I made an in-depth review of Shakespearicles's Cat's Cradle. · 4:23am Jun 8th, 2022
With one of my favorite fics on this site finally reaching its conclusion after 5 years, I figured I'd go ahead and give it a review, because I had a lot of things to say about it. I put it as a comment on the fic, but I also pasted it at the end of this blogpost (please go read it on the actual fic's page though). Cat's Cradle is definitely not for everyone, as it's a mature rated story with lots of sex and incest, but if you don't mind either of those things, then go ahead and give it a read.
Click HERE to go read Cat's Cradle!
Okay, here's my full review for Cat's Cradle (mostly spoiler free, though there will be spoilers towards the end).
First things first, Cat's Cradle is a story about incest. If you're not one for incest, you won't like this fic. The whole premise of this fic is that every main character is engaging in incest. Another important aspect of this story is that while it loosely follows the plot of Friendship is Magic, Cat's Cradle is a character driven story at its heart. The meat of it is based on characters' actions and reactions to what happens in the story. The last big, overarching thing about Cat's Cradle is that it has a theme of freedom vs authority.
Let's talk about the theme of freedom vs authority first. While the fic does come down on the side of freedom in the end, it's not a black and white "freedom is always better than authority" kind of message like most stories with freedom as a theme are. The author shows the merits of authority through Celestia's alicorn project. Without Celestia, Twilight Sparkle would not exist in the same form that she does in the show (and the fic), and the world would likely have ended without Twilight being as powerful as she is. The reason she is so powerful is because of Celestia's grooming of her entire family line (which because of the premise, is incest all the way down). The merits of freedom are shown through Celestia's authority being smothering. While she uses her authority to help protect and make sure that the Sparkle family is always safe and well cared for, she pulls their strings to such an extent that they never really get to make a choice of their own. This is paid off by the characters eventually breaking out of her stranglehold Celestia has over their lives to pursue what they really want, which just so happens to be what Celestia wants, though they wish to do it on their own terms. The ending of the fic gives challenges to both authority and freedom and allows the characters to react to the situation. In the end, one side is a clear winner, though it's not necessarily a loss for the other. I believe this theme of freedom vs authority is crafted and executed as well as anyone could have. It doesn't come off as preachy for either side, and fully explores the merits and downfalls of both.
Let's talk about the plot. While it loosely follows the show, it's not afraid to go off on its own in order to keep the character motivations and actions consistent. Some good examples of this are any of the times the changelings are involved. I don't think the show truly captures the trauma that such events would hold for the characters, especially Shining and Cadance. Cat's Cradle picks up the slack and gives the characters more real reactions to said events. Even the events which lead up to and follow from the characters bucking Celestia's machinations are given very clear motivations, and are all character driven. This fic is, for the most part (we'll get to that), a master class on character driven stories. It's incredibly engaging to see how the characters shape and are shaped by the world and its events as the fic goes on. The character disagreements cause this incredible sense of tension and dread for how the inevitable explosion of tension will play out, and it just keeps building and building and building.
This fic is funny. There's a near constant stream of jokes throughout the fic, and it does nothing to undercut some of the more intense moments. The jokes generally come in 3 different flavors: references, poking fun at the show, and clever word play. While I do tend to find the reference jokes to be less funny than the other two, they never outright dominate the humor of the fic, and are kind of like little easter eggs for the reader to find.
I've covered the good, so now it's time to cover the bad. Don't get me wrong, Cat's Cradle is extremely good for the first 325,000 words, but when it comes to the end, it stumbles a little bit.
