The Phantom of Canterlot by Azure Drache

Twilight Sparkle has always been a obsessive seeker of knowledge, but during a research project into the lineage of Equestria’s old noble families, she discovers the founder of one particular house to be none other than the contemporary comic character Burning Snowflake. Believing this to be a grave error, Twilight sets out to establish the facts, only to find that some fairy tales might just be true.

Guess what? This is only, like, a fourth of the full description, and it's the only relevant part. Most of it is announcements and shout outs to editors. Yeah... not sure why I brought that up.

Jeez, this review took me much longer to get out than what I had arranged. I know, I know—I suck, I should’ve read faster, I’m the reason people support capital punishment, et cetera, et cetera. That being said, this really is a shame in hindsight. I wanted to like this story a lot more than I did, and given the fact that I wasn’t really planning on liking it, that statement sort of reads like an insult, doesn’t it?

Well, it’s not like I’m only going to tear this story apart. I’m serious, I have a few good things to toss in the mix. News flash: nitpicking isn’t funny or cute or cathartic, it’s boring and tedious. If I’m about to speak negatively of a story, then I should, at the very least, let people know that I care. And I do care… a little bit.

Alright, so, Twilight finds a comic book character etched into official Equestrian history, which she finds ridiculous (unsurprisingly), so she decides to solve this strange “error” by travelling to a castle of royalty, that is, residence of house Snowflake, the supposed family of Burning Snowflake (the comic book character). The plot is fairly straightforward, not until it spirals into a web of conspiracies, uncertainties, and even murder regarding the actual story 700 years ago.

Before I dive any further, I need to point out that The Phantom of Canterlot is incomplete, with all that that implies. I’ve only read the first 12 chapters, that being the amount of chapters available when I was first requested to review it. I do this for obvious reasons: without a base consistency I’d never be able to review incomplete stories because I'd always have to wait for newer chapters, and if you’re going to add yours to my folder, make sure it’s complete if you want me to get the full picture, otherwise I work with what I got. Okay? Did I clear that up? No one’s going to get snappish with me?

I guess I should start with the positives. The actual plot structure itself, for what it’s worth, was pretty decent. Twilight essentially interviews this baron and his wife about the history of Burning Snowflake and how this whole fantastical family tree came to be. The scenes sort of jumped back and forth. The plot would unravel via flashbacks, detailing the past life of the Snowflake ancestry, and then it’d cut back to allow for Twilight’s commentary and any questions she may have. There was actually this one scene that I kind of liked. Without giving too much away, there’s a civil war going on between the loyalists (ponies loyal to Celestia) and the democrats. Yeah, you heard that right—democracy-thumping rebels! You know, Equestria being a monarchy and all. Moving on, Burning Snowflake is trying to stop her relative from initiating a war, and this erupts into a fight. One of the younger characters barges in near the end, hugs Burning Snowflake, and pleads her to stop; this simple act of pacifism defuses the situation. It was a nice touch, partly because of how Burning Snowflake was mistreating for so long, and this was the last thing she expected. It was well executed and I liked it.

What else? Ehhhhhh… it added and tried to build upon some new lore. That was pretty cool. This is important because the newly introduced Equestrian lore is axiomatic to the entirety of the plot, which dependently revolves around this so-called history that was never supposed to happen, but it did anyway. The subplot involving the democracy movement opposing Celestia’s rule was definitely an element I took a liking to. But it got kind of implausible when one of the biggest reasons was personal issues a character had with Celestia, and that’s never expanded upon (at least not yet).

The Phantom of Cannterlot seems to have a direction it’s heading for. I can’t exactly predict the final length of this story—maybe 100k words?—so if you like long stretches of headcanon-heavy storytelling, check it out.

But my fucking God, did this story piss me off. I had to force myself nearing the end to finish the 12^th chapter. There’s a whole cornucopia of problems, both technical and character related.

The most obvious point of reference is the fact that the author isn’t a native English speaker. I suspected this after the first few chapters, but then I browsed the comments to have it confirmed for me. Can’t say I’m surprised. But hey, that isn’t the real complaint I’m posing. The question isn’t what language the author is comfortable with, either the writing is good or it isn’t good. Simple.

