Poisoning the Well: Bad Headcanons, and the Fics They Destroy · 11:15pm Jul 2nd, 2016
Greetings, my good ladies and gentlemen.
I invite you to imagine a scenario: you are reading a fic and all is going well. The grammar and spelling are good, the characters well written, the plot has potential. Everything seems fine, and you are looking forward to a good read.
Then Princess Celestia shows up, and suddenly things are just wrong.
The author may be subtle, or not, but it is clear that we are going off canon from here on out. We may have the classic tyrant, grinding ponies beneath her hoof. We may have a petty bitch; Celestia in name only. We may have an abuser, a user, or any other point on the spectrum of antagonism.
The point is this: the author has a headcanon about Celestia, and it is going to be colouring his or her fic from here on out.
And thus a promising fic is poisoned by the dreaded Bad Headcanon.
I have seen it time and again, my good ladies and gentlemen, and I would hazard a guess that you have as well: The author has Opinions. Views. In his or her mind, the world of MLP works a Certain Way, and these revelations must be shared. Via fanfic.
Antagonist!Celestia is, of course, only one example. Let us consider another: herds.
This head canon originated from the fact that the animators, particularly in the early seasons, showed many more mares than stallions, with most of the main cast being female.
The Doylist answer is really straightforward: MLP is a girls show, intended to show off a varying cast of strong female role models. Of course it's going to give much of its screen time to girls.
The Watsonian response of several authors is this: we see more mares because there are more mares, a lot more.
This leads people to several related conclusions. Particularly, to herds: one stallion, several mares, in a relationship. Note that this has no other basis in canon. Now, you may be thinking:
"A British Gentleman, you cantankerous old bugger, could this not be a good thing? Could one not use this as a basis for an interesting xenofiction? Or at least a comedy?"
And you would be right. In about one case in a hundred. Most of the rest are devided between naked wish fulfilment, porn, or both. It is not quite so limited, however, and can crop up in otherwise innocuous fics, and seldom to good effect.
There is a reason I am calling this a bad headcanon.
By way of an example, let us consider The Chaotic Touch of Harmony. This fic starts out as an interesting sci fi: against the backdrop of a campaign of alien attacks, the protagonist, and many other people, are being turned into ponies. At the start, all is good: the characters are interesting, the premise unusual, the story well written. Some of the ideas the author has regarding the sci fi aspects are awesome.
Then Equestrian customs, and the author's headcanon, happen. Our once interesting (male) protagonist is transmuted into a particularly noxious Mary Sue; Twilight's student, and an alicorn other ponies instinctively worship (causing them to magically get over their gender change, a key plot point), who proceeds to bitch endlessly about the reverence she receives, and how hard it is being such a snowflake.
The gender ratio amongst ponies cause most of the humans turned ponies to be mares, regardless of their original sex, which, naturally, leads to herds. Many of the now female participants of said herds were the male victims of forced gender realignment. Which they are okay with once the Sue has dealt with their understandable mental trauma by virtue of her magical Sue alicorn aura.
All of this is justified by the author's headcanon
All of this is handled very badly. The gender changes, and how that goes, are particularly ill advised.
There is still a good sci fi here, but it is buried under masses of bad headcanon, with a big helping of Mary Sue.
To be fair to the author, he got better. His latest work shows significant improvement.
But this piece cannot be recommended, due to the crushing weight of the author's bad headcanon, and a protagonist who becomes increasingly obnoxious and Sueish as the fic proceeds.
Bad, ill thought out head canon can destroy a fic. It doesn't matter how good you are, if you are are basing your fic on Tyrantlestia, The Luna Republic, Little Orphan Scootaloo (TM), Badly Thought Out Social Mechanics, Herds or any other such crap, you're in trouble.
Authors can, and do, drown fics under the weight of their own dubious headcanon. This is particularly tragic when it happens to a fic that should have been good.
And so I invite you, my good ladies and gentlemen, to share you own thoughts and experiences with this phenomenon. What dubious headcanons have you seen? Which promising fics have ended up ruined by authors shoehorning in bizarre derivatives of canon Equestria?
