Rage Review: Resist and Bite (Chapter 10, Part A) · 7:35am Apr 5th, 2020
I'm also going to reference AC97's rage review of this chapter, which is available here, because he covered the points so well I wasn't sure if I should bother -- but I decided, why not?
Chapter 10: Rough talk with the griffons
GILDA: If yer inta that kinda thing, that is!
Charlie and Luster Dawn have exited the Kirin village and was following the white stream.
(story)
Now, this actually references a stream of energy being generated by the fabled Talisman of Plot Device that Twilight Sparkle pulled out of her ... plot device? ... some chapters back, and handed to Charlie because she ... sensed he was the Protagonist?
(seriously, none of this was really explained In-Story, including why Twilight had that Talisman on her, how she managed to avoid it getting confiscated by the Chinese Army, nor why it didn't occur to her to grab or use any artifact more directly useful against the Red Chinese than the Charlie-Empowering Item).
This artifact turned Charlie Lam, arrogant-minded Human engineering student and overall Gadgeteer Genius, into a white Alicorn, something he (and everyone else) keeps forgetting he now is even though it's literally the most obvious thing about him on first sight, and projects streams of glowing energy which apparently only he and his companions can see (because nobody else notices them) toward where ever he is supposed to go to try to unite various peoples to free Equestria.
Thus it serves him as advisor and guide, because his actual companion on this journey, Luster Dawn (a canonical character from "The Last Problem") who had been Twilight Sparkle's special student and trusted agent, has apparently suffered a metaphorical blow to the head and forgotten that she knows her way around Equestria and is empowered to speak for Twilight Sparkle, which you'd think would be of use in trying to unite various peoples to free Equesria. Really the whole story, Luster Dawn has acted like a blubbering coward, save where she apparently goes into some sort of mild heat every time any part of her touches any part of Charlie Lam, because, um ... male Alicorn? I dunno.
This depiction of Luster Dawn as part-idiot, part-coward, and part-absurdly-prudish and absurdly-horny teenager would probably offend me more if she had possessed any real characterization beyond "ascetic nerd-girl" in her one and only episode. I'm honestly much more offended at the depiction of all the other characters from the series, [ii]espetcially Twilight Sparkle and her other friends, as helpless "fragile" litttle creatures. Yes, the Alicorn Princess who went toe-to-toe with a fully-powered-up Lord Tirek the tough farmgirl who is canonically both super-tough and super-strong, the baker who routinely defies the laws of reality, the seamstress with super-precision combat telekinesis, the Pegasus who can go supersonic in seconds, the other Pegasus with mind-control powers, the high-functioing sociopath genius reformed-revolutionary Unicorn who once fought Twilight Sparkle herself to a time-traveling draw, and the adolescent Dragon who as a child was fighting alongside them all with his armored super-strong physique and magic plasma breath weapon.
Fragile. Helpless. One and all.
And in need of salvation by Charlie Lam, cuz he's just that cool!
Once Charlie and Luster Dawn have reached the end of the white straight stream, they looked up and saw that it was pointing up in the sky. (ibid)
A word on the word "straight."
If the stream is truly straight, it cannot suddenly make a 90-degree angle and point right up into the sky. We live in a world in which we perceive three spatial dimensions.
"Well, I guess we have to find a way to get up there somehow." Charlie said with a chuckle.
"Easy for you to say you have wings." Luster Dawn told him.
"Oh yeah, I do." Charlie said as he looked at his wings "Okay, how do I- whoa!"
Charlie moved his wings up and down for a few seconds and after a while he flapped harder and he was now hovering in the air.
(1) Once again, Charlie has forgotten that he's now an Alicorn. I don't know how one forgets a transformation that major, but okay.
(2) If I suddenly was transformed into something with wings, I would definitely experiment with them to discover the extent to which I could use them to, at least, direct my leaps or glide a little. If I had someone with me who knew what those wings could do, I would definitely ask her if I could actually glide or fly with them. Quite aside from my idle curiosity and sense of wonder, it's the sort of knowledge which could clearly prove important.
Charlie is an engineering student. A gadgeteer. And Story expects me to believe that he hasn't been even a little intrigued by such questions?
But Luster Dawn was irritated.
"Well, how do you expect me to get up there?" She asked.