The first few chapters were actually pretty solid. Nothing flawless, a few errors still sprouted up here and there, but it was serviceable. I was having a perfectly decent time reading. No, really, I was. Too bad these problems start to pile up in the later chapters. After a certain point I was spotting grammar errors nearly every single paragraph. I’m not exaggerating when I say that, the technical errors just kept drowning out my enjoyment. It’s weird, going by the description; you’d think with all these goddamned editors and pre-readers being shoved in your face there wouldn’t be such an abundance of run-on sentences or homophones or terrible word choice. But there were. Almost all the fucking time. It was extremely irritating.

It extends beyond the typical, easy-to-fix technicalities, unfortunately. Sentence structure and formatting was just bad. A lot of the time the prose was either incoherent, stale, or both. Just—fucking—look at what I had to endure:

With a swift strike he tried to slow her rush and her following attempts to dodge the spear and get him was parried by his quick back-trotting combined with pointing the top of the spear always in the direction she was heading for.

I… don’t even know what to make of this. So he tried to slow her down by backing away or was he the one doing the parrying or was he aiming the spear where she was or where she was going to be…? When I have to use this many or’s in a sentence to describe the actions of a single character, you know something’s wrong.

Another example would be the author’s constant use of the word “people” or “ladies” and “gentlemen”. In case you forgot, there are no people in Equestria, it’s all ponies. The funny part is that I can click on any of the later chapters, choose a random paragraph, and I’d probably find a grammar error to make fun of. It got on my nerves eventually.

Another problem is the dialogue, which largely came off as unrealistically formal, telly, and containing zero subtlety. Twilight’s characterization is particularly poor in this case; she rarely sounds like herself. Not only that, but there’s very little to distinguish her voice from the baron's, sometimes I even forgot who was talking. I think the problem with the dialogue is that it rarely sounds like dialogue, but more like facts being read to us, with some pointless commentary sprinkled in. For God's sake, Twilight wouldn't use the phrase “splendid irony” to describe some random coincidence involving Spike, nor would she avoid using contractions in her casual speech, nor would she adamantly declare that she’s going to teach friendship lessons to a criminal, and not even a thousand words later she says that said criminal belongs in a dungeon. That all happened. There’s just no consistency.

Heh, here’s another example. When the baron first meets Twilight he’s sucking up to her and doing his best to present himself with the utmost sophistication, and soon after he and Twilight are arguing over recorded history like two well accustomed rivals. This all threw me out of the experience. Man, I actually remember a really good piece of cringe-inducing dialogue, but I can’t for the life of me find it. It was this one line Twilight said that had me going, “No one talks like that. Literally no one.” Damn it, why can't I find it? It honestly had me laughing.

Dialogue has to be realistic above all else. If it’s something no one would say off the cuff, let alone the characters from the show, then you need to change it. And, you know, it’s not like I’m trying to come off as pompous here; I’m being serious. I’ve gotten heaps of criticism in the past for my poor use of dialogue (and I still do sometimes), but I’m always doing my best to get past that. Your dialogue often comes off flat, not nearly as witty or thought-provoking as it should.

But hey, it’s not all bad. The scene where the baroness and Twilight discuss the latter’s immortality and the prospect of outliving her friends (yes, this fic actually goes into that territory), it got pretty philosophical and I really liked it. Too bad it was short-lived.

There was this one part where it got really technical, and not in a good way. I bring it up because the way the story presented this made it seem pretty important. So, here’s the deal: the castle suppresses magic, and Twilight wants to figure out the reasoning for this. Here are some of her comments:

Twilight tapped her chin with her forehoof. "Sounds like a magic dampening field to me; variable in the range of action, depending on the obstacles."

"What do you mean, Your Highness?"

"Oh, forgive me! I read some time ago about magic dampening fields. It is something like the predecessor of the protection shield spell."

