bakes non-ironic cupcakes of the yummiest kind. We fight Baked Goods with baked goods.
However, you get a pass 'cause it's you.
mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw8889-pinkie-pie-im-gonna-hug-the-shit-out-of-you_-gif.gif
Dangit. Now I need to be cheered up.
Luckily I know some ponies who are good at that.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/9/15/722624__safe_pinkie+pie_shipping_straight_balloon_dancing_cheese+sandwich_cheesepie_boneless_accordion.png
2607377
I have a tendency to try to incorporate the darker ideas into my fanfic without having anyone be OOC. Harmonia is (roughly, as I haven't extended the matrilineage in detail far enough yet) Pinkie's seven-times-great-grandmother (she's the great-grandmother of Sweetie Pie, who's the mother of Fluffy, who's the mother of Surprise the Nth, who's the mother of Goldie, who's the mother of Cloudy, who's the mother of Pinkie. Harmonia was born in 1140 and Cupcake in 1212. And Cupcake wasn't a killer: she was a sweet mare who liked to bake cupcakes. The normal variety.
Pinkie, of course, is not a killer at all. In fact, she has maybe the strongest Code Against Killing of any of the Mane Six.
2607393 I KNOW, but--
. . . it's just a source of major squick for me.
2607414
I'm sorry. I especially did not mean to hurt your feelings. I apologize for doing so.
Though I do see this as a potential source of angst and drama for Goldie, who has always been a good-girl Ponification of a certain sort of Lovecraft protagonist, and who probably finds out some of her buried family history when she's in her twenties (in the 1430's-1440's, when this is all over a century old and thankfully-forgotten by most of the Pies and Miters). In fact, I think this may be why she delays her marriage to Jasper -- she's afraid of burdening him and their potential offspring with this heritage. She eventually concludes that whatever evils Harmonia did, they aren't hereditary, and that she's a good enough Pony for Jasper. (Jasper, of course, was always of this opinion regarding his beloved).
2607414
Oh ... incidentally, the Food of Life is what it's called in Return to Dunwich (Chaosium Games) and the whole concept of an immortal cannibal in the Dunwich area comes from H. P. Lovecraft's "The Picture in the House," one of his more effective really short stories. Here's the version I ran, with my analytical commentary, on Fantastic Worlds.
2607393 A very nice subtle mention in there. Makes me think of Anne Bathory a bit. I also love the name Proserpina, simply for the fantasy sound to it.
What does G&P T stand for? Witch one of your stories is this "Harmonia Pie" from?
2607534
"Great and Powerful Trixie."
This is the mainline Shadow Wars continuity. I'm providing some deeper (and in this case, darker) background to the Pie Family of South-Dunnich.
2607534
Harmonia hasn't yet been mentioned in any stories, though I will probably do so in another tale. She's not likely to be directly mentioned in Pinkie Sense and Sensibility, as she died so long ago that none of the characters, not even Reliable Oaktree, ever met her. She could conceivably be mentioned peripherally, though there's no particular reason for it in my planned story arcs.
Is there more to this story than meets the eye?
2607650
Since I've posted it, I've thought of a beautiful connection between the story of Harmonia and Goldie's utter determination to do good in her life -- Golden, in her twenties, discovers what Harmonia did, and chooses to focus her medical and biological studies on midwifing specifically to atone for the deeds of her ancestor.
2607650
Oh, very specifically -- this is a Ponification of the Lovecraft / Keith Herber origin of the Whateleys of Dunwich in the Cthulhu Mythos, essentially crossing over The Picture in the House, The Dunwich Horror and Return to Dunwich. Since my "Dunniches" have been in existence for over a millennium as communities founded by refugees from the Crystal Empire, and the Pie family has been in existence since the start of the Age of Discord (some two and a half millennia) this is instead the origin of the darker side of the Pie heritage; the lighter side comes from Surprise the First and the Paradise Entity.