WWBP: Sacrifice · 9:47am Oct 4th, 2017
So there was a competition called "Rarity is Trash" and it gave you five thousand words to refute the statement. Obviously I took umbrage to that, so I swore a lot and mashed a keyboard for three weeks to quadruple that word limit and write "The Price of Happily Ever After".
It's not getting many comments, but the reception seems to be pretty positive, so I guess I'll talk about some important themes writing it. Spoilers, obviously, after this line.
So first is GhostOfHeraclitus's alternative ending, which I'm rather delighted by; In it, Rarity loses nothing, Bagel gets his comeuppance, everyone lives happily ever after except Bagel who is largely a carbonized smear. Great. Fantastic! We talked about it while I was brainstorming this at him, because on top of being an amazing human being, he makes for a brilliant rubber duck.
Anyway. Why didn't I do that then? Rarity has enough friends in high places, and Equestria should by idyllic enough, that Rarity shouldn't have to face consequences for doing the right thing, right?
I admit, it would have made for a happier story. But the point of this story is what Rarity values, and what she's willing to lose, to do the right thing. The significance of it is lost if she reasonably believes she'll face no consequences for her actions: And because she's the protagonist, this means I can't show that to the audience either. When an audience sees a character get a way out, no matter how out-of-their-control or deserved it is, the problem is it implants the realization there was always a way out.
For this story to work, to convey the meaning I needed, Rarity had to suffer the consequences she established for herself, or those sacrifices would lose poignancy in the eyes of the audience.
Why was that important, then?
Well, something that frustrates Monochromatic a lot - who has very strong opinions on why Rarity is amazing, and who in turn is also amazing, check their stuff out - is that she was talking to me about how people just see Rarity as a manipulative social climber; She values society more than her friends, her ambitions are shallow or superficial, she's histrionic...
This was as direct a refutation of this as I feel I could make.
We largely see that because the show tackles ambition and gain; What is Rarity willing to sacrifice to achieve her ambitions? When we see that, we see her push her friends and herself as far as possible, only to stop at the last minute when she realizes she's going too far. This is an interesting way to show, but by necessity it emphasizes Rarity's flaws to get to the virtues.
Rarity is, after all, incredibly interesting to the main cast because she is the only character who is a negative character archetype and framework redeemed by virtues, as opposed to a virtuous character given depth with flaws. Thus I feel the show's approach of writing her moral arc the same way as an episode with, say, Twilight or Applejack, can come across as overly harsh.
Here I don't want to show what she's willing to sacrifice to achieve her ambitions; I wanted to show what an incredibly ambitious character would be willing to sacrifice their ambition for.
Because that's really what I think is a more interesting core to her; Rarity is defined by her ambitions and passion. She even occasionally shows a ruthless streak. We know this. We're shown it time and time again.
But we're also shown that other ponies, sometimes ones she hardly knows, are what stop to give her pause, are what make her hold back.
So I thought the best way to show Rarity, then, isn't to do what the show does; Show what she's unwilling to risk to get what she wants. I needed to show how much Rarity was willing to sacrifice - as it turns out, everything - to protect ponies she doesn't even, cannot even know, just on the strength of her principles.
Because Rarity wants to win. But I don't think she accepts that others have to lose, either. And I think it's very much to her credit that we see her value the second a lot more than the first, given we see just how much she cares about the first.
Thanks to ScarletWeather, as well, for framing the question for me on what to write this about. She just released her first fic, which was a meta-mystery erotica, and... I mean if that's something you'd be into, go read The Safety Bell was Silent.
Shoutouts to; Ferret, Cavemonkynick, Horizon, DJthomp, Ariamaki, Hoopy McGee, Serifina, Monarch Dodora, Darkszero, Sarge1995 and whoever I missed.
Like so many things, the story is waiting on me to read it. It and about....4 plus the entire Triptych continuity, at this point. And the trouble is, anything that looks like it will end up depressing me tends to wind up lower on the pile. You can probably blame Bad Horse for that.
While I have enjoyed a fair number of the resulting stories, I have to admit that the premise of this contest kind of offended me. Rarity is trash? What?? If you think that then you understand nothing.
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The premise is that Rarity is *not* garbage. Numbers got the name wrong.
