AShadowOfCygnus reads "Trust"

He published this over a month ago, but I forgot to announce it! It's a great reading. Again, I found myself able to enjoy the story in a way I couldn't before, because hearing someone else's reading of it made it new to me.

Scribbler's reading of "Trust" has 19,000 views. Shadow's has 47. That ain't fair!

They're very different readings, but both run 10 minutes and 20 seconds.

Comments

[Axis of Rotation]

Celestia: "When you lie to ponies, when you pretend you're something you're not..."
cough cough hypocrite cough cough
...
Oh hey look I was right! I wrote that before reaching the end. I was going to say I'm ignoring the second half where the attention turns to changelings and just consider this a story about Trixie being a reflection of Celestia, but you were ahead of me. And of course in hindsight the coinciding of the wedding is meant to make us think of Celestia's defeat, which works into the idea of her being a fake.

You know you've got a talent for Celestia stories. You ought to write something longer and more in depth. On anything, really. Your Derpy story is longer (and not your longest) but isn't too...involved, I think is the word. I've long wanted a slow, plodding, thick-as-pea-soup story from you.

So out with it mister!

[equestrian.sen]

3529011

hy·poc·ri·sy
noun
the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform

Celestia is trying to prevent Trixie from falling into the same trap as her. I don't think you're right in calling her a hypocrite, unless our definitions of the word are inconsistent.

[Axis of Rotation]

3529076
I dunno, I still think it applies even with that definition. Celestia is espousing the importance of trust and honesty whilst lying to an entire nation, the very same nation she used to explain her lesson to Trixie, even. That seems like a hypocritical thing to do, doesn't it? I personally don't buy she is really trying to help Trixie here, because Celestia never admits her own failing in this area. She acts like she is perfectly trustworthy. She doesn't say, "I've been down this road before, don't travel it." She says, "How dare you walk this road! You should be ashamed," as she secretly walks it herself. That's very hypocritical, I think.

[Blue_Paladin42]

3529089
She already built her own cage out of lies.

She wants to make sure Trixie does not, but it would destroy all the peace she cites to Trixie if she admitted her own failings now. Hence the cage.

[Axis of Rotation]

3529166
I agree that she's trapped herself in a cage, and this is probably just going to come down to personal interpretation, but I don't see her motives being good here. I don't doubt she has told herself she wants to help Trixie, but to me her actions stem from a guilty conscious, from being forced (by Trixie's actions) to confront a part of herself she's hiding from.

Even so, good intentions or not she is still being a terrible hypocrite. Getting caught up in your own lies doesn't excuse you from those lies.

[Bad Horse]

3529382 3529166 And that's the difference between virtue ethics and consequentialism.

[Axis of Rotation]

3529699
Do you believe the two must be exclusive?

[Bad Horse]

3529810 In practice, no. If you're trying to develop a theory of ethics rather than a system for practical use, probably.

[equestrian.sen]

3529382
I wrote up a response and decided not to post it because I'm pretty sure I misunderstood your response at the time. Then I thought it would be a waste to not post it, so I'm positing it anyway.

I don't think Celestia's reasoning is wrong, or that her decision to keep pretending to raise the sun is anything less than benign. The part below explains that. Still, she clearly gets carried away when talking to Trixie. I think you're right that Celestia's response to Trixie is largely fueled by guilt.
--

equestrian.sen You believe Celestia is motivated to not get caught in her lies, whereas I believe Celestia is motivated to keep Equestria safe.

The dialogue with Shining Armor can point to either so it just gets the reader to fall deeper into whatever belief readerpronoun already held. If the reader is more prone to thinking about powerful people as either greedy or driven by a guilty conscience, readerpronoun will get that. If readerprnoun is more prone to thinking about powerful people as benign, readerpronoun will get that.

Celestia does, however, make it very clear during her speech to Trixie that trust is important specifically to preserve Equestria's peace.

Trust "And when you lie to ponies, and you pretend to be something you aren't, it isn't a little thing of no consequence, Trixie. It teaches ponies not to trust. That makes it an attack on the foundations of Equestria. That makes it a threat to our peace."

I don't think it's right to ignore the bolded part when reasoning about the message Celestia is trying to convey to Trixie, especially not when she makes it so explicit.

You can reason that Celestia only says that because it's a convenient thing to believe to ease her conscience, but you can make that exact same argument against any reasonable or unreasonable thing Celestia could have said on the topic of trust.

Axis of Rotation I don't see her motives being good here.

No matter what Celestia decides to do, she is deceiving her subjects. She chose to have her subjects believe incredible things about her, and so she is being deceptive about her capabilities. The alternative now is to have Equestria thrown into chaos, in which case she would be betraying the core of the duties she was entrusted with. Her responsibility is not to always tell her subjects the truth, it is to keep the kingdom safe. Everyone else's lives don't depend on her always telling the truth, they depend on her keeping the kingdom safe. She chose the option that was less destructive. I don't think you can use that decision to conclude that her motivations are anything less than benign.

[AShadowOfCygnus]

Scribbler's reading of "Trust" has 19,000 views. Shadow's has 47. That ain't fair!

Sure it is! I'm nowhere near as good at this -- or nearly as much a fixture of the fandom -- as Scribbs is. Frankly, I'm glad my vids get as much attention as they do.

[Axis of Rotation]

3530473
I'm glad you posted it. ^.^ Besides, I'm always up for discussing Celestia. Endlessly. :D

If the reader is more prone to thinking about powerful people as either greedy or driven by a guilty conscience, readerpronoun will get that. If readerprnoun is more prone to thinking about powerful people as benign, readerpronoun will get that.

I think this is absolutely true, at least in regards to reader subjectivity. My interpretation is being colored by three things here, I think: my personal views of Celestia, how AShadowOfCygnus reads the story (which seems to emphasize her anger at Trixie and the very end where she fakes the sunset), and my views of human nature coupled with what I consider to be textual evidence. That is, her emotional response. If her perseverance in lying to Equestria is benign (and it could be so), then:

That makes it an attack on the foundations of Equestria. That makes it a threat to our peace.

couldn't really be true, because she is violating it without threatening the peace. If it is a threat then her actions couldn't be benign. Unless she alone is capable of avoiding the consequences of this cardinal sin. The fact it would be a huge scandal also shows, I think, that her actions are very serious and can't be benign or harmless. She's practically preserving a false religion.

Concerning my view on human nature: emotional responses stem from emotional sources. Like when a sibling gets super defensive, causing you to say "There's no need to get angry" and they respond "I'm not angry! You're the angry one!" Their emotional response provokes you to look behind their words for a truer source to their behavior, which in my experience is one they don't wish to admit, even to themselves. When my anger subsides in the silence of privacy, I notice this about myself. It wasn't logic driving my arguments, it was emotion and self-oriented concerns.

This, to me, is Celestia. You make a very good argument that she cares deeply for the safety of her nation (which I would agree with anyway), and that this is what drives her actions. But we know she is faking her abilities--was this always necessary for the safety of the nation, even when she first did it? For me, the answer is no. At some point it was a lie without the justification of national security (though I suppose you could contrive something). All in all it sounds like an attempt to justify not revealing the truth: by claiming trust is all-important she can conclude that violating it now would destroy everything, therefore she must keep lying, for the betterment of all. How convenient she gets to avoid the shame of confession. How convenient she gets to remain honored and adored.

This isn't to say she actually is harming Equestria by faking her powers (things seem to have gone well for a millennium), or that the fact Trixie is likely terrified into never lying again is a bad thing. It isn't. But in regards to Celestia, I consider these excuses.