Actually, I'm Dead - Editorial: From feared to friends · 2:52am Aug 15th, 2015
Alternate tittle: Fluttershy's character development
Well, since this is technically a continuation of the previous editorial, I'll skip the introductions.
Now, some of you may have found Fluttershy's section in the party a little off, considering how things went in her own part of the chapter. There is one element present that completely negates both parts of the chapter, which is Fluttershy managing to keep it together this time. Now, I do believe this is one big piece of character, so it deserves some acknowledge.
The very first time we saw Fluttershy, she was a mess of nerves. Then, when she first saw Trixie , she went to hide behind Pinkie. And finally, they met again in the controversial part four of Chapter 6, where things went to all circles of hell. On its moment I already explored FS' behavior on the proper editorial, so here I'm going to make a follow up based on part five. So, the question that drives this is the following; why didn't Fluttershy ran for the hills this time?
For starters, I do believe that it was because this time, she had a proper rest. The narration in part four states a muliple hours long space between the meeting and Pinkie's party. In that time, she probably managed to calm down most of her animals (as much as possible, that is) and overall, calm herself down. The narration told us the chores of the day were already done, so she had nothing else to do than think. When thinking about it, Fluttershy must have took in account what actually happened. Heck, maybe she even took a moment or two to put herself in Trixie's situation, realizing about a lot of awful things. Hence, she felt like the owed Trixie, at least, an apology.
However, there was the other problem know as "Trixie looks terrifying" an that probably was the reason of why she couldn't bring herself to go with her. Then, there was Pinkie's party and Fluttershy was confronted with Trixie once again. This time, fearing she would mess it up again, she hid in Pinkie's room, struggling on what to do and how to do it. It was the fact that almost every nocturnal creature was showing various levels of trust, specially how some of the most antagonizing ones were together (the owl and the bats not going for each other's guts, for example) what convinced Fluttershy that Trixie was mostly (if not completely) harmless. Which ended with both of them having their first actual conversation.
Which I still don't quite get the reason for, by the way. Fluttershy is probably in a position to know the difference, but without naked skin to show a corpse's pallor and lividity, a furred animal looks pretty much exactly the same dead as it does while alive until decomposition sets in. If Trixie isn't rotting, she probably shouldn't be setting off quite that many "oh god zombie" reactions, at least without giving her a very close look.
3320744 We are talking of magic animals. No wonder if their magic affects their aspect, making it more "lively", and that's only as long as they are alive.
3321217
"It's magic" is about the worst possible justification the story could give for it, but since it doesn't actually do say so anywhere, it isn't really an actual explanation for anything. It's just a little inconsistency that I noticed - the "terrifying" appearance she has doesn't actually seem to be caused by anything about how she looks, at least going by what I remember of the (actually pretty sparse, thinking about it in retrospect) descriptions of her that we get. Cloudy eyes and such would be a dead giveaway, for example, but that kind of involves an acute case of "being blind," so that's one corpselike feature she definitely doesn't have.
3321924
Not if you are talking of magic animals whose aspect you know is not that of standard earth's animals. What's the explanation of pegasi dealing with clouds as solid things?
Trixie having a terrifying aspect, in the canon of this story, is a "fact", exactly as Twilight being able to teleport in the show. Is more a fact than they being covered in fur. What you noticed is not an inconsistency in the actual story, but a contraddiction you seems to notice projecting the canon of the story in what you know about the animals of the earth. But all the story needs is to be consistent within its premises. It's not even needed to be consistent wit the law of physics, as we know the actual show isn't, and it isn't cause: "hey, magic".
Canonically the ponies of the show blush. they do it continually, even a red stallion blushes, even a dragon who, in theory should be covered with scales. How do you explain that?
img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130124234349/mlp/images/thumb/b/ba/Fluttershy_blushing_S1E14.png/800px-Fluttershy_blushing_S1E14.png
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140526215239/mlp/images/thumb/b/b9/Twilight_blushes_again_S1E6.png/800px-Twilight_blushes_again_S1E6.png
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140217153314/mlp/images/thumb/b/be/Big_Mac_blushing_S4E14.png/800px-Big_Mac_blushing_S4E14.png
We are talking of magic animals. No wonder if their magic affects their aspect, making it more "lively", and that's only as long as they are alive.
Estabilished that magic in the show (and in this story) is a fact as hard ar gravity, is not difficult to hypotesize why it affects a living pony's aspect.
To have a good and lively aspect is really important thing in nature, since it greatly increases the chance to reproduce. No wonder if, having magic available, evolution selected those ponies whose magic gave them a better aspect.
3323188
Because explaining a fantastical action like pushing a cloud with "they have inborn weather magic powers" is an entirely different thing from using it as an explanation for everything not otherwise explained because it's literally impossible to argue with. The author of a story can't be wrong about something that doesn't exist and therefore is exactly what they say simply because they said so.