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I suppose to be fair I didn't look deeply into the contest to find out exactly what they were on about, but if I'm remembering correctly the name was "Make Rarity Not Garbage" which kind of implies that she is or that some set of people see her as such.
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I see how that could happen. However, that's not what's meant to be implied. The meaning is that people are *writing* her as garbage.
It's a fine, fine, story, but I would like to point out that I wrote the ending I did not just because I occasionally like to write tiny little commentfics like that to make endings happier, but also because I sort of thought outside the frame of the story. Rarity's arc absolutely demand that she be ruined by her sacrifice because that's how sacrifices work.
But, stepping back, ponies will notice this sort of thing. A lot of ponies. And while Celestia is the sort of pony not to get involved directly, other ponies are more... direct.
So, yes, from the point of view of Rarity (and this is explicitly about her, so you win) she absolutely can't win in the end, not fully. But from point of view of a lot of other ponies like, say, my Heavy Metal Dark Age Luna[1] or, naturally, one D.H. Line she absolutely must win because, well, injustice at this scale rankles and there happens to be one particular person responsible with teeth one can kick in, and gizzards one can remove.
[1] I am besotted with this characterization which takes Luna Eclipsed and runs with it, possibly while screaming a warcry of some sort.
Also: I briefly considered writing a Blues Brothers-esque big-action-y-pile-up type of story where all the people determined to wreak horrible vengeance on Bagel keep running into each other and fighting over who gets to turn him into a fine pink mist.
4686865 Why did you not do this thing? Also, go yell at FoME to include that commentfic in the new Never the Final Word collection.
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I'd be very interested to see how far you could take the good guys bloodlust there, and still have them all come across AS the good guys.i know you could, I'd just love to see it.
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Well nobody would actually plan to murder him for a start[1]. Everyone would also think it's best they do it, 'cause everyone else might get too carried away while they'd only do enough to get the photos and scare him properly. That said, it would be an awful tall cliff to climb. If I did write fanfic of your fanfic long-form I'd actually have the mane six put their heads together and rumble the bastard Mission Impossible style, turning the tables on him utterly.
I'd call it "Revenge is a Dish Best Served With Friends."
[1] Fluttershy would have a stern talking to with him which may or may not cause him to have an aneurysm which is why she's helpfully invited Nurse Redheart along. Rainbow just wants to arrange for him to fail down a flight of punches until he gives up the photos and promises not to do it again. Pinkie's very serious looking and just says that she'll have Professor Wubwubs talk to him for her[2]. Luna is planning to challenge him to a duel and is pretty sure he'll get to live and may be back to feeding himself within as little as a month so. Celestia just wants to ask him politely. While in space. And she's in the resplendent refulgence of her form as the DREAMING SUN. She'll provide the necessary spells to protect him from the harsh vacuum of space and the searing radiance of her true form. If she remembers.
Dotted Line will just point to the little field on the tax return form that says 'money obtained through illegal practices' and smile. It's how they got Al Caponey. And as good as his accountants are, they ain't as good as Sky Scribe.
Twilight won't even talk to him. She'll just brush past him one day and lift the information about the location of the photos clean out of his head. And then, later, when it is nice and quiet she'll come back and leave a little present in his head to be opened at a later date.
Applejack? Applejack was last seen carting a struggling burlap sack deep into the Everfree muttering something about how, well, even Timberwolves need feedin'.
[2] "Do I... do I know Professor Wubwubs, dear? I can't quite... um... remember the, ah face..."
"Silly. Professor Wubwubs doesn't have a face," said Pinkie with an expression of beatific calm.
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I should've guessed I had you to thank for Ghost getting in touch with me before the official announcement. And I do mean "thank;" his PM gave me the kick in the pants needed to read this story.
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I just want to call out Twilight's bit of this and what it implies she's capable of. Because it's amazing.
Dangit, why can't I Like a journal post? Oh well. I'll keep this short because I just wrote a mini dissertation on why I loved the story (I only knew there was another commenter who mentioned it), so I'll let you read that. But it was very nice to read your motivations for writing this story. I wholeheartedly agree with them and was VERY pleased by the result. =)
And then I found this blog post, with even more good reading (and great reasoning), and was even more happy.