What, Luster? Are you somehow personally-offended that Charlie can fly?
Seriously, why are you such a whiny load?
Charlie then looked at her and began to formulate a plan, he could carry her but he must assume that their weight was the same considering their height.
... said no engineering student with a functioning brain, ever.
One cannot assume that two object with the same height necessarily have the same weight. Weight would be density x height x length x width. We may reasonably assume that Charlie and Luster have similar densities, but we cannot assume that their bodily-proportions are identical.
Speaking of which, why are they roughly the same height? Charlie is a male Alicorn. Male Ponies are on the average taller and more heavily-built than female Ponies, and Alicorns on the average taller than non-Alicorns.
(I can think of reasons for this, but Story has provided none).
And carrying a girl on his back would be a presumptuous and humiliating experience.
For which one of them? And why?
Charlie is Chinese-Australian. That does not mean "Victorian British," and real Victorians weren't this prudish in emergencies. Equestrian mores vary depending on who portrays them, but few portrayals of them are this prudish either. Mine has them be somewhat prudish, but not to the point where a stallion and mare can't even touch one another.
After thinking for fifteen seconds, he has came up with a thought for her.
You'd better, Charlie. This version of Luster Dawn doesn't seem to have any useful thoughts of her own.
"Say Luster dawn, do you think that you can teleport with the magic you have?"
When Luster Dawn heard this, she immediately blushed in embarrassment because she has totally forgot that she had magic by her side.
"Oh right! Sorry, I totally forgot about that. I'm such an idiot."
"Eh it's alright. You don't have to blame yourself." Charlie assured her.
Luster Dawn, forgetting her own magic. That's Princess Twilight's brilliant top student, folks!
And why doesn't she have to blame herself, Charlie? Is your opinion of her so low that you deem she isn't even responsible for her own thoughts and actions?
..Do I even need to explain why this is fucking stupid? Pointing. Out. The. Problem. Doesn't. Make. It. Disappear. For crying out loud, how are you Twilight's student, for the millionth time, or Starlight's child? You shouldn't be Too Dumb To Live ...(AC97J)
Precisely. Pointing out the problem only makes it an obvious problem, even more clearly requiring explanation.
A better approach would have been for Author to use this opportunity to have Luster Dawn explain (or wonder) why she's so messed up right now. There are potential reasons in-Story why that might be the case -- she might have had her morale broken by recent events, or have been subject to some sort of intelligence-suppressing force, or something -- but Author hasn't so far even hinted at either of these as accurate explanations.
No real spoiler to say that Author does this in Story a lot. He does it to the point that I strongly-suspect that he never noticed any of these problems, at least when he was writing it.
After that, he began to fly upwards like a helicopter. (Story)
Like... a helicopter? Peculiar way to describe someone ascending with their wings. What, is he spinning around the whole way up or something? Are his wings rotating around his body to generate lift? (AC97)
Yes. The mechanism of Pegasus-Alicorn hovering or vertically-rising flight -- rapid wingbeats, with (as I postulate) a telekinetic lifting effect channeled through the wing surfaces, reminds me of birds (telekinesis necessary because Ponies are much heavier than flighted birds) or ornithopters from Dune. It's not much like any helicopter or gyrocopter or even tiltrotor type aircraft I've ever seen.
And Luster Dawn activated her horn and teleported away with her magic. (Story)
Because otherwise I would have thought that she launched herself to the cloud city with a mighty magical fart?
I'm stopping here because that was a very stupidity-dense part of the story. I will resume this in my next blog post.
Glad to see you're continuing with this.
So, clearly Luster is being helplessly damselled as part of the overall Charlie's love interest thing, but what the story and the author seemed to have forgotten is that there is now no reason at all for Charlie, omnicompetent hero that he is, to fall in love with this stupid, useless, whiny popular misconception of a pulp heroine/disney princess. What does she have about her that would attract him to her?
In this regard it's a reversal of the usual problem with Human in Equestria that you have pointed out more than once, which is that there is no reason for the Mane 6 & co, able, upright and virtuous characters that they are, to be attracted to the generally unimpressive human visitors.
It's a reversal that might be interesting if one sensed it was in any way deliberate.
