The Archetypist: Restrospective and Answers · 10:02pm Apr 21st, 2019
Hey folks,
This blog post will hopefully answer some of the questions people had about the story. At the same time, I’m publishing a coda to the story itself, in case you want answers in a more story-bound format.
First, let me thank you for reading. Even if you didn’t get through the whole thing, or you didn’t like it, I’m still grateful. They say you should just write for one person – yourself – but I’ve never really been able to do that. So, before we go anywhere else, let me just say I’m glad you came.
This will be fairly long, so I’m breaking it up into parts.
1. The Characters
Rainbow Dash: In The Archetypist, Rainbow is one of the characters whose dreams closely mimic her personality and desires as we know them. She’s daring and ambitious and she loves flying. Over time she transforms into a greater and greater flyer, until she’s soaring at the edge of space on wings as wide as the town. She’s a minor character at best, and we don’t learn much else about her. She doesn’t speak much (if she even can), but she can still clearly understand ponies work with or alongside them, as she desires.
Pinkie Pie: Pinkie’s dream was simple: to own her own bakery and make ponies happy with it. When the Cakes left, she got Sugar Cube Corner to herself. No transformations needed. Still enjoys throwing parties, though she sometimes has to be creative with the food she serves.
Rarity: Rarity read once, as a child, of the legend of Arachne, the seamstress cursed by the gods to turn into a spider and weave forever as a result of her hubris. She’s probably forgotten that tale by now, but perhaps a kernel of it stuck in her mind. Outwardly, she is the most transformed of the main characters, but her personality is unchanged. She remains generous, caring, sharp-witted and a bit prideful. Makes fabulous dresses.
Trixie: Would it surprise you to know that Trixie is tormented by self-doubt and feelings of worthlessness? For years she was stalked by failure, and only a rigid self-control – or, perhaps, self-delusion – kept her from the realization that she was not, in fact, very great or very powerful. Thanks to the friendship of Starlight Glimmer, she’s much better than she was, but she still dreams of being admired for her skill, her prestidigitation, her flair. And if ponies only see her mask, and they appreciate it anyway, well, that’s good enough too. Rarely seen outside of Starlight’s company these days.
And that brings us to two ponies whose dreams radically diverge from their waking selves:
Fluttershy: Fluttershy dreams of being the confident mare she knows she can be, if only she could stop being afraid. She wishes she was strong like Applejack or confident like Rainbow Dash. Nopony pushes them around – nopony would ever push them around. Some of her animal friends are that way, too. The wolves, the cougars, the manticores. They are not afraid of ponies. In her dreams, neither is she. Cares for sick and injured animals in her cottage. Healthy animals can visit, but should probably be careful.
Applejack: Applejack lives for her family. She lives for hard work – she loves it, because every day when she comes home sweating from the orchards, she knows she accomplished more than every pegasus lounging about on the clouds. Ponies depend on her, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. But in her dreams, she doesn’t buck apples all day. She doesn’t disdain the pegasi for lazing away the hours. Sometimes she joins them, and doesn’t worry about those ponies who depend on her. In dreams, after all, it’s hard to be responsible. Bit of a wanderer these days.
And our main characters:
Discord: Poor guy. Does he dream at all? We’ll discuss that later on.
Starlight Glimmer: Starlight is a reformed villain, but her past is never far behind her. It doesn’t take much for her to remember the bad things she did, and her dreams are tormented by the bad things she almost did, too. If things had gone just a little bit different, she might’ve hurt a lot of ponies. She dreams of escaping not just the bad things that she did, but the bad pony that she was. She’d like to become somepony new.
Twilight Sparkle: It must be odd, being on a first-name basis with a veritable god. A being who controls the sun. Who raised you like a daughter and taught as her personal student. At some point the rest of us have to grow up and realize that our parents are just as flawed as we are, that they are aging and imperfect and all too mortal. That they don’t have all the answers. But they did their best. Twilight doesn’t have that problem. Celestia will always be there. She will always be flawless. Though the rest of the world may change, the sun is eternal.
2. The Ending
So, there’s really two discussions to be had here. The first has come up a lot in the comments: Is this a good or a bad ending?
The answer, to me at least, is neither. More important, it’s the ending the characters deserve.
