Musings: Of Suns and Flowers. Can Sun's Setting be improved? · 8:23pm Aug 2nd, 2017
Warning: This essay contains minor spoilers for G.R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series. This doesn’t really concern the famous TV adaptation, so if you only watch the show, reading on should be safe. But if you still want to read the books, proceed with caution.
At least to me personally, among all the bad Fall of Equestria stories out there, Twipet’s Sun’s Setting particularly stands out. Not because it is particularly bad - there are far worse stories out there, both among classical canon Fall stories (e.g. Fall of the Resistance, Turning a Page), but also among the different variants of non-canon stories. Sun’s Setting stands out to me because of the degree to which it wastes potential. A story like Fall of the Resistance doesn’t have any discernible potential to begin with. There is no good idea behind it to be redeemed. It’s a train wreck from the very onset. However, I feel this isn’t exactly the case for Sun’s Setting. The characters have potential to make for an interesting story, but the execution is just bad. As a matter of fact, I used to like this story quite a bit, before I began noticing the glaring flaws in its execution.
In order to prove the point, I would like to compare the main character from Sun’s Setting to a character from a far better story, namely G.R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series. Said character is only a very minor side character, and she doesn’t appear in the Game of Thrones TV show at all (probably for the better). Comparing her to Sunny will show a few surprising similarities, but comparing and contrasting the way their stories are set up will also help us to get a better grasp on a few things that Sun’s Setting does wrong.
The first time we meet Falia Flowers in A Feast for Crows is right after the Ironborn (a nation of raiders with a vaguely viking touch) under the command of King Euron Greyjoy conquer a small island called Shield Island, until then ruled by Lord Humfrey Hewett. Falia Flowers is a bastard daughter of Lord Hewett and a common servant girl, and just like her mother, she is also a servant girl in the employ of Lord Hewett. Two things are highly implied from the very start: She is probably treated fairly badly by her half-sisters, and she is envious about their wealth and position, which she has to observe every day without being able to participate in it. This all changes when the Ironborn conquer Shield Island.
The first time we actually meet her, the Shield Islands are conquered, and Euron Greyjoy is holding a banquet for his men in the main hall of the castle. Lord Hewett is tied to a chair, with a radish (the sigil of House Hewett) in his mouth as a gag, and his wive and legitimate daughters made to serve the men, while Euron takes Falia as his lover. It is actually Falia who suggests to him to strip down her half-sisters and their mother and force them to serve the men in the nude, to which he agrees. She herself gets to pick a dress of her choice from the wardrobes of her half-sisters and their mother. Later, Victarion (Euron’s brother) finds Falia naked, peacefully sleeping in Euron’s bed, his brother lying beside her, likewise nude. It should also be noted that we learn in a later chapter that Humfrey Hewett was beheaded by Euron in the course of the evening, probably right before Euron and Falia had their fun. As for Hewett’s other daughters and wife, they’re probably sold into slavery by Euron.
We meet Falia Flowers twice more in the pre-released chapters of A Winds of Winter. In the first instance, she willingly serves food to Aeron, another brother of Euron who is rather critical of his brother’s antics. Aeron tells her to get away from Euron as fast as she can. Falia tells him that Euron has promised her that he will make her one of his wives, that she and Daenerys will be like sisters once Euron marries her as well, and that Euron will give her lots of jewelry and fancy dresses once he has conquered Westeros. Aeron warns her that the gifts of his brother are pure poison, but she doesn’t listen.
We meet her once more at a later point, when Euron sentences Aeron to death for treason, and has him lashed to the prow of his flagship, the Silence. Aeron finds a pregnant Falia tied up next to him. Euron has cut out her tongue and she’s in tears, completely broken. The Winds of Winter isn’t out yet, but it is implied that neither Aeron nor Falia will survive this ordeal. (In an earlier version of the chapter, Falia also had her arms and legs cut off.)
