Let's Talk "Vivisecting the Unicorn" · 4:31am Dec 15th, 2018
So I've been reading books on Superman lately for a project I have coming up in the new year and I've come across a term that really sums up the fandom experience for me.
In Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, author Glen Weldon coins a term borne out of the tendency of fans to ask questions about elements of a work that are, in the grand scheme of things, completely inconsequential to the larger work as a whole. In terms of Superman, this is, of course, the age old question "How does Superman putting on glasses actually fool anyone?" The problem with answering this question is that it begins a chain of questions that ultimately unravels the whole concept of Superman by trying to explain everything. How can he fly? How does his heat vision work? How can he see through walls? What's up with the superbreath? Weldon sums it up as follows:
The question "How can he disguise himself just by putting on glasses?" exists at the very beginning of an endless and ultimately pointless line of questioning that can only serve to leach the color out of Superman. [...]The Clark Kent disguise is an essential conceit, no more and no less. It is a base principle. Yet a new fannish compulsion to constantly search for ways to defend and justify whimsical propositions that demand neither defense nor justification[...] was on the rise. And it wasn't going away.
He termed this compulsion "Vivisecting the Unicorn." And, boy howdy, is it apt here in the MLP fandom.
I've railed about this before but I've never seen this concept summed up so well. I've tried to point out places where I think the fandom has become overly obsessive: character ages, how the Elements of Harmony work, the (supposed) time differences between Equestria and EQG world. And while it can be fun to discuss this stuff, some fans take this way too seriously. Continuity may be fun, but let's be honest, as mentioned above, when it leads to looking for defenses and justifications when neither are needed, the fun rapidly starts to fade.
There are things that really don't need explanations in MLP. They are plot conceits to serve the basic underpinnings of the series.
How are alicorns so powerful and long lived? Because they are.
Why are the characters apparently at an age where they have full time jobs and own their own businesses in Equestria, yet are all high school students on the other side of the mirror? Because that's how it is.
When do the events of FiM and EQG overlap exactly and what is the time difference between the two worlds? Doesn't actually matter.
Why didn't Fluttershy call on Discord to help during the events of the movie? Not relevant.
This kind of endless questioning is, again as mentioned above, ultimately pointless and pulling at these threads for too long will only serve to destroy any sort of magic, wonder, or basic storytelling capability in the series. Of course, my complaints may ultimately be moot if Season 9 proves to be the last, and even if EQG continues on its own, it wouldn't surprise me if it gets a full reboot shortly after FiM ends.
So, let's have fun, and let's not vivisect our unicorns, okay?
I agree with what your saying.
There are times when analyzing stuff can be fun, but when people take it too far and start to get upset over things, when multiple people cant agree or people get mad that the show "dose not make sense", that is when it becomes a problem.
Yeah, I often find this kind of thing annoying. One story I've been following often involves the author pointing out some stuff in the Harry Potter books as stupid because they think it doesn't make sense, and I'm like, it makes enough sense for it to work within the context of the story it doesn't have to be perfect.
With Superman's identity, I've personally always liked the explanation that nobody recognizes him because at the end of the day nobody actually believes he has a secret identity they just figure he's Superman all the time.
This is something I tend to disagree on. For me it's mostly a matter of approach. Not picking things apart to find problems, to say this thing I like is actually wrong and dumb. But instead using thinking about it to build new and meaningful things that add to the story instead of taking away.
It kind of reminds me of the measuring the marigolds complaint. That scientists take apart the world and lose their sense of wonder. When in fact good scientists find that understanding makes the world even more wonderful.
Now there are definitely people who just approach it from 'well if this matched how I think the world works this would all be different, lets point and laugh'. Or who just get caught up and pedantic in the minutia, not enjoying it. But I do think that there's a lot to be said for reconstruction.
We probably need a term for that though. Something less awful.
But how else am I going to make a shambling monstrosity with a dozen horns and ten spleens?
