Sun and Hearth Post-Update Blog: Chapter 20 - Judgement · 10:26pm Sep 19th, 2019
Post-update blog for the penultimate chapter of Sun and Hearth. Last chapter and epilogue go up tomorrow.
Chapter 20 - Judgement is up now. Spoilers below the break.
Ending credits:
Author's Notes:
If you ever need a character to stir up trouble without any awareness of how other ponies are reacting, you can't do better than Rainbow Dash.
Also, I feel kinda bad for the dusty old character-looks-in-a-mirror self-reflection bit, but not bad enough to not write it.
The dinner flashback skirts a line I set for myself in writing this: that Cookie doesn't get credit (or blame) for things Celestia did in canon. I didn't want to detract from Celestia to build Cookie up, and I was even sensitive about making him always endorse the right option.
Here, he pretty clearly influences Celestia's eventual plan about the return of Nightmare Moon, but I'm letting it slide because A) he's only convincing her to do what she wants to do anyway (and her personal inclination is only possible reason she would do this), B) he's still not responsible for the batshit crazy functional part of the plan, regarding Twilight's mission briefing.
Also, totally unrelated, I had a bit of Zeno's Narration problem with describing Cookie making dinner… every step kept seeming like it needed to be broken down into more detail, until I realized I was going to be describing synapses firing at this rate. I also have this problem with characters answering doors.
World building:
Let's talk about the mane six.
I've never been a fan of Celestia picking Twilight's friends (on the other hand, I am married to the headcanon that Celestia sent the Apples to Sweet Apple Acres so there'd be a town next to the Everfree by the time Nightmare Moon returned.) Here, what she eventually settled on was making sure the ponies she chose for vendors just happened to be a selection of ponies about Twilight's age with reputations for being good and/or friendly ponies. She reasoned that as long as Twilight managed to befriend one or two of them they could work out the Elements between them.
...Celestia has never really groked magic.
But the mane six aren't so much the result of the dream of Equestria, they're its realization. Not perfect, Equestria was never intended to be perfect, but harmonious. They're also steadfastly untainted; they've been offered chances to play politics or compromise their values over the years and they refuse.
...In no small part because Twilight absolutely groks magic, better than anypony in Equestria's history (Which, admittedly, isn't saying much, Equestrian magic being what it is) and has demonstrated that has a power of its own. Or, as Rainbow Dash put it, when it comes to Equestrian magic "friend outranks princess."
So, to Celestia's questions about Rainbow Dash as a threat, the mane six could easily overthrow her, working together at least, but only if it was the honorable and harmonious thing to do.
Questions:
Rank the following based on subtlety: a sledgehammer, a wrecking ball, Rainbow Dash.
What's your favorite (or least favorite) headcanon surrounding Celestia's machinations?
Sledgehammer > wrecking ball >>> everybody's favorite pegasus
I love the scene between Celestia and Dash in this chapter; it might be one of my favorites in the fic. (Or one of my favorites in the fic that I remember... Eh, details.)
This is not a phrase I have ever heard before and Google searching finds a book called Zeno's Conscience and "Zeno's paradoxes" and I'm not sure if either of them are what you're talking about. I guess maybe the book but it is not one I have ever read so I don't know for sure.
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Zeno is credited with the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, where due to both parties moving to new points in space during a set amount of time, it's impossible for Achilles to ever catch a tortiose.
I use it to describe the situation in writing I sometimes fall into where, in trying to be fancy/evocative/showy, each thing described seems to demand the description of another (often increasingly inconsequential) action. For example, if I mention the character standing up to answer the door, he has to walk towards it. If he walks towards it, he has to stop in front of it. If he's stopped in front of it, he has to put a hand on the doorknob. If his hand is just sitting there on the knob, I have to describe him turning it. And if I mention that, I have to describe him pulling it towards himself... Such that it's impossible for a character to ever actually finish answering the door (or more likely I've spent three paragraphs on it.)
Just like Pinkie Pie can only escape bonds when it's funny. In dramatic situations, she's as captured as the rest of them.
Hmm.
Rainbow Dash<sledgehammer<wrecking ball.
A wrecking ball has reasonably complex machinery behind it; plus it's a ball on a chain, while a sledgehammer is a metal block on a stick and requires only muscles to swing. Rainbow Dash is, often enough, as dense as any of the materials mentioned, can actively go against your plans (unlike the other tools listed), and she just needs one move to wreck a building—I like to think all that biting and kicking at the insides of the barn was her having fun rather than it being required.
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So it WAS the paradox one. Thanks for clearing that up.
And, yeah, it's all too easy to get embroiled in the minute of things. I often want to describe areas in great detail but run into Chekhov's Gun in that, yes, I will happily mention a gun on the wall but it'll never be relevant to the story again because it's part of character backstory that doesn't matter to the current events...
I especially love the idea that Pinkie Pie was never part of the plan at any point and muscled her way into the operation regardless.
Going in increasing order of subtlety we have Rainbow Dash (sneaking,) Rainbow Dash (normally,) the wrecking ball, the sledgehammer, and Rainbow Dash (pranking.) Don't underestimate her ability to fly under the radar for the sake of a good joke.
My favorite headcanon for Celestial machinations is her tendency to take credit for happy accidents. Oh, she's good. You can't play the game for centuries without developing some degree of skill. But she's never been above acting like happy accidents were part of the plan all along. Besides, it does wonders for cultivating her reputation as a peerless schemer. An entirely benevolent one, of course.
(Ironically, she has almost no ability to improvise beyond that. Sudden, unexpected changes without at least a month's notice flummox her like nothing else.)