There are a few apparent similarities between Sunny and Falia. They both have a rather bad relationship to their own families (possibly somewhat justified in Falia’s case, though not to that degree - and completely unwarranted in Sunny’s), and they both end up selling them out. They both have romantic feelings towards a complete monster, and although Euron manages to be far more convincing (and also a lot more competent), he and Vestri can be seen as similar characters. In both cases, their romantic feelings reach the point of outright delusion - and these delusions actually fairly similar when you think about it. Take Falia’s statement that she and Daenerys are going to be like sisters, replace Dany with Celestia (which really isn’t too much of a stretch), and you essentially get something Sunny could have said. Another similarity is the fact that both Sunny and Falia seem to take delight in humiliating and degrading others, even with a sexual component. In case of Sunny, this is easily shown in the zebra evaluation scene in the first chapter of A Change of Events. In case of Falia, we see it with her suggested treatment of her half-sisters and their mother.
Now let’s contrast these stories and see why one of them works and the other doesn’t. First of all, it should be mentioned that Falia is just a very minor side character, and we never get a chapter from her PoV. This alone is an advantage in my opinion. While having a story from the PoV of a character who is highly deluded to the point of self-destruction can be interesting, it is also really difficult to pull off convincingly.
Judging from Twipet’s statements and reactions in the comment section and in the forums, she wants readers to empathize with Sunny, one way or another, and she also wants Sun’s Setting to be a genuine romance story. In the Main group, she plays up the kink aspect of Sunny, while in Post-Fall (back when she was still active in the group), she tried to present Sunny as a victim with little choice, trying to get people to pity her. Sunny herself constantly oscillates between these two extremes. And yet, Sunny gets everything she wants. Judging by A Change of Events, she’s the most pampered little pet in the entire kingdom. Even her so-called “punishment” is underwhelming compared to what is done to others. The one thing she doesn't ever manage to get is the pity or sympathy of a critical reader.
From the very beginning, G.R.R. Martin consciously, intentionally and deliberately sets up Falia as an unlikeable character. And yet at the end, we feel something like pity for her. When it comes down to it, she is just a young girl, barely an adult (she’s 19 at the point of her death), and deeply deluded. Her romantic delusions are even similar to those of a few other, more likeable characters in the books - e.g. Sansa Stark. But while Sansa gets a chance to overcome her romantic delusions in the books, Falia doesn’t. Her reality check ends with her death.
The story of Falia Flowers is a cautionary tale, with a character deliberately set up as unlikeable - but it still evokes pity in the readers. Sun’s Setting tries to be a romance, but precisely because the character is set up in a similar way, and on top of that includes an inner monologue that constantly begs for pity, it completely fails to make the female lead likeable.
Am I suggesting killing Sunny off in order to make her likeable? No. Or at least not necessarily. I do think that in order to turn Sun’s Setting into a good story, one would have to rework it from scratch. If you divorce it from FoE canon completely, killing Sunny and making it a cautionary tale could work, but it might not be the best option. The option I propose is another one though. It’s simply not necessary to make Sunny likeable to begin with. What I propose is simply adding more self-awareness to the story. Rewriting the story while keeping in mind that Sunny is a villain might work best. Note that I do believe that Sunny is a bad person from the very beginning - so this wouldn’t be a descent story à la Darth Vader. Rather, it would show her going from “merely” a bad, unlikeable person to becoming a monster among monsters. The company she keeps will constantly reinforce and extend the bad character traits and tendencies she already has, putting her on this path. You will probably need a “good” character to contrast her with though. (If I ever write Eadgil’s backstory, I might include Sunny as a side character. At the time of Lindisbarne, Eadgil is still one of Vestri’s men after all, so they will probably have enough opportunity to bump into each other. The story would then contrast the descent of a mare to full Quisling with the story of a caribou who slowly distances himself from his people. In a way, this would put Eadgil in a similar position to Aeron, though unlike Aeron, he of course also won't end up getting killed.)
the thing of it is, FOE is suppose to be kinky sexy stuff (whether it is or not is up to the reader). a FOE told "seriously" however, would be a dark and bleak story.
tbh, if FOE was a plot taken seriously i wouldn't have ever wanted to read it. noncon and slavery portrayed in a realistic manner will give me an anxiety attack lol. normal FOE is like a bad hentai: nonsensical sex and utterly ridiculous character/villains.
