Just a guy who found out that a show about talking ponies is a lot better than I expected.
In the Crystal Empire, it's traditional to celebrate the day the crystal ponies were liberated from the rule of King Sombra. Flurry Heart wonders why. Aren't ponies who rule supposed to be good and kind? Desperate for answers, she goes to the pony who can explain everything: Twilight Sparkle.
Written for FanOfMostEverything's Imposing Sovereigns II contest, under the prompt Flurry Heart: Peace. Proofread by HapHazred.
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The answer to this question is “no”, by the way. Absurdly proper table manners are really more of a middle class thing. The lower and working classes don’t care; so what if they use the wrong fork, what are the snobs gonna do, oppress them more? Meanwhile the true upper class, the nobles and royals, don’t care because because if you use the wrong fork a servant will bring you a replacement; you’re a noble, the right fork is the one you’re holding by dint of the fact that you’re a noble. But the middle class, especially the upper middle class, tend to have delusions of grandeur and a desire to be seen as upper class, and so put a lot more stock in being seen as “proper”.
The Queen watches and loves Doctor Who and is a big enough fan of the show that the only head of the BBC to never be knighted was the one who got it cancelled back in the 80s. I doubt she cares what fork you use.
Twi is slipping. She should know it's never too early to start Flurry on reading Marechiavelli.
And maybe the Henriad cycle.
A little cute
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Privately, probably not. Publicly... well, one must be
Except the Queen apparently, but whose gonna tell her no
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Hyacinth is actually a perfect example of what I’m talking about. She’s middle-class but is obsessed with appearing upper-class.
Loved that show, by the way. Used to watch it all the time with my parents, along with Are You Being Served? and Fawlty Towers. I love BBC sitcoms in general.
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I gotta say the Queen herself has rather grown on me, while we're on the subject. Now, I regard a system of governance like monarchies, ie ones where the people have no say in whose in a position as, by and large, immoral, (in short, I agree with the premise the Not All Rulers are good, as in, all of them), but she's a charmer.
One story I like of her was how she, accidentally I believe, met a tourist group in the gardens and they didn't know who she was and asked if she'd seen the queen. She said no, but pointed to her bodyguard and said he saw her everyday.
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Britain is a democracy anyway for any and all practical purposes. The kind of hoops that the Windsors would have to jump through to gain any meaningful power make it all just not worth the effort.
Personally as far as recent kings go I’m a big fan of Juan Carlos I, king of Spain until 2014. Firstly, because he was the hand-chosen successor to Francisco Franco and could have basically been dictator of Spain, but was secretly a tremendous believer in democracy and personally transformed Spain from the last fascist state into a modern parliamentary democracy in the 70s. Secondly, because of how he handled Hugo Chávez in 2007 when he was being a tremendous asshole at an international conference.
Really good one-shot. Love the exchange, characterizations and general wrap-up. I loved the bits of Sombra's backstory (including the best elements of his comic book background) as well as Twi using Sombra as a cautionary tale that actually shows that, not only are SOME rulers pretty bad individuals, but also WHY the majority of the rulers Flurry Heart knows have certain sets of rules for governing responsibly.
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That's Chavez's default state as I recall. What happened?
The setup here bugged me a little--it felt odd that a festival commemorating Sombra's defeat wouldn't highlight what he did that was so awful, which made the opening a little hard to swallow, especially since Flurry Heart knows what bullying is, so ought to know that some ponies are just sorta awful like that. I will admit that her mentality of 'rulers are supposed to be good, so if Sombra was one he must have been good' did ring true, though.
I liked the role Twilight played here, though, and how it came around to end on a nice positive note. Thanks for writing
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I guess the crystal ponies don't want to focus too much on what he did exactly, because many of them who are alive now were around when he was, and it brings back unpleasant memories. Either that, or Flurry just got more non-answers from Candence and Shining Armor when she asked about it.
Flurry's supposed to be pretty naive in this story, she's about the same age as the Cutie Mark crusaders were at the start of the series. She just wasn't old enough to make that kind of connection. She's like "If he was a bully, how'd he get in power?" because her mind's too young to think that he might've overthrown the previous government.
That's pretty much what I was going for. Flurry's young enough that that reasoning still makes sense to her.
I felt like Twilight, after everything she learned from Celestia, would be the one most likely to teach Flurry about things like this. She loves Flurry, but she doesn't have that deep, parental instinct that Cadence and Shining Armor have that compels them to protect Flurry from the scary stuff for so long.
Thanks for reading.
This was more focused on Sombra than Flurry. It definitely feels like you focused on the wrong areas, glossing over Flurry's attempts to get her parents to explain things and focusing on what the audience already knows as told by Twilight. And, as has been noted, the idea that Flurry could go this long while knowing nothing about Sombra strains belief. There's a good bit of emotional interaction between aunt and niece, but overall, it feels poorly prioritized.
Still, good effort. Best of luck with the judging.
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I went back and added a little more to try and direct some of the focus more on Flurry. Also, like I sad before, this Flurry's younger than the Crusaders were at the start of the series, and given how dark Sombra's history is in this universe, I don't think it's unreasonable that her parents would keep her from learning very much about him, at least until she's a little older.
I think this broaches a topic with Flurry Heart that makes a bit of sense. She has been told one thing all her life, but there's a bit of information that's counter to it even if she doesn't know why.
While I think the start is a little clumsy, I enjoyed the conversation between Twilight and Flurry, and I think Twilight explains it with the right amount of tact while leaving out what are likely worse details.
???: hehehe sorry flurry but this alicorn said otherwise
Hello! Have a review. I like this look at Flurry's curiosity, and that she heads for Auntie Twilight with her query. On the other hoof, I did have to stretch belief a little too much that Cadance and Shiny wouldn't have told her anything about Sombra's time.