If you think this was the bad ending (which you certainly may), it’s because Twilight failed in the final scene to do the right thing. She had the chance to undo all the chaos Discord had inadvertently caused, and reset things to how they were before. Some damage would have remained – the Apple family home would still be burned down, for instance – but that could be fixed. Everypony could go back to the way they were before, and they would be happy with it, because they were happy before. It was only because of Discord’s meddling that ponies began to change, and those changes tricked them into thinking they were happy.
If you think this was the good ending (and, yes, some people did), it’s because Twilight made the right choice in the final scene. She had the opportunity to undo everything, but she saw that her friends were content with their new selves and preferred to stay this way. Unshackled by Discord, they had become their true selves. They were more fulfilled, and though the world might be irrevocably changed, that change was not destined to be bad. It was up to them, now, to make a better world than they had before.
One of the few consistent themes in my stories is that they almost always end with characters getting the ending they deserve. I’ve written a few stories with ‘bad’ endings (The Carnivore’s Prayer, The Glass Blower), and in all of them the bad ending isn’t because of some external enemy or force the characters were unable to overcome, but because of the poor choices they made or the flaws in their characters.
The second question that comes up repeatedly in the comments: Was this all a dream?
You won’t like the answer: maybe! It’s a valid interpretation. And it leads to a more interesting question, in my mind: whose dream is it?
Since Twilight’s the perspective character, it makes sense to consider it her dream. So much of the story is driven by her actions and decisions – only rarely does something happen outside of her immediate vicinity. The story answers a question she poses to herself at the beginning. So many of the changes to her friends play on aspects of their character that are particularly meaningful to Twilight.
But I’d like to toss out another option: this was Discord’s dream. He is the title character; he is the archetypist, who severed the intangible bonds holding ponies together. He even asks at the beginning of the story, “Who’s to say I’m not dreaming now? Perhaps you are my dream.” The archetypes only ever existed in his mind, and when he did away with them, his dreams ran wild. This was his nightmare.
All of these interpretations are correct. Choose whichever one you like.
3. Themes
There are two big themes in The Archetypist. You probably noticed them because I’m not very subtle.
The first is the big question that pervades the story, starting in chapter one: who are we really? Are we the person as we go about our days, making conscious decisions about what to say, how to act, how to present ourselves, and what mask to wear in any given situation? Or are we the person we are in our dreams, when those conscious constraints are stripped away?
Dreams are highly personal things. My dreams are unique to me. Sometimes, in my dreams, I’ve done noble and virtuous things. I’ve made hard choices that were the right choice. I’ve endured difficult trials because it was the right thing to do. If that’s the real me, then that’s great to hear.
But I’ve also had dreams where I was a coward, or where I hurt somebody through carelessness, misconduct or negligence. Where I refused to take responsibility for my actions or shortcomings. I hope that’s not the real me.
The whole intent of The Archetypist is to ask that question. Each of the characters offers a different perspective, and it’s up to the reader to decide on an answer. When Applejack and Fluttershy change so decisively, they’re changing (like everyone else) to reflect themselves as they are in their dreams. If that seems to conflict with their personalities as we know them in the show, it’s because their dreams are so different from their waking personalities. Obviously, I don’t know if that’s actually the case, because these are cartoon characters. But since this is my story, I decided that they did.
Finally, there’s the theme of change, and Twilight’s struggle to accept it. Before the series began, she was a recluse living with her books. Then she was introduce to the magic of friendship, and for years she had a charmed life filled with challenges and rewards. But nothing ever lasts in life – the only constant is change. As much as anything else, this story is about change, and how we struggle to accept it. For the whole story Twilight fights against change, and only at the end, when she sees how much her friends want it, does she finally relent. It is their choice to make, not hers.
Anyway, a couple frequently asked questions to close things out:
1. Can Twilight still see? Can she still read?
Yes and yes. I thought I was clear with it in the text, but in case I wasn’t, Twilight was able to see through her blindfold, closed eyes, and sunglasses just fine. She’s not going blind throughout the story – her eyesight is growing more and more sensitive. In the end, she no longer needs her eyes to see.
2. Can characters still change?
As much as we can. It’s probably safe to say most of them have reached a maximum point of magical change, as induced by Discord, but they’re still people. If we can change, so can they.
