The Ghost of J.R.R. Tolkien Is Disappointed In Me

So, I'm trying something new, a layered story-within-a-story, narrator-within-external-narration sort of affair. Trying to see if I can't get some good old fashioned Equestrian harmonic ideology injected into the rebellious heart of my little war-epic. Via allegorical foal-stories told in the kitchen by a captive baker.

So, one part Scheherazade of Tambelon, one part Pony St. Patrick.

I'm not really sure I sold it on the first chapter. It feels like it will be really easy to either go too subtle to be comprehensible, like some of Hemmingway's too-clever-and-dry-by-half short stories, or too goddamn on-the-nose, like a Pony Pilgrim's Progress.