I'm going to try to be as spoiler free for this next section as I can, but the fic stumbles in the last three chapters. Remember how Cat's Cradle is a character driven story? Well the two chapters before the epilogue is when the big climax of the story happens. Of the 7 main characters (Celestia, Luna, Twilight Velvet, Night Light, Twilight Sparkle, Cadance, and Shining Armor), Velvet and Night Light are unable to participate due to age, which makes sense. What makes less sense is that the big climax takes place during Shining Armor's nap time, and instead of participating in the climax, Twilight and Cadance suddenly decide to follow their true dreams and become an umbrella and traffic light, respectively. I'm being a little facetious here, but my point is that both Twilight and Cadance have 0 effect on how the climax plays out. They may as well be lying on a beach sipping lemonade, and the climax would still play out the exact same way. Even Spike, who throughout the entire fic was treated as a joke character, had a bigger impact on the climax than both Twilight and Cadance combined did. In the last chapter, Twilight, Cadance, and Shining armor don't even get to have a satisfying ending. All they get is a couple lines and a single joke. The dynamic between these three characters is a large part of 230,000 words of this fic (over 2/3rds), and they get less closure than characters that were introduced in the final chapter. It's honestly a little jarring to see 3 of the main characters go from active participants in the story to literal background characters.
I'm not generally one to criticize without giving what I believe is a better solution, and now is no exception. This is where the spoiler free section of the review ends, so this is your only warning to stop reading if that's something you care about.
So how do we fix this ending? In my opinion, not much needs to change, as the pieces are all there, but just in the wrong spots. The first thing I would do is actually have Cadance's army invade canterlot. In the current fic, they literally do nothing for the final battle. Twilight and Cadance being in charge of the army that does 0 in the final battle is the first large misstep in the ending. I would remedy by having Celestia have a momentary lapse in composure when she first finds out Luna is pregnant and have the Canterlot army mistake that for the Crystal army attacking.
The events between Nova, Luna, and Celestia can all play out the same. From here I would have the Crystal army succeed in their invasion of Canterlot and have Twilight and Cadance storm through the whole castle right to Celestia's doorstep. Discord and Celestia's little chat can happen while Twilight and Cadance are trying to beat down Celestia's door. On the way, they can encounter Nova and Luna and have Twilight demand that Nova leaves, but he refuses. This would help to play with the theme of freedom vs authority that I mentioned above. I think this is a better use for the two of them than just standing in a random corn field at the base of the mountain doing nothing. This is where I would end Oft Go Awry.
I would start the next chapter with Daybreaker just absolutely mopping the floor with Twilight and Cadance, to the point where the idiom becomes literal and she's basically literally using their bodies to mop their blood all over the floor. Daybreaker can scream some stuff about how they got to bear children and she didn't. I would then have Daybreaker start to chase Nova and Luna like in the actual fic. I would then have Twilight and Cadance work together to shield the public from Daybreaker's fire instead of Spike. The Crystal army and Canterlot army can also be working together here to help the civilians to help show that the fight isn't between Equestria and the Crystal Empire, but between Celestia and everyone else. If we really want Spike in the mix, you can have Twilight look to Ponyville worrying for her friends and see spike shielding all of its inhabitants from the sun. I would also try to find a way to get Nova and Twilight one last conversation before Nova and Flurry fight Celestia where Nova begs Twilight to let him do something on his own terms for once, and Twilight realizing she's been smothering him in the same way that Celestia's been smothering their entire family, and she lets him go execute his plan. This gives a nice bit of character growth and helps to support the theme of freedom vs authority one last time. Everything else in Queen of the Ashes would play out the same from here.
I would then follow up on Twilight and Cadance working together to save Canterlot in The End of the Beginning by showing that they became much closer (either platonically or romantically, doesn't really matter which) and have a system to share Shining Armor all ready to go. Throw in a joke about Twilight having sex with checklists while Shining was away because I think that's funny, and have them end with a quiet moment together as they just bask in each other's presence. Everything else can stay the same.
I think this would be a more satisfying ending as it gives each of the main characters (who aren't dead or a senior citizen) an active role in the climax of the story, as well as helping to support the themes of the story a little better.I don't want to be misconstrued in this review. This fic is really, really good for 95% of its time, but in the last 5% it stumbles into merely above average. Shakespearicles worked his ass off to write this masterpiece and deserves every bit of praise he gets for it. I just think that the ending of the fic could be a little better by shuffling some of the characters into different spots. 9.8/10, definitely recommend.
