In which they're off to see the Wiz- I mean Goddess
Chapter 27
- Needless Racism. Gotta love it.
- So... The zebras thought Luna was still Nightmare Moon? Are they blind? If she was, the sun would have never risen. The reasoning behind this was is just getting more and more contrived.
- Damn, Velvet. Sarcasm is not the way to go right now. When is she supposed to get smarter, exactly?
- Um. It wasn't your plan, Pip. Blame the Rangers.
- Screwed if you do, screwed if you don't. Looks like the only option is to kill something evil and hope for the best.
- Oh, shush, Pip. The only personal thing Red Eye sacrificed was his own integrity. He still lives the easy life, safe and protected at all times, while the slaves are the ones sacrificing for his planned future.
- Um, wasn't New Appleoosa laughing at Red Eye when his name was first brought up way back? I smell a nasty continuity error.
- Slipping memes into dialog? Have you no shame?
- Of course Xenith's a potion master. All Zebras are, apparently.
- More backstory! How much do you want to bet that this random memory orb is also about the mane 6. I'm not doubting at this point that the only memories any orbs are either confessions or random stuff about the ministry mares.
No. Zecora was very much their friend. Pinkie, of all ponies, would not turn on her. I call bullshit to the highest degree.She's condemning her to Mind Rape on suspicions. Nope. Wrong. You can't justify your way out of this one. I saw Pinkie's last moments. She was not vindictive or angry like that, even at the ponies in Four Star who she set the Steel Rangers loose on.- What? It was a covert op? For what? They just blew up ponies for no reason. And Pinkie Pie was laughing about it. That's just trading one character derailment for another!
- That's quite the task list laid out in front of you.
- That was cruel, Homage.
- I thought that Diamond Tiara's pointlessly cruel death was going to be the only one of that type? Apple Bloom's is nearly as bad. She gets to die slowly from radiation poisoning knowing that lots of ponies will also suffer the same fate just because she couldn't get the door on fast enough. It failed to even give any relevant information outside of the fact that Applejack's family survived, which we more or less knew already! Ugh. This is just not a good chapter for me.
- Oh, hey, a memory orb not directly related to the mane 6. That's a first.
- A "Send them to the moon" joke? Really?
- I seriously doubt that Celestia can just hand out baby dragons like that. Ugh, more canon nitpicks.
- Also, don't tell me that the war is going to start when the zebras attack a school, just because Luna is running it close to their borders. That's just stupid!
- Why did a school have automated defenses? Why were they still using the school if it was so close to the war zone? Why did no one in one of the two most prestigious schools in the nation speak the Zebra language? Everything is just so stupid!
- The war started over coal and gemstones. What.
- I'm with SteelHooves. That is stupid.
- Sure, lets just toss another meme into the middle of this. That makes everything better.
- You know, I didn't think this chapter could throw much more at me to make me hate it, but it did. What purpose does slaughtering Stable Two serve outside of yet another gut-punch to the reader?
Thoughts on Chapter 27:
Where do I even begin? From the looks of this chapter, it was designed to be a Wham Episode. It was, but only in the most rage-inducing way possible. More or less everything presented this chapter about the reasoning behind the war and why it went so far makes no sense from a logical standpoint. Then, you have Apple Bloom's fate, which I covered my reasons for hating above (You all lied to me ;_;). Finally, as if to top everything off, this chapter had an extreme density of overt meme references that managed to take you right out of the powerful moments it was trying to build. It's almost as if the author knew how over the top dark this chapter was, and tried to counter it with memes, only making it worse.
Sorry, after reading this chapter, I'm done for now. I'll probably pick back up again tommorow or Sunday, depending on how mad I still am at the fic, but for now I need something to dissipate my anger before I drop the fic entirely.
Comments
storyyeller
Since: Dec, 1969
May 18th 2012 at 8:52:46 PM
When did they blow up ponies? I was under the impression that Zecora's extraction was arranged in order to cause as little harm as possible. If anypony died, it was an accident.
Sereg
Since: Dec, 1969
May 19th 2012 at 3:03:24 AM
The zebras think that Luna was just using a cosmetic change and pretending to be on Celestia's side. They do't trust her for reasons relating to the history of their culture.
Not all of New Appleloosa is united in their opinions. Those in charge deal with Red Eye, but the common folk don't all agree with him.
Yeah, I didn't think any ponies were harmed by the attack.
I actually didn't see Applebloom's death as crueler than Diamond Tiara's, but okay.
Th school had automated defences because of the war, but nopony considered it likely that the school would be in particular danger before those events, so with the defences, they were thought to be safe.
I hope that you like future chapters more.