I look forward to hearing from you, my good ladies and gentlemen.
I'm not naming names, but I think the worst offender I've seen is the idea that one of the pony tribes is genetically recessive, requiring breeding within the tribe in order to maintain it. This poisons the spirit of cooperation on which Equestria was founded. The idea that an entire sphere of magical capability could be bred out of existence is culturally horrifying and biologically nonsensical. Even more so than pony genetics already is.
For me it's generally Tyrant Celestia/Ruthless cold Luna. I have no specific example in mind but it seems to be a common trope and one that breaks a story for me almost every time.
Oh, and secret military forces that are unaccountable and do what's necessary to defend Equestria by doing what nopony else will do. The concept itself is usually pretty horrifying to me, and even more so in MLP.
I have no doubt that both of this ideas can be developed in a sensible and interesting way, but most of the times they kind drag a story to tartarus.
Prior to Hearthbreakers, I've seen some assumptions of the Pie Parents being abusive toward Pinkie Pie for being, well, different from the rest of the family. Because obviously they're backward farm folks who cling too hard to outdated traditions and have no sense of fun whatsoever.
Bonus points if Pinkie was a pegasus before her evil daddy chopped them off because he's racist. 
I've always hated that assumption, especially since it was clear from Cutie Mark Chronicles that the entire family accepted Pinkie's talent and actually enjoyed that party. Even after episodes like Magic Duel (which revealed that the rock farm was real), Pinkie Pride (which confirmed the party had been real with that photo), and even Maud Pie (where we actually meet one of her sisters, and have a happy flashback, and see the actual rock farm in a scene that suggests that Pinkie's welcome back any time and that they probably wouldn't mind having her friends over and nothing that really raises a red flag), there were still suggestions of Igneous and Cloudy (especially Igneous) being abusive to poor Pinkie, who "continually pushes back the awful memories with her parties".
I will admit, I do have some personal reasons (first pony fic had the Pies being major players in the story), but even before those personal reasons, the "abusive Pie Parents" thing always left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm glad that Hearthbreakers absolutely destroyed it.
Evil Discord is one obvious and very common misinterpretation.
But alienness in general is my pet topic, so I am kinda biased.
"The founding story from Hearth's Warming Eve is just a myth/heavily embellished." Our knowledge of Equestrian history is already sparse enough as it is, so I don't like fics ignoring such a large part of it, especially a part that was never at any point implied to be false.
"Nightmare Moon didn't have a plan to rule, and the world would've froze over and died if she won." Even before season five came along to put a stop to this notion, I never liked it. I think it cheapens Nightmare Moon (and thus Luna) as a character.
And for basically the same reasons, but applied to Discord as well, "The Elements of Harmony could be avoided by just stepping to the side/teleporting away/whatever other amazingly clever idea I can come up with." I wrote a whole story about this one, it bugged me so much. I have never been able to accept any serious headcanon of the Elements of Harmony that doesn't at least give them the ability to chase fleeing targets. If the Elements really are such terrible superweapons, then why do they have a 100% success rate?
The idea that ponies, particularly Celestia, are bigoted against the other races in Equestria. That goes against everything the ponies stand for in my eyes!
Tyrant Celestia has been a pet peeve of mine for quite some time now. Unless it is taken to comedic extremes (such as in the Mentally Advanced Series) it rarely works. Celestia has shown to be loving and caring for her subjects. She has shown her kidness on numerous occassions (such as in A Bird In The Hoof where she didnt punish Fluttershy or in the battle against Chrysalis) so to see her being portrayed as a ruthless tyrant never made sense to me. The NLR stuff is also mostly bizzare (so much so that I have made an entire blog about it) since it usually uses the Tyrant Celestia in order to justify the rebelion.