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Actually, Twipet once said that she can't write clop scenes very well, and I'm fairly certain she also said somewhere that clop is not the main reason why she writes FoE. If you look at A Change of Events and A Mare's Hearth's Warming Tale, and the surprisingly small amount of clop scenes in those stories given their length, that might very well be the case. From what I understand and judging from some of her comments, she sees her stories primarily as character-driven contributions to FoE's world building and only secondarily as clop fodder.
That aside, the thing is this: If FoE was only clop fodder, why bother with things like character-driven storytelling and world-building in the first place? There is a reason why I don't criticize DickDastardly's FoE stories, like Rarity: Learning One's Worth or Twilight: The Freedom of Confinement. His stories actually are nothing but clop fodder, and they neither try nor pretend to be anything else. If you compare these stories to Twipet's, you'll immediately see the difference. Twipet's stories clearly do attempt to be more than just clop, and this attempt can be criticized, and in my opinion should be. I believe criticizing existing works can at least help new writers to avoid mistakes, and at best even helps the writers that are being criticized - although that's unlikely in this case, since Twipet can't stand me and afaik doesn't bother reading my stuff at all any more. Personally, I'm thankful for having people who read my own stories with a critical eye.
I never got much into GoT. To me, it's a mess of characters I don't care about at best or seriously dislike at worst. There are some interesting things to look at with the overall lore, but everything in between is one big heap of blegh or meh.
I strongly disagree that Sunrise needs to be written into a villain, or that she's even unlikeable. She's trying to avoid torture. And the worst of "selling out" was telling the others not to run or they'd be tortured (which does then happen) or make a spectacle of her obedience while she had a collar mess with her brain.
No, Sunrise isn't a saint. She's no hero. She's fearful, and a little selfish, and she's scared out of her mind. I'll take the Sunrise from that story over Daenerys any day of the week. Of course, that's just my personal opinion.
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Seriously? Read up the first chapter of Sun's Setting again. She is introduced as a character who literally bitches about everything and looks down on everyone. I can quote from her inner monologue if you want to. And that's before she's taken by Vestri. I'm not saying she already acts villainous, but she's far from being likeable.
You seem to forget quite a few things - like how she collared her mother, for example. And that's just Sun's Setting. If you go into Twipet's other stories, it becomes even more obvious.
As for the mind control collar, there are a few other things that don't add up about Sunny's account, but aside from that and far more importantly, there is one extremely glaring narrative flaw with it. Let me explain.
We have to ask one question here: What even is the narrative purpose of the mind control collar? It adds nothing to the world-building, because it didn't even work. It adds nothing to Sunny's character arc, it outright retroactively makes a good part of it completely irrelevant. And it also adds nothing to the plot. So why is it in the story in the first place? I have to be blunt here. I may be wrong, but there are a few things that make me think Twipet made up the mind control collar because some readers started calling Sunny out for her actions in the previous chapters, and she wanted to give Sunny a get-out-of-jail-free card for her actions.
It would work better narratively and it would make more sense if the mind control collar was just something Sunny made up to excuse her actions. There are quite a few things that don't add up about her account, and it is quite convenient that it didn't work, that Sunny is the only pony who even knows about it and that all evidence was destroyed. I would like to think that Sunny realized that the entire town hated her, and then made it up in order to justify it. It wouldn't be the only time Sunny has made up excuses on the fly.
A little selfish? That's a little bit of an understatement. I could quote examples of how she makes any issue she comes across about her, either actively or at least in her own inner monologue. Her priorities are warped to the point where they're both selfish and incredibly petty, almost to the point of satire. At some points, it seems like the only thing she cares about are her dresses and jewelry. At some other points, it seems like she's really into Vestri and what he does, to the point where she openly cooperates with him - and then she goes back to being shocked and frightened. She wants to be loved by everybody even though she doesn't hide that she doesn't care for most other people at all. Sometimes even in the same sentence.
The first chapter also heavily implies that she's a gold digger, by the way. And that's before she's taken.
She also seems to be either deluded or a massive liar. Take the first chapter, for example - how much of her alleged backstory doesn't make sense. Did she have three partners before, or was she still a virgin? The first chapter of Sun's Setting flipflops back and forth between these two contradicting accounts, and both are given by Sunny herself. And this doesn't stop in the later chapters. As a matter of fact, her internal monologue is so inconsistent at times that sometimes, I seriously can't tell how it even connects to the actual events. As I see it Sunny either suffers from some kind of schizophrenia or pathological delusion, or she's a liar.
