CCC: cleverpun's Critique Corner #44 — The Rise Of Chaos · 10:24am Jul 22nd, 2020
We finally return to my series of critiques about the ISII entrants. We continue down my list of “finalists”: stories which I considered awarding points to. I would like to stress, however, that I only ranked them because FanOfMostEverything made me; they are all excellent.
I've suspected for a while that I would not be able to critique every story in the contest. At least not in long form. I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
Title: The Rise Of Chaos
Author: alarajrogers
Found via: That contest what I judged.
Short summary: In the time before Celestia and Luna fought Discord, he was their court archmage. The three of them are currently in a ceasefire with the dragons. And when the dragons request a meeting, Celestia insists they attend, despite Discord and Luna's warnings.
Genre(s): Character Piece, Drama
The Title/Description: The title is fine. Functional, straightforward. Neither gripping nor off-putting.
The description has a weird blend of details. It makes no mention of Discord or his place in the hierarchy of Equestria. The last sentence is probably giving away a bit too much. It doesn’t make clear whether it is a stand-alone piece or a part of a larger ‘verse.
The Critique:
This story covers a very interesting timeframe, one that we don’t see often enough in fanfiction. A time when Discord was still loyal to Celestia and Luna, and the event that would break such loyalty.
Discord is characterized wonderfully. He is different enough from his show self that the differences work as little points of characterization. But he is not so different that he is unrecognizable. This is a difficult tightrope for headcanon to walk, and it’s a great balance here.
This extends past just Discord. There’s a lot of very subtle clues and details scattered throughout. The way the story communicates these to the reader is never overbearing. For some examples: the story uses Your Highness and Your Majesty correctly. It integrates some mythological chaos deities, but doesn’t shoehorn them in.
The prose itself is well-written and engaging. The dialogue flows smoothly, and the moments of more intense action had me at the edge of my seat. The scene where Discord dies to anti-matter is brusque, abrupt, but all the more powerful for it.
The story does occasionally under-mark who is speaking. There were more than a few moments where I lost track of who was talking. And there are a few times where there is some unneeded exposition that drags the story down. (See the paragraph about Celestia’s sense of time and such, or the blunt note that Luna is a pegasus.)
It also suffers from being part of a larger story. Yes, it stands alone adequately, it fits in with its prompt perfectly fine. (And the idea of Discord coronating himself is both amusing and on-brand.) But killing off multiple major characters and then saying “this is a plot point in a later story” leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouth. This is the main reason it didn’t make it into my top five. A single additional flashforward, a scant paragraph of closure and context, would have made this a wonderful standalone story.
Ultimately, these minor nitpicks are just that: minor and nit-picky.
In a single sentence: This story features great prose, an interesting timeframe, and excellent characterization.
Verdict: Upvote. This is one of only a few stories that I’ve read that explores this particular section of the MLP timeline. Discord is still his show self, but with enough minor differences to sell that it is the past. And the ending is an impressive link between headcanon and canon. It’s definitely a part of a larger verse, but it’s absolutely still worth reading as a standalone.
