TChained Beast Of the Dungeon

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure
• Mystery
• Thriller

The Council of High Mages are up to something. They are keeping a dark secret down there in the dungeon and Clover must uncover it. Before it's too late.

• Violence
• OC
• Other
• Clover the Clever
• Princess Platinum
• Starswirl

armid · 20k words  ·  55  1 · 490 views

Hello, everyone! Petri here, back with another review - sorry that it came out later than expected, but real life got in the way after the holidays, and there’s been a fair amount that’s been on my mind recently - and both of these things preclude writing productively. Should things swing better in my life, I’ll be able to get these out more quickly and hopefully be a more productive while still insightful reviewer.

As before, the style of these is subject to change, since I haven’t fully settled on a tone to adopt for these going forward - or if they even need a particular tone at all! Time will tell.

So let’s see what we have today!

(Teen, Adventure/Mystery/Thriller; Clover the Clever, Princess Platinum and Starswirl the Bearded.)

With rumors rising of multiple break outs in the royal castle's dungeon, Clover takes it on herself to investigate. But she becomes more curious when she realizes the Council of High Mages are keeping something dangerous in the dungeon.

Forewarning: unmarked spoilers ahead.

Starting Score: 0/10 points.

Pre-Mane 6 stories are uncommon enough to be eye-catching; in the wake of the popularity of the Pillars of Equestria, those that focus on the three tribes are even less common. It’s been a while since I’ve read a story in which Clover the Clever was a protagonist, and as such revisiting her as a character was a breath of fresh air. Since there’s not a lot given about what the ponies were like in the setting proper, it allows for a great deal of authorial interpretation and creative direction.

Originality: + 0.25 (out of 1.5) points

That said, the more creative elements in the story - those which conjure the imagination, pique curiosity and compel further thinking about the text - aren’t directly related to the plot itself. The core elements of the story have cropped up very often in stories before: a plucky protagonist, an evil politician who wants her done away with and a looming menace that could destroy the fragile peace as we know it (the last two of which are directly related, of course.)

I’ve said before that one of the great strengths of Fanfiction as a whole is its ability to mythologize and build up on pre-existing grounds to higher heights, and in a technical sense the story does exactly that. But the thing that sticks out the most is, funnily enough, about a character who is plot-important but not plot-centric: Princess Platinum.

A ruler who both sees herself as an absolute monarch - and who has no power accepting absolute monarchy when the opportunity to purge her potential rivals presents itself - and who is willing to have part of her Queendom run by a council? An iron lady who brooks no insubordination, yet who listens openly to both her advisor and her political aide and who disdains their advice devolving into arguments? A mare who is both very easy to lead on through simple flattery and who has the foresight to get her dreams examined at the slightest hint that something might be wrong and needing addressing sooner rather than later? Princess Platinum is composed of contrasts, but it’s the contrasts that give her depth and make her seem like a pony that shouldn’t be taken at face value.

But other than her, and the parts of the setting more related to her than to any other named character, everypony and everything can be taken at face value. There’s nothing particularly new about this version of Clover the Clever, there’s nothing new about the looming threat of an unnamed beast, nothing new about the violent and horny guards or the tortured innocents and especially nothing new about the bland evilness of anything related to Crimson Light and his supporters.

It’s a shame. I’m not sure I wish I could have seen more, per se; I just wish that the window into the past didn’t look quite so familiar.

Execution: +0.5 (out of 1.5) points

Chained Beast of the Dungeon is a story that doesn’t falter, stumble or trip on itself. It’s not unsure of itself; its beginning, middle and end are all tightly knit into each other, and the structure of the story feels very concretely established and entirely stable. I’ve read stories that felt more like collections of ideas tossed half-baked into each other, as if somehow throwing them all in a word document will create some magical roux out of nowhere that turns it into a sumptuous literary stew. Spoiler alert: That approach doesn’t actually work, and CBotD is a story that very clearly did not try that sort of half-baked approach, and good on it for having a solid structure.

But around the strong skeleton and the solid sense of direction, there isn’t a lot of flair. Everything that came up in the story came up for the purpose of the story, in some way or another, and the various characters feel utilitarian instead of genuinely alive. So while the story strongly succeeds technically, there isn’t a whole lot in it to make the execution appear particularly captivating.

Pacing: +1 (out of 1) points

Flawless, as was said before. Moving on.

Good use of Characters: +0.75 (out of +1.5) points

While I’ve cast shade onto how original or interesting the various named characters in the story are, I won’t argue that they’re used well in the context of the story itself. Clover the Clever is what I imagine she’d be: Headstrong, ethical, too curious for her own safety and, of course, clever. Princess Platinum, as I mentioned, I have nothing but praise for despite her comparatively minor role. Starswirl as a mentor figure does his job well, and his depiction as a stern and results-focused teacher fits his canonical depiction quite well. As fanfiction goes, it faithfully depicts its source material and adapts when necessary. 

