Story Talk! · 1:57pm Jul 22nd, 2020
I decided to try a new thing. A discussion of a finished story!
[Adult story embed hidden]
Here's the topic, Lightning Bringer.
When I was approached to start this story, it was to be about a human protagonist that would have all the answers and Fix Everything. It's a trope you've likely seen done a lot. It's quite popular in fiction, beyond pony. But the roots are in colonialism. The Educated White Man arrives on Primitive Shores and can fix things through their clever minds, keen wit, and civility.
Every set back is due to the locals being primitive and backwards. Every success is due to the protagonist's awe-inspiring origin culture that has it so much better in every way! This plays out a lot, even in modern times.
I mean, shoot, there I was being asked to write one. So I tried to take it a little off-kilter, to throw some reality on this cake. The protagonist does have a lot of knowledge, coming from the future and all, but the problems are bigger than he thought, and not because the ponies are backwards people that refuse to listen to reason. Life is complicated.
Every problem begets two more problems standing in the way, piling up. Yes, he does eventually get through it all, but only by addressing pony issues, not by trying to hammer American Human ideals down their throat as if they'd work just as well for an alien culture. The more he goes, the more he realizes he can't be The Solution.
Ultimately, the world isn't broken in the first place. Ponies are being ponies and being fine ponies at that, overall. He takes a step back and offers a hand of friendship and guidance, but he abandons the ideals of being The Answer. It was quite specifically done that his last project(the patent/forbidden library combo platter) was assigned to two ponies, with him as the advisor. It was equally intentional that he didn't object to this, but so too was his assistance welcomed with open hooves.
He came ready to lead them, and ended up being their friend instead, and that isn't a bad outcome by far.
Did these themes play out clearly? Was I too subtle? Too blunt? Did you even notice them before this blog? Please, share! Discuss! Comment!
honestly as i mentioned on the last chapter i think it felt like it had a rushed ending the story was building momentum, he was slowly developing canterlot clean water and getting like minded ponies, setting up institutions guiding ponies and letting their own creativity create new inventions and then suddenly he telling celestia the worst of humanity advancements and eating cake the end. kinda disappointing for me personally i have liked to seen that while he set this new path in motion it was still the ponies that forge the new path, shown the future they forged in a epilogue
in the end it was still majority the Educated White Man arrives on Primitive Shores who developed most of the tech, i kinda feel it should have gone on another 50 chapters and had more and more ponies joining him and coming up with new ideas and technology to the point that he only need to administrate them while they steamed ahead, maybe show ponies and diamond dog working together and without him coming up something he never even thought of, show more of ponies reaction to his marriage to a ponie, have more suitors come for him and him having to deal with ponie culture
this story reminded me of anime Honzuki no Gekokujou, and i enjoyed both, overall the story was enjoyable and i compare it to bushkeeper in quality, for a technology power fantasy it avoid many of the tropes, overall im sad it over and i look forward to what you do next
5318559
Ponies did come up with ideas, that's a major part of what shoved him off course. He didn't think they'd make an electrical generator, but they did. And some other pony was already working on light bulbs? What?
That was why he pivoted away from shoving ideas forward to supporting pony minds to make pony solutions to pony problems. The last project is an admission that ponies could make great solutions of their own. In his conversation with Celestia he said the same thing, that the solutions of man were to be put aside, for when pony solutions had already failed.
Also Tight got a wife, yay!
Your comment does say I didn't pull off my subversion as well as I'd hoped though.
5318562
i just thought it was only the small first step that the ponies did like the electrical generator, but wanted it to explode like chain reaction developing more and more without him, like a master teaching a student that eventually surpasses him, we just didn't get to see that happen here, if we had seem it play out on a more grander scale , i feel you would have succeed in the subversion more then you did
like for example i liked if without him the ponies go from making light bulbs to creating pony kinds first Vacuum tube
This story... I started it, because i was interested in seeing ability of one person affect the world through the help of knowledge.
It started kinda decent. I mean, written normally, no noticeable problems, no illogical things...
But... Uh... I got to the point where mc is turned into satir (or whatever) and i'm not sure why exactly, i found story quite boring and repulsive, even. I don't exactly remember events in book now, but this moment, where weirdness happened, and where protagonist was forced to fix his own problems, instead of others, as i'm guessing, together with extremely cliche-ed, but limited this time human-pony transformation... Besides, plumbing is quite a weird thing to start from, not very exciting...
Yeah, something in it all i couldn't stand for long.
I cannot comment on the story in full, but i can say that it was decently written, but had some repulsive moments, at least for me, to sum it all up.
I've only gotten as far as chapter 15, I'm gonna spend the next few days going through it and I'll come back to this blog post to answer those questions.
Soo far into the story i get it an above average rating, its holding my interest thats for sure.
Reminds me that i need to go back and read it all... haven't read any fics for a while and have a deadly backlog right now
I liked it. I think it was smart that you set it 500 years in the past, so it seems far more plausible that an average person could have a much more advanced knowledge of Equestria. I liked that, in a highly realistic twist, the protagonist found out a lot of the biggest barriers to improving society weren't technological, but political, and he had to go on an epic quest just to clear the decks before he got started.
