Equestria has been through a number of changes during the years that Princess Twilight Sparkle has ruled. Over the course of her rule, she's had to come to terms with many things. However, one item she has an issue with consistently shows itself to her and wasn't even decided on by her. She remembers witnessing it, but nothing about it sits well with her as others tend to.
Story is a one-shot I've wanted to write while working on my previous work. The idea didn't work there, but was strong enough to write about it on its own.
Chapters (1)
It is probably the darkest thing in the show. It does seem extremely out of show to condemn a pony filly to this fate. On the other hand, besides maybe signs of becoming... something with Tirek and Chrysalis (friends might be too strong a word), she never showed any signs of redemption/regret. If nothing else or inspired some stories on this site.
10124590
I figured that Equestria's system works on one thing: Does the criminal seek redemption? From what we've seen, at least the majority of examples, Equestria is willing to forgive if the offender shows regret and actively seeks redemption, and they are willing to give a hoof to help those who want it.
Cozy was given a chance. When she first tried to get rid of magic, Twilight didn't show anger or rage, she genuinely asked confused and saddened why Cozy did it. That was her chance, a chance to change her ways. That and she has been living in the school of friendship for nearly a year at that point, thus having had plenty of time to grow and change her ways.
The only one they actively went out of their way to chance was Discord, and I imagine he is a special case. He is all but a god in terms of power and immortal, thus it is being 'we change him now, or we can keep fighting him for eternity until one day he might defeat us'.
10124590
That's kind of why I'm on the fence about it. Admittedly, I try to steer clear of these types of stories and tend to not read them myself. If Cozy were older (like, around Twilight's or Starlight's age), then I'd probably lean a bit more in one direction, but she was only a kid in the show. I haven't really watched the show much since it ended, so it may be spotty, but there was no clear backstory for Cozy, right? If there were a bit more, that might have influenced a bit more of what some think about the outcome.
10124597
Problem: in most previous cases the creature in question was repeatedly pushed or given an extended amount of time to consider it. Discord was given an entire twenty-two minute episode and hours of in-universe time; Starlight was continuously pushed by Twilight; Trixie after creating Fascist Trixieville was apparently allowed to wander around freely before she decided to apologize. Much like the relative freedom that was granted Discord in “Keep Calm and Flutter On”.
Then we have Stygian - who was never in full control of his actions and Twilight was immediately willing to risk her life to save once she realized there was an actual pony left in the Pony of Shadows - and Tempest Shadow - who was saved even though she was a horrible pony who’d conquered nations and just finished promising to conquer dozens more. Tempest is a standout example here, as she did not deserve to be saved but Twilight saved her anyway even though doing so put Equestria at immense risk. It’s only AFTER that gesture that Tempest has her change of heart and risks her own life to save Twilight.
Compared to all that, she sheer callousness of Twilight in brushing aside Cozy Glow as beyond hope for, let’s be real, throwing a childish tantrum, is jarring. Especially given how the previous examples of Starlight, Stygian, and Tempest all present Twilight with strong evidence that you have to spend time LOOKING FOR the soul of the pony you’re trying to save, that their worthiness of being saved won’t be just something they’ll display...yeah, it doesn’t make much sense.
Oh, but for me the big issue is Chrysalis, not Cozy. Not to downplay Cozy, but how Chrysalis was treated is the biggest indicator of, to be honest, a near-sadism in pony society in Seasons 8 and 9 that simply wasn’t present in Seasons 1-7 or the movie.
This was an interesting take on the subject. Many of these fics can be overeager to immediately find an answer—it was nice to see one more focused on the question.
Have a thumbs up!
:)
10124624
Ok, I can see your point at some level, but there are a few things I disagree with.
No. Cozy was trying to destroy magic. That is far beyond a 'childish tantrum'. That is borderline terrorism-level of criminal activity. We see that removing magic can have heavy lethal consequences (Pegasi that lose their magic can't stand on clouds, thus everyone in Cloudsdale would fall to their death unless given a proper warning, as their flight actively relies on magic. Without it, they can't fly) and in her second attempt, she was willing to risk the entire world by not bothering to deal with the windigos, something she should know has terrible consequences, as she no doubt have heard that hearts warming tale.
The second thing I disagree with is Chrysalis.
How is what they did to Chrysalis worse? Chrysalis is an adult, who got a clear offer at redemption from Starlight. An even larger chance than Cozy did. Chrysalis chose to seek out the path of evil, actively seek out harm on others without remorse or any guilt, not even a moment of hesitation.