It was easy to recognise the bewildered look of Chisel, who seemed to have gotten lost in Twilight’s technicalities

"Uh, don’t worry," Twilight said, then thought, "If it has a variable range, it would naturally be stronger towards the centre and the absorbed magic would need a valve to escape, unless it is not a dampening field but a suppressive field, but then it would need a constant energy source for ongoing operations. The baron mentioned it has existed for centuries, so it is either not a suppression field or someone is filling up the energy again and again."

I studied physics and chemistry, and even I got lost in the technicalities. What the hell was that supposed to be? The story never really goes anywhere with this information. Is it supposed to be filler? Maybe. I say that because I myself actually had some technical dialogue as filler in one of my stories.

But the worst part of Twilight’s characterization—and this really left a sour taste in my mouth—was her total obliviousness to the hardships of history. As well all know, people had it a lot worse than us hundreds of years ago. Social standards were stricter, no electricity, it was easier to get away with crimes, and so on. You get the point. What’s fucking stupid is Twilight, when hearing about the brutality of guards 700 years ago, going, “Whaaaaaaa…? But guards wouldn’t act like that.” And the baron had to point out, “Yeah, but 700 years ago things were different.” I’m paragraphing, by the way.

I thought Twilight was smarter than that. Wouldn't she be the history-savvy one among her friends? But who knows, maybe I’m nit-picking.

I think I’ve said enough. The Phantom of Canterlot has a lot of problems, and I do mean a lot. It’s a true shame, I see a really solid framework beneath all of the frivolousness. I can definitely sense the logical direction this story is starting to form, a lot of plot details have reasons for them, and most events seem to be connected to one another. That’s all very, very cool. But from a characterization, dialogue, and prose standpoint—I can’t recommend at all. This fic actually worked in reverse: the basic level of plot gets marginally better as you read along, but the writing itself seems to get worse, while in the beginning the plot is fairly boring but the writing is passable. Heck, the first chapter is probably the most accurate to the show, and that’s the damned prologue.

Will this fic get better with additional chapters? Eh, maybe. There are actually quite a lot of things I didn’t touch upon, like Burning Snowflake’s origin with her angry parents, her expeditions, Twilight’s full relationship with the baroness—among other things. Those facets of the story are actually done somewhat decently, and by that I mean it’s not completely terrible, but… listen, I’m getting tired. It’s time to wrap this review up. What score will I be handing out? It took me a while to decide, but I’ve settled on a stern 4/10. Originally I was comfortable with a 5, but after some contemplation I just can’t bring myself to it. Sorry not sorry.

Author, I implore you to not get discouraged, and I’m not being clichéd when I say that. I’m dead serious. As someone whose stories have been relentlessly criticized before, there's room for marked improvement, there always is. If this story focuses more on the democracy/monarchy aspect and concludes with a satisfying ending, I might even bump up the score. Who knows? The Phantom of Canterlot is incomplete, which kind of drags it down.

6069944
Thanks for your Review

Well first thing to say is that my natural language is german. Maybe not an excuse but I know my english gramma is very bad mostly. You simple could have asked though, isn't a secret So about the gramma, I tried my best to find editors and pre-readers to make it better, you can see in the description how many I had throughout the time I wrote this story. Anyway what I try to say is that the way they talk, exspecial the nobles, is how they would do in german and only my, honestly, bad translation skills made it sound unfitting.

But my fucking God, did this story piss me off.

 
First that made my laugh but more seriously, for me it was the translation progress who did, you see having this characters act and speak like they would do in the show (Twilight) or the baron and his family speak like a noble would do and then everything is messed up or got wrong while I translate it... frustrating.

Was funny though you said the first chapter only got you thinking I was not a native speaker, not prove it. Means my editors did a good job that days

Most of it is announcements and shout outs to editors. Yeah... not sure why I brought that up.

Well in germany we have a phrase, I try to translate: Hounour to those who earns/deserve it. So everyone who helps me with the story and want to be noted will be in the description. I mean theese people spend their freetime to help me, the last thing I can do is to write their names down somewhere for all to see.

But it got kind of implausible when one of the biggest reasons was personal issues a character had with Celestia, and that’s never expanded upon (at least not yet).