However my most hated trope is the 'everyone in the show is based off of a dead person' or the Pinkie serial killer thing. True the first was done once (and even then it was in a creepyoasta) but it is an overdone trope that truly was only interesting the first time it came out. Now the Pinkie serial killer is especially annoying to me because it goes so much against her character. Yes she can act a little mental, but that doesnt mean she would hurt her friends. In fact that si the exact opposite of what Pinkie Pie would do. The worst case of this is in Cupcakes and the less I talk about that badfic the better.
4063901
One tribe being a recessive trait does seem incredibly unlikely. That would imply that such things are controlled by either one or a few genes. Whatever weird genetic rules such things follow (here's looking at you, Mr Carrot Cake) that is not a likely candidate.
I should imagine that the whole purpose of this was to manufacture cheap drama.
4063955
Tyrantlestia is an oddity, in that it appears to have come from nothing. There is nothing about her canon depiction that even implies tyrant, but it has been developed too often, by too many authors independent of one another to have no basis at all.
I have concluded that it has a few basic starting points:
1) Celestia offends Republican sensibilities. This concept starts with the assumption that, in the natural course of events, any autocratic ruler will eventually be overthrown. As Celestia has not been overthrown, she must be a brutal and effective tyrant.
2) The author like Luna, and must excuse her every fault. This one tends to go hand in hand with Woona and the Luna Republic. It is a blame shifting exercise: everything Luna did is Celestia's fault. In extreme cases, JealousTyrant!Celestia drove Luna into becoming Nightmare Moon in a deliberate campaign. This one is becoming less common as time goes on and it gets ever more jossed.
3) The author just doesn't like Celestia. This usually goes hand in hand with Everything is Celestia's Fault.
Fortunately, this is not as common as it was, but yes, bad Celestia headcanons, and the rarer bad Luna headcanons really do suck, as they run so contrary to the themes of the show, yet authors insist on calling them canon anyway. Quite annoying.
4064410
This one used to be very popular back in the day, often, as you say, as a back story for a woobie Pinkie. Or worse, as a Freudian excuse for the ever ubiquitous split personality serial killer Pinkie, and the equally ubiquitous and loathsome Cupcakes Pinkie.
Wierdly, this (abusive Pie Family) has cropped up in at least one good fic: Estee's Triptych. It is one of the reasons I have mixed feelings about that fic (the other big one being Applejack), what makes this odd is that Estee is an unambiguously good author.
Happily, Abusive!Pie Family is well and truly jossed. It is as you say: Hearthbreakers killed it dead.
4064512
Discord is interesting, in that his motivation both pre and post reformation has remained constant: he does most everything he does for shits and giggles.
For a while, though, between his debut and Keep Calm and Flutter On, there was a tendency amongst authors to make him into MLP's ultimate evil, responsible for far worse atrocities than anything he ever did in canon.
As with others, this is not as common as it was, as it just keeps getting more and more jossed.
4064535
The Hearths Warming Eve tale gets a mixed bag: we often see reinterpretations based on one of two basic premises: it never happened, or, it didn't happen like that. Usually to allow the author to show off their 'superior' version of events.
I think we're stuck with that one; the writers are unlikely to go back to it, and thus bad headcanons on the topic are not going to get jossed.
The Nightmare moon one is very popular, and remains so. It is not ubiquitous, however. I recommend The Nights Favored Child as a good, early attempt to show how the Nightmare's reign might have gone. I do so with one reservation, however: it updates VERY infrequently, is stuck on a cliffhanger, and it may well be dead.
Yeah, the Elements of Harmony are much abused. The root cause of this is simple: the Elements must be removed, at least until the climax, to preserve dramatic tension. The show does this itself several times.
The problem is that some authors will insist in doing so in an incredibly cack handed manner; in extreme cases, their antagonist will outright nosell the Elements, with dubious justification. In one fic I recall, Sombra hijacked the Elements when they were being used on him and used them to empower himself. In a similar manner, in one fic the God Emperor of Mankind was likewise empowered by the Elements (because of how 'harmonious' he is) and proceeded to butcher all ponies.
