Thoughts on Best Princess Luna · 10:01pm Jul 16th, 2015
Klaus keeps his dignity. Or tries to. That's what makes him funny.
Girl Genius.
As is clearly evinced by my stories, I'm a huge Luna fan. Luna Eclipsed is probably still my all-time favorite episode (and there are still unnoticed references in The Crown of Night that nobody has commented on). And while I like the idea of Dream Guardian Luna, she has basically gotten to do less and less in each of those three episodes, which made me sad on her behalf.
Well, it took them three and a half seasons, but she finally got an episode to herself again. And yet...
I was thinking about characterization. Luna has a couple of different modes. Dream Guardian Luna is, well, professional: this is her job, this is her performing her royal duties. While she may be a caretaker and protector of children, which is all very evocative stuff, it's not so much a personal thing as a professional one. It's Luna's equivalent to Celestia's always-smiling, never-troubled, never-let-your-personal-opinions-shine-through-no-matter-what-happens face, the one Celestia wears at almost all times in the show.
In fact, it's rather long past time that we get a real Celestia episode (along with a real Cadance episode. I want more Princess time, Hasbro!). The only times we've ever seen Celestia's mask crack and heard her share her personal feelings was when she admitted to Twilight that the Summer Sun Celebration was a sad reminder for her. She could only bring herself to admit that a year after the fact.
So Dream Guardian Luna is Luna's professional demeanor, but she has two rather distinct personal ones as well: Funny Luna and Sad Luna.
The Luna we saw in this past episode was much like Luna from the Nightmare Rarity comic storyline. This was sad Luna, Luna who is overcome by guilt for her past sins and cannot forgive herself. On top of that, both stories involve Luna having to confront a shapeless nightmare monster which she can only overcome by accepting the help of her friends and learning to forgive herself. You could argue that this episode is as close as we've gotten to having the show adapt a storyline from the comics.
Unfortunately, one of the other similarities between the Nightmare Rarity storyline and this episode is that in both of them Luna is mopey without being funny. While the episode was full of wacky dream antics by everyone in Ponyville, Luna herself... Well, first she ran from dream to dream, and then she strained in a magic bubble while everyone else fought the monster. And that seems like a waste to me.
Now, I'm not sure how well Funny Luna would have worked in this story. It was a pretty serious episode, really, full of weighty emotional baggage and a potentially world-ending monster enemy. But there were also lots of comic bits in it by everone except Luna. When Luna is funny, though, she is the funniest character in the show and the comics alike. Luna Eclipsed, Luna's Micro-Series issue, and the Luna/Pinkie Friends Forever issue are all among the funniest materials to come out of the franchise. They have something quite specific in common, and I remembered that quote from Girl Genius ten years ago.
Like the Wulfenbach stock character in the Heterodyne Boys plays, Luna is hilarious not because she cracks jokes or makes faces but because she desperately tries not to be funny, because she wants to be dignified and respectable like her sister (or perhaps as she imagines her sister to be), but fails. In all the Funny Luna stories, this desire to be like her sister is her driving goal.
The solution is always the same too: for her to accept herself as she is, because everyone else already has, and not try to be someone else. A lesson I could probably stand to take to heart myself. It's just too bad that when Luna does that she becomes much less funny to watch.
Moving on – stories! The next chapter of The Crown of Night is moving along steadily, and I've written some 10k words of it so far. I'm beginning to think that I should have split the whole Saddle Arabia storyline up into many smaller chapters, and that I should maybe still do that with this one. But when this is done I will finally – finally! - go back to writing the next chapter of The Education of Clover the Clever.
And maybe even some other stuff too. I have an idea for a comedy story involving a certain pair of stallions that I think has great potential... 
Until next time,
PDN (Posted in Defiance of Nerves),
-Daedelean.
Yus! If you decide to post that story involving said stallions, I'll be ready and waiting!
It is interesting to see how the Bearers of Laughter contrast. Pinkie is wacky, zany, random humor. Luna is the amusing contrast, the straight man, humor that isn't dark because of the subject matter but because it's more subtle than the hot pink Vaudeville act.
Still, for this episode, given the subject matter, Funny Luna would not have been appropriate. Really, the level of dream antics was somewhat thematically dissonant. Maybe they felt that a midseason episode had some minimum requisite humor level, even a disastrous adventure.
Looking forward to more wizard adventures.
Dammit!
You have gone and nerd-sniped me! Now I am going to have to re-reread one of my favourite stories to hunt down these illusive references... Oh the Hugh manatees!
3244732 You know you love it.
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It is a testament to my anxiety issues that I feel I should apologize for making someone want to read my stuff
Anyway, to be a bit more specific, there's one in Chapter 7: The Court of Everhold which is subtle and hiding out among other more obvious jokes, and there is one in the Saddle Arabia storyline which is hiding in plain sight
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Observation: since the Nightmare and the Tantabus both reflect her past failings, when they show up that means she's already failed to erase those failings by making everyone like her, so she stops trying and falls into depression instead. To make Luna funny, don't give her a goal or an opponent. Just leave her by herself in a crowd and watch the fireworks.
Achievement get!
[Counter-Sniper Tactics]
Spike may be remiss in his obscure unicorn history, but it appears Equestrian care homes have been using the same practices for the last millennia...
i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/903/458/f7b.gif
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Yes indeed.
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Well I enjoyed rereading everything...
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But there are still more 
Star Swirl Point to SIGAWESOME