Chrysalis deserved everything she got. She can go insane inside her stone prison until the end of time and it would be a fitting punishment.
10124637
Thank you for your kind words! :)
Irl, I'm a historian, so I try to look at things a bit differently. It doesn't always work, but it's nice to see when it does. :)
10124655
No, not that, I mean the literal tantrum she threw upon her defeat. Consider that however smart she is, she’s still a child at an emotional level, who just had months of planning utterly ruined. Of course she’s not going to be in the mood to quietly sit back and consider if what she did was wrong and if she should apologize. She’s going to do what any spoiled child does when a big event that they’d been looking forward to (birthday, trip to Disneyland, whatever) goes wrong: scream and yell and blame everyone around them and basically be a huge terror.
Now that being said, putting her in Tartaros as a sort of “time out” could have been okay, darkly silly...if it had been presented as a time-out until she calmed down. But it wasn’t. All indications are that she was thrown in there and left to rot, never to be checked up on again - after all, no one notices that she (or Tirek) are missing from it throughout Season 9.
Given that, she was not exactly strongly incentivized to reflect on her actions (if she’s even capable of doing so under her own volition - again, child, and clearly a disturbed one at that). Is it any wonder then, that when someone scooped her up from Tartaros and told her that she was right to be pissed off at everyone, she sided with him?
Gimme a sec, i originally sent it as a PM to someone and then subsequently posted it on 4chan, where it’s become a copypasta...ah, here we go.
To be honest, I think what Discord did to those three is the single most evil, monstrous thing shown in the entire series, and the fact that Discord suffers no consequences for it, and then on top of that gets to decide their fate, managed to become the worst moment in the franchise for me. I was always ambivalent towards Discord after "Keep Calm and Flutter On" at best, but "The Ending of the End" finally, finally made me get off the fence and the decide that I just absolutely hate his character. If I could press a button that would prevent him from ever appearing in the show, even though I really like "The Return of Harmony", I would press that button and hold it down.
Chrysalis actually serves as the best demonstration as to why. At the end of "To Where and Back Again", Chrysalis stands alone against, if I've done my math correctly, five alicorns, eight other ponies, one dragon whelp, one draconequus, and an unknown but large number of Reformed changelings. If anyone had wanted to stop her running away, they could have. And if they thought she was still dangerous or a threat, then they SHOULD have. So the only reason why she gets away at the end of TWABA that makes sense is because everyone there believes that she could be redeemed. They saw her struggle with whether or not to accept Starlight's offer of friendship, and yeah, she turns it down, but it was clearly a struggle.
Then it's important to remember that the ponies haven't seen the TV show. They haven't seen "The Mean 6". So as far as anypony knows, for two whole seasons - call each season 6 months, so for a full year - Chrysalis does nothing to anyone. She runs off and just lurks in the wilderness somewhere. So far as anyone can tell, Chrysalis has spent a year harming no one.
Enter Discord, who picks her up from where she was in the woods hurting no one and:
Discord, as far as the ponies should be concerned, basically took someone who was capable of redemption (from their perspective), who while wrestling with whether or not she wanted it verses her own pride had not tried to hurt anyone, and steered her away from it. You can make the argument that, well, it had been a year and she hadn't come in from the cold, but then again Starlight Glimmer in half a year come up with a plan to ruin Twilight's life and shatter time itself. It took concentrated, repeated effort on Twilight's part to get Starlight Glimmer to admit that she was wrong, an effort that was never extended to Chrysalis. Not once in the entire finale does anyone try and figure out why Chrysalis is doing what she's doing, seeing if there's some way to reach her - and even if they had and she'd refused, we have to wonder how much of that is because of what Discord did.
The analogy that's popular on 4chan right now is that Discord basically took a crack addict, disguised himself as a drug dealer, grabbed her, threw her into a crack den with two other crack addicts and all the crack she could ever want while telling her how awesome crack is, and then got mad at her when she shot up and punished her and the other crack addicts by revealing that actually he's a cop and now she's going to get solitary confinement for the rest of her life.
If I was Starlight Glimmer, or Tempest Shadow, or Stygian, or Luna, or Sunset Shimmer, I know I'd be looking at what Discord did and be asking myself, "what if I'd still be running around evil when Discord came up with this brilliant scheme of his? Would he have grabbed me? Would I have told him 'no', or would I have gone along with it? Would I be a statue right now?"
I could go on, I really could. Sufficed to say, I really, really hated the finale in almost every aspect.