Its weaknesses are in the original creations, most of whom are unnamed or bit players and who don’t need complex characterization to do their job in a story. But there are some who are integral to the plot and have much less of an impact than their named character status and relevancy would indicate. One prime example is Thunder Feathers: a prisoner with her own insights and history could have a lot to say and a developed perspective to share, but she mostly just states obvious sentiments, does obligatory plot-forwarding actions and is killed off at an appropriate moment. While not the worst example, she feels like a function more than a character, and there’s wasted potential there.

The beast itself is also a letdown; after so much suspense and buildup, I was expecting something either mindbendingly monstrous, horrifically vile or otherwise captivating. Instead, its appearance comes across as an anticlimax: a shapeshifting, violent thing that speaks in zalgo text, is abruptly dropped into a populated area with surprisingly little fanfare, defeats the antagonist and abruptly takes off into the wild white yonder. Its appearance - or lack of appearance, since it’s barely defined by choice - is what one could expect, and while the story gives little to work with under what I believe is the intent to let the imagination take care of the scariest bits, we’re given so little to work with that all it creates is a sense of vague ambivalence, like a painter being given a canvas and a paintbrush and told to paint “Y’know, whatever comes to mind.”

In case I hadn’t made it clear before, though, Crimson Light is easily the weakest part of the story. He’s stereotypical villain fodder in all the worst ways: without nuance or subtlety, speaking in pompous theatrics (got to love how he refers to those he doesn’t agree with as “weaklings” instead of anything more pertinent or direct,) assumes he has control over a situation he clearly doesn’t for…reasons, is a genocidal racist because that’s what is to be expected from the villain, and is otherwise clearly not to be trusted to with anything sharper than a rolling pin or heavier than a pillow. His presence in the story is an annoyance more than anything else, since his flavor of antics have been done so many, many, many times before that any shock or horror that could be attributed to his attempted coup or tyranny is replaced with the weary recognition of things that are far too familiar to have any real impact, and the subsequent wish that he’d leave the scene and be replaced with something more interesting to read about.

In the end, the story’s character treatment is half-and-half: good canon, bad original. Pretty clear-cut there, actually; I can’t really imagine giving less than half marks for the characterization, but I can't imagine giving it more than half marks, either.

Good visual(s): +1 (out of 1)

The visceral beatdown at the start of the story sticks out in my mind, as does the revelation of a Thunder Feathers being half-winged. Funnily enough, though, the thing I most remember is Clover getting her chance at espionage due to a guard going from alert to ~doin’ the horizontal mambo~ in a matter of minutes; not sure it was intended to be comedy, but I genuinely cracked up. I’m not sure the clearest visual I should have received from the story was that of a plucky protagonist going stealth mode next to a bunch of cheesy saxophone noises and good old-fashioned unicorn funtimes, but it was as good as indicator as any that the author can create images that stick in your head after all’s said and done. Hopefully the ones that stick in the heads of other people won’t be identical to mine, but skill is skill, and I recognize it.

Memorable Line(s): +0 (out of 1)

Sort of an all-or-nothing category here, and while it’s not like I didn’t remember any of the dialogue, there wasn’t any particular phrase both in- or out-of-character that really resonated with me. Crimson Light insisting on calling others “weakling(s)!” was memorable, I mean, but not exactly in a good way.

Emotional Impact: +0.5 (out of +2.5)

This is the most subjective part of the scoring, admittedly, and I don’t want to give the impression that I didn’t take anything positive away from the story. It’s just that the positives that I took away from it were less from the story and more from the story’s foundations. To use the term utilitarian again, Chained Beast of the Dungeon is a very utilitarian story built on very solid bones, demonstrating a clear understanding of how to write a story and a similarly clear recognition of what elements are needed in a story for it to function. The problem is that, while the skeleton is admirable, there’s just not a lot else about the story that really catches the eye: it’s predictable, with not many enjoyable characters and the constent sense of things happening because they should be happening at that point in the story more than anything else. I can’t in good graces call the story poorly-written, because it isn’t poorly-written from a technical standpoint, but I’m not quite sure who I’d recommend it to. And at the end of a day, if I can’t think of who might enjoy the story, I’m not quite sure how to describe the story as enjoyable overall.

Final Score: 4/10

Final Thoughts/Comments for the Author: I think the story might have felt less rote if it had a more interesting antagonist. While I don’t want to foist everything on his shoulders, Crimson Light didn’t do the story any favors, and that wound up being a fairly major shortcoming in and of itself. If I’d recommend taking anything away from the review as feedback, it would be to write a better villain: someone more interesting, nuanced, menacing or at the very least a lot less stereotypical. I also want to emphasize that the story isn’t badly written, and could only have been written by someone with the skill to make a great story; it’s just that said great story isn’t this one, not today.