Cozy Chronicles Explained Part 1 - OC Magnolia · 3:24am Feb 10th, 2021
THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS UNFILTERED SPOILERS TO COZY CHRONICLES
This is the first in what might be a line of explanations I want to give into the insight of Cozy Chronicles. On the one hand, I like how vague certain aspects are. I think the mystery aspect to a lot of details in Cozy Chronicles is what makes it special. However, there is a lot going on with this story that isn't explicitly spelled out in the story. So here's me giving a little more detail, starting with this.
The first part here will focus on the original character featured prominently in the story. Her name is Magnolia, nicknamed Maggie, or simply Mag, or Magby, but she's also known as Brenda. She is a unicorn with a red mane. She appears about halfway into the main part of the story. She was a a member of the royal guard, who later turned against the guards, and sided with Cozy Glow, Tirek, and Chrysalis.
Many questions probably come to mind here. Why did Magnolia betray the guard? Why is Magnolia okay with Cozy Glow's attempt to take over Equestria? She's a royal guard, shouldn't she be loyal to her country? Is she just a guard who had a change of heart? Well, basically. But there's a lot more context to this, and backstory too.
There's a lot to unpack here, so let's start from the beginning. In school, then referred to as Brenda, for reasons she explained in the story. She was called Brenda by her Mom, but called Magnolia by her Dad. Her mother, Heather, who is seen, and her father, who isn't named, but I can confirmed he is deceased. The main idea I had in my mind was that he was killed in battle, but that didn't make a ton of sense, considering there hasn't been a recent war for that to have taken place. Perhaps he fell ill. Either way, he isn't around any more, and this affected Brenda/Magnolia deeply. This took place while in school, but before the fight and they were expelled.
In school, Cozy Glow was actually fairly outgoing, and Maggie was always jealous of that. Everypony seemed to do what she wanted, this bothered Maggie.
Later in the story, at the train station, the last dialogue you hear between Brenda and her mom Heather is your clue that Maggie/Brenda is taking a different path besides conventional school. Which leads to her enrolling into royal guard training. An unusual path for a young filly to take, but she was determined to follow in her father's steps.
After School Raze, word that Cozy Glow was responsible for the magic disappearing was kept tightly under wraps. The average pony had no idea what caused the magical disappearance. It was barely publicized that Cozy was responsible, so few ponies knew besides those at the school directly. Hence why that one pegasus in Summer Sun Setback didn't even know who Cozy was.
Cozy did make the news when her second defeat came around, and suddenly, that statue of her and the legion was on the front cover of every newspaper in Equestria.
Maggie had no idea the magical disappearance was Cozy's doing, but she vividly remembered the day following The Ending of the End. The moment the newspaper arrived at the royal guard training camp, everypony grabbed an issue to read about Twilight's most recent, and greatest victory against her toughest adversaries yet.
When Maggie saw the front of the newspaper, she was stunned. Cozy Glow. The filly she went to school with. The filly she attacked, and got expelled from school. The filly she and her mom nursed back to health, because she was attacked violently, and nopony besides them picked her up. Turned to stone by order of the Princesses.
Every creature in the area erupted with laughter. Laughing at the villains and their humiliating defeat, touting harmony would always win. Maggie was devastated to see her long time friend, stuck, and in such a distressed pose. That face of distress is what haunted her the most. She looked so... helpless. Before that day came, her plan was to apologize to Cozy should their paths cross again. But now it seemed like that wouldn't happen for a long time, and indeed that would be the case.
Going forward, Maggie asked the guard leaders why Twilight would allow a filly to be turned to stone. She would always get back the same general answer. They described Cozy as the nastiest pony of all. A true threat to Equestria that was better kept away from society, at any cost. After it was shown she could not be kept in Tartarus, and would carry out such a strong attack, everyone was convinced that stone was a worthy punishment.
(By the way, nowhere in the newspaper was it stated that Cozy was actually released from Tartarus by Discord, nor any mention of Discord disguised as Grogar, and gathering up the villains. Everyone had assumed that she had escaped. Funny how Discord and the princesses would leave that detail out of the news. Also, this was Cozy's introduction to a lot of ponies, so they took everything they saw that day at face value. Not helping matters was that there was hardly any background to Cozy outlined in the news stories, so most saw her as she behaved on that day, and no other context or background stated. So no one at the final battle cared about her, and neither did anypony reading about her for the first time in the paper. Sometimes the news is incomplete, and can paint a very different narrative.)
Tragically, Maggie had no choice but to accept this fact. There wasn't anything she could do to undo it. She had no case to defend Cozy, and it was impossible to simply ask the filly why she did what she did. The Cozy that Maggie had known first hand must not have been the real Cozy.
The Cozy she thought she knew was happy, and open, but she'd been unhappy ever since she'd gotten in a fight with her. Maggie felt personally responsible for sending Cozy down the path she did. The path that led to her demise. The guilt felt truly terrible. That wasn't entirely the case, but we'll talk about that later.
But Maggie's instructors told he that she needn't to fret. All her teachers at training camp told her that Cozy was evil. They told her that there was no tragedy because justice was served to a pony who deserved it. Maggie tried to see another light, but nopony had anything nice to say about Cozy, so she gave up trying to see the light, and accepted what had happened, and accepted the idea that Cozy deserved what she got.
