EThree Tenses of Friendship

• MLP: FiM
• Drama
• Sad
• Slice of Life

After three centuries of ruling Equestria, Twilight delivers one last speech to her subjects.

• Twilight
• Spike
• Celestia
• Luna

Sunlight Rays · 2.7k words  ·  94  6 · 1.7k views

Three Tenses of Friendship by SunlightRays is the next story that I will be reviewing today. And from this day onwards, I intend to do reviews on a daily basis to make up for my long period of inactivity over the past few weeks. Crazy? Probably.

Anyways, beware of spoilers ahead! Or you could just ignore me…it’s not like I have any control over you and your actions, right?

Summary

Twilight has ruled the realm for over three hundred years, spreading harmony and the joy of friendship throughout the land.

She is ready to let everything go, for she knows her work is complete. But before she does, she wishes to give her last speech, to reminisce her time, the memories, the lessons she had learnt…

Content/Plot Analysis

I’m not sure how Twilight’s character would change after the course of three hundred years, but the author proffers a convincing take on this. At the start of the story, the author portrays a concerned Twilight pacing the room, panicking at the prospect of the crowd being unhappy about her retirement from running the realm. I was indeed wondering whether Twilight would still be an insecure and perfectionist individual even after three hundred years, or would she learn to calm her nerves to morph into a more collected and cooler individual? However, I am convinced by the author, for it is fairly justified to see Twilight retaining her old self as it is an integral part of her character ingrained in her from even the start of her academic life.

Of course, an experienced Spike was right by her side to guide Twilight through her regular breathing exercises, though his assistance seemed to cool Twilight’s nerves faster than I was anticipating.

It was then Twilight was directed to give her final speech to her subjects, with Celestia and Luna witnessing the proceedings in the crowd. As this is the main aspect of this story, let us take a look at this speech in finer detail by breaking up the segments firstly and then analyzing them.

Twilight began by thanking the many who had aided her in her journey, especially the five and the elements they symbolized. Even after their passing, she upheld their values, to lead by example and to overcome numerous challenges the land had faced and integrated many new creatures into their society. With this, and by her own personal experience wondering about in disguise, she knew that the realm was ready to power forward without her, for she knew that her work was complete. It was hence why she had the courage to resign and dissolve her position.

Alright. This speech had many facets and components that were closely linked together to explain Twilight’s decision and confidence to resign from the position. However, I believe that the speech could have been more impactful that would make it more engaging to the reader. For example, let’s consider the first part when she paid tribute to the five of her best friends who guided her throughout her journey, at least when they were alive, in the context of this story. In this section of speech, I posit that it could have been much more inspirational in and heartfelt. Twilight stated what her friends meant to her by explicitly stating that fact to the entire crowd. However, Twilight did not showcase how much her friends meant to her.

Yes, while it is true that Twilight did mention that the five were her very best friends, I think that it would be better to portray the contributions that her friends have made to society and to her individual character development throughout, as part of her character growth. That would be a more impactful way to remind the citizens of how much she took note of her friends and their effort in the elements they convey and show exactly the great level of significance they had to her and indeed, to everyone. Even though the speech showed how, society was able to fend off challenges that came their way by exemplifying the traits of her friends, it became less impactful because the connection to her friends or to herself, or vice versa was not as obvious.

Furthermore, the author could have considered introducing a greater level of suspense by inserting pauses at the right junctures of the speech. An impactful speech takes advantages of these small periods of silence to allow the words prior to seep into their minds and ponder about their salience. It would help to showcase the level of stress Twilight wished to employ on a specific component of her speech which would aid the above. Additionally, it would also help to add pauses that Twilight may not have intentioned, especially when she reminisced over the past bygone memories of her time with her friends.

Another interesting point of discussion, though more to delve into my wishful imagination and curiosity, would be how the governance of the realm would change after this ground-breaking development. How would the power vacuum be filled, especially when the position of the throne of the land was abolished?

Language

Aside from a few minor formatting errors, there were no technical errors of much import.

Stance

Three Tenses of Friendship is a decent read, though I believe that the speech could have been more impactful to leave a great impression on the reader’s soul. To improve, I believe that the author could consider looking into the development of motivational and inspirational speeches to sharpen this one into a glorious piece.

Content/Plot: 12/20
Language/Readability: 8/10
Overall: 6.7/10

<For archive purposes: 6.7/10>

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