Maybe I could have gone into more detail about how the way she's portrayed is simply massively inconsistent. In a way, it isn't even so much about writing her as a villain. Twipet already does that sometimes, but as I said, not consistently. It's more about picking one version of her character and then sticking to it, instead of giving her half a dozen contradicting characteristics that don't even form a consistent whole.
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Things like potentially having been a gold digger did fall back in my mind compared to the sheer horror she experienced later.
Consistent? See, that read to me like Sunrise trying different methods to avoid more pain. I'll also admit I may have missed some narrative inconstancies and writing mistakes.
It shows the Caribou experimenting on their captives. That's worldbuilding right there. Saying it isn't is like saying Chrysalis' throne wasn't because it's only there to nullify all the characters' magic. Except for Thorax's, of course. And the Caribou never stopped trying to mess with the mares' brains, or the stallions' for that matter.
I'm sorry, I really am, but I still don't share the idea that she needs a massive overhaul. More consistency? Yeah, maybe that. Just be careful not to write her too flat then. And... careful not to mix dislike for the author in with dislike for the character.
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Far-fetched. Why would they only test it on Sunny? The story also doesn't emphasize that point enough. The entire scene is specifically about Sunny, not about what the caribou do to ponies in general.
Aside from that, Sunny's behavior doesn't even actually change in any significant way after the collar is removed. She still openly argues that they shouldn't try to resist the caribou, and she still obeys Vestri. What exactly did the mind control collar even do? It didn't make her do anything she doesn't effectively continue doing after having it removed. Judging by her reaction in chapter 3 (I just read up on it again), it seemed to calm her down - she goes from calm to panic the moment it's removed. So it does seem to affect her emotional state. But that's not the same as controlling her thoughts, and her thoughts about the caribou or herself didn't seem to change in any significant way. So is it actually a mind control collar, or just a calm charm?
This does make me wonder... did they remove it because someone who's calm is more difficult to scare?
No, because Chrysalis' throne actually served a purpose in the narrative of the episode. It may be contrived, but it has a purpose. I am not yet convinced that this is the case with the mind control collar.
It's also defective. That's the point of the letter in the next chapter. It didn't fully control her thoughts, and prolonged use would've risked making her comatose. They probably didn't think a slave in a coma was desirable.
Foreshadowing isn't a purpose? Or to show how depraved your villain is? I thought the scene with Sombra's mindslave army was fairly effective.
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Yes, and the fact that it was defective actually makes its narrative purpose even more dubious. We have a story element here, but no good idea how it even actually affected the events of the story. And it doesn't even set up a mystery either, because every information that could help to solve it is destroyed without recovery.
That would only work as a purpose if the corrupted Crystal Heart wasn't already introduced in the overall narrative of FoE. You can't really foreshadow something that all your readers already know about. Now of course, there is such a thing as prequels giving a nod to the original series, like the plans for the Death Star appearing at the end of Revenge of the Sith, for example. But that doesn't work here either, because in order for something like that to work, the connection has to be apparent for anyone who knows the original, and there is no apparent direct connection between the mind control collar and the Crystal Heart. It might have been intended as a nod, but it doesn't actually work as a nod. Now you could say that this was simply a blunder - but that would leave you with the three alternatives that the mind control collar either has no narrative purpose; or that it has a purpose which is a narrative mistake; or that it has a meaningful purpose, but doesn't actually serve that purpose. In all three cases, the result is that the story would work better without it.
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Sun's Setting also effectively ended before anything could be resolved. I know, I know, weak excuse.
By the way, I'm not yet totally sure why Falia "works". The story around her sounds... well, boring? Or maybe just not interesting? To be fair, that's the sense I get with most of GoT.
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Well, I guess one point to mention again is that the story isn't even around her. She's only a minor side character. This story arc of ASoIaF is primarily about the three brothers Euron, Victarion, and Aeron.
That said, Falia's individual story works as a cautionary tale. She is given several warnings with regards to Euron, and she is also given several opportunities to get away - but she doesn't take them. Do you see a parallell here?
