Musings: The odd choice of Fall of Equestria's villains · 7:26pm Jul 17th, 2016
I know that I'm not going to say anything new in this blog post. What I'm going to say has been said many times already, by many different people. For some reason, I feel the need to spell it out once more.
So the villains of Fall of Equestria are supposed to be Viking caribou.
What should be immediately striking is how odd this choice is. For non_creepy_nickname's intents and purposes, he literally couldn't have chosen worse archetypes.
Let's start with the Vikings. Viking society was actually way more gender-equal than the other European societies that existed at the same time. Viking women had mostly the same rights as men in everyday life. They were allowed to own and inherit property, speak in public just like the men, and had a voice at the Things (= council meetings). There were times when they even bore arms and fought alongside their men. It was only after the Christianization of Viking countries that these rights were slowly taken away from them. I get that non_creepy_nickname chose Vikings because of their raiding and alleged raping, but that aspect of Viking culture got blown way out of proportion by Christian propaganda. Raids and rapes were a normal occurence during war at that time, and sadly are until today. Armies of Christian nations also did it, often more so. Viking culture was not more rape-happy than any other European culture at that time.
It's similar with the caribou. One could say that caribou really are the Vikings among cervines. See, among all cervine subspecies, the caribou are literally the only one that doesn't have a striking gender dimorphism. Caribou does are not much smaller or weaker than their male counterparts, caribou are literally the only species of cervines whose females grow antlers, and caribou females even take charge of the herd for one third of the year. When confronted with this, non_creepy_nickname will just shrug it off by saying that his caribou are simply different from real life caribou - after all, the ponies are also different from their real life counterpart. The problem with this counter is that it comically misses the point. When it comes to cervines, literally any other choice would have been better for his intents and purposes than caribou.
European Red Deer, for example, are very much like his caribou. The females are only about two thirds the size of the males, much weaker physically, they don't have antlers, and they're literally helpless and need their males for protection against predators. Male red deer keep harems that can be quite large. Plus, bisexuality is common to the point of being normal among red deer as well, just like it is among non_creepy_nickname's caribou. Real world red deer literally are like non_creepy_nickname's caribou. For all intents and purposes, Fall of Equestria's caribou are red deer who only go by the name "caribou".
Just two examples of non_creepy_nickname not bothering to do research. There are of course many, many more. Once again, I know this has already been said many times. I just felt the need to spell it out once more.
My first thought of response to the first paragraph is that he was likely thinking of the "Bar bar bar bar" barbarians in popular culture, and that's what he based it all off of with a bit of the modern true knowledge getting thrown in. Either that or Native American/aboriginal, and people are /a lot/ more sensitive about that.
I personally believe he just took the idea and ran with it. It not being like the actual thing it was originally based on isn't much of a problem, he's just taking stuff and concepts he likes from it and running with it creating his own culture.
As for the choice of species, Caribou just has quite a better ring to it and was likely chosen for that. You can't say "The Moose" or "The Red Deer" without it sounding funny and odd, yet "The Caribou" has such a ring to it and sound. Of course, the best response probably would have been to create a new name, but that is very difficult.
4097777
I have no issue with that per say. The Mimiga from Rylasasin's and my World War Mimiga project are also a patchwork of different cultures. I'm just saying he could and should have made smarter choices about which cultures to use.
Also, your argument concerning the names is interesting. I guess you might have a point with that.
4097786 As I explained there, the only other cultures he could have taken the "primitive savage" things from are things people would be extremely sensitive about, and might have caused FoE to be even more of a triggering/offending shitstorm than it already is just by existing.
He probably go that idea of said barbarians just from thinking of a classic "fantasy" setting and that popping up, which MLP naturally leads itself too with stuff such as griffons and the like.
4097786 I'd have gone with Red Caribou; a hybrid of Caribou and Red Deer m'self. (Wait, can such hybrids exist? IRL??
)
4097793 Very likely not, at the most it'd create something like mules.
Red Caribou kind of just sidesteps the point, most of anyone would drop the "Red" and there's no reason for it to be there. Still mostly Caribou in name :/. Just make up a totally new name from scratch.
4097791
Well, now that you say fantasy cultures: One fantasy race that immediately springs to mind are Orcs. Orcs are frequently used as villains in Hentai, but more serious fantasy settings also often present them as strongly male-dominated. I guess one could say that in today's fantasy, the very concept of an Orc is a representation of what could be called "toxic masculinity". It's most obvious in Das Schwarze Auge's setting, where the Orcs really are almost exactly like Fall of Equestria's caribou, except less fetishy and more war-like - even up to the gender dimorphism, and the megalomaniac leader who thinks of himself as a living deity.
But then again, you'd have to find an anthropomorphic animal equivalent of Orcs, which is in no way easy. Still, any other race of cervids would have been a better choice than caribou.
4097802 Indeed, now that my brain isn't stuck in real-life things.,Orcs definitely would have been a good choice....
4097806
Well, they don't really fit the MLP setting. As I said, you'd have to find (or make up) an animal equivalent of them.
4097809 Sure, you could have deer that were somehow corrupted setting the whole thing off :P
4097811
4097809 Minotaurs.
4097811
Believe me, you weren't the first one with that idea.
