- Written By: EbonyPOV: Third person.
We're now moving on to The Prayer Ponies. First, let me note that this story has nothing to do with any of the other stories. Let's see how each one connects to the others.
- The Evil Gods Part 1 began the series, and introduced Battle With The Witches midway through.
- In Battle With The Witches, Jerry from The Evil Gods Part 1 played a small role.
- In Theat of Satanic Commonism, the cast of The Evil Gods Part 1 returned (including those who shouldn't be alive or on the Prayer Warriors' side), as did Michael from Battle With The Witches
- In The Evil Gods Part 2, the rest of the cast from the previous Evil Gods Part 1 and Battle With The Witchs came back from Russia(Threat of Satanic Commonism) to fight in America).
- Titans Strike Back, from what I recall, involves the cast from Battle With The Witches.
- Attack of the Sphinx, meanwhile, involves some of the Evil Gods cast, along with the Carter Kane characters.
The Prayer Ponies, however, includes none of the characters from the other installments, and only a single Original Character Prayer Warrior. It's thus the most divorced from the others in terms of cast, style and tone. Part of this is because Ebony's writing it; you might remember that some of her chapters of the the previous works were among the better-written ones.
The author's note at the beginning asks for reviews that are based on the story's storytelling merits, saying that it isn't against the rules to talk about God or Jesus. That may be so, but that doesn't necessarily make fics dominated by the author's religious beliefs good.
The OC is a pony called Charity (who was apparently called "Charity Sue" once before; absolutely NO self-respecting fanfic author ever appends "Sue" after a character's name). She's a good pony, who has never sinned (which undercuts the teaching that we are all sinners, something that the Prayer Warriors themselves have emphasized), or practiced magic. She decides to go to Ponyville to teach about the evils of Magic.
She first encounters Twilight Sparkle, who's reading. After Charity introduces herself, Twilight reveals that she's reading about the history of Ponyville, and how Celestia founded it with her sister Luna before Luna became Nightmare Moon. Putting aside how it should be a history of Equestria, rather than Ponyville, Twilight should know all this already; she was involved in defeating Nightmare Moon at the very start of the series.
Charity's interested in all this, but has a more important order of business; finding out whether Twilight is a Christian. That's impossible, though, for an obvious reason; Twilight doesn't know the first thing about Christianity, thinking it's related to "crisps."
I've heard that it can be difficult for writers to portray an expert in a field that they don't have expert knowledge in realistically, and often leads to results such as a literature professor's thesis sounding like a high school essay, or a bomb expert making a mistake that would have gotten him killed in real life. I would also like to point out that the opposite is true, and it can often be difficult to portray someone who doesn't have much knowledge about something without making them seem like a complete and utter moron.
After a basic description of Christianity, Twilight immediately converts, and decides to tell Princess Celestia about this. Charity accompanies her, wanting to find out why Equestria doesn't practice Christianity, and wanting to find whatever evil took root that will not allow Christianity to be practiced.
Twilight shows Charity to the castle, warning her that Celestia is "unpredictable." Charity notices Twilight's admiration for Celestia, and hopes that one day, she will feel that way about Jesus.
Twilight tells Celestia that she met an interesting person recently, and Celestia is eager to hear more. Upon hearing that it is Jesus, however, Celestia suddenly gains a demonic appearance and banishes Twilight and Charity from the room, sending them into a forest full of evil trees.
I've heard about how Celestia is often demonized in fanfics, but this has to be the most blatant- and literal- case of demonizing I've ever seen. The Prayer Warriors this time may not be murdering their enemies, but their characterization hasn't gotten any better.
- Next Installment: Twilight and Charity escape the forest and work on converting other characters.
