This is, essentially, a retelling of the first episode of FiM. I've written it in epic blank verse, that is, unrhyming iambic pentameter. I've also taken some... liberties in order to make it sound it a bit more epic-sounding. Hope you enjoy!
EDIT: I now officially have a non-canon section! Harmony Lost (and any future segments with an asterisk after it, like so*) will not be retreads of episodes, but instead my own work. Not enough to get me on EqD, but worth letting you know nonetheless!
Chapters (6)
Is not epic enough
idea is good tough.
Personally I really liked this. Then again I have a soft spot for poetry.
Epic-sense is tickling!
In a few thousand years people will stumble upon the raw data files of this, and go "What happened in those days of dawn?"
...Or whatever language we speak at that time.
-Glassed
I will withhold a final verdict till the end of this song, but my interests have been piqued.
I have a feeling this is supposed to be read in some sort of rhythm, but I can figure it out. HELP!
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It's called "iambic pentameter." In the simplest terms, you accentuate every other syllable. "Ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP."
The Pinkie Pie section in part 2 is similar, but it's called "ballad meter." It's iambic too, but it's heptameter (seven feet) instead of pentameter (five feet). So it's read like this:
Ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP,
ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP,
and so on.
Hope that helps! :)
So, everyone who's read this. I'd like some help. Here are the following things I need suggested:
1. Which stories should I do? I've got the Discord arc in my brain and ready to write, but I can probably do any story we've seen. I think adventure stories should be the easiest, but I might be able to do, say, Suited for Success. Which ones do you want done?
2. I'll need more styles for Pinkie to do. In case you hadn't figured out, I'm writing Pinkie so that, every time she speaks, it's in a different poetic style, completely different from the epic poem. I've got haiku, sestina, rap, Dr. Seuss, Poe, Cummings, Silverstein, Alighieri, and blank verse as possible options. Anything else? (Obviously, I can't do anything in iambic pentameter, and I don't want to repeat the sing-songy one I did in the first part or ballad meter from the second one. Anything else is game.)
3. Would you like me to do these stories again in some other style? I could do, say, Biblesque, or try to imitate some other famous author. If you've got ideas, shoot 'em my way.
Now that I think about it, I could do a sort of request story, where chapters are some combination of ideas you guys want me to do. What do you think? Give me input!
Pray forgive me that I wasn't able to finish this.
HOWEVER, I FIND THIS TO BE EPIC ENOUGH!!!!
Question. When Zecora shows up, will she just speak in rhyming Iambic Pentameter or something else?
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Err... I haven't considered doing a Zecora episode. I'll have to think of it.
Possibilities: unmetered rhyming, four sets of trochees (trochaic tetrameter?) like the witches in Macbeth, how she talks (it's kind of funky, honestly; I think it's primarily dactyls). Some form of that.
Well, here's the new story, "The Rule of Chaos." This was a lot more difficult to write. I've made a lot more changes to the canon this time. Think of this as a sort of End of Evangelion 2.0. My goal was to make this as much like a classical poem as possible, so the more comedic aspects of the show had to be abridged.
Discord was extremely tough to write. I wanted his speech to be chaotic, so his meter comes and goes. Trust me, that's a lot more difficult to write than you'd think. I also attempted to make him more scary, so he's not quite as much of a prankster.
Perhaps one of the most important changes was this: there is no hypnosis. I wanted to make sure every pony CHOSE to defy Harmony. This of course means that Fluttershy's temptation is completely different. I hope you see it as still faithful to what both Discord and Fluttershy would do.
Oh, and the next part is going to be really interesting. Let's just say, I start channeling e. e. cummings and Lewis Carroll.
BONUS CONTENT!
I actually had Pinkie's line in the Vault Room written up, but I cut it because I felt it derailed the emotional setup I was going for. However, if you'd like to see it, it's here. If that's not enough to convince you, it's a limerick!
Discord's inflection is really hard to read aloud, but it's fun.