Point is, having a number of characters react in fear to Trixie's obviously corpselike appearance without actually ever describing her in ways that actually any corpse-like features is a self-contradiction that has nothing to do with magic, the laws of nature, evolution or any other bullshit reason why a character that looks perfectly alive is actually unmistakably dead, in a setting that has probably less characters who have ever seen a dead animals collectively than I have literally personally killed, looked over in detail for possible health risks and then eaten.
If I say that I can't tell a freshly dead animal from a live one without seeing visible signs of beginning decomposition like cloudy eyes, bloating, starting to lose its shape from starting to liquify from to bacterial activity and its own digestive tract containing enough leftover enzymes and such to start digesting itself, seeing it do doing something that would need being alive for, like breathing or reacting when you poke it or checking for body heat, rigor mortis or even just a hearbeat? Then I bloody well mean it. A dead body that comes naturally covered in hair that hides anything indicating a lack of blood circulation and also moves like a living body is literally not possible to recognize by looking at it instead of checking for all the things that are not visible with everything that dead bodies do to become visibly dead not actually happening, but also actually alreadyy said to be present, like being at room temperature or having no heartbeat, sweat, clear tear fluid or producing saliva to keep your teeth protected, because dry air causes enamel decay in fast-forward, what with not getting any of the enzymes and minerals contained in saliva that usually help maintain them.
Well, until she starts to develop bald spots, visibly old-looking and dull fur and all the things that are usually included in having the vital processes that are part of being alive. Like growing new hair, producing oil from the roots to protect it from water and look glossy, having a blink reflex, eyes covered in a thin layer of tear fluid. stopping your cornea from literally drying out until it eventually cracks, hooves that are worn down and chipped without new keratin to replace them... and pretty much everything else that stops you from wearing down piecemeal by simply existing not getting done anymore.
3323310
Why?
Equestrian ponies and more or less sapient animals being able to discern a living pony from a dead one is in contraddiction with nothing within the story.
Is extending your personal experiences with dead animals to Equestria's environment that's arbitrary here, cause all the story needs is to be consistent with his premises, not with your experiences with the animals of another world.
At this point the story will be self contraddictory, and the fact should be explained, if, at a certain point, a pony seeing Trixie would not notice she seeming like a corpse (is he blind? Trixie used a makeup to seem more alive?).
How is Fluttershy being able to talk with animals? That doesn't contraddicts your experiences? But that is consistent with the show premises, and so is not contraddictory within the show.
So how a body that comes naturally covered in hair that hides anything indicating blood circulation can blush?
Cause Equestrian ponies do so.
Estabilished that Trixie looking like a corpse is in contraddiction with nothing within the story, and estabilished that, within the story, magic is a fact as hard as any law of physics (rather, harder than many of them). A certain effect of magic can be taken as a possible explanation. Especially since a (evolutionary) logic in it's functioning can be found. It's not random.
That you don't like the explanation is another thing. At that point you can try to find an explanation that better suits your tastes.
But actually is seems to me that the explanation that better suits your tastes is "given my experiences with dead animals, that's impossibie, so it's a mistake of the writer". That, as an explanation, is way worse than "hey, it's magic!", since magic is a force acting within the story, your experience isn't, so it requires the comparison with something that:
a) it's personal
b) is outside the story.
so it's a pure matter of taste.
3323524
So I suppose the answer is magical hair that somehow is both transparent and completely opaque at the same time without spontaneously paradoxing itself out of existence for literally not looking like it looks, then.
3323707 Or it can be that magic affects the reflection of light, making literally the surface of the coat blush in some situation (no wonder if emotions affects magic. we already saw RD darken the clouds she rest on when she was sad), and, switching to this story, giving it normally a more bright and "lively" aspect (the fur-covered animals we know are not pastel-colored after all), something that makes it easy to distinguish a living from a dead thing.
3323762
By this point, I can't decide if you're just trying to bullshit me or if you actually are that stupid and think this is anything less than totally moronic, because misunderstanding the obvious "visual metaphor even the target audience of five year olds would understand" as a literal magic power and inventing some nonsense reason why you could cast Detect Undead with it genuinely looks like a so much better solution than simply changing the description.
3323842 So the "solution" you like to a problem that doesn't exist is to change the story to fit your personal tastes?
3323863
When a story says a character is green but everyone talks about his red hair, then it's not an imaginary problem ,it's simply a continuity error that is supposed to go either one or the other and just needs making all of them match the intended version, instead of arguing about it it like an diot because apparently pointing out that the same thing describes in two contradictory way is apparently somehow a personal grudge now.
3324136
But when the story says that a character looks like a corpse, and everyone acts like it looks like a corpse, there is no continuity error nor contraddiction. There is a fact. An element of the story that is coherent within the story.
3324199
It is when it says the character looks like corpse and then describes it as looking nothing whatsover like a corpse.
3324248 It happens somewhere? I don't remember.
3320744
3321217
Whoa!
*that weird moment when the comments around one single sentence is way more profound than the actual article's overall theme*
Okay, I think that, in order to give you guys a proper response, I should make an editorial over the matter (coming soon).