3. What happened to Mister and Missus Cake?
I dunno. They’re not dead though! Pinkie’s not a murderer.
4. Was it all just a dream?
If you want it to be. If you don’t want it to be, there’s the coda.
5. What about Spike? What about non-ponies?
It’s never explicitly stated, but I’m a firm believer that there’s nothing particularly special about ponies in this setting. They are people, just like all the other intelligent races are people. I don’t see any reason why the same changes happening to ponies wouldn’t happen to the other races as well.
As for Spike, he’s just not in this story. He was visiting the Crystal Empire or something.
6. Is pony society doomed?
Probably not? Love and friendship exist in dreams, so it’s reasonable to believe that our dream-selves are able to have friends and fall in love. As long as ponies can do that, I don’t see why pony society can’t continue.
Probably not for Applejack, though. Not unless she decides freedom matters less than friendship.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. Post your questions in the comments below, and I’ll try to answer them.
Very interesting. You answered most of the questions that were brought up during my second reading.
But I do have a lingering question...the Princesses. Cadance, Luna, and Celestia. What did they dream of? Did they change? Luna was rather mysterious, and of course the snow in her chambers, but I more assumed that was just how she chose to manifest some of her powers.
Logic says that since Twilight changed, then the other alicorns are susceptible to it as well. Did they change at all? If so, I wonder what they would have dreamed of?
what exactly makes you think they deserve to have everything they really are ripped away from them?
Thank you for this...
My favorite alt characters were absolutely Trixie and Fluttershy. Your explanation that Twi can still see while blind really helped me understand an otherwise "dark" ending as well. This was a fantastic story, and one of my absolute favorites. Cheers mate 👍
Both. You can't just remove part of who someone is, and then claim what is left is who they 'really' are. It's all one interconnected package. To quote a very wise Dwarf.
what about people who don't remember their dreams
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series of events that were the consequences of the choices resulting in what they deserved.
Tangent. My dnd a week back, new guy was to join the party, so he sneaks into the camp, the guard detects him calls out in alarm and challenges the intruder, who at being caught half drew his sword and tried to talk the (party member) guard down. as they start a bit more in their exchange, my character who is one of the only other party members who is woken by the cry of alarm, sees a stranger with a half drawn sword and looks like they are threatening the guard. my character then deploys a flame turret within the immediate range of hitting the sneaking character and calls out, "Do not move, if you do you will be set on fire!" so it began, a shitstorm. guy tries to honey word this buuuut I am not seeing any roleplay reason to listen to anything based on my observation of the situation. he does say that he was supposed to be there and that I should let him go," "no, you will be manacled and taken before the Dean who is overseeing the expedition then confirmed" (my character is over 140 years, she has some sense) so he reaches in his pocket to pull out a missive. he is then promptly set on fire for reaching into his pocket. he runs we chase we do the encounter scenario for the adventure. then we move on after doing things to return to camp, again the dude is to be put into manacles, he resists, can't comprehend why and I had to break it down as to why my character reacted in the way she did.
the first to get it was a former military, then one at a time they understood. I also explained to the player that the scenario played out the way it did because it was all based on what was happening there. I carefully explained that the way i had worked the scenario was they were caught, they would be manacled brought before the dean, dean would have said yes this is legit and we would have been done. buuut it wasn't so we had to roll with how things went. it was nothing personal as a player.
the meta was a new member joins the party. the roleplay was someone snuck into the camp and threatened the guard. worse is there were three mercenary characters who were supposed to be acting as the "guard types" and one tries to hand cup of cereal to the guy. the other was (in character) locked up by the conversation with the sneak and unsure, and the third didn't wake until there was much more ruckus.
incharacter they were berated for being terrible guards.
we got what we deserved in that interaction.
so what was i getting at? shoehorns?
You're welcome; thank you for writing, for whatever else, it was interesting.
(Though I've not read the coda yet; that's currently on the schedule for later today.)
I wonder, is the great bird at the edge of space even Rainbow's final form, or will she grow to fly farther up and out still?
"Outwardly, she is the most transformed of the main characters"
...Hm. I don't know, though maybe that's because we have fewer details of Rainbow's transformation. Trixie and Starlight I think might also be able to compete for the top spot, depending on how one looks at it. Why do you think Rarity wins there?