Pfffffft, now I'm laughing at the mental image of Charlie the Helicopter. Kind of like that one scene in Hercules...
i.pinimg.com/originals/eb/94/13/eb94131ac5bb5de90d4041d030cbeda6.jpg
Clearly this game does not handle the Z-axis well.
"he has came up with a thought for her" nicely encapsulates a number of issues with this story.
The most charitable explanation I can think of is that, rather than employ his wings, Charlie went for the Pinkie-pattern caudopter. A less charitable one is that, in a "How it really happened" version of the story from outside of Charlie's mind (wherein Twilight asks Luster to take the delusional creature far away from the nearly ruined diplomatic summit with extradimensional humans,) this exchange happened:
Charlie: "How do I fly?"
Luster: (glares, points at own horn) "Sit on this and spin."
Charlie: "I understand." (spreads wings, does continual corkscrew up to Cloudsdale)
Luster: (watching dumbfounded) I'd better be getting some incredible extra credit in my friendship studies for this.
Honestly, a rewrite that tells a less quixotic version of this tale might be tremendously amusing. Though you'd have to assume a lot is only happening in Charlie's head.
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A lot of the weird stuff in this story is explainable if Author's main point of reference for adventures is computer RPG's. In a computer RPG, one would be doing long-distance travel in a strategic mode, and transferring down to tactical mode for combat or other important interactions.
Yeah. Charlie is the only character in the story capable of anything but the most stereotypical sorts of thought, and he's not that bright. Him being a supergenius Doc Savage / Tom Swift level inventor comes off as a totally Informed Attribute; basically, an excuse to equip him with magic-like technology.
What's weird is that the civilization which canonically has Magitek, namely Equestria, has been deprived of it. Perhaps this is because Author is not familiar enough with the Show to realize just how advanced is Equestria's technology and how much of it incorporates minor enchantments?
Equestria is also being nerfed in that the Equestrians are not in Show depicted as insanely pacifistic, unfamiliar even with the concept of an "army." They have weapons. And not just spears, but also halberds, bows, crossbows and cannon.
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In my world, she might be Cycling, but that's only the most superficial sort of attraction, and one which it would be sad (rather than touching or even funny) if they acted upon -- given that they are otherwise romantically incompatible in any emotionally-healthy sense. That's where single foals come from. (Heck, it's probably where your sociopathic Unicorn came from!)
Which leads me to the other possibility -- namely, that Charlie is attracted to Luster precisely because she's being characterized as a cowardly imbecile. He's looking for a mate who is such a dunce that she can pose him no possible challenge to his own self-image.
That's very unhealthy, because a love built on that is bound to fail. If Luster Dawn becomes more competent, she'll threaten him. If she remains incompetent, he'll tire of the burden of thinking for her. The only way it could last would be as an abusive relationship, in which he keeps rubbing her muzzle in his own superiority, and discouraging her from ever improving, and she for her part demands his constant attention and support for ever and ever.
Not romantic ideals to which one should aspire!
Oh sweet! You're continuing with this?
By all means, I do not mind at all if any of it's redundant, by any stretch, one reason for that would be that uh... you obviously have a larger audience than I.
Though I will say there's a chapter or three I really do wanna get to (in the 20s, and they're doozies from what I read, especially some of the last few chapters, in which... well, I think it has to be seen to be believed), so if you're gonna stop long before then, I'll probably end up doing them; should I do future reviews on this blog post, if I do? (probably)
(In any case, I Google Docs the remainder of the story, just in case, until I'm done with it, whether it's boredom or being finished reviewing)
This is a bit off-topic, but in regards to Starlight, if anything, in my opinion, I think she's far closer to fitting into having/having had the condition of "Borderline Personality Disorder" (which is also a Differential Diagnosis to Antisocial Personality Disorder) than anything like sociopathy (not that it's an excuse for her villainous actions; she wasn't a good pony). The reasons for such are as follows: one, she can feel affective empathy, two, she can feel remorse, and three, none of her motives and goals make much sense if you have "sociopathy" in mind.
With sociopaths/psychopaths, their defining trait is that they don't even have much of a personality, in comparison to other people. With them, their "personality" is entirely centered how their condition manifests itself, due to the factors of their intelligence, and how they go about their selfish/stimulation-seeking desires, or in other words, how their "mask" operates, if they feel the need to use it.