This can also show up in the odd goodfic. In Arad's Stardust, the justification for why the Elements cannot be used is as above in the God Emperor example: the Xcom aliens are too 'harmonious.'
I suspect that the Elements example is a case of story necessity breeding bad headcanons, rather bad headcanons breeding bad stories, as is the usual case.
Also, Just Dodge was awesome
4064891
This one is as annoying as hell. It is a particular feature of many Spike badfics: the idea that Spikes 'abuses' as a result of him being a dragon and not a pony.
Which leads me to another hated headcanon: Spike is and was abused by Twilight.
4064949
Some people are really wedded to the idea of Celestia as a tyrant. It was old years ago and time has hardly been kind to it since.
I will confess: I have yet to encounter the everyone is based on someone dead scenario. Could you please send a link?
Semi-abstract thought:
Does the presence of Tyrantlestia correlate with the presence of a noble class or not?
4064985 Yeah and it got old qhen Rise of Spike the dragon (or something like that) did it. It has not improved.
Like I said I only read this once but it got realy old mainly because these types seem just like a rip off of the Ed Edd n Eddy creepypasta. Here is the link to the youtube reading where I heard it. If its your first time it might not be so bad but by the time this got out there were already an abundance of creepypastas doing the exact same thing with slight variations from story to story.
[youtube=iRksdco4PBI]
4064986
4064982
The thing is, I somehow understand where that thing may come from (at least in some cases where it's not originated from the equivalent of a childish tantrum). We have here a being with power that has led a nation for at least a thousand years. Considering our experiences as human beings the tyrant idea is obvious.
The problem is, we are not talking about a human. All the evidences play against the very idea, and it is a waste of potential to simply make her a tyrant so as to have the plucky rebel overthrow here or such a thing. Even more so when we had at least one perfectly viable tyrant in the show in the shadow of Sombra. Or Tirek.
4064986
The noble classes are ubiquitous; that headcanon is so common that aversions are far more noteworthy than inclusions.
But yes: Tyrantlestia is always supported by a class of nobles, who are invariably corrupt, tyrannical, hedonistic, useless, or some combination of the above.
In short, Tyrantlestia comes as a package deal with an extensive and corrupted nobility, but said nobility exists independent of her as well.
The noble classes are an odd case, in that for something so common, there is so little supporting evidence of it in canon. As far as actual nobles go, we have the Duchy of Maretonia, and that's about it. Yet in fanfics, Canterlot is swarming with the blighters.
The origin of this is pretty plain: the common or garden Canterlot Noblepony is merely a misinterpretation of the common or garden Canterlot rich snobby elite pony. There is no evidence said snobs have any titles at all, and could be any combination of flavours of idle rich.
A further factor in their existance is similar to that of Tyrantlestia herself: the very concept of nobility is an offence to Republican sensibilities, and particularly to the idea of all people being born equal, and is thus an affront to Americans in particular.
This, coupled with the nature of the Canterlot elite we do see, is why the nobleponies are invariably depicted as corrupt and useless.
4065001
A Tyrantlestia who isn't supported by anyone might be interesting, then... ;)
4065007
Quite so. Sadly, it is not a field of literature noted for its originality.
4065009
Why am I thinking about it in particular:
* I have previously published my conclusion that as of the time of the series, no reasonable traces of a noble class exist within Equestria: RTAC #2 and see also RTAC #3
* Yet this is an extremely persistent piece of fanon. Either this is evidence that modern readers universally have a very shallow understanding of fantasy, (one look at the Twelve Cities should give anyone the idea that governmental systems in fantasy can be pretty damn varied,) or this is evidence that there is a particular reason the readers imagine this government system, and not something else. Since Americans would be the majority, the reason why they rally against the idea is obvious, but not the reason why they posit the idea at all.
* Tyrantlestia and the idea of a noble class clearly have the same root, which is why they are so rarely seen in separation.
4065012
It likely a combination of numerous factors: the archetypal fantasy system of government is feudal, with people ranked between the commoners, the nobles and the royalty. Examples include The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire. Both of those cases are more complex than that, however; the Shire, for example, is a democracy that exists as an independent protectorate of a kingdom.
