Review: Goldie Delicious and the Three Heads · 1:46pm Jun 29th, 2015
I love pony fiction. A surprising declaration on a pony fiction fan site, I'm sure, but it's true. So, in the spirit of pony fiction, I thought I would start trying to review, analyse and/or critique some pony stories.
If you have a story you'd like me to review, leave me a comment either on my user page, or through the private messaging service.
Goldie Delicious and the Three Heads is tagged:
Random, Adventure
It features the character tag:
Other
Goldie Delicious and the Three Heads was written by Aurora-Borealis, and can be found here. Full story spoilers below the cut.
Once upon a time on an apple farm, there was a young filly by the name of Goldie Delicious. Bored and with no friends to play with, Goldie decides to explore the forest near her house, against her parents permission. Exploring late into the night, she stumbles upon the home of the sleeping Chimera, waking -and then lulling- the Goat and Snake heads back to sleep by offering them cheese and music. When the tiger awakens, it threatens to devour Goldie, but the Goat and Snake intervene, holding their sister off long enough for Goldie to shove a nightstand in the tiger's mouth and escape home unharmed.
The description for the story promises a fairy tale as told by Applejack, one which is important to the very core of being an apple. On those fronts, the story fails; the story doesn't seem to have any particular relevance to the Apple family beyond the fact that Goldie Delicious and her family appear to be Apple's, and AJ's voice isn't really presen in the story -unless one chooses to interpret Goldie as Applebloom and her parents as palette swapped versions of Big Mac and AJ herself.
However... those are really the only criticisms I can make, because the story itself is very strong.
While the narrative might not have AJ's distinct country-voice, what it has instead is a very clear, straightforward and -in some ways- simple style which is suiting for a fairy tale. In fact, Aurora does an exceptional job of aping traditional fairy tale stylistics; there is a sense of color, whimsy and wonder in the story, which can only partly be attributed to the fact that Goldie herself is the protagonist. In any other story, the introduction of a sound effect in bold might seem goofy or out of place; in fairyland, the loud CHUNK as Goldie enters the cave isn't just acceptable, it helps immerse the reader in this make believe fairy tale.
Each character is painted with broad, almost cartoonish strokes, with dialogue that wouldn't be out of place in a children's book.
Goldie herself is innocent and exuberant, her earliest scenes establishing her penchant for mischief (a fact which is re-enforced by her methods of sneaking off the farm when the fence has been built), but i never comes from a place of malevolence. Her excited debut in the story:
Her very favorite thing to do was sneaking off of the farm to explore. At first, when she was very small, she had thought it great fun to hide in a copse of small trees and listen for her parents to come looking for her. When they came near, she would jump out of her hiding place and shout, “Here I am!”
establishes her as excitable and goodhearted, and she helps create an innocence which permeates the text (most especially in her thoughts regarding her mother and fathers "Big Rules". Similarly, her responses when faced with the waking Chimera's- and her contriteness at having disturbed the "ponies" from their rest -aspects which might seem naive in a more serious story- fits in perfect with the style the author is trying to create.
Similarly, the Chimera is interesting, with each head having it's own distinct personality- and once again, it's easy to see how that tie's into the fairy tale theme. At first, the snakes hissing was slightly off-putting- until I realized that that probably is how it's supposed to be. Considering Goldie Delicious as a text within universe, the elongated S's, are probably intended as a part for parents (and foals) to play with the hissing sound. Similarly, the goathead appears long winded- sort of slow, almost laborious- while all the tigerhead's quotes feature harsh punctuation in the form of question marks and exclamation marks. Just as it's impossible to read Snakehead without hissing, it's impossible to read the Tigerhead without imagining the character -or the pony reading the story- growling or roaring their way through the lines.
Now, admittedly; while I feel that the dialogue is for the most part well-written, there are one or two lines which stand out to me as not being quite right. While I enjoy the Snake, for instance, this moment stood out for me as being something which- while I might expect in a "normal" fan fiction- didn't quite work for a would-be fairytale:
“Did she?” the head asked sleepily, lying back down. “I can’t ssssseem to remember…”
Similarly, when the Tiger see's Goldie, she roars
All alone! Remember? Filly filet?”
and, honestly, the 'filly fillet' part just doesn't work for me. I can accept it as a line in the show -or as a line from the story if it was being delivered by Applejack- but on it's own, as part of an otherwise disconnected story, it didn't quite work for me.
Besides that, however, it succeeds very well in achieving the fairy tale tone; while reading, I could easily picture these as the words of an Equestrian picture-book, with drawings of the major scenes filling the space.
Of course, a lot of classic fairy tales end in brutally violent fashion; it shouldn't really be a surprise to find that a pony fairy tale eschews that tradition. Aurora sort of hints at a grisly fate early on- by dint of stressing how important the Big Rules are- but the story ultimately comes down on a happier note, one which better suits the nature of the show as a method of teaching morality. Goldie proves herself to be clever when she uses her toys to sooth the Goat and Snakeheads -even if she didn't intentionally intend to trick them- and this fact turns out to be what saves her life, as the two sisters teach her how to disable the Tigerhead and hold their sister back from pursing Goldie. The story teaches the moral that good deeds are paid forward, in much the same way that Rarity Takes Manehatten does; and it does so without coming at the expense of making Goldie a brat or ungrateful, and also making sure that young foals reading the story realize that following the rules -even the ones you dislike- is important with it's final line.
If I have a complaint, it would be that the story might seem too "generic" in some ways; were Goldie a human, the story would require very few changes. The most significantly and uniquely Equestrian element- cutie marks and Goldie's lack of one- doesn't really feature into the conclusion of the story. While making her a blank flank probably would make the character more sympathetic to young children -and to Applebloom in particular- a part of me wishes that the story had ended with Goldie receiving some kind of a mark related to how she fought off the Chimera.
Of course, considering the story is supposed to discourage that kind of reckless abandon, rewarding Goldie for her actions would be at odds with the morality and tone of the rest of the piece.
However, despite that, I really liked the story. It's a simple tale, but one which succeeds in achieving it's aims -of being a fairy tale- so completely that I have to applaud it; it was just a fun tale to read.
I'm glad I'm not the only person around here who likes that word!
Interesting-sounding fic, though your review suggests not as interesting as it should have been. I don't think I've ever read a story starring Goldie Delicious, though, so I may still give it a look at some point.
Thanks for the positive review.
The criticisms are well-deserved. The idea for the story was to explain how AJ knew how to deal with a chimera in a different sort of way.
It was really fun to write in the style of a children's story. I envisioned it as less of a Grimm-style classic fairy tale and more like the classic British children's books I read when I was little, like Benjamin Bunny, Frog and Toad, or Corduroy. Applejack may introduce the story, but I always thought of the story itself as what she might have been reading out of a book. Or anyone, really. It may be an old Apple family story, but what's important is the story itself, not who's telling it.
3193448 That's the second time today I've heard that Goldie Delicious is already a character. I actually had no idea. I just made up an apple-themed play on Goldilocks.
3193812 Yep; she's the relative the Apples travel to see in "Pinkie Apple Pie".