I liked that his final masterpiece for improving Equestria wasn't actually sanitation, it was a patent system, the meta-improvement that will vastly help Equestria improve everything else.
And lastly, I loved Water being a reverse-furry.
I will say, I think the title didn't really fit the story, since the protagonist actually did very little with electricity.
5318865
It would have been neat if the titular "Lightning Bringer" was actually the pony who invented that stuff, who winds up being the one who history remembers as the Tesla of ponykind (with the human protagonist fading away and becoming largely forgotten). Perhaps that actually is how it will go down, but I have to admit that I felt the ending was a little abrupt too. Maybe an epilogue set centuries later would be a good coda for all this, to establish some of that stuff?
5318963
That would be awesome, especially since I believe the pony who harnessed electricity was Easy's father, and it is implied that she's an ancestor to a certain Great and Powerful magician...
5318963
Another thing is, I'm still not sure if the protagonist changed modern day Equestria, or created modern day Equestria. Is the Equestria we know what happened because of the Lightning Bringer, or is it what the world was on track to become before he showed up anyway, and he made things even better/more advanced?
Aside from the sudden ending which felt like it came out of nowhere, for me the weakness of the story is that the protagonist doesn't feel necessary. The story establishes that the ponies aren't mindless primitives, and judging by how quickly they run with certain concepts it seems clear that they would have figured it out themselves anyway. So since it seems like he could not exist and in the grand scheme nothing would have changed, what's the point?
Sure, not every protagonist needs to be some sort of world-changer, but the way the story is set up this is the entire premise. Otherwise it would just be a character story and there'd be no need for all the baggage getting in the way.
I liked the interactions with Easy, but Water's interactions seemed to have a bit of a creepy vibe at times. It was more fun watch him verbally spar and chat with Celestia than anything else. He had much more chemistry with Easy and Celestia than Water.
Also wasn't really a fan of the half-pony transformation.
5319500
He had much more impact than most of us will ever have. He ended a civil war early, oversaw a major city project and set in motion a cultural touchstone that will have lingering effects for basically forever. Man, I would not be sad with this legacy to call my own. Not every protag saves the world, but to say he did nothing seems... false?
5319505
I think you've missed the point, which is that it feels like anything he did would have happened anyway. The ponies aren't stupid, and they aren't backwards. He could be removed entirely from the story, and all the problems would have been solved regardless - you can see by the way ponies are able to put stuff together and develop ideas that they have the ability to advance themselves.
As for ending the civil war, that part just makes the ponies look stupid - what, no one else could figure out they were being manipulated, and that there was a lot of fuss over a relatively minor concern in the grand scheme of things? No one else is able to mediate anything?
The story has some interesting ideas, it's the execution in my opinion that doesn't really work. If it had taken him a lot longer to develop a culture of knowledge and learning it would work better in my view. The story tries to tell tell me he's done this, while having ponies able to near instantly grasp concepts and develop it themselves - if they are that good then he simply isn't needed. It's not believable that they are readily able to do this themselves extremely quickly, yet that he played a vital role.
5319543
That was, in large, the point? He is not the solution. He was, at best, grease on the wheels. Tight Fit would not have invented electricity had the protag not arrived. It would have been 100% impossible. He hadn't even the start of a clue about any of that. That invention would have been many years later in the making. Without that, the light bulb being worked on would have been seen as, at most, a curiosity.
This has actually happened in the real world, no few times. Inventions before their time without the supporting infrastructure come and go and, sometimes, have to be entirely re-thought up.
I am gonna be honest, while I loved the story, the ending left much to be desired. Tom nay loose ends and unfinished plot lines.
His wedding, for one, is something I was looking forward to. Maybe even seeing him and his wife doing a bit of exploring.
We never got to see the outcome of the Guild he helped start either.
We never got to see how well received a Interspecies Marriage would have been.
Hell even just having him Ask Celestia to turn him and his wife to stone so they could see their work and it’s outcome in the future would have been a slightly better (and more open) ending. I mean tech in the future kinda stagnates under magic and I honestly think he could have made a difference around twilights time.
Again while the story was amazing, it just didn’t end like/could have. I know that you were trying to get out that he didn’t need to be there anymore, but what about like I said the Future and it’s stagnation?
Loved the story and enjoyed the twist on the whole ‘human beings all the answers’ idea. The cause of the rebellion (which is more of what it was tbh) seemed a little off, only due to the fact that yeah having only one copy of the spell would be an issue it felt a bit forced. Granted you were probably trying to avoid a Luna supporter uprising cliche but it could have been based off of something like neglect of certain areas or lack of representation which has led to that sort of thing in our own history. While avoiding copying history is something that is understandable it would help to use examples to make the story a little more believable. My only other issue is that the ending was very abrupt and that a lot of the story could’ve been expanded on, maybe to see some of his other projects completed, his wedding, maybe even an epilogue set in the ‘modern day’ where twilight finds him in a history book and asks Celestia or something. I get that the point was that he wasn’t needed but it would be nice to see the little impact he would’ve made to the canon timeline, apart from the river outside of Canterlot, it would’ve made the story feel a bit more complete. All that aside I did enjoy the story. I know this turned more into more of a moan but These were the only things I had issue with, otherwise 10/10