Of course, many other systems of government are depicted in fantasy, but the layman may not consider this: they think kings and knights.
What is interesting is that the nobles and royalty are hardly universally reviled in fantasy fiction: they form most of the protagonists in Lord of the Rings, and run the full morality scale in Ice and Fire, to stick with my previous examples.
Yet in MLP fanon, nobles are almost universally antagonistic in one form or another. Despite the fact that, canonically, they may well not exist at all.
I suspect that The Best Night Ever and Sweet and Elite in general, and Prince Blueblood and Jet Set and Upper Crust in particular, have a lot to answer for in this regard. Here are two early episodes where we get to see the Canterlot Elite, with neither depiction being particularly flattering.
The fact the MLP is a fantasy will likely have contributed to people assuming that these ponies are nobles, and the depiction of many of them in these episodes as elitist snobs, coupled with the natural sensibilities of an American audience, is likely why they are assumed to be corrupt or incompetent.
This is all likely an over simplification, however: actual contributory factors likely differ from person to person. Many people would argue that the nobility is canon, so universal is the assumption.
It isn't, of course. The Elite are canon. Any titles they may have are not.
4064982
In addition to the roots you listed, I think Tyrantlestia also came as a result of the "Chessmaster Celestia" idea, where her rule and everything that happens in Equestria is a giant Xanathos gambit on her part ("supported" by the evidence of the series' opener being a whole chain of extremely unlikely events magically leading to the best possible outcome for her. (and probably a few other events I can't be bothered to remember right now.))
If she's so good at scheming that she can control the events of the entire world, surely there's nothing anyone can do against her, and that sort of absolute power can only lead to (or come from) extreme corruption. Thus the tyrant is born.
What these "evil princesses" headcanons seem to forget is that the princesses wielded the elements of harmony. Three of them each! if anything, they should rightfully be even less corruptible than the main six!
Now it could be argued that they might have been slightly less attuned to them, but on the other hand we've seen that the elements tend to deal in absolutes; you either can do it fully or you can't at all.
So in those fics where our plucky main heroines oppose the princesses' evil rule, for no other reason than "because they're the elements of harmony so they're good people who oppose this evil", the evil in question should be no worse than them, or a lot more recent than usually stated ("she's always been that way")
But no, it usually remains unaddressed, shaking the moral foundations of the protagonists. If they're justified by the same magical trinkets that once justified the evil they're facing, are they really any better? Are the trinkets fallible? In both cases, "saving the day because elements of harmony said so" loses some of its conviction. Although I think this doubt would make a good fic, if explored in-character from one of them, it never seems to be addressed.
But on the general subject of "bad" headcanons, can we really decide what is a good or bad one? It's all subjective anyway, since the very idea of headcanons is to fill holes where the show fails to explore things. I mean, if people write about them and enjoy it, they obviously think they're "good" headcanons.
It seems headcanons are judged as bad when they're contradicted by canon, but most of the headcanons we deem bad today were not always contradicted. if we go from the first two episodes of the series, there's no empirical evidence that Celestia isn't a tyrant. Hell, even with what little we've seen of her in the show as of six seasons later, Celestia could be a manipulating tyrant putting up a kind facade. There's really no ironclad evidence against it except "she really doesn't seem like that kind of person", which, again, could be the manipulator's facade or something too recent for the elements to have resisted her touch.
I mean, if people enjoy these "bad" ideas enough to cling to them in the face of evidence, it's their right. Maybe our beloved headcanons will be dashed by the show one day, and we'll all end up on the bad headcanons side of this discussion for someone else.
4065036
Good spot with the chessmaster. I really should have remembered that myself
As for the bad headcanon thing, you have a point. Any premise, more or less, can be the basis of a good story, as is often demonstrated on f*** this prompt on Rage. As I said, the gender imbalance and herding headcanon could lead to good xenofiction but sadly, it rarely does.