So, Magnolia continued her royal guard training for many years. Her training started after sometime in Season 9, and continued all the way through where Cozy Chronicles takes place, which takes place around the same time as The Last Problem. One of Maggie's goals as guard was to make sure no filly would ever end up like Cozy Glow. Which basically meant, make sure no filly in distress ends up doing anything to hurt themselves or others.
When word broke that Cozy Glow had escaped, Maggie was fortunate that her division, led by Captain Gallus, was chosen to pursue her. Maggie was ready to bring justice to Cozy and the legion should it come to that. She'd spent years with the royal guard, and by this point was a formidable force. Her loyalty was to the country, and to Twilight Sparkle first. She was ready for their reunion, and ready to face off against the horrible filly she was told Cozy was.
When they finally caught up to Cozy Glow, their encounter did not go as she imagined. The filly was easily overtaken. It was hardly a fair fight. She was powerless, alone, and scared. Cozy was quickly over powered and stuffed into a prison carriage, and sent put on a course to Canterlot. Cozy was vengeful, but in the way a scared animal might bite back when cornered. She wept for her teammates she had been separated from. The Cozy Glow that Magnolia saw on this mission was not the Cozy Glow her royal guard captains had taught her to believe that Cozy was. This is when she really began to question what she had been told.
More importantly, it hadn't hit Magnolia until she caught up with Cozy, but seeing her childhood friend unchanged, but she herself had grown up. This is when Maggie really understood the severity of the extreme punishment delivered to Cozy Glow. The loyalty she was taught to give to Equestria was being tried. The plan was to drag Cozy against her will to Twilight Sparkle, but Maggie had the better idea, that maybe if Cozy Glow surrendered, Twilight would go easier on her, which is why she decided to kidnap Cozy herself.
This started her path of treachery, a path she was more than happy to take if it meant defending a filly in need.
After freeing Cozy, betraying Gallus, and joining her with Tirek and Chrysalis, she helps them by stealing a royal vessel from a nearby docking bay, and they proceed to follow the map to the Rainbow of Darkness.
So that's more or less Magnolia, and some more background on her time in the royal guard. There's a few other personality traits, and reoccurring themes with her if you pay close attention, but I think that's the gist. I mostly wanted to get the background stuff out there, since it is vital to her character, but isn't ever stated in the story.
Now for some more misc. questions answered.
Who is Stud?
Ah yes, the stallion guard who appeared in one brief scene. He's a buddy of Maggie's in the royal guard. They know each other. They talk often, but there isn't anything deeper between the two. Hence why she's okay with knocking him out.
Why was Magnolia okay with Cozy Glow unleashing the Rainbow of Darkness?
Magnolia was actually confident that the Rainbow of Darkness wouldn't work. She knew from reading one of their books that it could easily be countered by the Rainbow of Harmony. All Twilight had to do was unite with her friends, and it would be defeated. She didn't count on her friends being compromised by Cozy like what happened in the story. Either way, her loyalty to Twilight Sparkle had waned heavily. Magnolia believed every outcome to every dispute was fate. Twilight won every encounter because it was fate. If Twilight were to ever lose, it would've been because she was destined to lose. Maggie was confident destiny would decide to right outcome to occur. So she was okay with being hands off with the outcome.
Why the name Magnolia?
No real reason. The names Magnolia, or Brenda, don't have any specific reference or significance in and of themselves. They're just names I picked. Brenda name was chosen first. And in fact, Brenda the school filly came before Magnolia the royal guard, back when I was writing Cozy's backstory, and back when it was supposed to be a lot longer, and a lot more extensive than it ended up being in the final story. But that's to be talked about another day. Eventually the idea to make a royal guard happen to be a childhood friend came about, and the rest was history.
Lastly I just wanna say that Magnolia almost didn't happen.
Cozy Glow was always captured by the royal guard, but originally, she was rescued by just Tirek, Chrysalis, and I think at one point the Washouts flew all the way there to save her. Maybe Suri Polomare would've been there too miraculously? But that didn't make too much sense so I scrapped it.
I forget exactly what motivated me to make an original character, but I'm so glad I did. She became one of my favorite parts of the story. A royal guard whose loyalty to her country is turn apart when her views no longer aligns with the views of Twilight.
Her moment to shine really was the throne room scene in the first chapter of the epilogue. After waking up after being freed, she discovered the statue of Amber Glow (we'll get to her on a different day), and mistook it for Cozy Glow. She knew Cozy Glow destroyed the Rainbow of Darkness, because she was conscious long enough to see Cozy Glow free her from the Rainbow of Darkness. upon seeing the statue, she immediately blamed Twilight Sparkle, and took issue with her. This was the final straw, and after pleading for the princess to help, but being met with a cold reception in the throne room, it ultimately led her to quit the royal guard for good. Equestria was no longer a country she was willing to die for. And she was disappointed the country her father died for became this.
And to this day she no longer serves in the royal guard. In the last chapter of the story, Cozy Glow appoints her mayor of the town she established, which is where she resides to this day.
So that's Magnolia. A unicorn with a complicated history with Cozy Glow, but despite that, she was one of the only ponies who was willing to reach out and listen to her.
If you have any more questions about this character, or any other aspects of Cozy Chronicles, then feel free to ask. If you want more of these blogs explaining aspects of Cozy Chronicles, or other stories, let me know. I'd be more than happy to provide.
