AUs, Art and Updates · 2:18am Apr 17th, 2022
Do you know what is annoying? Trying to write a magic show in a setting where a third of the population, including the performer themselves, are capable of performing real magic.
I've been doing some thinking (And talking with a writing group), and have come up with a few possible justifications for why Trixie's performances work and reasons why she resorts to trinkets and tricks.
1) She's not that great of a magic-caster
2) She can't keep casting spells throughout her shows
3) Real magic would be boring and asking for interference
From what we see in the earlier seasons, Trixie is inexperienced at higher forms of magic and seems incapable and unsure of herself when attempting it. While it is canon that she attended Celestia's School, exception ability at a young age doesn't exactly translate to capability at an older one. See; Sunburst. We don't know whether she graduated, if she dropped out or left, or exactly what their education entails since Twilight is a bad metric as she moved into being Celestia's understudy while everyone else seemingly graduated. Carrying on, no matter what her education status was, I don't think it is important to her magic at the time of the show for the other stated reasons.
The number one idea that I am running with; Attempting to perform every trick with magic would be exhausting. We can see magic being physically straining when performed for long amounts of time or to great effort, such as when Twilight had to pacify the Ursa Minor. It seems reasonable that trying to cast spells for every trick or explosion would be near impossible to keep up throughout an entire show, much less a whole tour through multiple towns when Trixie pulls her wagon everywhere she goes. While the stamina to keep up the acts of magic throughout her magic acts would maybe be impressive to some, the majority of the audience would probably be more ambivalent about the spectacle.
She's an entertainer. Her shows need to be entertaining. If your performance is similar to what two-thirds of the audience can do on their own and can be replicated by the remaining third, you're going to bore a substantial number of them before the end of the day. Take, for example, levitating yourself. It's unconventional but possible with practice. It might turn some heads but there's a decent chance some unicorn in the audience will attempt to do the same just after the show ends, if not during the act itself. It takes one pegasus hovering in the air to say "Oh that's so neat and original" to weaken your performance since a third of the population can already fly. What's more, magic takes concentration and focus. Trixie likes to talk, a lot, and loudly. It's part of why her shows work. Could she keep up with her script while simultaneously managing a whole checklist of spells in the back of her mind? If she could, why would she when she can just as easily do the trick with some smoke and mirrors and make it even more theatrical and awe-inspiring?
We've seen this in the show itself. To defeat Trixie, Twilight used numerous practical effects to imitate impossible magical feats to confuse and impress her enough to remove her alicorn amulet. The power of presentation was enough to prompt one of the at-the-time strongest magical beings in the realm (just below the pantheon of world deities with the feats the amulet allowed her to perform) to suspend her disbelief. Another such moment was in Where and Back Again when Trixie, with the help of Thorax, were able to distract a number of guards by mimicking the power of teleportation with a healthy dash of taunts and mockery. If they hadn't bought the act, they may have kept looking after one or the other "disappeared" and caught them in the smoke as they tried to slip away. They should have known that teleportation was impossible given the effect of the throne but Trixie's dramatic performance broke through that rational and got them to buy the act anyways. A little misdirection can draw people in more than what they'd expect from their reality.
The final bit comes from a friend; using magic would make her show vulnerable to other ponies' magic. To go off of DnD, a dispel could disrupt a major act with a whisper from any of the unicorns in the audience. From the show, a spitball to her horn could manage the same.
That's about all for today. In order to help sell the acts in the next chapter of oDaM, I am going to be inserting a few drawings here and there to depict the scenes in the show, to help with the literary explanations given for the acts that are being performed. It took a while to find acceptable magic tricks for Trixie to perform, so now the holdup is going to be writing from Sweetie's perspective for the first time as she becomes the star of the show. The next chapter may come before the end of the month should the drawing and writing all go well.
Sincerely,
Symphonic Sync
Neat :3
Sweet, looking forward to it!
Two ways this is handled in fanfics I have encountered are:
1: Trixie uses illusion magic, a school she is an expert in and Twilight is not very good at.
2: Stage Craft/sleight of hand is almost a forgotten art form because real magic is a thing, but some ponies remember it and respect a master in the craft. Usually these are ponies like the Alicorn sisters because of their age, or Twilight because she has studied history of magic. Trixie enhances her stage craft with some minor abilities in Illusion Magic.
5651331
I'd probably go with the second trend, especially given what we see in the show.
Beyond Trixie, there's the question of why her shows work in the first place. Why the audience sticks around to watch and what about it makes it entertaining for them. I think that regular magic makes that a difficult question to answer, while stage play offers the solution; It's popular because the acts she performs are dramatic and pleasing to watch, whether or not magic can do them.
For example, the second trick coming up in the chapter would be entirely possible with telekinesis, but the way it occurs and with who would be more engaging to the audience than the relatively simple trick that it should be. At least that's my hope.