One reason why I can't empathise with Sunny is because she never really suffers consequences for her actions. Even the mind control collar only serves the one single narrative purpose of absolving her of any responsibility.
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Ah, I see. And I do understand that feeling, yes. Are you familiar with the Schadenfreude stories on this site? The protagonist is a rampant asshole to almost everyone, but hardly ever suffers any meaningful consequences. I never got why this guy is so beloved, especially since he almost never feels an ounce of guilt for anything.
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Don't know them, sorry. But it does seem to be what I'm talking about.
I guess such a character can work if he's played for laughs, like Eric Cartman, for example. Or if he's explicitly a villain, but even then it can cause problems - after all, the caribou themselves are a prime example.
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For laughs. He's that special kind of petty who drops trash next to the garbage bin when he sees a janitor. Not evil, but out to be a dick as much as possible, and shielded from any serious harm because Celestia loves him being a dick to everyone.
As for the Caribou. Yes. I agree. That's not new for me either. Even if they always win in the end, seeing them work and struggle more to get there would be more satisfying.
Anyway, about Sunrise, I'm wondering what would happen if one went in the opposite direction of what you noted. Make things more consistent by eliminating the more questionable aspects of her character not directly related to the Invasion. Just as a thought experiment. We already disagree about how much she came across as a bad person, and one solution you offered was tilting her in the 'bad' direction more obviously. Would the opposite even work? Personally, I think it could, with careful execution.
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Of course the idea of making her into a "better" person could work, but that would mean that she would have to be held responsible for her actions. The problem we have here is that when it comes down to it, it would be easier to to make her into a full blown villain then it would be to make her into something likeable. Even if you want to say she is a victim in the state of panic, she is a terribly ugly person hiding behind a pretty face.
I would like to go into detail in this, but allow me to say some things before I do, since you brought it up earlier. Do I dislike the author of this story? Yes. In fact I would compare Twipet to "human garbage", and not because they write FoE stories, as I don't see any of the other FoE people in this manner. However, one is capable of separating an author from their works, just like how one can know that Frank Miller is a sexist bastard, and still enjoy Sin City or Robocop, or whatever other things he has created over the years. I'll admit that this will be harder to do see as the two main character, Sunrise and Vestri, are both fairly blatant self inserts of the same person (made clearer when one learns that Twipet is a guy who like to pretend he's a girl online), but I can still look at the story objectively, and observe the characters in a bottle in order to see their flaws. I will also admit that it has been a while since I read Twipet's story, and that I haven't read the later parts more thoroughly, but I have read enough that I feel i can make a decent analysis on the character.
Firstly, we do have to look at our initial experience to Sunrise's character through her introduction, which is admittedly poor. The first thing we learn about her is that she has gone to her parents hometown in order to participate in some celebration (assumed to be a local one), and that she would rather be anywhere else at the time. Here first thoughts are essentially a complaint, which instantly gives off a negative connotation about her character. She expresses that she is surrounded by people that she finds boring, or probably even hates on some level, that being her immediate family. This is something that can be seen as relate-able, sure, as I despise my family more than life itself, but it marks her as a person who has little tolerance for others. This is the first establishment of Sunrise's character, and never really rises from here.
Not only that, but Sunrise seems to be disgusted by Lindisbarne in general, comparing the city and it's people to Canterlot constantly, and never in a positive light. It makes one question why Sunrise even bothered to go if she considers it so much of an inconvenience, but of course the reasons for this become more clear when you put in "For sake of the plot" as an excuse. Of course one would then ask why not use a character from Lindisbarne then, so they would have more of a reason to be there, but to explain that one must know that Twipet originally intended to write a Rarity story, but then was vetoed by another contributor who didn't want Twipet touching the character (Sunny Nights). So swapping around a few tings, Twipet created "Not Rarity" to keep from wasting her already written out work.
Anyways, from this point on, Not Rarity goes out of her way not to interact with her family. In fact, the only moment her parents even appear is near the end of the first chapter, even though there was an ample amount of time to meet up with them before her capture, and they are supposedly the only reason she is in Lindisbarne to begin with. We find that she is much more interested in the party, the only interesting thing in town from her depiction, and the caribou upon arrival, because she wants something to gossip about when she gets back to Canterlot. Not Rarity goes as far as to try and spy on them to get more gossip information, adding another negative trait to her: She's a snoop.