I agree that a lack of hypnosis makes the whole thing much more powerful. Keep it up, there are plenty of tales to "epic-i-fy" for lack of a better term.
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The next one, unless people have another idea, will probably be the Canterlot Wedding. I've always felt that the first half is rather weak, and I actually had the idea to rewrite it in prose form.
The other "epics" I can probably do are Boast Busters, Dragonshy, Swarm of the Century, A Dog and Pony Show, Over a Barrel, The Mysterious Mare-do-Well, the Hearth's Warming Eve pageant, the founding of Ponyville, Daring Do and the Sapphire Stone/Statue, It's About Time, Dragon Quest, and the aforementioned Canterlot Wedding. Keep in mind, most of those will be really, really hard. And the ones I didn't list will be even harder. But I'm always up for a challenge!
Hmm... I might be able to do fanfiction, too, if you want. Give me ideas!
EDIT: So I hear u liek Zecora. If you'd like me to get her in a story, Bridle Gossip is the one to go for. I might be able to do that, but it's a little low on action for my talent.
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Well she is in Swarm of the Century. You could also in theory do Secret of My Excess (which she's also in). Possibly Sonic Rainboom or Fall Weather Friends. My favorite episode is Luna Eclipsed, but that one doesn't have much action either...
If you were to do a fanfic, I'd want it to be "On a Cross and Arrow", but I won't hold my breath for that.
Just keep on keeping on.
(By the by, I totally agree on Canterlot Wedding Part One. That's why I consider Return of Harmony to be better than Canterlot Wedding. I think Canterlot took too much advantage of the fact that it was aired full-length and didn't have to focus on the strength of the first half as a stand-alone. All the parts that get praised are in the second half, anyway.)
Great work, not only verse but rhyme!
I'm not sure about the changes you made to Fluttershy's scene though. In canon this scene is kind of important, because it shows that Discord is not merely a trickster but can do his mind-warping even if the pony did not succumb.
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Hmm, that's true. But as I said, the key thing I wanted to focus on was the fact that every pony CHOSE Disharmony, rather than Discord forcing them to. Hypnosis seemed like a cheap way out. It works for a children's TV show because it's funny, but it doesn't have the same tragic value I wanted for an epic poem.
EDIT: Discord in this story is more of a tempter character, rather than a reality warper. He can set up the challenges, but he doesn't necessarily interfere directly. It sort of powers him down, but it also makes him a more epic poem-esque villain, like Satan from Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained.
It's the funny thing about Discord. You both love and hate him, depending on the circumstances. I love the direction you took with him, simply a powerful magical tempter rather than chaos incarnate, but still as dangerous and in fact, even more horrifying without the hypnosis, funnily enough. Which leads me to the hate: that is to say, HOW DARE HE DO THAT TO FLUTTERSHY!
Okay, all better now.
Now for a real review rather than me ranting/musing.
I never liked the Iliad. It never brought in enough of what I wanted: gods interacting with each other and mortals. I didn't want to see the mortals kill each other ignominiously, I wanted either real heroism or godly intervention. And here I am, getting both with this fic! Everything I loved about the adventure episodes has been distilled and told in Iliad form, and I absolutely love it. I especially liked Discord breaking the meter; a nice touch, one that makes him even scarier because it still hints at his potential reality-shattering powers. Fluttershy's temptation was quite well-done as well; naturally, so were the others, but here you had to reinvent the temptation for what you were doing. Let me assure you, it worked great.
As for what's coming up, I don't think any episodes other than Canterlot Wedding could work very well, but hey, you're the author, so you'rte free to pick whatever. As for fanfictions... definitely not Cupcakes, that's for sure. It's a Dangerous Business, Walking Out Your Door would probably work very well, though. Tolkien-ized ponies, retold in Iliad format. Sounds like a winner to me!