4065022 Fantasy governments and political play have always tickled my fancy. In regards to MLP there are some references to suggest it could be very feudal in its design. Of course all of these 'evidences' are neither here nor there but it is fun to speculate.
As for the 'all nobles are diabolical' I think we could put that in some sort of a grey area. While some could be very manipulative others have shown themselves in a better light. To say that it is impossible for Equestrian nobles to be involved in some shady dealings would be wrong. It always relies on the interest of the individual.
For example in a chapter I intend to write there will be a fraction of nobles and higher ups in the Equestrian ranks that will join the enemy. This is because they fear that their enemy is too strong and that it would be in their best interest to join the other side in order to save their wealth and fur.
Furthermore I believe the mistrust in the nobles comes mostly from our own world. Many people dont really trust their governments due to the ammount of scandals and corruption so they translate it in to the world of fiction. However there always needs to be a cause and the characters should be portrayed as best as possible in order to invoke a positive reaction out of the reader. At least that is what I think
As someone who enjoys a well written bit of porn now and again, (A thing which is sadly lacking in fanfic in general.) I have never been a fan of herds. I want plot and romance with my clop, not generic mary sue or mary sue disguised as Spike, getting it on with pretty much every character in the series.
Beyond that never cared for orphan Scoots, if only because it's been used so often it's practically a cliche now. Of course anyone that's read my latest F*** this Prompt entry knows how I dealt with that idea.
And I loathe, utterly loathe Tyrantlestia, Molestia, Dumblestia or any other 'Lestia out there. Hell I'm not even a fan of how she's been written as the series goes on. I want the wise, kind chessmaster/trickster that could probably give Xanatos a run for his money, that we got glimpses of in the first season. Not the current version that gets beat by weather... and plants.
4064982
A depressing thought.
Well... I suppose one can interpret "harmony" as not necessarily meaning "good." I don't like this interpretation, but the idea that the Elements are designed to fight disharmony specifically rather than general evil is valid.
Thank you.
4065001
Yeah, I think it's a little silly to assume that every snob in Canterlot is some kind of noble, but on the other hand, I think the concept of an Equestrian nobility fits very well into the world, especially with people like Prince Blueblood around. The word "blueblood" in itself implies that the concept of noble birth is alive and well in Equestria. And if there ever was a place where you'd expect multiple nobles to congregate, it would probably be in Canterlot. That said, I doubt that such a thing would be normal. You shouldn't need more than one duke or count or baron or earl to rule over one city, so most nobles, if they have lands of their own, should probably be elsewhere.
Personally, I like to think that Blueblood himself holds "Duke of Canterlot" as a secondary title, and that he's the only actual noble we've seen in Canterlot before.
4065022
Hang on, that definitely isn't true. You yourself pointed out an example of canon nobility earlier - the Duke and Duchess of Maretonia. Feudalism may not exist in canon, but nobility most certainly does.
4065549
Correct. That was a bit of a silly error.
To be fair, I don't object to the Canterlot Nobility as a trope. Whom the Princesses Would Destroy, one of my all time favourite fics, uses them to great effect.
That said, references Celestia putting up with variously corrupt and incompetent nobles in fic after fic has long since gotten old. People just sort of throw them in there, in the fashion of a weather report.
4065504
Incompetent!Petty!Bitch!Lestia is my personal most hated variant. She tends to show up in the fics of old school Luna fanboys, as part of the effort to lionise Luna.
Thankfully, she's getting rarer.
For me it's the "nobles are incredibly stupid but politically powerful, and Celestia is helpless against them on her own." That's the one that grinds my gears, because it is so common. As a general rule, I am more forgiving of a bad headcanon the more it is required for the story to function. So if a story introduces Tyrantlestia because it needs a bad government to oppose our heroes, that is annoying, but I can accept it if the rest of the story is good enough to make up for this irritating flaw. Tyrantlestia shows up and ruins the local gardening competition that the protagonist was using to woo his love interest? Time to stop reading.