Some Hammy Characters · 1:43pm Oct 8th, 2015
My three favorite Large Hams are Princess Luna, the Great and Powerful Trixie, and Rarity Belle. They're hammy in different directions.
Luna is a highly-experienced military leader who has experienced (and unfortunately been at least-partially responsible for) a lot of tragic events. She was once Laughter, yes, but a rather gusty, Brian Blessed sort of laugher, which is pretty much the way her sense of humor operates now -- which is to say, fairly coarse-grained. She has a tendency to strike epic poses, which is appropriate while leading an army to victory or fighting a monster, but perhaps less appropriate at a tea party. I'd call her "seriously melodramatic." Luna is super-intelligent, but not all that emotionally-complex; she wants basically simple things in life. She's honorable, and good -- but not at all tactful. She has a strange sort of innocence about her -- she's lived for over two and a half millennia, but she's never fully mastered the difficulties of life Incarnate, and this is very obvious when you put her side by side with Celestia in a social situation. She's more at home defeating a swarm of Dragons single-hooved than she is in civilian social intrigue. She often comes off as hammy when she's simply trying to be serious.
Badass comes normally to Luna -- she's an Alicorn who can generate a personal force field able to turn Dragonfire, fight a psychic battle with a possessing Shadow, and emit focused gravity beams capable of tearing apart a mountain. Laughter comes when her crude and tragic self collides with the complexities of ordinary social maneuvering and hypocrisy. She's actually not at all naive, but she can become very puzzled and annoyed by the lies Ponies tell themselves and each other (remember, she was also Honesty). She often does annoy Ponies who don't know or understand her -- Ponies that do (such as Twilight and Derpy) tend to love her, because she is one of the most Loyal and caring of friends imaginable.
Trixie is, basically, an incredible egotist who is obsessed with stagecraft. (Think a Pony version of Daffy Duck). She was steered onto this course by Wisedreamer, aka White-Beard the Grey, because he needed her to adopt a code of honor to avoid abusing her considerable powers for evil purposes. Wisedreamer, himself rather a show-pony (as he has been in most of his Incarnations) saw that he could restrain her by teaching her that she was brilliant and special and that immoral behavior was beneath her. It mostly worked, in that Trixie did not become an evil warlock (except for that one regrettable incident in which she did in "Magic Duel," but everypony forgave her for that).
What redeems Trixie is that she really sees herself as a heroine, and in pursuit of this belief she Becomes the Mask. She really does follow her code of honor, and when things get really dangerous, her very egotism is likely to lead her to try her best to save the day. She is quite courageous (some might say "insanely" so) and is willing to go down fighting against long odds if the alternative is to abandon her allies. (She canonically shows this in "Boast Busters," where she's unwilling to just leave Snips and Snails to the wrath of the Ursa). This is also why she's a badass -- she really does have considerable magical power, and she's not afraid to use it.
Trixie is of course funny because she almost never steps out of character. (In fact, when she does step out of character, it's usually because she's overcome by incredible love, grief or some other extreme emotion; many of her out-of-character moments involve her True Love, Piercing Gaze). Trixie, in normal social situations, will refer to herself in the third person, make bombastic speeches about her abilities, and constantly invent new heroic epithets for herself, often hilariously-appropriate to the situation and showing that Trixie is more aware of her own flaws than she lets on. Trixie's friends put up with her oddities because, well -- that's the One and Only Trixie.
My Rarity is rather on the borderline between being a Large Ham and simply a bit melodramatic. She's definitely playing a role, in that she's of distinctly conventional middle-class origin, and has reinvented herself as a fabulous fashionista lady in part to fit in better in upper-class Canterlot society. She sometimes overplays the part, mostly because she grew up seeing the upper-class world at second-hand, and she hasn't mastered the casualness that comes naturally to Ponies raised in awareness of their superior social status (though Fancy Pants teaches her some of that, in "Sweet and Elite"). She can be hilarious when forced to confront something nasty, as her role as one of Twilight's Companions sometimes requires.
Rarity is redeemed by her genuine goodness, and by her courage. (As Luna puts it in Nightmares Are Tragic, "Skilled ... and brave, for all she's a dandy", and the historical Dandies of our world were actually quite brave: they were generally willing to fight in battle or in duels to defend their honor). She's a capable and deadly fighter, not at all afraid to get her hooves dirty in close combat if this is needed to triumph. And she has a strong code of honor and morality, and she truly cares for her friends -- she doubts herself sometimes (though only reveals this to her best friends) but she is a genuinely good Pony.
I love my Large Hams, and would not be parted from them.
(Think a Pony version of Daffy Duck) Well here is a duuuuh moment. I can't believe that I missed that. Perhaps with a touch of Wile E. Coyote ( Super Genius )
*Grins* and they are beloved by your fans as well n_n
It continues to amaze me how in depth you se with this show!! It's awesome!!