10124677
see... I agree that Discord has some fault in what happened, but you fail to realize one fact.
EVERYTHING Chrysalis did after finding the bell was 100 % on her. The moment she took the bell and hid it from 'Grogar' to get the power of her own, she took full responsibility for her own actions. You can't claim she was under Grogar/Discord's control and power when she was actively plotting behind his back and held a triumph-card that he could not see coming or compete with.
This is not defending Discord btw, I agree what he did was awful, but he is not responsible for Chrysalis' Cozy's and Tirek's actions from the moment they began to plot behind his back.
The moment they did that, they acted on their own and thus deserves full blame for any actions they took.
10124677
That's a very interesting response; all valid points as well. Heck, even in Frenemies, she's seen to be drawn to teamwork and friendship, but because of what Discord did (using the analogy you gave), she immediately denies that and goes back to her former self.
That moment right there in that episode was the pinnacle for her reformation and, were it not for Grogar/Discord's antics, possibly could have happened. It's weird to imagine how things could have turned out had the reformation actually happened and she didn't stop it herself.
10124693
After living months with three other maniacs who continuously reinforced her negative desires, I absolutely can question how much of what happened was Discord’s influence and fault. So she took the bell - which she only knew of the existence of thanks to Discord, nevermind the location - and turned on Discord. Why shouldn’t she? He’d been physically and verbally abusive and she’d been given no reason to think that, with his overwhelming power, he wouldn’t turn on her if and when it became convenient. It’s easy to claim that she could have made better choices, but she’s already not a stable individual to begin with and wasn’t in an environment that would encourage her to MAKe those better choices - in fact just the opposite, like I said, her negative, unstable side was pushed and encouraged by those around her.
10124696
I’ve had more than a few people say that “Frenemies” was supposed to show that the three were fundamentally irredeemable. I think it shows, plainly, the exact opposite. With no one helping the Trio and in fact Discord actively working against them by encouraging their negative desires, the Trio still came within an inch of embracing friendship - and the main reason they reject it is Chrysalis, and the reason she rejects it is that her every encounter with friendship has resulted in pain and loss for her. Friendship took away her people, her throne, her home, her title, even her very identity - remember, the first thing Chrysalis ever said about herself was “as Queen of the changelings it is up to me to find food for my subjects”, and Friendship took that role away from her by turning changelings into creatures who don’t need to go out and find sources of love anymore. And that’s leaving aside the physical pain the Rainbow no doubt inflicts.
Chrysalis has been given no reason to embrace friendship. It’s ludicrous to think she would apropos nothing just because of a half-day spent climbing a mountain...yet she almost did.
What if she’d actually had someone in her corner, actually helping her?
10124715
"To Where and Back Again" heavily implied that Chrysalis didn't really care about her subjects; that she saw them as merely an extension of herself, to gather love so she could feed and grow stronger. Her anger at being ousted was more along the lines of having what she saw as belonging to her taken away.
10124736
Did it? I do think that she sees them as things she owns, but you can still care about things you own. And likewise the same episode has her talk about how taking over Equestria will let her feed her subjects (and herself) for generations. Does she love the changelings? Of course not, if she did then she would have Reformed ages ago. But I think it’s extremely narrow-minded to claim that she didn’t feel a sense of responsibility towards them.
Chrysalis is complex. It’s a mistake to try and boil her down to a black-hat villain. And likewise, the fact remains that no matter what she was by the end of the finale, she absolutely was incentivized to become it by the vile, frankly unforgivable actions of Discord. You want to talk about how wrong it is to treat people like disposable minions? What was the Legion of Doom to Discord if not exactly that - a trio of disposable minions? Why shouldn’t Chrysalis have turned on him? And having done so, what incentive does she have to do anything other than what she did?
10124753
Here's a thought: the whole "I need to feed my subjects" line was just something she told the good guys in order to justify her actions.
If she really cared about her subjects, she wouldn't have run away. She would accepted that they had chosen a better way for themselves, but she didn't.
The plan Chrysalis and the others ultimately came up with was incentivized only by themselves. They came up with it all on their own. "Grogar" wasn't even there most of the time, so they had plenty of room to think for themselves.
10124975
But why would she feel a need to do that? There are no changelings in the room besides her so it can’t be to keep up appearances with them, and why would she care what the good guys think of her? This only makes sense if she’s trying to justify it to herself, which would indicate guilt over her actions - which indicates a conscience, which means she’s not beyond saving.