They'll pathologically engage in their deceptions/mask even though there may be no benefit in doing so, like pretending you misheard/misunderstood/misremembered "Grogar" as "Grofar" right after hearing it, as part of the cutesy kid act ("the name 'Grofar?' it just doesn't ring any bells", regarding part of why I think she was pathologically lying). They have no true ties to ideologies, or loyalties (which Starlight is decidedly rather loyal to Twilight, and is philosophically subservient to her on account of truly believing in it/her, and back when she was a villain, her entire ideology is very centered around emotional logic), and they tend not to care about someone beyond "are they useful to me, and/or are they amusing/entertaining?"
You can't guilt a sociopath into stopping, they don't care on a traditionally emotional level about having relationships with other people, and they wouldn't desperately resort to denial if they're confronted with evidence that they've done/caused something horrible (like Starlight did in S5), so if Starlight was actually a sociopath, Twilight would've never reformed her in that way, she would've had to appeal to her with logic/pragmatism, entirely.
edit: spaced the sentences out, to hopefully make it more readable
- where I read that interpretation first, to my memory
(edit, had to do a minor fix to the quote box ending location)
One of the motives behind why they pathologically seek stimulation (like with how Cozy Glow seeks power), is because it's not uncommon for sociopaths/psychopaths to have shallow emotions (and can also be lacking/hindered in emotions like fear), which is not a trait I'd describe Starlight as having, in the least.
Furthermore, I think Starlight has some signs of autism as well, on account of her having demonstrable failures with cognitive empathy on numerous occasions, and having difficulties reading others on some occasions.
But well, I digressed, lol.
(that level of prudishness is Too Dumb To Live, if you ask me)
It's like the author's writing this with the mindset of "these ponies must be so useless, so fragile, gotta save them" and forgetting the part of "why is it like this, realistically?"
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Since you bring Informed Attributes up, I know of a case right at the end of the entire story, that's even more egregiously bad, if anything, because uh... he doesn't have the right to be called as such.
What I mean is, somehow he got declared the "Prince of Tactics" or something... even though, yeah... one of us should cover it.
Good to see you're keeping up with this. I wonder about this story -- can it really be this inept (maybe I shouldn't talk) -- but nothing I read here gives me any desire whatever to read it.
You and yours take care!
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You may well be right about Starlight Glimmer.
I originally-interpreted Starlight's character based on Seasons 5 and 6 of the Show.
In Season 5, Starlight was an out-and-out Well-Intentioned Extremist villain, who at literally the last moment gave up in despair when she realized that she -- who had hoped to improve and save Equestria -- was instead destroying it, again and again and again. Twilight Sparkle then decided to spare Starlight and teach her the Magic of Friendship. In Season 6, Twilight and Starlight perservered and Starlight was "reformed" -- at least to the point where she decided to use her great intellect and power for truly-good purposes.
However, I noticed that Starlight achieved a lot of her "reformation" by, basically, copying and modeling herself upon the behavior of Twilight Sparkle, and a few other people whom she befriended. Her understanding of Friendship, itself, always struck me as rather abstract. The people whom she actually befriended were marginally-sane folk, and in at least one case (Trixie) exactly the sort who might have joined her original Sameness Cult.
So I originally thought of this as Starlight Glimmer simply becoming a higher-functioning sociopath, learning better and more mutually-rewarding and above-all stable ways of getting along in society. That's not inconsistent with her becoming less harmful -- that's how real high-functioning sociopaths manage to get along in society without becoming wanted killers.
However -- especially based on Seasons 7-9, I think you're right that it's more likely that Starlight Glimmer either has borderline personality disorder or mild autism, or perhaps some uniquely-personal combination of the two. She's brilliant and charisimatic, and unlike a sociopath capable of genuine friendship and love -- it's clear that she felt and still feels considerable affection for her former followers, and also for certain friends (especially Sunburst and Trixie). She's genuinely loyal to Twilight Sparkle.
At the same time, I still maintain that Starlight is ruthless to a degree exceptional among Equestrian Ponies. It's like she connects with normal Equestrian mores at a highly-intellectual but not much of an emotional level.