In all seriousness, unicorn vivisection can lead to fascinating world building ideas, story concepts, and connections between franchises that elevate crossovers to a new level of excellence. The key is to pick and choose what organs you harvest. Nitpicking at every single blessed little thing is only going to make you and everyone around you miserable (especially if you're trying to figure out this shows chronology,) but putting the pieces together can lead to some fascinating pictures. Just look at Oliver's work.
4981512
You get into genetic engineering like any reputable mad scientist. Dr. Frankenstein was a quack.
But seriously...
My point is not a railing against deconstruction as a method of telling new stories. It's an indictment of the kind of fandom mindset that thinks everything has to be explained, that the setting is more important than the story being told, that if a story element has an entry on TV Tropes, it's a bad story.
It's the idea that worldbuilding is like building a clock or a puzzle that has to be put together, and every part must connect to each other seamlessly and without contradiction. It doesn't happen like that, especially not in a franchise like MLP, with comics, books, TV, and movies. Even when they're all being written by the same people, there's always little things out of place. Authors are fallible and may forget certain details.
We can have fun asking the questions and debating (or coming up with) the answers, but let's try not to examine the unicorn to the point that it's a bloody mess on the examination table.
This kind of feels like a pre-emptive defense of lazy writing. If the authors writing superman had spent five minutes thinking critically about this back in the beginning, they could have said "oh, when superman uses his powers his kryptonian biology causes his facial muscles to shift, making him look subtly different." But they never bothered, and when some fans loved the source material enough to think deeply about the world and setting, their questions made the authors realize they had been phoning it in back in the beginning, so they deflected with "vivisecting the unicorn."
Questions about the setting aren't pointless, they're ways fans try to gain a broader understanding of the world the protagonists live in. Sometimes an author doesn't have enough space or time to anticipate every question ahead of time. (Though the Superman example is one that they really should have anticipated). It's fine to reply, as a Star Trek writer said when asked how a piece of fictional technology works "It works very well, thank you."
But complaining about fans asking questions about logical inconsistencies in the settings (and both the Superman and a lot of the MLP example ones you listed are pretty big ones), the writers just come off as defensive that their fans care more about their work than they themselves do.
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4981633
This is why, when I plan what I want to say to the MLP team when the show ends, I always harp on this aspect that I find crucial in storytelling:
You can do random slice-of-life stuff all you want, and that's perfectly fine if that's the point of the show. But the exact moment you introduce the concept of lasting continuity into your series, you need to be ready to take on the responsibility of making sure it all works together somehow. Things can work just because, and again that's perfectly fine if that's the point. But I've found that it can really enrich the experience for your audience if you get those cogs lined up just right.
Now that does not mean that it all has to be done in advance. If your story has a clear beginning and end, then having that outline is a good idea. But it's okay to just start going and let things develop. Hell, sometimes that's the more exciting way of doing it! And you can always explain things as you go along! It doesn't all have to be served up right at the start. In fact, hiding some of it and letting the audience piece things together for themselves can be really fun for them.
There's no real need to "vivisect the unicorn" to the point where you know how the grass grows. But having just enough to help make the world feel alive? That's how franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek have lasted for so long.
4981736
Yup. A series bible is helpful, but not required. As long as you're willing to put in effort as you go along, you can even creatively retcon things as necessary, but you have to put in the effort.
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4981633
And this is exactly what I mean. The fandom insistence that if a writer doesn't have an answer for everything when it comes up is "lazy writing."
It isn't. What it means is that those details simply are not important to the story being told. Continuity is nice, but it's not the be all end all of storytelling. Yes, effort should be made to keep everything consistent, but some fans act like it's the end of the goddamn world if every little detail doesn't have a complete backstory or, God forbid, contradict something from the early days of the show/series when everyone was still figuring out the rules and tone of the show.
I'd argue that obsessive explanations ruin the show in some cases. Case in point:
Where did the Elements of Harmony come from?
They came from the Tree of Harmony.
Where did the Tree of Harmony come from?
The pillars planted a seed.