This act causes her to be captured immediately, and conveniently by one of the top caribou, who then makes her his personal pet for no other reason aside from "she was there". One could say he thought she was to prettiest mare in town or something, but Vestri's reasons for keeping Not Rarity later never evolve beyond these shallow reasons, as he certainly doesn't care at all about her overall usefulness. Had she not been there, he would have simply picked someone else as his slave, and they would have been treated exactly the same.
Once dragged to the king, and stripped of her clothing, she assumes that she is going to be put on trial or some similar nonsense for spying, and this is where I will stop using the "Not Rarity" nickname for her, because this is the point that she is specifically not Rarity, as Rarity would be in outrage over her man handling, stripping, and proceeding sexual abuse, and not thinking that this was some sort of appropriate punishment crime against the caribou, because Rarity doesn't have Sunrise's third negative trait: That she's stupid.
From here, Sunrise is dragged out into the open completely naked, and we start to see where this story becomes less of a recounting of an experience from Sunrise (as it is suppose to be, because I cheated and looked at the first chapter again to see that this story has an opening narration from Sunrise herself), and more of her displaying her fourth negative trait: That she lies. How does she lie, you might ask? Well she goes out of her way to depict members of the ponies as assholes, who apparently don't care if a pony is being paraded around naked with a chain around her neck, encouraging this incredibly unusual behavior and calling her a harlot when she clearly in a state of distress (from her recounting of the tale at least). I don't know about you, but if such a thing happened in my town, it would be shocking for sure, but I don't think it would have gone so smoothly for Vestri. That aside, Sunrise never tries to call for help in this, and even goes out of her way to hide herself when help tries to come for her, which tells me that there is more to this than what Sunrise wants us to believe.
This is all in the first chapter, and as we proceed throughout the story we find more signs that Sunrise is not a likable person. When an entire town is suffering, she takes a shower and makes a sandwich. When the townies try to escape, she does nothing to help them. When they are appropriately upset with her for helping the caribou recapture them, she uses racial slurs against them (this happened without the "excuse collar" BTW). She demonizes others to bring them down, while always justifying her own actions. Her inner monologue is always about how scared and terrified she is, and how "OMG, did I just think that out loud, something must be wrong with me, but I'll just keep thinking it", but her outward actions say the complete opposite. And when she doesn't have her excuse collar on, and there is finally a time where she can show some form of good quality, she spills every known secret about the mane six and the princesses that she has knowledge about for "reasons" because no, it doesn't make sense that she would know THAT much about the mane six and the princesses and their activities, no matter how "popular" or "well known" in universe at the time, especially for a pony who apparently only cares about herself and what others think of her.
Now that all that is out of the way, I would like to bring up one other topic. The excuse collar. Can we think of this logically for a minute. So... from what we are to understand here is that from the moment Sunrise was captured and collared in her initial stripping, she was given a collar that controlled her actions to make it that she didn't try to resist, which then is assumed to be the reason she does all the things she does till it is removed, which I believe happens in the "Last" chapter. First off, we have to ask why this exists? I mean, caribou appear to assume that females are naturally submissive to begin with, and just love sex so much that there would be no need for mind control. This thing even precedents the concepts of black collars in the story, so what purpose does this collar serve to the caribou at the moment of its creation.
Ok, ok, perhaps they had seen that the mares were not exactly "right", and wanted a precaution just in case. Then why does it seem that ONLY Sunrise gets one? If the others got them too, then they clearly don't work cause everyone else in Lindisbarne hates what's happening and is actively trying to escape. Then again, we can establish that these collars are in an experimental stage, since they haven't perfected the brainwashing magic yet, and they still feel it important to make those stupid pain collars to keep mares in check (again, why not just put them all in the excuse collars for more experiments).