"Cares for sick and injured animals in her cottage. Healthy animals can visit, but should probably be careful."
Ah, thanks for the clarification.
"the Apple family home would still be burned down, for instance"
Possibly not even that, depending on how thorough the Elements decided to be (if they work that way in this universe, at least).
If I had to say whether this was a good or bad ending (which I hadn't thought hard on before)... I think, with the current state of my knowledge, I'd say bad, but not due to what happened to any of the pony characters. They'd have been happy either way, it appears, just in different ways. There's the argument that resetting would be killing the current versions of Applejack and Fluttershy, which I think I more agree with than not, but, neglecting the effects on others, it's to restore to life, in this situation, two people who would be equally if differently happy... and Twilight, the person making the decision, has a personal preference for the previous versions (though Twilight is also acting with worse information than we here have, particularly regarding how happy her friends would be after a reset). Including the effects on others, well, we saw what happened to Discord and the raven; non-ponies don't seem to get this new power. Exactly how that works out overall is very hard to guess well at with what we currently know, but Discord due to his power likely has a fairly high weight (and looking from Twilight's perspective again, a personal connection).
"But I’d like to toss out another option: this was Discord’s dream."
Yes, I do still quite like that hypothesis. :)
(And it also neatly runs around the good/bad end question, or at least replaces it with just one about "How does Discord respond to the dream after waking up?")
"You probably noticed them because I’m not very subtle."
I don't know, I can be pretty bad at noticing themes sometimes. :)
regarding the first big theme/the big question:
I'd lean towards it being a false duality: neither of those is the true self; both of them are components of it.
"For the whole story Twilight fights against change, and only at the end, when she sees how much her friends want it, does she finally relent."
...Mmm. I think that's debatable. Does she truly accept change? Or does she just withdraw from it, let it be, and focus herself on that she sees as unchanging? Is the latter not actually just a subset of the former? I'm not currently thinking of clear and unambiguous answers to those questions.
"Yes and yes. I thought I was clear with it in the text, but in case I wasn’t, Twilight was able to see through her blindfold, closed eyes, and sunglasses just fine."
I think the issue there (or at least my version of the concern) was that while it was clear she could see, it was unclear how long that would last as the changes continued. The first derivative of her sensitivity might not remain non-negative forever, and if it remained positive long enough, she might, say, eventually be able to clearly make out every speck of dust for thousands upon thousands of lightyears in the direction she was looking, no matter the obstructions, and thus having increasing difficulty keeping her sight on any particular very close thing (except, of course, presumably Equus's sun). Hard to say, given our current information, I thought.
"If you don’t want it to be, there’s the coda."
I admittedly haven't read the coda yet, but just from general assumptions, why would those be mutually exclusive? If the rest of the story was a dream, couldn't the coda also be?
"I don’t see any reason why the same changes happening to ponies wouldn’t happen to the other races as well."
Ah. I'd gotten the impression that Discord specifically targeted this magic at ponies, not any other species. Never thought it couldn't be used on them, with Discords power, just that it hadn't.
"6. Is pony society doomed?
Probably not?"
Well, I'd say it depends on the definitions of "pony society" and "doomed" used in a particular case of asking, among other things.
I only have one question: What if someone dreams of something worse? I know pony-society is built on friendship, love, and magic, but what happens in the ponies who dreams of evil? What happens with ponies like Sombra? What's stopping someone from becoming like a disease, where all they dream about is death and torture?
I guess I just see this world of beings being shaped by their dreams as highly exploitable, and bound to cause death or genocide at some point.
First, I loved the story. Still do. But this still doesn’t answer any of my issues. Mostly: this is still under the assumption that everyone only has a singular dream. And they don’t. And dreams are never are actually about whatever it is that you dreamed.
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You wake up with a beak and a pegleg and are left to wonder why!
... ahum. They'd probably change, but not really WONDER about where said change came from, as they subconsicously still experience those dreams, even tho they don't remember them?
I held back my feelings on this story before, but since everyone else seems to be letting loose, I might as well admit it feels like the story is trying to have it both ways and no ways. Things are supposedly "better" now, but the writing is very ominous and tragic. Twilight can still see perfectly well, but she sewed her eyes shut? I don't know what to take away from that. This could all be Twilight's dream, or it could be anyone's, or it could be their nightmare. They could be happy at the end, or they might only be happy because their minds are so warped they can't see any other way to live. Their dream-selves might be their true selves, or it might be someone else's dream interpreting them to be that way, or it could be that's just what they're feeling at that point in their lives... it all felt unfocused for all the themes came through very clearly.
