Great and Powerful Musings

I hate being up this late at night. Or this early in the morning. Either way, I should be sleeping, but I'm awake, so here I am, talking ponies at two thirty in the anti-matter.

I've been thinking about Trixie of late, partially because I really want to write a story with her in it someday and partially because I've been musing over things after seeing "Rainbow Rocks". I was neutral towards her at first blush; her debut episode was good, no question, but I didn't find her engaging as a character. Time's passed and things have changed, and she's starting to grow on me a bit.

Here we have a unicorn whose talent is stagecraft, smoke and mirrors, tricks of light and sound. Not too impressive in a world where you've got nigh-immortal alicorns who manipulate celestial objects, and yet, there she is, making a career out of it. Which means she's probably very good at what she does. I recall reading somewhere - probably TVTropes - that she'd attended Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. I don't know what the showrunners have to say about it, but I'm fine keeping it in my headcanon. Regardless of where she went to school, however, she goes into the entertainment industry as an adult (or close enough, assuming she's roughly the same age as the Mane Six) and does well.

How soon before the heckling started, I wonder? How soon before she started shutting up the hecklers by humiliating them? How soon before the shows stopped being about magic and started being about "The Great and Powerful Trixie is better than all of you because she says so"? And yes, that exaggerates, but again, hour of the wolf here people.

And then comes the events of "Boast Busters". Two well-meaning but very stupid fan-colts end up exposing the fact that she isn't all that, and to make matters worse, she discovers a pony who isn't. Her career goes downhill, and she has to work on a rock farm just to earn a living. She clearly had trouble acknowledging what happened at the end of the episode, and it doesn't take much imagination to see that turn into genuine loathing for Ponyville in general and Twilight Sparkle in particular. And while her star falls like a rock, Twilight's rises. Whether or not the two share an alma mater, that's gotta create some bitterness.

And then comes "Magic Duel". Alicorn Amulet and so forth. Trixie remembers the whole thing, and where things didn't get through the first time, they did get through this time, and she shows genuine remorse for what she did, and gratitude (in her own way) to Twilight. Part of it might've been saving her from becoming the next King Sombra, part of it simply covering for her and helping her avoid serious punishment, but regardless, she's a changed mare, and her star begins to rise again (assuming you acknowledge the comics as I do).

Which gets me to her human counterpart. There she is, probably aspiring to be a stage magician herself, already calling herself "The Great and Powerful Trixie"...and then, bam, real magic. She's a victim of it thanks to Sunset Shimmer (whether she remembers or not, but let's assume she does), and she finds herself dealing with the reality that not one, but five of the six girls who took down Sunset Shimmer have genuine magic themselves now, one of whom defeats her and humiliates her (this specifically being Rainbow Dash), and she finds herself a victim once more thanks to the Dazzlings. Twilight's barely worth a second's thought to her, with her frustration focused instead upon Rainbow Dash and (possibly) Sunset Shimmer. Unfortunately, she ain't quite learned the same lesson her pony self did...which opens up some possibilities for Movie 3 or that potential spin-off series we heard about.

Y'see, this is why I need more time to write. I gotta get these ideas down, or I never sleep.