On that note, if they truly never used these before (and will never use them again), then how did they invent them immediately upon discovering Equestria? Do caribou have the ability to spontaneously invent new magical tech that they never branched out to before on the fly? I suppose so, since they seem to be able to block out Luna's dream walking abilities, despite assuredly never encountering such an ability before. If that is the case though, how are they suppose to know the supposed side effects of this collar without testing. You said that it could send mares into a coma (I thought it was just that it could cause brain damage, which makes your reason more legitimate, as what do caribou care about that?), but did Sunrise show any symptoms of this? Did she pass out all of a sudden, or did she just act like her normal self? See as it was probably the latter, how did they find out it could do this? Did they just thing to themselves one day "Well this shows no signs of being dangerous, and our test subject is showing perfect results, but let's stop this because comas exist and thus are a potential threat to all situations ever", did they give her a CAT scan everyday or give her extra close observation (by letting her walk around town unattended while binding and imprisoning literally everyone else), or did they read the script and see "this is the moment you completely absolve Sunrise of her crimes".
Here is the kicker to all this (I say paying two extra black mana). If the caribou have determined that these collars, which are a form of mind control that the caribou have access to, and have not, nor will ever perfect for the sake of Black Collars needing to be a thing in the universe, are a danger to those who are affected by them, then why in Celestia giant blue ovaries do they use the Crystal Heart? Think of it. This is the first time they fuck with mind control to get people to think the way they do. It is so dangerous that they discontinue it because the mare they tested it on might go into a coma. Then later down the line, they steal the Crystal Heart, and use either the same dangerous spell, or a separate, likewise untested spell to try and corrupt the artifact, this time attempting it on MEN. They couldn't have eventually perfected their previous mind control abilities, because then they could just reinstate the excuse collars, now that they work, so they are just throwing caution to the wind and endangering all of Equestria "because".
So what do we believe here? That the caribou are mind numbingly (in a literal sense now) stupid, or... that Sunrise made it up to save her own bacon from pissed off black collars? Personally, seeing her personality, and following logic, it is far more believable to assume that Sunrise lied about it, and with it, has lied about many other things. To assume otherwise... well...
And this is why it is impossible to make Sunrise a better character, as the character itself is downright vile when you don't look at her with "I want to like you" goggles. She's uppity, conniving, racist, opportunistic, unsympathetic towards others while demanding sympathy for herself, and in the end doesn't care what happens to anyone else, just so long as she in ok and gets what she wants. These traits only become more evident "in time", as she becomes more and more obvious with them when she realizes she can do as she pleases, and never suffer the consequences of her actions (with both "A change of Events" and "Bruised Apples" showing how petty and uncaring she can be). The best thing for her would to be to make her a full blow villain, rubbing her hands together as she's plotting out her next scheme to be more in the caribou's favor, and increase the amount of rewards she receives from them. To try to make people sympathize with her is to try and make one sympathize with a sociopath, which you can do, but that probably means that person is a sociopath themselves.
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I'm assuming that last sentence is specifically in the case of writing her as a full villain from the get-go? I don't feel all that sociopathic, and I didn't see as many serious flaws in her character as the two of you when I read it.
That being said, you make some good points. I also agree that something like the experimental collar needed a follow-up of some kind. Even the Crystal Heart Corruption, at least as I envisioned it, left far less gaps.
Your explanation shows writing Sunny as a more positive character might be more hassle than it's worth. Maybe going with a massive Cost Sunk Fallacy, if she tried to blunt the Caribous' worst excesses, collaborating with them in an effort to keep them away from the mainland, and having a massive breakdown at the end once it becomes clear she only helped them take over the rest of Equestria. In that case, it would be essential to show she is lying to herself.
I had not known about the Rarity part. It makes a lot of sense. As well, that would've been a part Fleur-De-Lis could've played just as much; from everything we've seen, she was conceptualised to be the true quisling. Weird they didn't use her for it.
4668082
You know what's really ironic about this idea? From what I understand, that actually is an appropriate description of Rarity's individual story and role in the invasion in FoE canon.
But yeah, Schorl is right. Taking everything villainous away from Sunny would both drastically alter her character and her role in FoE's overall plot. She needs to be written consistently in order for the story to work, and making her an explicit villain seemed to be the easiest way to me.
4668128
No disagreement from me. Writing her as a villain, or a villain in the making, would be far easier and result in a smoother narrative.
Not really surprising. Sunrise is basically trying to be FoE Rarity and FoE Fleur at the same time.