You knoq this is quite an interesting analysis of the three largest hambones in MLP. Luna is definitely more confident in the field of battle and less in the courtfield or banquet and she does seem more in tune with the individualistic needs of ponies. In fact, that's. how I see her reign. She is a fierce fighter and extremely oriented to protecting the individual she is currently caring for (as evident by the CMS chronicles). She focuses on each and every one of her subjects as an individual and thus she is more in tune with the ponies. However this type of ruling isn't possible without Celestia, but that's. a whole different blog for another day. Also I love your description of Trixie. She is a character I was very hesitant towards but ultimately she grew on me since her boastful nature was balanced nicely with genuine remorse and actual persona resurfacing in Magic Duel (which I hold as one of the best episodes to date). Rarity is a character I thought I would utterly despise (considering that prissy posh rich girls are extremely cliche) but I was impressed to say the least of what the staff did to her. They improved on the cliche and actually made a unique and timeless mold for other shows to look up to. So yeah these three (especially the nocturnal regal) might be a bit overthetop with their delivery but that is essentially what makes them great. This was a very well thought out blog and it was a nice analysis on three of the biggest fan favorites of MLP.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/251660/5/tales-from-the-dark-side-of-the-mirror/im-the-pony-everypony-wants-not-to-know
Oh, beyond question, Trixie's a Large Ham, and so is Luna in her way. I'm not sure that canon Rarity is, exactly. I think of her as a Drama Queen, which isn't exactly the same thing. Hamminess is vulgar, and Rarity is never vulgar. I think it partly depends on how a character behaves in public. Her most dramatic moments, the points when she's the most over-the-top, happen in private, sometimes along with the consumption of a lot of ice cream.
You write a more laid-back Dash than I do--mine is really my Mane Six's Large Ham, with a few Achilles heels around to puncture the balloon-sized ego (Fluttershy, Scootaloo). But that's fine. Fan fiction and the headcanon we make up to go with it are flexible enough to allow for a large leeway before the character is out of character. Even The Great And Humble Trixie still wants to be the most humble unicorn you've ever seen.
3452557 Thank you for drawing my attention to that fic, Alex Warlorn. That really belongs in my group, Canon Alternative Universes, and it went under my radar.
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Welcome.
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I like that overall story -- it's interesting to see the details of the Mane Six being villains (or, rather, trying to be villains). The alternates of other characters, especially Starlight Glimmer, were pretty good too. And we got to see some of the details of how that version of Equestria works.
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Tell the author! Not me!
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Excellent point on the difference between Large Ham and Drama Queen. On the spectrum between them I would say that while Trixie is the most flamboyantly Hammy, followed by Luna and then Rarity, Luna has the least control over her performance (she's most honestly expressing her nature) followed by Trixie and then Rarity. Which is to say that Rarity usually knows she's doing it for effect; Luna really is rather like an unusually-sympathetic version of a Nineteenth Century Romantic or Michael Moorcock antihero, complete with an affinity for dark tragedy and melodramatic monologues. Trixie ... is theoretically performing, but sometimes forgets the extent to which it's an act.
In the Shadow Wars Story Verse the friendship (and in my main worldline) love between Luna and Twilight becomes very important to Luna, especially after Celestia's Sacrifice: basically, because Twilight helps keep Luna sane. One of Luna's most serious weaknesses is her intense dark romanticism, which can lead her down the paths of some terribly bad ideas (most obviously, trusting King Sombra; and becoming Nightmare Moon). Twilight Sparkle, by contrast, is a rationalist with a good sense of her own limitations and an ability to laugh at her own errors.
Piercing Gaze, who is a matter-of-fact though extremely competent show-stallion, plays a similar role in Trixie's life. While he lives, he dampens Trixie's really bad ideas and helps fuel her better ones, and the knowledge that she is genuinely loved by somepony who knows the true personality underlying her act generally helps keep Trixie grounded in reality. She suffers a very serious nervous breakdown after he dies, and comes close to exploding into full Nightmare mode. Unfortunately for Alicorn Trixie, she didn't fall in love with a fellow immortal -- and the stress of the Shadow Wars further shortened his lifespan. You can see this in Twelfth Equestriad Interview.
My Rarity falls in love with Spike: after her Ascension, she's immortal while he's very long-lived, long enough lived that he gets to benefit from the development of full biological immortality. Rarity's flamboyant confidence is in part an act: she was very badly hurt when she was young; Spike, of course, is biologically a Dragon but culturally a Pony, so has his own problems of reconciling the differing aspects of his own nature. We can already see even in vanilla canon that Rarity is capable of making bad decisions and running with them well past the point where most Ponies would realize they were heading for disaster, and that Spike is one of the few beings to whom she'll listen and rein herself back from the abyss she's about to leap into. Likewise, that when Spike's draconic nature gets the better of his intentions, Rarity is one of the few beings who can drag him back from doing horrible things. They're thus very good for each other.
Eh, I think she's Hammy too, though her Hamminess is very direct: it takes the form of overestimating her own abilities and trying to do some impossible deed, whether or not she makes a big speech before making the attempt. What makes Rainbow Dash awesome is that sometimes she can do things that should be impossible, and I even have a rational explanation for this.
The way the Element of Loyalty works is that, when she attempts something out of loyalty to a loved individual or ideal (Fluttershy, Twilight, all Pegasuskind, Equestria, etc.) she actually gets a power boost from the Harmony. The big problem with this is that Rainbow Dash is not at all guaranteed to be able to handle the power thus released. In the Shadow Wars, this almost gets her killed and does get her severely wounded, more than once.
There's a lot of substance under Rainbow Dash's boasting. Which suits her heroic archetype.
Not necessarily related to Rarity's penchant for melodrama, but Lauren Faust decided to talk a little about her character in a stream for Them's Fighting Herds, something i don't think she's done directly since she left the show, and I think you'll enjoy hearing it, given your views on her.
Starts at 14:02