he first issue of the history of Equestria IDW

For the first issue of the new history of Equestria that's replacing friends forever, all I have to say is, "Puke, puke, puke!"

The entire 'becoming Nightmare Moon wasn't REALLY Luna's fault' and 'parasitic third party' appears again.

Puke. Puke. PUKE!!!!

End of story.

Comments

[Jordan179]

In fact the comic makes Luna out to be far more innocent than in either your or my version of her downfall. She's portrayed by IDW as a naive filly accidentally opening a door to a demon dimension where she encounters the Umbras, or something like them. At least my Luna chose to call her Night Shadow.

This is morally and psychologically significant because it is relevant to Luna's feelings of guilt for having become Nightmare Moon and betrayed her sister. In both our versions, Luna's guilt makes sense, as she made an evil choice: if she was merely the victim of demons, then she didn't make an evil choice and hence rationally should not feel guilty about having been Nightmare Moon.

Of course, Luna takes her feelings of guilt too far, even in vanilla canon where she torments herself with the Tantabus. But then any Luna is emotionally-demonstrative, once one gets past her royal reserve and personal shyness. However, Luna is not stupid, and if you mind-controlled her to do something bad, she'd feel bad that it had happened, but would not berate herself for having made a choice where no choice existed.

I do like Starswirl's description of the creatures, though:

Evils that have devoured the light of their own world, and hunger for the taste of a new world ...

... which sounds a lot like my Night Shadows.

[Alex Warlorn]

4501632

It's vile. IMHO? What it reminds me of? The idea of someone needing to be redeemed after they've ben violated! If the show had actually GONE that route and had characters explain to Luna she was simply a victim and shouldn't blame herself for something others did... But the didn't. That isn't the tone we get post Nightmare Moon.

Trixie never stopped being Trixie. Discord never stopped being Discord. And Luna is just as bombastic and dramatic as she was as Nightmare Moon. Sunset was BROKEN by the ending of the first movie (a friend points out that she's CRYING during her TF and for a bit during it in spite of her sadistic and deadly intent).

Starlight Glimmer... you could replace her actions with Tirek's for all the difference it makes for her new personality, her equality philosophy hasn't just gone poof, besides a background image of a crossed out equality mark in her bedroom, it's like it NEVER EXISTED, and she CONQUERED a town rather than founded one and gather ponies with her promises of a equal world, and that she was out to Conquer The World then live like the Roman Emperors rather than drag everypony down to the lower common denominator. Seriously, the way she basically describes her former lifestyle as Evil Incarnate you think she drained foals for their youth or something. What she did was terrifying, but there's no subtlety or nuance to it, okay, kids' show, I get it, but you could replace her backstory with the Maniac's with how she goes on about herself being evil.

I think the creators of the MLP cartoon don't seem to notice that in the seven years the show has been around... their audience has gotten older and are STILL watching the show, and still buying their toys. So they fall back on the narrative trick that existed since at least the 80s cartoons. (And we use it still today, constantly, all around us). The moment you want to make a character sympathy, you move heaven and earth to make her previous evil actions 'not their fault' as much as possible... I suppose I should ALMOST be grateful they didn't at least go that route with Starlight... But describing her previous actions as 'Utterly Evil' is not just STUPID but DANGEROUS! Starlight Glimmer did (at least for a time, it felt like the writers were getting their wires crossed) what she did, because she thought she was helping Ponykind. The fact somepony can do horrible things thinking they're HELPING YOU is a lesson kids IMHO NEED to understand! So just stamping what she did as 100% selfish and evil is bad writing.

This is WHY Discord's big brother, The First Born, in spite of wanting to commit genocide on his family and Celestia's, was NEVER evil! He truly and sincerely believed he was liberating mortals from tyranny! He was the hero, so anyone who was against him had to be the villain. If a fanfic hobbyist like me can do the "truly good person doing truly horrible things for someone's 'own good'" thing, like can't paid professional writers? It's NOT that uberly complex a concept that you can't show it on kid's TV!