Well this made me happy and sad at the same time, I am always happy that readers come up with their own thoughts about stuff. All over the story there are elements that let room for interpretation and so people come up with the wildest and funniest ideas. The sad thing is however that sometimes the reader missed the content completly. Let me explain: That reason that the Snowflakes joined the democrates, or wanted to is the personal issue between the head of the house that time and Celestia, also friendship between the head of the house and some democrats. But thats not the reason the democrats are there at all or the rebellion happend. Even completly without the Snowflakes this rebellion would have happend in my story.

So about the technical stuff and all the fillers, well the problem is that this all have a reason. I need that details explained, seriously I really care for logic, even if I confess I make mistakes like everyone else. But yes my pre-readers also told me here and there: "This is 'redundant' or a 'filler' but I have some pre-readers who know all the story and those who don't, means in such a case I ask the once who know all the story about it and if they agree it is important later, it stays in. I can only do my best, but I really try that everything is necassary.

social standards were stricter, no electricity, it was easier to get away with crimes, and so on.

Your right about that, but in the show it seems to me a lot better for ponies than for humans in our world back in the days. Thing is that Celstias history is different from what Snowy tells, so Twilight read the 'offical' history which means sunsihine and rainbows mostly, while Snowy tells about the negative parts too. For example the royal guard in the show is very weak and most time useless so the girls have to solve problems. If I may remind of the scene when the guards left their watch to eat the cake in the rainbow rarity episode. This wouldn't happen back in the days, at least in my story.

***
I am really happy that you made this review for me, many thanks again. I am also happy there was spots that entertained you.

About the gramma and word choice, well I really can't do anything about it sadly.

In case of the ending however I may make a lot of people happy, because there will be at least 3 different once, maybe more if people want it. Thats the reason a few spots are not completly explained into the very last detail here and there. Depending on what happend, the storyline for Snowy take a different path and in the end it all comes together and lead to one of the endings.

6070276
Yeah, I understand that the democrats were a separate party with their own agenda, and the Snowflakes joined after due to personal disputes with Celestia and social pressure. I just don't think enough time was spent on that stuff, that is, it felt very hand-wavy and in the background, which is why I was encouraging you to expand on it.

You make a good point, it's important to give credit to your editors. I guess that was just a nitpick.

That being said, I'm glad you enjoyed the review.

6071071
Well, your review was in case of story and charactersation, honest and fair. So yes I am happy to have it. Of course I disagree here and there, but thats the nature of author-reviewer I guess

For me it seems the biggest problem you had that 'pissed you of' was the gramma and such. I told my editors about that, they not so happy as I am but thats a different story.

So took that editor releated stuff aside (which is worth 2points as far as other reviewers wrote) and took also in mind that beeing a work in progress drags the result down, it would be a 5/8 somehow, sounds good to me

One thing I would like to bring up, the editor changed in chapter 13, I know you are not so happy with the story so far but maybe you could read that chapter too? not for a review of course, just me being curious what you think of the new edit level. Just a short Pm would be fine.

6071109
Hmm, I'm a bit busy with my reading and writing schedule, but just for you, I'll check out chapter 13. I'll get to it sooner or later.

6071412
Thank you

6072923

my willingness to fight over said corrections has lessened

You just use that as an excuse for you got lazy over time

Then the translation of German ideas into English... anyway, I and the beta-readers did what we could.

Not even the nickname of the main character made it through the language barrier

five hour conversation

And noone would belive that two guys discussed for so long about shoes of an OC, but mostly that was the problem, HER SHOES!

6072940

And the freaking commas! 

I still have a box full of silly german commas and I am not afraid to use them!

And still it was only a side sentence about the shoes You insisted to figth that out word by word

I missed this. Excellent review. If I had as much fun reading my folder’s stories as I have reading your reviews I’d be a lot more active Anyways, this masks my monumental failure to review this story myself, as I was supposed to. I bow my head in shame and gratitude. Er, kind of. Anyways anyways, well done!

6126136
Not a problem, dude; do whatever you can. I'm glad people enjoy reading my pretentious nitpicking words of wisdom.

Speaking of folders, you might wanna clear two stories from my own (this one and the most recent story I reviewed).