FIENDship review, issue 2: Tirek.

Kid Scorpan is adorable.

Okay, moving on.

Tirek is a strange villain. He's depicted on the cover as Cesare Borgia: appropriate for a villain consumed by hunger for raw power, who rose from powerlessness to godly might on-screen by virtue of knowing when to use force and when to use cunning, when to keep allies and when to betray them.

As we know, all three of the famous Borgias are represented on the covers: King Sombra was Rodrigo and Chrysalis is Lucrezia. It's kind of a shame that Nightmare Moon and the Sirens don't follow along, because family is a recurring theme in this series and nowhere is it more prominent than here in issue 2.

Note what I said about story structure in the previous issue. Tirek's story is much less conventional. This is not the story of how Tirek tried to conquer Equestria the first time, which would have been the obvious and expected route. It's not even the story of how he rose to power before trying to conquer Equestria. It's something much subtler. It's a story of family relations, full of ominous significance, lingering and dwelling on the time before it all erupted. It never actually gets around to showing us what happens: we are left to fill in the blanks on our own.

Tirek here is a young man, full of ambition and disappointed with the prospect of following in his father's hoofsteps. Scorpan is a little boy, devoted to his big brother but afraid of the trouble his brother will create. Their father Vorak is the king of this barren wasteland, and his dual role as both king and father is reflected in all his actions. Vorak worries that his realm and his family life are unstable, and his son and heir is unruly and bound for trouble. The king is not stupid and he is not weak, but we know that he will fail to contain Tirek's ambitions.

Tirek is most like his father, and the resemblance clearly galls them both: both are figures of strength who need to push the other down, because they both know there can only be one king. Scorpan, conversely, is like his mother: figures of support to their nearest, trying to keep peace and resolve tensions between Tirek and Vorak. But while Vorak seems to value the advice of his queen, Tirek holds Scorpan in no esteem at all.

This, of course, is Tirek's fatal flaw: he has no gratitude to those who help him, but will abandon them even when they could have been his loyal allies. In turn, they will turn against him in sadness and see him undone to save everything else.

Also, ohmygod Scorpan and his mom are so cute when they hug look at them seriously.

Interracial family ahoy! This land, whatever it's called, is home to a wide variety of demonic races which makes Equestria look homogenous by comparison. The king is a centaur, the queen is something else, and their two children take after each of them. Tirek and his father butt heads while Scorpan and his mother embrace. It's astonishing how much there is going on in just that last panel.

Here's an obscure fact for you, or maybe it's not so obscure nowadays. A “gargoyle” is a particular kind of statue which serves as a waterspout: it gargles. Ornate monster statues which do not have pipes running water through their mouths, and the demonic creatures they depict, are grotesques or chimeras, not gargoyles. The word “grotesque” comes from the same root as “grotto”, and much as I'd like to believe it is because those kinds of monsters are supposed to be cave-dwellers, that is sadly apparently not where the word comes from.

While Sombra's issue ends right where the story in the show picks up, Tirek's story has an entire act left unwritten: the story of how Tirek overthrows his father and sets out to conquer Equestria. After all that buildup we are not shown the effects this betrayal will no doubt have on everyone around them. What happens to the king and queen? Are they killed? Thrown in prison? Sealed in stone? How does Tirek persuade Scorpan to join him in this betrayal? And after Tirek is imprisoned and Scorpan returns to his own land, does Scorpan become king himself?

That Discord cameo at the end intrigues me. He is walking on the ground and wearing traveller's clothing, standing in the background and not being the center of attention. Clearly in this continuity he must have had some sort of existence before he became the godlike being of the show. Clearly he must have gone on some journey of his own, which here brought him to the centaur king's court. What do you guys think?

Comments

[Sketchy Changeling]

I loved how the issue portrayed the familial relationships, and Queen Haydon is GAWGEOUS! Yeah, that blank area left at the end really weighed the story down, but the content that we got was great in both story and art. It deserves needs a second part.

Third-favorite of the series.