I told you: complex. She can’t just switch off her pride and ego when it’s convenient. You’re asking someone insane to be able to rationally diagnose and recognize their insanity. Why would she be able to do that? Why do you think she should be able to do that? Why are you looking at someone who invented people to talk to and saying “yeah, I bet she’s capable of making rational decisions”?
Or as I put it in a fic I wrote...
”I...I ruled for so long...and I did not want to give that up. Not for anything! The changelings are mine and mine alone, my creation, my subjects! By right of a thousand years of rule! Starlight Glimmer had no right to take my crown, turn my subjects on me, destroy my Hive, and then oh-so-graciously offer to let me have back everything she’d stolen if only I capitulated to her!”
10125021
Or if she was just lying to make herself look good. Because her ego demands she paint herself as the changelings' great leader and provider.
That just makes it even more unlikely that she could ever be reasoned with.
10125129
No, it doesn’t. It just means you give up too easily. You see one method - bluntly confronting an egomaniac with her flaws - failed, and so assume the task is impossible, even though in the show itself this never worked. None of the villains who were reformed, were reformed by bluntly confronting them with their failures.
But again, only to herself - no changelings in the room, just herself and food. Do you explain yourself to your hamburger? Do you apologize or justify yourself to cows you meet? No, so the speech was solely for her own benefit - Which still means that she needs to see herself as the good guy - she has a conscience that she needs to assuage.
Look, I remember a few months ago when we had it out and I think you were the one who had difficulty grasping the concept of linear time and limited perspective, so I don’t particularly want to do this again. I just want to say, my opinion has not changed - that Discord irrevocably tainted the trio with his actions, that what they did in the finale is not representative of what they would have gotten up to on their own if Discord hadn’t been such a callous prick, that if they’d actually had someone willing to help them, they might have changed.
But they didn’t. They were used as disposable minions by Discord, then rebelled against him because he had given them no incentive to be loyal, but because he had done nothing to help their psychoses and had enabled and enhanced their negative impulses, of course they didn’t become better people and so just pursued their original goals. It’s frankly absurd to think or expect that they would have or could have become better people on their own under those circumstances. I mean, Hell, 1,000 years in the moon didn’t help Nightmare Moon, and all she did was sleep, she didn’t have an ancient spirit of chaos, evil, and confusion smacking her around and asserting his dominance and threatening her life.
10125418
Many tyrants throughout history have claimed they were doing good, but were really evil. Chrysalis is a self-centered narcissist who only ever cared about herself. She and Cozy were both offered help, but refused it.
Discord may have brought them together, but every vile, terrible thing those three did in season 9 was under their own volition. They chose to spread disharmony across Equestria, and chose to do far more vile things than Discord ever had in mind for them. Discord's real mistake was underestimating how despicible they truly were.
10125702
I mean if you willfully ignore about half of her dialogue about herself in order to advance your own preferred version of the character, then yeah, sure, I can see how someone would think that.
You’re the sort of person who’d hand a crack addict an 8-ball and then act surprised and indignant when they shot up.
hOW cOUld ThIS hAVe hApPenNeD?
Now that’s just an outright lie - no one ever offered any help to Cozy. Twilight said that she failed Cozy, then the Student Six jumped in and said that Twilight didn’t fail them, then Cozy was shoved into Tartaros.
Twilight Sparkle: You're the one who doesn't get it, Cozy. Friendship is powerful, but power isn't why you make friends. I'm sorry I couldn't teach you that.
Gallus: Well, you taught us.
Silverstream: You can't let one bad apple make you think you failed.
Sandbar: And we never could've stopped her if we hadn't learned what you taught us about friendship.
Cozy Glow: Honesty? Loyalty? Generosity? Blah-blah-blah! I can make more friends without using any of them! And if I can't do it here, I'll do it somewhere else!
"Patty Peppermint": Yeah... I don't think so!
Royal guards show up, then the scene ends. No one offers her any help. Twilight goes on about her failure but then takes no responsibility for it, just passes Cozy off to Celestia and Luna and apparently forgets all about her. There is no outstretched hoof, no offer of a better way. Just, “you’re wrong, I fucked up, I now wash my hooves of you.”
10125712
Which dialogue, exactly? In "To Where and Back Again", where she ranted about getting everypony in Equestria to do what she commanded, or when she attempted to basically execute Thorax for trying to find a better way than hers? How about the part in "The Mean 6", where she essentially bragged to herself about her brilliant plan to use the Elements of Harmony to create a new hive to be queen of? Her attempts to be the one in control of the villainous trio? Or even the part in the finale where she planned to let the Windigos freeze Equestria, just so she could stop them and be adored by the ponies for doing so (disregarding Tirek's own note of caution over letting the Windigos roam free)?