***pre-post, post-rant edit: I found in my reread before posting that I became a bit snarky as I typed out my response. I want to come back up here and lead in by saying I very much enjoyed the story and I think getting a bit revved up in discussing the heavy themes of the story is just another point for the author in having caused a strong emotional reaction. I appreciate the story and all the delicious anguish it’s cause my rational brain and squishy heart. I loved you, Mister Raven! I am perhaps overly affected by your death! So, Kudos to the author and on the the blathering spectacle of my blathering stupidity.***
Authorial intent has meaning, but I can still only see this as a bad end. Assuming ponies have the same spread of mentalities as people, how good do you think the world would be of it was populated by people living out your worst dream? I know it’s been said nopony was hurt, and no pony was shown to be hurt, emphasis on ‘pony’. Mister Raven was nearly sapient and was killed. Maybe Fluttershy can differentiate between ponies and animals when she’s hungry, but she didn’t seem to care about her long-standing friendship with Mister Raven as soon as she got snacky. What if somepony dreams an unrequited love is ‘requited’. Does the target of the affection just become happy with their new love interest or does it cycle to the next dream where they always wanted to be a cockatiel?
I loved the story and that you were brave enough to go with the bad end, but I just can’t see how anyone can think this is the right choice and not a tragedy. Because Fluttershy cried and that made making her not eat her friends the wrong choice?
I haven’t read the Coda yet, but I am working myself up to it. I worry that it will spike the ball in the end zone and push how just absolutely happy and grateful everyone that their narcissism can be made incarnate. That will sour me on the story where the bad end did not.
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RIP Mister Raven, you were the best of us.
Ponies dreams, Discord’s nightmare.
It’s funny that such a chaotic world was originally Discord’s greatest dream, but it has become a nightmare he can’t make go away and can’t wake up from
'twas very well written, and certainly thought-provoking. I enjoyed it!
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I mean, seriously, without poor Mister Raven’s death I probably could be swayed off my “bad end is bad!” Position. 😜
I'm so happy that I got to read this amazing story as it came out chapter by chapter. It's a purely personal thing but being forced to stop reading for a day or so after each chapter gave me time to digest and think about all that happened. I am embarrassed to admit that that part often falls short when I binge read something. If that had happened here it probably would have taken away from my enjoyment of the story.
Anyways I love that you put up the interpretation to the reader. I have taken my personal lesson from the story and chose to think of the ending as being the good end for everyone except Discord. However in my interpretation Discord may not have liked how things turned out but he did exactly as his "destiny" of being the avatar for change was from the beginning: break up stagnation, change the status quo, make things different. Which he did.
Keep up the great work.
Ok ok ok, this does make the story better, but it still has several raging flaws. The biggest one remains "why does everyone only have one dream?", though "where the hell is Celestia" is another bad one, as is "why is AJ suddenly an asshole". This seems less like a "dreams made real" story and more like a Monkey's Paw story.
First of all, thank you for this amazing story. All this discussion and feedback generated by it is only because the story deals with very personal and delicate themes. With that, people are bound to disagree on how it should/shouldn't end, so don't be discouraged, but proud of instigating the minds of so many readers.
Now about the story itself, one of the problems that I think a society without limits to "self-transformation" would reach is that the only constant would be change itself. I don't think ponies would reach a "final dream state" as the coda seems to imply.
This idea comes to contradict this part of the retrospective:
What we dream isn't really what we are, but what we desire or what we seek to be. Usually one will dream of oneself as someone that is usually the same, but with its flaws fixed, or, would dream of being someone else they admired by one reason or another.
Being able to change to those different selves that we dream of would likely cause the dreams to change, having ponies now dreaming of something/someone else, unless they'd reach a perfection state, in which their dreams would just be a mirror of their lives.
For instance, Starlight, she dreamed of being somepony else, so she could leave her past behind. Once she became a Changeling, she would probably still dream of being a Changeling because of her inner desire to leave her past behind couldn't be sated by just a transformation, but in time she'd probably start having different dreams. Maybe she now wanted to be more powerful, or maybe have an offspring (Speaking of which, how would dream-based pregnancies work for platonic couples in such a society?