For instance, while she's accepted the need to adopt a code against killing (and to be fair, wasn't all that murderous even in The Cutie Map -- there's just one blink-and-you'll-it-moment where she lashes out at her former followers with a potentially-lethal attack, only to have Twilight Sparkle parry the magical bolt) -- we've seen that she can disengage her inhibitions easily if she decides ultimate force makes sense. She tried to strike down Discord with a blow that would probably have annihilated any being not capable of instantaneous reconstitution from Chaos Magic, and she was very swift and decisive all through The End of the End (she almost defeated powered-up Chrysalis, single-hoofed).
The main argument against Starlight's sociopathy is that she is capable of what seems genuine romantic love (not just lust) toward Sunburst and true friendship toward Trixie (actually, her not being driven to attempt murder upon Trixie is perhaps a really good argument that she's no sociopath. These relationships (especially with Sunburst) seem to endure in "The Last Problem."
So maybe she is borderline or autistic, and she becomes more functional over time.
This would still fit my concept of her in Post-Traumatic, especially Chapter 14: "The Shadows of the Past," is vague enough in genuine psychological terms that it could be caused by several underlying conditions. Particularly, her extreme need to have others agree with her on everything, to accept their friendship or love as genuine, and the consequent blighting of her life as she alienated friends and lovers, becoming a lonely (and very dangerous) supergenius, still works if she's autistic -- maybe more so, because she would need love and friendship in ways alien to a true sociopath.
One might point out that my Princess Twilight thought differently on the matter. Well, regardless of how brilliant a polymath Purple Smart happens to be, she's sometimes wrong, and what's more she (1) isn't primarily a psychiatrist, and (2) was under some time-pressure at the time to get her report handled in on time to alert Celestia and Luna to the peril before Starlight could strike.
It's also obvious that Twilight Sparkle herself was at the outset of her adventures only marginally-saner than Starlight Glimmer. And Twilight Sparkle certainly improved over time.
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I mean, fair enough on that regard; she really uh... pulled a Twilight on the ELTSD episode, where she mind-controlled her friends because holy hell she missed the point so badly, and it took Twilight yelling "that's because it is really bad!" for her to get the point (and she was reckless with magic in that season; that lesson took until S7 to stick). Though I will note that in very early S6, there was that instance of her having a pretty damn realistically depicted panic attack when Twilight brought up Sunburst (guilt and/or social anxiety?).
That's a thing I didn't cover, regarding how sociopaths work; the difference between low-functioning and high-functioning sociopaths comes down to the factor of both their ability to utilize impulse control, and their intellectual capacity, and education is also a factor. While not all sociopaths are killers (far from it, or the murder rate would be notably higher, everywhere), it should be noted that attempts to rehabilitate them (if they're being criminals) tends to just teach them to be better manipulators.
But anyway, yeah, that is a good/interesting point overall, about Trixie probably being the type to tag along with S5 her.
Regarding that one user there that went "BPD," and talked about his reasoning, I think this was also an interesting post of his, in regards to the topic (quoted below)
(but anyhow, moving on)
I'm definitely glad that you're open to considering that viewpoint, by all means.
I think it's perhaps fair to say that Starlight has at least a little knowledge of psychology to compensate for the fact that her cognitive empathy just isn't necessarily that great. It's obvious that she can be insensitive without trying to be (ELTSD and that complete screwup, overlapping with morals there, and "missing the point," "that's different, you're not a princess princess," meant as saying "you're way more approachable than Celestia," in Horse Play, or Rock Solid Friendship when she told Pinkie she was getting in the way, or Parent Map, or how she said "Thanks, Trixie! You can give good advice when you don't mean to," in A Horse Shoe-In, and so on; rather relatable, for someone on the autistic spectrum like me)
I'd definitely maintain that Starlight's mindset would be notably better suited to warfare than say, Twilight Sparkle's. She'd probably be quicker to jump to using lethal force than the latter would be, if she felt it necessary, for self-defense, or for the sake of others, and quicker to get used to it.
