Quill Reviews: How the Half-Naked Santa Saved Christmas (Dubs Rewatcher) · 10:42pm Jan 7th, 2016
Warning: This is a long review. I know that I write long reviews as a matter of habit, but this one spends six paragraphs talking about the title and cover art for this story. It's long. You might want to go and get a drink before you start reading.
How the Half-Naked Santa Saved Christmas
Read the story here!
I don't think it's possible to talk about How the Half-Naked Santa Saved Christmas without talking about... well, "How the Half-Naked Santa Saved Christmas". It's a pretty eye-catching title, and there's quite a lot going on in there that hints at the kind of story we're about to get. So let's start with the obvious: the title is clearly chosen to bring to mind How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and immediately we're given thoughts of a redemption story. But the ways in which this title differs from Seuss' is just as important, and I wanted to take a few moments to talk about the changes.
I'll ignore the most glaringly obvious change for a moment and talk instead about the use of "Santa" in place of "Grinch". The first thing this does is up the Christmassy tone of the title, which is probably good in a piece written for a Christmas Jinglemass event. But it also tells us immediately who our main character is through a technique I think deserves a lot more discussion than I have room to give it: good cover art. The cover art for Half-Naked Santa simple depicts Adagio in a Santa suit, but this lightly-edited screencap (and I must say, I'm actually quite impressed by the edit for still seeming to match the style. I'm no expert, but it looks like a pretty good job) is more than enough to tell the reader that the "Santa" of the title is going to be Adagio.
I'm in awe of this use of cover art, and it's something I've noticed Dubs do a few times before: spread important story information equally between the title and the cover art. It's a really interesting technique because it allows the reader to have a better idea of what the story is about without having to consider either the long or short descriptions, giving the piece an advantage over stories that don't do this. We all make snap judgements about what we do and don't want to read on this site—we have to, as there's so much stuff we simply can't read it all!—and by putting this kind of information into the cover art the readers get information to base that decision on. But I'm far more interested in the way the cover art informs and even changes the meaning of the title, because I'm the kind of nerd who cares way more about artistic than commercial value.
This is where I'm going to focus mainly on the adjective "Half-Naked". I think it's worth starting by ignoring the cover art and mentioning that this word stands out from the rest of the title, not just because of its provocative nature, but because there isn't an adjective in Seuss' title. This is a key point: when you're making a clear reference to a title so widely parodied as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, adding something to it is going to make that thing stand out more. Now, if we didn't have the cover image informing us that the titular Santa is, in fact, Adagio, "Half-Naked" has a very strange connotation—and I wouldn't blame anyone for not clicking on a story that promised a half-naked St Nicholas. The fact of the matter is that Santa is not generally a sexualised character and, given his position as a figure who deals primarily with children, I think it's a fair assumption that sexualising him may be more likely to put off an audience than, uh, turn them on. But Adagio is a deliberately sexualised character—say what you like about MLP being for children, the Sirens (and Adagio in particular) clearly use enticing body language as well as their voices to manipulate the students of Canterlot High into doing their bidding, which makes sense given the mythological context of their inspiration. "Half-Naked" is an adjective that just makes sense in the context of Adagio's character, and it changes the title of the piece from disturbing to intriguing.
"Half-Naked" also tells us a lot about the content of the story, because it tells us which side of Adagio's character we'll be seeing in this piece. As I've mentioned, Adagio's sexuality is a tool: she uses her body as a means to get what she wants from the people around her. And, though it takes some in-story context to know this, after Rainbow Rocks this is the only such tool Adagio has left, now that her singing voice has been taken from her. By focusing on this aspect of Adagio's character in the title, Dubs is telling us that this is going to be a piece about Adagio being manipulative, and trying to achieve her goals through her sexuality; this is reinforced by further parallels with Seuss' title, where the titular character assumes the role of villain. It seems only natural in this context that we'll be seeing Adagio behaving with evil intentions.
This is where the final change begins to throw a spanner in the works, and it's what makes the title particularly interesting. "Saved" is a fantastic word with a million and one connotations, and mostly thanks to its regular appearance in religious contexts over the years it's gained a sense of selflessness. And this is a wonderful contrast, because it goes against everything we've inferred so far from the title—we were expecting a villainous, manipulative Adagio, yet now we're being told she is selflessly saving Christmas? This contrast between Adagio's methods and her results is actually one of the key motifs of the story, and that it's introduced so strongly even in the title is a credit to quite how good this title is. It's further emphasised by the parallel with Seuss' title—though "Saved" and "Stole" are relatively similar words in appearance (both start with S, and are one syllable), the former's selfless connotations are exactly matched by the latter's selfish ones.
So, knowing what we know about this story from the title (and, of course, the description, though as we're about to see that isn't exactly necessary to understand the story), what can we get out of the first paragraph?
Adagio fingered her wine glass. “So, Pinkamena—are you a virgin?”
I won't lie, I'm actually really impressed with just how carefully composed that single line of text is. Every single word of that has been put there for a good reason, from the choice of drink to the long form of Pinkie's name to the puerile sex joke in "fingered" (I call it puerile, but it's actually a fantastic way to set the tone for the piece and to ground us right from the start in Adagio's sexuality as a deliberate, manipulative force. Just as Adagio can use both subtle and non-subtle methods in her seduction and manipulation, so too Dubs uses subtle and less-than-subtle methods in establishing the tone.) Everything is done to convey Adagio's character: a calculated seductress and machiavellian manipulator. But also worth noting is that beneath that character setup, Dubs has placed Adagio's words in sharp contrast with the sophisticated character he portrays, jumping straight to the rather vulgar core of the topic—and while this isn't quite the same conflict in Adagio's character that the story really builds itself around, it does set us up with the expectation of further contrast and conflict.