).
Or in another example, Applejack, her initial dream was freedom, which was generated from her long living as somepony that has a very strict schedule with many responsibilities. Once she was able to sever those ties and became a pegasi, eventually her dreams and wishes would change, for the same reason she first dreamed of being free. Maybe she'd miss spending time with her family and friends, maybe she would dream of something else entirely new, but I doubt she'd keep the same dreams after so long of achieving it.
It would be interesting to have a sequel showing (maybe having the coda as a starting point) to show more about how the changes impacted their lives and even what other changes could still happen.
Thanks again for the amazing and thought-provoking read!
Fwiw, I liked the story and explorations of dreams (and this blog post explaining some things). I'm not sure what camp I'm in as to if this was a good or bad ending for the characters, but it was a fun read none the less.
Not really, actually. Trixie always struck me as someone dealing with a rather unfortunate combination of a well-developed sense of personal ambition and a tendency to always finish second best when measuring herself up to others. If you wholly dedicate yourself to and almost define yourself by excelling at one specific thing, but are always surrounded by people so good at that thing that you'll never hold a candle to them... yeah, that doesn't lead to pleasant places.
I still have some unresolved issues with this whole subject, but I think I'll wait to read the coda before pontificating openly on them.
I got to say that the coda made me feel a lot better about this story.
Still, I think A Once and Future Darkness worked better (I may well be in the minority about this!); despite the lovely build-up of tension and weirdness throughout The Archetypist, the ending seemed sort of rushed. AOaFD was more compact all around so I felt the end worked better there.
I liked the story but I kept having a nagging thought that you were conflating 'having a dream', as in a long term goal or desire, with 'dreams', the random mishmash of thoughts during sleep. I don't think that I equate the two as being related most of the time.
The characters seemed to have their ids running wild, which I suspected was the point, removing all self imposed filters. Those filters are still part of the personality which is why this story seemed so horrific to me.
I always have:
Two problems with stories about dreams. The first, as I mentioned somewhere in the story's comments, is that I don't ever remember my dreams. By which I mean that, in the more than 19,000 times that I've gone to sleep in my life so far, I've remembered maybe 5 dreams after waking up. So the whole concept of "having a dream" is pretty much foreign to me. And for someone who has dreams to explain what it's like to someone who doesn't, I can only imagine it would be like trying to explain what being tickled is like to someone who isn't ticklish.
The second problem arises directly from this. Because as I understand it, people usually can't control what happens in their dreams--lucid dreaming is such a different thing that it even has a different name. So if something that the characters can't control and in some cases can't even consciously remember can change them body, mind, and spirit, that becomes a problem of agency. Fiction is different from non-fiction in that fiction has to make sense, after all, and a part of the fiction writing credo holds that characters should be faced with choices. You even allude to that here when you say that the characters deserve the ending that they get.
But if the characters don't choose what happens to them, how can they deserve the consequences? The characters here are struck by a force they can't control--their dreams--and it's that force that changes them.
There are hints just before they turn Discord to stone--Rarity's dream of being "a weaver without parallel" and Fluttershy saying, "For once in my life I don’t have to be afraid"--but it's a long way from that to saying that Rarity chose to become a giant spider or that Fluttershy chose to become a sphinx. Even Twilight, our 1st person POV character, never really makes a choice: she just accepts things after the fact.
If there's no struggle--and how can there be against something as unconscious and irrational as a dream?--then that makes for unsatisfying drama. The way Twilight keeps saying "I'm fine" whenever anyone asks about her eyes is more like she's ignoring the problem and hoping it'll go away. And yes, that is a choice, but since it again seems almost unconscious, it's not all that compelling.
If this was the Writeoff--and I guess I missed the one where this story first appeared--I'd have recommended that Twilight gradually come to appreciate her altered sight rather than just ignoring the changes and making accommodations toward them. Use the metaphor you've established: have her wonder how she could've lived her life up till now in the dark or something, and maybe even go so far as to spell it out with her thinking that her eyes are finally open in the scene before they stonify Discord. But right now, she's not really pushing against her own changes nor is she choosing to accept them.