It goes without saying that say, torturing her and/or her friend(s) (or killing any of the latter), and making the mistake of letting Starlight live is basically a death sentence, too, if she got the chance for a nanosecond (I'd like to think the same would be true of Cadance; you just don't hurt anyone she loves, and expect a good outcome, if she can help it). I think she quite possibly would kill you even if you decided to surrender, after such a scenario, where Twilight would be less likely to do so, though I don't think she'd be prone to drawing such a demise out, by any means. (as for the character I kinda have in mind there, I don't think Chrysalis would ever be the type to surrender, in any case, nor is she the type to beg for her life; she's rather thoroughly Defiant to the End)
You will never hear me argue that Starlight isn't notably more ruthless than your average pony; I actually remember finding it kinda surprising that some people think Starlight wouldn't kill someone, post-reformation, and I've seen at least one person go further and argue that she'd have never done so, even pre-reformation (though in hindsight, perhaps the argument of "crystalization spell" works, but it could've very easily been a lethal shot/seriously injuring shot, too; it definitely wasn't the color of the Cutie Mark removal spell).
Would it be odd for me to think she might actually have more in common with humans than she might with ponies in general, in some aspects, in regard to her general mindset?
I think you could make the case that Starlight, ironically enough, is possibly more on the introverted side (like how she fell back on magic because of her being nervous in ELTSD, with social activities, her demonstrably having social anxieties), if anything.
Speaking of Trixie, this brings to mind the topic of how it's still notable, how people might whitewash her, to this day. Yes, Starlight did worse things as a villain, but well, there's a reason Trixie is known for Draco In Leather Pants, and it relates to her ego and the problems it causes being downplayed. This post of Alara's stuck in my mind, quite a bit, regarding the differences between them. Yeah, Trixie isn't an extreme Narcissist like Chrysalis is, and she's not sadistic like her, but... she is on the Narcissistic side nonetheless (speaking of Trixie, does she even exist in the story of Resist and Bite? I don't think she does, lol; her smoke bombs would've only been unused, no?), even if it's still possible for her to feel remorse. I will also note that Starlight isn't really prone to whitewashing; she's much, much more prone to the opposite, especially amongst those who don't like her.
If Trixie had a subtype of Narcissism, would it be somewhat close to "Compensatory?" She does seem to be more than capable of recognizing when she's outclassed, so it's apparent she doesn't fully buy her own hype like Chrysalis and Discord do (more justifiably with the latter, though he's let his ego ruin him four times, twice by the Elements, and twice by getting his magic drained).
I will stand by saying that Starlight is a better person overall than Discord is, as of S9. She's certainly more far removed from how her villainous personality functioned than Discord is, at the very least pre-timeskip. Probably because unlike him and to a lesser extent Trixie, she isn't narcissistic, and it's therefore easier for her to internalize whenever she's fucked up (which a Sociopath and/or a narcissist is decidedly not good at; they're not good at having Character Development by definition, because when you feel no shame or remorse, or affective empathy (with sociopaths), you have a hard time changing your courses of action, because you just don't accept that you screwed up, for one thing, and you, by definition, don't really care that you're hurting others.
...Starlight definitely did get much more functional over time, regarding whatever mental condition(s) she might fall under, in any case.
Yeah, I think it would still fit well enough, as well.
It's true; Twilight isn't infallible, by any means, and she can make mistakes like anyone else, especially if she doesn't necessarily have all of the information that'd paint a more complete picture on the matter. Differential diagnoses can be tricky like that, especially if you don't specialize in the matter (which I am not gonna claim to be a psychologist, in any case)
It's really no wonder Twilight saw herself in Starlight at that moment, when reaching out to her.
Huh, that was a long post; Starlight is a rather interesting character to talk about, really.
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I've looked a little ahead and it looks to really be this incompetent, along with a general quest plot pattern of:
(1) Charlie and Luster go to meet another race.
(2) Charlie tells them he's one of the Invaders.
(3) The natives attack.
(4) Charlie and Luster skedaddle.
(5) "Why won't anyone listen to us?!"
Repeat, rinse, recycle.
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Hoo boy. You'd think the simple repetitiveness of it would grow tiresome to even the author after a while. And announcing himself by declaring that he's one of the invaders devastating their country and killing their people? Why doesn't that mare with him, Twi's student, just sneak off when he sleeps to stop this nincompoop from getting her killed?
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Does it never occur to him to simply reverse the order of his declarations?
"I am acting on behalf of Princess Twilight Sparkle, and am a friend to Equestria. My people come from the same world as the Invaders, but are no friends to them."
Something like that?