Charles Dickens's 1843 novel: A Christmas Carol has seen countless renditions and reinvention. Each focusing more on the social and emotional impacts of the journey of Ebeneezer Scrooge from his cynical and self absorbed greed to being a happy and giving individual in the end. And from a heart felt perspective, who doesn't like seeing the moody and miserable transformed into a upbeat and kind hearted person?
But what happens if you look at the story from a more logically and rationally centered point of view?
Warning!
Story contains: OC, I know a lot of people hate OC's, but this story is one of them. (And a little shout out to another Original by FIM's very own: GentlemenJ.)
Chapters (8)
I would have prefered if this was basically justifying Scrooge, but I'll give you a chance.
3590494 Oh, trust me, it will be justifying Scrooge. I'm reverting back to the original formula of parody. That is, satirizing one particular thing rather than trying to cram as many jokes in as possible.
Looking at Scooge's perspective from a point that his initial philosophy is logical or that the way he ends up is logically better than how he started. I won't go into details but I'll say I fall on the side of the latter, in that being generous, upbeat and caring is better for very practical and logical reasons.
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Perspective is a highly relevant concept in the chapters to come.
3590502 Good, good.
Says Spike instead of Marley at one point. Bunch of lesser typos near the beginning, too.
3608349 That was actually intentional.
Looking to see if it's ok or of it's not ok. You're comment's leaning it to the latter.
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intentional... Are they actors in a play? That'd make sense with the casting.
3611097 No, it was just pretty much a reference guide so people could know what was what from the start. (You know how it is here, some people like to know OC lead roles from the get go and who's going to be "shipped", even if it isn't technically shipping.)
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So what made it intentional? Or would that be spoilers?
3612471 It's intentional because, it's Spike. Spike is Marley's character, but still holds Spike's elements. Like the sarcasm and matter of fact attitude.
Each of the characters will. (Though, I can see your point now. I think that'll be the end of it, or I'll go back and fix it. Keep all the other characters in their pony character, but also keep the original names and plot.)
There's a bunch of words in this chapter that don't make sense in context, but are similar to words that would. "emerged" instead of "immersed", and such. Is that intentional?
3990360 No, but when you're switching back and forth between "FIMfiction" and "A Christmas Carol" you're brain gets freaking cross wired, man.
(Mistake fixed.)
I am still of the opinion that Scrooge will still come to the same conclusion, that he must change his miserly ways, even if he tries to justify his actions with logic and reason. Losing Belle is of course the first time logic comes back to bite him, it was completely illogical to become so consumed with fiances that you ignore the rest of the relationship. With each successive ghost it will become harder and harder justify himself, simply because give the perceptive of the outside observer he is able to see just how illogical his lifestyle really is.
3991373 Ehhhh, not really.
The point made was that in Dicken's book, Scrooge's emotions were constantly played on at all times. What was demonstrated was his fears and hopes played on by the ghosts to terrorize him into being who they wanted him to be.
But, I'll get to that in later chapters. In the beginning, it wasn't all his greed that tore them apart; but his fear of poverty. (And working as a banker, you get a VERY nice picture of what it looks like to be poor.)
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I'm not saying the ghosts didn't play on his emotions or use his fears to "reform" him in the original story. In fact the entire "Ghost of Christmas Future" segment of the story is purely about terrorizing him, Scrooge has clearly learned his lesson from the Ghost of Christmas Present by that point in the story. The 3rd segment is about being scary, not imparting the moral of the story.
Even approaching it with a clear headed and logical Scrooge how ever the "lessons" would still resonate with him. His reasons for changing might be different but I still have to stick with the idea the change itself would be nearly the same. Scrooge isn't happy, isn't liked, and no long has a life goal. I doubt I need to explain why that's bad.
I'm saying a different ending would make no sense, I'm following this story for the journey to the conclusion not for the conclusion itself.
Losing Belle is illogical and ironic because the actions he took to try and secure his future with Belle instead destroyed his future with her Belle.
3994059 All leading up to why the conclusion of this will very much work.
One way to get Scrooge to change is to make him see what his eternity will be like if he continued being a sociopath. This was done in "Scrooge" (1971), and in my fanfic "Jacob Marley's Daughter", available on fanfiction.net
6364488 I'd need to review that, but I was under the impression that he'd suffer the same fate as Marley, who's future Scrooge did see and compared it to the "hell fire" of Tatarus. Eternal burning or carrying around chains for eternity... Not a hard choice, in my opinion.
I think it severs more to show Scrooge's biggest victim was himself the whole time, While the methodology used to force Scrooge's change is questionable the truth is the character in the original story was a fearful man. Ebeneezer Scrooge chose to "play it safe" because of the tragedies of his past, he abandoned any hope of being happy to be be sure he had enough money to handle any thing that came his way, refusing to take chances because they might be mistakes or someone might hurt him, and no matter how much money he had it was never enough to assure his physical and emotional safety, so he just sought more in a vicious cycle. This makes Scrooge a tragic figure and explains the reason the visions he saw made him change, they showed him he had other things to be afraid of. Scrooge didn't make his choices to become a miser because they where logical, he made them because he let fear rule him. Fear motives Scrooge's choices in both the past and future.
6387276 they seemed pretty logical to me.
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Some one might come to similar conclusions based on logic but Ebeneezer Scrooge doesn't. The fear based reformation cause the the visits from the spirits wouldn't have worked other wise, if Scrooge had really given up on emotion then the fear based tactics would have left him unaffected, but they didn't, confronted with the truth that he would die unloved and outright resented Scrooge changed his ways. Logical fallacies for his life style are rife though out the tale(the vicious cycle I mentioned) but we have to admit it's the fear of dying unloved and unremembered that make Scrooge change in A Christmas Carol. And while I think your point is Scrooge in this version is more the victim of "pushy" people trying to spread and agenda though questionable means I can't but help find him depressing, he is in a dark pit of depression and sees no reason o even try and pull himself out in a way this Scrooge is already dead on the inside.
Still depressing for Scrooge, he never really got a happy ending, but it might have been too late for him. I know your point was meant to be he didn't need saved and nothing was wrong with him but I can't help feeling he really did need saved and there was something wrong, but the methods used to try and change his views where all wrong. Sin Scrooge wasn't motivated by fear like Ebeneezer Scrooge was, so appealing to fears he didn't have wasn't going to change him. Yea it's pretty much the same point I already made but I feel it's valid. Scrooge's logic needed to be appealed to from the start, Luna does a little during the future vision when fear is having no effect, but it was too little to save Scrooge from himself. And as I already said Ebeneezer Scrooge of the original tale is a man motivated not by logic or reason, he's a man motivated by fear, and changes when it's shown his miser's ways will only make his fears come to pass rather than protect him.
6415859 Meh, well that's why this was a parody. Standpoints of Sin Scrooge (logic) vs Ebeneezer Scrooge (emotion), I suppose.
Same situations, different mind sets and convictions.