4097815
Minotaurs would work excellently.
4097815 Indeed, Even better so much! :3
4097817
4097821 With, maaaaybe, the exception of Iron Will (him and his seminars...)
4097823
Well... sort of. Iron Will, while not misogynistic, can still be seen as a strawman version of an extraverted dominant male. Which is what non_creepy_nickname is looking for.
4097824 Hence my maaaaaaybe. Maybe we could have the 'taurs dominate many, or all, of the cervid subspecies too BEFORE the ponies. Y'know, some hardcore indoctrination goes a long way.
4097827
Hmmmm....
4097831 You likey, or no?
4097838
I like it and find it interesting.
4097853 All we need to do now is figure out conquest tactics, how the indoctrination would work, and how the combined forces could stand a chance against the ponies before a Fall could even be conceivable.
Not sure if it's really necessary, but I found two photos online that show the difference nicely.
Here we have Red Deer. Two does, one hart in the background.
666kb.com/i/dbmv3sez0h7sx0veo.jpg
And here we have Caribou. One bull, three cows behind him.
666kb.com/i/dbmv485pr0s3q1dds.jpg
4097802 I may be more of a 40k fan here, but the sudden thought of a WAAAAAGH sweeping over Equestria to cause the Fall struck me as a hilarious, terrifying, and somewhat justified faction to use.
Consider the fact that Equestria is utterly choked with magic. Every fucking person has magic in some form that they can manifest. There is one form of magic that we have seen time and time again that no one seems to understand how the fuck it works, in canon no less: Pinkie Pie's magic.
Now, apart from the possibility that she actually does have Crazy Prepared caches of random shit all over the place in case of emergency, there is the aerodynamic impossibility of her pedal chopper. Despite the fact that it shouldn't be able to fly, it does because it's Pinkie Pie.
Orks, in the same token, regularly create weapons, vehicles, and armor that are structural and mechanical nightmares, and not in the good way. They don't work like they do in Ork hands if any other race tries to use them, meaning that they are basically scrap. However, this is because Ork magic works on the 'Clap Your Hands If You Believe' Principle: if an Orc believes that a stealth mission can be carried out by simply painting his boyz purple "CUZ PURPLE IS DA SNEEKIEST," which is backed by the logic of "when have you ever seen an army wearing purple?", you would never see them coming.
Though they seem to be simple creatures, they are more cunning than most factions would give them credit for.
As such the sheer unpredictablity of Ork magic, coupled with the sheer destructive force of a WAAAAAGH!, poses a more credible threat to Equestria than the Caribou. Bone magic can be studied and countered. Ork magic? Not so much.
4226273
FoE was designed to be a slavery porn setting, not just an invasion setting. I don't know too much about W40K, but from what I understand, Slaanesh or the Dark Eldar would fit that purpose much better than the Orks.
Right now, I don't really see what your comment even has to do with FoE to begin with. It seems to me you just want W40K crossover fiction. That's fine, but then why not just write your own thing?
4226289 To be fully honest, I more or less going off on a tangent because Orcs were mentioned, sparked in part by a bit of a 40k lore binge I'm on right now for an entirely different project.
The hilarious thing about your (entirely accurate) observation regarding my irreverent tangent is that during this lore binge I actually considered a 40k/FoE cross parody where Dainn's regime got the attention of Slaneesh. Or, for even more heresy, birthed an Equestrian Slaneesh.
Anyway, sorry for getting off the topic.
4226469
Well, the Orcs in 40k are an unusual case anyway. They're quite a bit different from the Orks in most other fantasy settings. I guess the closest version from another setting are Warcraft's Orcs, but then again, Warcraft took inspiration from Warhammer Fantasy (just like Starcraft took quite a bit of inspiration from 40k). I was refering to the Orks in Das Schwarze Auge, who are really quite a bit different.
Incidentally, this is not too far away from something I'm going to do in my story. I'm not exactly going for a Slaanesh-esque entity, but... well, you'll see.
4226509
I'll have to add that to my reading list, along with every known appearance of Gilgamesh.
Oh, I shall look forward to it.
4226524
Das Schwarze Auge is actually a German tabletop RPG system that has existed for 25 years - but the first full English translation will only come out October this year. There are novels, of course, but I'm not sure if they will be translated any time soon.
4226691 Hmm. Duly noted.
4097791 Well, there's also the Huns and the Mongols, if you want classic, bloodthirsty barbarian types.
4097802
Yep, like the two I just mentioned above my reply to you.
4496059
Why does the name Rutherford suddenly pop into my head?
That said, FoE's caribou are actually not classic barbarian types. For starters, they seem to have a strong aversion against killing. They don't like killing a female because they probably see it as a failure, and they also don't like killing a male because males have rights (or something like that). That's why they invent things like switching and blanking (although I think the latter was invented by brainwashed ponies, not by the caribou directly). They also don't seem to be particularly good at combat, and their armament is geared more towards crowd control and rounding up unarmed civilians than towards taking on an armed and trained fighting force.
4496867 I dunno.
Hmmm, good point.