The important thing to note is that I'm not just pulling all these examples out of thin air, and I'm certainly not just pointing at information for information's sake. Between that paragraph and the title, the reader has already been introduced to all the major themes and motifs that this piece uses; Dubs has wasted no time at all in setting them up, which gives ample room for them to be explored. Consider, for a moment, the "wine glass" that Adagio is holding—now not only is it clear that this is being used to give Adagio a sense of refinement and sophistication, but it sets us up for understanding that Adagio likes wine, which is soon made clearer by the introduction of revoking "alcohol privileges" as punishment. But the wine is more than simply something Adagio likes: it becomes a symbol for the facade of superiority that Adagio has built her whole self-image around. When Adagio is asked by Fluttershy to consider not threatening to kill her, she sips her wine while responding dismissively; when confronted by memories of the "Sleepover Incident" and its results, Adagio simply sighs and swirls her wine; and, most telling of all, when confronted by the image of Pinkie losing faith, Adagio tries to return immediately to the comfort of her wine, and downs the entire glass.
And here, the wine changes as a symbol, for if the wine in the glass was a symbol of Adagio's sophisticated external appearance, the "alcohol flowing through her veins" is now a symbol of a poison eating away at her inside—namely, her attraction to Pinkie. It gives her "dull buzz", and "a mix of nausea and warmth"... and even though Adagio is quick to blame her problems on this "bad wine", she still picks up another bottle on her way through the basement. This symbolism also allows Adagio to fail to recognise her attraction for what it is; seeing the attraction's effects as nothing more than drunkenness allows her to perpetuate her own denial.
It's really important to focus on the fact that these two symbols, though very much opposed, stem from the same thing—the wine. This forces the reader to consider them together, and for a while I struggled to understand why it was so important that the two symbols were so linked. I couldn't really see a way to interpret one of them as evolving from the other... and then it hit me that maybe the point is, instead, to reinforce the contrast between the symbols. I'll be the first to admit that at this point I am probably reading far further into this piece than Dubs intended, but it's clear that the theme of contrast is key to this story: I'd go as far as saying that it was the point of the whole story! This is a tale about Adagio's attractions in conflict with her belief that she is superior to humans, and how she tries to resolve this conflict by taking the very tools she normally uses to establish her power over people and using it to help Pinkie. I think this is really cool, and I'd really like to see more stories that have such strong themes and motifs as a backbone to hold them all together—remember, the wine is just one of several such themes that Dubs has used in this piece (another obvious one is Adagio's state of undress, though there are others), all of which help emphasise the underlying theme of Adagio's conflict.
I'm going to wrap up this review now, because even though there's a lot more to say here I have, at least, given one example of each kind of thing I wanted to say: I've spoken about Dubs' careful wording in the first paragraph, though that happens a lot; I've spoken about some of the themes and motifs Dubs weaves together throughout this piece (and I can't stress enough how much I love these); but most importantly of all, I've talked about how Dubs ties multiple sources of information together to give the reader a more comprehensive view of what's going on, by talking specifically about the title and the cover art—though I want to make it clear how much of a role both of those things and the story's description have in interpreting the story itself. All in all, as can probably be inferred from the fact that I've yet to complain about a single aspect of this story, I was thoroughly impressed by Half-Naked Santa: it was an exceedingly well-written exploration of Adagio's character in a compromising situation and, despite being presented as a comedy that derives humour from extreme deviations from a character's norm, actually provided a very thoughtful and surprisingly deep narrative alongside all the laughs. This really is the sort of story that has something for almost everyone, and I am so very glad I read it—hell, I'm glad I re-read it all the times I needed to in order to write this review, because this has taken me over 24 hours to get my thoughts in order so that I can review it and I'm still not tired of it. You've done good, Dubs 
Well, it seems like these reviews are just getting longer and longer. I hope nobody minds! I'm always open to suggestions for things to review, and if anyone feels like they'd like me to overanalyse their writing the way I've completely overanalysed Dubs' today, feel free to comment below with your suggestions and I'll try and get around to them! Just remember I'm unlikely to review things if they're M-rated, or too long (can you imagine how much I'd have to say about a novel-length fic? It'd be horrifying!)
In other news, the folks over at The Writeoff Association are about to host another contest, so for the next three days I'm going to be focusing pretty hard on writing my entry for that. I'll still try to get round to doing a review tomorrow, though! As for next week, I'll hopefully be posting a lot of reviews over in the competition's discussion thread—if you haven't already, check it out! Hopefully I'll still be able to post a review here on my blog most days, too.
Oh, this is lovely. LOVELY. QUILL, YOU'VE MADE ME FEEL EMOTIONS.
I'm gonna consider this a late Christmas present, just so I can say that it's the best Christmas present I've ever gotten. Thank you, Quill. Love~
3671202 You're welcome, Dubs. Merry Belated Jinglemass!
3671209
And actually, one more thing...
I know this is probably totes verboten because I'm author, and I'm sure you already noticed this because you are the literary analyst I strive to be, but reading your review, there was one thing you glanced over that I thought you might find interesting. You mentioned at the start that 'Saved' brings forth religious connotations, and near the end you talk about the theme of contrast, and how that's important to the piece. The religious connotations are most certainly deliberate, because a big part of the piece's thematic contrast comes from it's mix of religion and sexuality. You've already explained the sexuality of the piece, but consider Adagio's climactic line:
I love my obtuse religious references.
The entire piece, Adagio has been this lewd, mischievous troublemaker—so when she drops a line like that, it's most certainly a contrast.
I'll shut up now. /hides in burrow
Please understand that, when I say that this is a masterpiece of overanalysis, that is a intended as a genuine and full-throated compliment.
I'm going to shut up now before I descend into incoherent little squeals of glee.