Twilight made Cozy her personal assistant, and the Mane Six taught her all about friendship. She took all that, and betrayed them. She was already being helped, but used it for her own selfish goals.
You seem to think the villains can be absolved of all blame for their actions, simply because Discord was the one who let them out.
10125829
No. I’m saying that their actions in Season 9 are irrevocably tainted by Discord’s own and can’t be seen as representative of what would have happened if he’d never gotten involved, because he took three already bad people and deliberately, malignantly pushed them to be worse, and meanwhile they had no one who was even pretending to help them get better.
And I’m saying that everyone in the show simply gave up on them. You realize that if you applied your standard to the rest of the show, then Discord should be encased in stone for...I don’t know, take your pick:
Or actually to be more specific with the last, Twilight should not have asked for him back from Tirek. Her friends, sure, but why did she want Discord out of Tirek’s grasp? Fluttershy had let him be her friend for an entire season and change, and he’d still betrayed her. But oh no, that’s anything like what Cozy did...
But instead of any of that, Celestia and Twilight didn’t just talk about mercy and friendship, they actually performed it and it - eventually - debatably - got through to Discord. Discord wasn't just given a second chance, he was given four chances, just between Seasons 2 and 4.
But according to you Cozy Glow isn’t even worthy of one?
“As Queen of the Changelings, it up to me to find food for my subjects!”
“You know nothing of what it takes to be queen of the changelings! The hunger of the changelings can never be satisfied!”
“Of course I haven't forgotten Starlight Glimmer! She stole my hive. Turned my subjects against me!”
“Until that sow Starlight Glimmer freed them, corrupted my subjects, and stole my hive!”
“I watched [friendship] infect my hive, I will not let it infect me!”
“My subjects and I will be able to feast for generations!”
“I haven't felt like this since before I lost my hive. Having others who will be there for you is... pleasing.”
And more besides. Chrysalis defines herself by being a ruler, and a good one. Note that she never blames the changelings for turning on her. No, the Changelings were corrupted by the “real” villains, Starlight Glimmer and her friends. And she’s too much of an egomaniac to simply be confronted with her flaws and shown that she was wrong.
But then so was literally every other villain. Telling Starlight that she was wrong to found Our Town didn’t work. Telling Tempest Shadow that friendship has value did nothing. Telling Discord that if he doesn’t change his ways he’s going to go back in stone didn’t prompt him to act any differently. So why would telling Chrysalis what she’s done wrong have any effect? Why do you maintain a double standard?
This was a good bit on reflection. I believe that turning them to a statue was a bit too far. They would be better off living under house arrest with each other. They'll probably never fully redeem, but they do understand friendship with each other.
10125829
If I may suggest something? Please stop trying to argue with RDD, it's like talking to a brick wall and it's taking over a majority of the comment section and isn't even discussing the story anymore. They're clearly set on blaming Discord when Chrysalis, Cozy, and Tirek are the ones who betrayed Grogar and won't take responsibility for their actions whereas Discord showed remorse and explained himself to the Mane Six and the princesses.
10125949
I ask the same of you. Please stop arguing and filling up the comments section. We get that you hate Discord very much. Please move on.
10126014
Right, because I’m the wall, it’s truly impossible that someone else in this conversation might be...
For the record, while yes I hate Discord, this line of conversation isn’t about Discord, it’s about the apparent double standard on the part of ponies vis-a-vis how they’ve treated villains, even unrepentant and truly monstrous villains in the first seven seasons and the movie - Discord and Tempest Shadow as the standouts there - verses how they treated Cozy Glow in Season 8, and the Trio as a whole in Season 9. Cozy Glow did nothing that Tempest Shadow didn’t do in Season 8, yet Twilight was willing to put all of Equestria at risk to save Tempest even though Tempest did not deserve that mercy. But when nothing was at risk after Cozy’s Plan was already atopped, she didn’t extend a hoof to Cozy, she just accepted her childish tantrum as proof of an unrepentant nature and then tossed her in Tartaros and apparently forgot all about her.
And then also, yes, a brief foray into Discord being a monster who we just forgive because he’s quirky. But that’s not the real point. But even that is with the purpose of making it clear that he tainted the evidence against the Trio with his monstrous actions.
Of course the Trio are responsible for their own actions, but under the circumstances they were in and given who they were, why should we have expected them to act any differently?