Notes on "Tirek's Kingdom"

Although I called off the "full length" commentaries, I did want to make a few random notes on this chapter, sort of a 'behind the scenes' thing.

I don’t plan out too much beforehand in this story, but I often do have a few ideas on what to do. Long before I even started writing this chapter, one idea I had that I was fond of was that when the group and Tirek were going to go at each other in the final clash (after opening up the box and getting a power-up like happened in the show), Tirek would admit the whole thing was an April Fool’s joke. Everyone would point out it isn’t even April Fool’s, and he’d get embarrassed that he didn’t count leap years, and then he’d make a castle for them as compensation.

And then I came up with the idea of how they’d beat Tirek that I used in the actual chapter. And when I came up with it, I loved it. Freaking loved it. It’s humorous, unexpected, and manages to incorporate a previously irrelevant subplot as well as making the whole changeling thing have an impact on the plot outside of just being a joke. And it let me make a One-Punch Man reference! That justifies everything.

But… this posed a problem for me. I thought the April Fools reveal was funny, but it just felt wrong to, after them going through all that effort and coming up with that actually cool way to beat Tirek, just have the whole thing turn out to be a joke. Not to mention that I had already used that with Nightmare Moon and to a lesser extent Discord and Chrysalis. I didn’t mind it then because they mostly blundered into their victories anyway, but here they actually did have something good. But on the other hand, I thought the whole leap year thing was funny enough I wanted to keep it.

So ultimately I found the solution in having Tirek make that claim… but have it all turn out to be a trick. Not quite as amusing, but it does keep most of the humor.

One thing I did like is that in the climax, all of the characters actually make an individual contribution to its success. As fun as it is to see them be jerks to each other and argue, for once they actually did all work together to solve the problem. Heck, even Chrysalis had a notable contribution in evaluating how to get the power to beat Tirek (although Trixie was the one who took the plan to fruition). Indeed, I did want to make the point that in spite of all the trolling, she’s still a (mostly) competent leader. Actually, I think she comes across as more competent than Celestia did in the original episode…

I wasn’t too huge on the ending, because the joke is kind of confusing. The gag is supposed to be that the “Three years later…” is supposed to make the reader initially think that they didn’t get things fixed for three years, but then it’s revealed in the conversation it was actually fixed after a week or so. Not the greatest, but I couldn’t think of a better gag to end with; originally I was going to have Discord warp Tirek to the One-Punch Man universe where he’d just get one-shotted by Saitama, but that joke rests on you understanding One-Punch Man. Okay, sure, that could be said for my previous reference to it, but that one can still work as a comedic non sequitur if you don’t recognize the reference (which actually probably describes all of the references in the fight against Tirek). I didn't mind doing the Rocky and Bullwinkle gag back in The Return of Irony because I figured they were pretty recognizable characters, but the original ending joke would probably feel confusing and forced.

If there’s one big regret I had over this chapter, though, it’s that I didn’t go with my original idea of splitting it into two. Originally Part 1 would end with Trixie announcing that she’s figured out how to beat Tirek and that she wanted to take a pause to let everyone else try to figure out what it was, then Part 2 would be the rest of the story. This would make things more fun for the readers, at least the ones who read that at first, as they could try to guess what it was. And even a newer reader would be forced to pause, at least briefly, to try to figure it out. I tried to incorporate that into the story by having Trixie insist on the pause to try to tell the reader to try to guess it, but I don’t think that really translated right. However, I was really enthusiastic about this being the longest chapter, which wouldn’t be technically true if I split it up, so I kept it all as one. I really regret doing that, as I’m very curious if people would have guessed the solution. And, on a more egocentric level, if I had done this it would have gotten more attention as it would’ve gotten two updates and thus more opportunities for people to see on the main page.

Anyway, that’s some random notes on Tirek’s Kingdom. I hope you didn't find reading this a waste of time. In the meantime, I’m still working on the Rainbow Rocks parody, though I'm not sure it'll be out any faster than Tirek's Kingdom was. I’ve gotten busier and the big issue with the Equestria Girls parodies is that not only do they have a tendency to be long (being based on films that are longer than 3 episodes put together), they’re also sandwiched between season finales and premieres, which are of course two-parters and thus take longer to spoof than your regular episode. I can’t say when it’ll actually be ready for release, as it is coming along a bit slowly, but rest assured I’m still working on it!