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See, the problem with your dislike of the Iliad is that you, a 2000-year later literary student, are not the main audience of these stories. To the people Homer was writing to, these stories were stone cold fact. These were their idols, Achilles, Agamemnon, and Odysseus, and the gods really did assist them in the war. I guess, to them, the "mortals kill[ing] each other ignominously" was the point. But then again, I haven't actually read the entire Iliad, so... I wouldn't know. :/
I think I can do the Canterlot Wedding. I really badly want to call it "The Rape of Cadance," like "The Rape of Leto," "The Rape of the Sabine Women," and "The Rape of the Lock," but I don't think I could get away with it.
You seem rather pessimistic about other stories. I'm thinking, "The Witch of Hoofington," but we'll see.
I've read A Dangerous Business, and I really enjoyed it. I'll see what I can do, and I'll definitely have to re-read it to really get it down.
Anyway, thank you very much for your praise! :) I'm finding it a lot of fun to try and re-write these classic stories, although it's also distracting me from my own original fiction.
1011724: Fair point about the time dissonance, although the gods were mostly being forced to ignore the conflict for half the Iliad, so I didn't see as much of them as I'd have liked.
Yeaaaah, I doubt you could get away with "The Rape of Cadance". Besides, that doesn't strike me as Crysalis's style anyway.
I seem pessimistic? About what? And what do you mean by "The Witch of Hoofington"?
Looks like I've given you an excuse to reread A Dangerous Business. Go me!
Speaking of which, I oughta reread it one of these days.
No problemo! This deserves all the praise it gets!
I'm also glad it's fun. Nothing worse than writing a good story, but then finding you don't derive enjoyment from writing it anymore. Happened to me a couple times.
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Yeah. The Greek gods are more of dabblers in that story; they have favorite soldiers or blessings given, but they don't usually get into the fray. The Trojan War was physical, whereas the gods' quarrel was ideological.
Rape: (n)
5. Archaic . the act of seizing and carrying off by force.
... is what I was going for.
If you don't know who the Witch of Hoofington is, look up Hoofington on the MLP Wiki. However, I kind of want it to be vague, anyway.
I do remember two key things from Dangerous Business: 1) it's really good, and 2) it's really long. That one'll be slow work. Maybe I'll make it a new story?
1013033: Exactly. I don't like it when the gods dabble; it's boring.
Oh. I didn't know that. You learn new things every day, I guess.
And that is definitely Crysalis's style.
...y'know what, never mind my previous statement. Anything with her in it is automatically good.
It is quite long, so making it a new story would probably be a good idea.
So, a bit of disappointing news today: I tried to send this to EqD last night, but they rejected it. Ah, well, c'est la vie. Perhaps someday I'll write a story worthy of their page.
Hope you enjoy. We'll see what comes next in this continuing saga.
Hard to believe they shot you down. This is good stuff, I really liked when Twilight fell to the other five elements of disharmony too.
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They didn't have this newest part, actually.
They didn't like the poetry, and they didn't like the fact that it was a retread. I guess I should have known it wouldn't pass.
1017800
Shame. Well, you have my support.
Great work again! Can't wait for your take on the changelings.
Shame about EqD, but the do have that "no retellings" rule for a reason.
1022979
Hmm... I hadn't thought about it yet.
"The blackened creatures, born of nighttime's hate,
known but as changelings, broke the wearied spell
that Shining Armor had devised. They flew
on tattered wings, their hardened chitin shells
that show'red with magic, aiding their descent."
That's extemporaneous, but you get the picture.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?" Seriously, that's what I was thinking about at that midway point. That was a brilliant choice, by the by, to make Discord's victory punctuated with words strung together oddly and nonsense words. In my opinion, that was the best part, although having Twilight succumb, even if briefly, to all the other corrupted Elements was also a stroke of genius. Well-done! I look forward to seeing Chrysalis!
Hold on. THIS GOT FRONT PAGE?
HOW?
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I, uh, don't know. I really don't. Maybe because it's my birthday?
In any case, I hope this means more people will get to see it. Although I'm not sure if your comment is congratulatory or derisive.
This is going to be epic.
You've blown me away with this story so far, and I pray you continue