And maybe that's because dreams work that way in real life, but, well, maybe that's why I don't have dreams. If they don't bend to the iron rules of storytelling, then I'm just not interested.
Mike
I've much fewer problems with the story than a lot of people seem to, although it might be because I don't think I fully understand some parts of it, lol. Whatever actually happened to the archetypes, however they're defined, and how that had led to the situation at hand is very unclear to me, at least at the moment.
I've no problem whatsoever with characters changing one way or another. I think a lot of commenters underestimate just how different dreaming selves can be in comparison to people's waking selves, and also how capable of radical change people can be. Throwing away old values and beliefs and staring a completely new life is not a death, it happens to people... well, perhaps not all the time, but quite often.
Getting back to my problems with the story - everyone's a critic, I know - it's mostly the absence of certain characters. They might not be all that important to the story, but I think they at least warrant a mention, especially Spike. Without getting into too many details about what I think happened to Twilight, it makes sense to me that she wouldn't be interested in Celestia's earthly form on the personal level any more, but still, someone else could at least bring her up for a bit.
Unexpectedly, a different problem of sorts arose in this blog post, which is why I'm writing this comment here. I don't think I agree with the point about the characters deserving the ending - or at least, not with that specific wording. A consequence might arise as a direct result of one's actions, but that doesn't necessarily mean the person fully deserves it. As a simple example, if there's a law that punishes jaywalking with death, that doesn't follow that any jaywalker, no matter how fully aware they are of the law and their actions, actually deserve the punishment. This argument works with both interpretations of the ending, good as well as bad: if the law rewarded jaywalking with a million dollars, those same people, however pleased and better off, wouldn't really deserve it. It could be said that the ending naturally follows the characters' intended actions, and I would agree with that, but I don't think the characters actually deserve the ending, however interpreted, in any real sense.
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Ah, Durkon... one of, if not the only cleric to have mastered the rare ability to "Turn undead... into me!"
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I'd argue most of the quote unquote 'normal' dreams have a very selfish bent to them.
Applejack needs no explanation. But look at Rainbow Dash, she doesn't interact with other anymore, she spends all her time flying close to space. She's not a hero anymore, or a role model, or a good friend. Fluttershy transformed into something with the confidence not to fear ponies... does she use it to approach ponies now without fear? Nope, she spends her time killing things smaller than she is. Rarity and Pinkie appear to be the ones closest to being friends still, but did either of them come visit Twilight while all the changes happened? Or were they also too busy indulging themselves?
Seeing as FiM as we know it is ending soon, this story felt more topical than ever, and I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say I didn't just like the ending--I loved it.
The fear of turning a corner in life, of making a drastic change and having to come to terms with all the insecurity that comes with that decision, is such a difficult emotion to pin down. Often times you don't really know what choice is best until after you've made it. Insecurity can linger long after any chance to change your mind has gone.
My takeaway was that Twilight wanted to do the right thing. She chose the path she thought was right, then fully committed to it. The ominous tone in the final line (which, by the way, was GORGEOUS) encapsulates the uncertainty and fear of committing to a big change under dubious circumstances. You do what you think is right, and you deal with the possibility that you're wrong.
Something that makes or breaks a story is its vibe--the way a story feels when you read it. The Archetypist had some of the strongest vibe of anything I've ever read--dark, mysterious, tense, slow-burning. Whether or not I'm talking out of my butt on the rest, I'll plant my flag on that hill.
I left my comments on the story itself. A day of further reading and reflection has me adding this.
I am satisfied with the ending and I think Twilight made the right choice as she saw it. My particular issue is probably more a strong reaction to something intended just to frame the story.
The means of this change in ponies was wrought by a severing: a de-coupling of ponies from the archetype of "ponykind" (or its respective equivalent for the other species, presumably).
Free of previous restraints, everyone is capable of building a new basis for harmony. For me though, I don't feel hopeful. It is just as easy to create new schisms, new conflicts and lots of chaos in the wake of this event. This isn't presented as such in-story (and I'm skipping the coda here), so perhaps I'm just seeing a glass half-empty.
In the story, I posited that Transhumanism wasn't about humanity separating from its past but rather building new ground atop and around the old. This is something I have a lot more faith in, that I can see as a glass half full.