Suddenly, the Elements don't seem all that mystical anymore if the explanation is "pony heroes planted a seed."
That's what "Vivisecting the Unicorn" is: the pedantic insistence on explanations for everything without the basic realization that sometimes things just are in a story, because otherwise there is no story.
4981842 Having a setting that requires so much suspension of disbelief that it pulls focus from the plot and the protagonist's character development can ruin the story, so I'd say yes, they are important to the story being told. A character is a product of the world and the setting they come from. The plot of the adventure is the pieces of the setting put into motion. A setting that hasn't been fleshed out because yes, the writers were being lazy, leads to characters with nonsensical motivations and plot holes so big the swallow the narrative.
I'll point out that I and others didn't say "every little detail" needs to be explained, but key, obvious unique features of the way the world works do. If you have a fantasy setting, you need to think about how magic works. If you have a fantastical geography, have a basic idea of the history of the world. If you have a magic McGuffin artifact, you darn well need to know where it came from!
There's a reason "Just So" stories are meant for small children, because as people age and become curious they need more answers about stories and characters they are interested in.
If the writers had put in the effort ahead of time to come up with a better explanation for the Tree of Harmony before seven years into the setting, perhaps they would have come up with a better answer. That's a good example of writers not doing the work and it coming back to bite them. That said, the Pillars planting a seed is still a much more interesting and satisfying answer than "just because."
I think I get it. It's like the people who keep demanding a backstory for snoke in star wars. The emperor didn't get a backstory until the prequels and it never mattered to the story of the original trilogy. Snoke currently does not have a backstory in the films, and it doesn't effect the story. And yet...
4981842
I mean, I don't need to know how the Castle of the Two Sisters was built. I don't need to know how the Everfree Forest came to be. It would be nice to have that info, but it's not required to get a good story set in those locations. I definitely don't need to know the history of a cart manufacturer or an ink maker. That would be superfluous for this show. But I do believe that important items and persons of interest should have at least some inkling of a backstory idea squirreled away for later use; just in case you get an idea of a good story you could tell with them.
In terms of that particular example you gave, I think that backstory works as a tale of how one's legacy can have so much of an impact that it changes people's lives long after you're gone.
The Pillars of Old Equestria planted a seed both in a literal and metaphorical sense. In time, Celestia and Luna would help this seed to grow by defeating Discord and protecting Equestria as the Pillars had done. And then, a thousand years after Nightmare Moon's defeat, Celestia gave it that last push it needed to finally bloom in full, bringing rise to the Champions of Harmony; the true inheritors of the Pillars' legacy.
Now it's their turn to protect Equestria, and I would honestly find it pretty fitting if the show ended with the Champions planting a seed of their own for a future generation to find.
It also fits with that "piecing things together" bit I mentioned.
4981878
Yeah. The Emperor was a crucial part of Vader's story (the Prequels), but in Luke's story (the Originals) he's just an obstacle to overcome. Snoke may be relevant to Kylo Ren's story, but the Sequels are really Rey's story, and Snoke isn't important to her story.
4982269
To be fair it really would have been nice to know where Snoke came from. He's never mentioned in the original trilogy yet he's suddenly this big bad powerful force user who somehow turned Kylo Ren to the dark side and has his own army. He's considerably more important than the emperor was. It also helps that the original trilogy had nothing that came before it so it could get away with leaving some things unexplained but the new trilogy is a follow up so you kind of do need to explain where this new big bad came from.
The emperor just kind of shows up and is never mentioned in the beginning but Snoke is there from the start so there is considerably more mystery surrounding him.
4983469
I would agree IF the Sequels were Kylo Ren's story. They are not. They are Rey's story. And as far as Rey is concerned, Snoke is vastly unimportant. He served his purpose: get her to meet Kylo and establish Kylo as her rival. Snoke quickly fulfilled his purpose. Therefore, it's not a priority to explain him until someone decides to write a book about it; and that'll probably be after EpIX at this rate.