Seraphem
Since: Dec, 1969
May 19th 2012 at 5:48:49 AM
What Sereg said.
also, since when has war always started because of logical, sensible reasons? And yes as we've all said before most of the problem in the past are the result of ponies and zebras making decisions that ended up biting them in the ass, and yes with hindsight are easy to see why they were wrong. That's just life, it's easy to pick apart somepony's decision looking back with tons of information that they didn't and couldn't have at the time, but for me at least, I can understand why they made the decisions they did when they did, they feel like perfectly natural decisions...always the smartest ones? oh buck no! But perfectly reasonable mistakes that have been made time and time again throughout history? yes.
PerpetualLurker
Since: Dec, 1969
May 19th 2012 at 10:14:05 AM
This story has yet to provide me with anything to make any of the stupid decisions appear to be reasonable at the time of them happening, and that's not even counting all of the plot contrivances that the story has to jump through to lead to those stupid decisions. The zebras were supposed to be a modern society. How the hell does a modern society break down into a holy war without the slightest bit of evidence to support it. The massacre at the school was inexcusable, considering that the entirety of the stated reason for it happening was that no one there spoke the Zebra language, even though it's an extremely prestigious school. Nearly everything responsible for escalating the war simply would not have happened in a moderately realistic scenario, and it looks to me that events played out the way they did because the author needed to come up with some way to apply the Fallout setting to Equestria.
The whole "New Appaloosa works for Red Eye" deal still smells of a retcon just to slam another mistake on Pip's conscious. If it wasn't, then they wouldn't have made the very heavy point of insisting that Red Eye wasn't the leader of the town, without the slightest shred of a clue suggesting anything otherwise.
As for "hindsight is 20/20", while that is true, common sense is also pretty damn good. None of that had anything to do with my problems this chapter, though.
Sereg
Since: Dec, 1969
May 19th 2012 at 11:50:06 AM
On the conrary. ALL the evidence suggested that Luna was evil. The zebras were never there to see Luna's cleansing. They saw no reason to believe that the individual their culture feared above all others had redeemed. Some people complain about the zebras, but they're forgetting that Luna nearly wiped out all life on the planet once, that their culture is especially tied to circumstances which would result in fear and distrust of Luna (as you'll see) and which they had no evidence to believe otherwise.
As for the remarks about why the school didn't teach the zebra language, why would it? It's clearly not a part of standard Equestrian curriculum. Twilight doesn't speak zebra and she's Celestia's personal student. Schools don't usually alter their curriculum based on neighboring countries.
PerpetualLurker
Since: Dec, 1969
May 19th 2012 at 12:36:43 PM
I'd say the fact that the sun is still rising in the morning is great evidence that Luna was Luna. Not to mention the fact that Celestia herself vouched for her sister, or did they think that she was evil too? They also could have simply voiced their concerns rather than jump straight to "destroy the world". And again, they weren't a backwater tribal society. They had advanced sciences and everything. Such religious fervor should not have been able to overcome rational thought and diplomacy.
As for the school, it's a prestigious academy. Students tend to get to choose their classes later on. I didn't learn much Spanish or French in high-school, but I sure as hell could have if I wanted to, and I went to a crappy public school. The zebras were their primary trading partners. You're telling me that teaching the language of their closest neighboring nation simply wasn't available to students at the most prestigious academic facilities in the world, and that none of the (presumably) talented faculty there were ever taught the language? Schools absolutely do take their neighboring countries into consideration when deciding on what languages to teach. Why do you think Spanish and French are the standard language classes to take in America? We're bordered to the north and south by French and Spanish speaking countries!
Seraphem
Since: Dec, 1969
May 20th 2012 at 4:10:10 AM
It was a magic academy, not a general eduction academy, everything taught there was about magic. Secondly this is all hearsay and fifth hand story telling, given how fast things degenerated during the incident it's entirely possible there WERE ponies there the spoke Zebra, there just weren't any of them ponying the walls when the caravan arrived, and things went to Tatarus before one of their translators could get there.
"Holy War" is just the best description we have for it, it had nothing to do with any actual religious beliefs, but a deep deep seated cultural mythos, (and yes there is a difference) to the Zebra anything even remotely related to the stars was seen as one step below C'thulhu, they saw NMM not as some Evil Overlord Omnicidal Maniac, but as a servant to an Eldritch Abomination, the fact that there was no night that never ends just meant she was being more subtle, waiting until she had them all ponies and zebra alike under her hoof. They saw extinction as better then being rules by something related to The Stars. Even those that could except she wasn't NMM anymore still saw her as having been corrupted by The Stars and at best there unwitting pawn instead of willing herald.
Such religious fervor should not have been able to overcome rational thought and diplomacy.
.......really? Ideally yeah, would be nice, but last oh...5000 years of history have proved that ain't true.
Sereg
Since: Dec, 1969
May 20th 2012 at 6:28:12 AM
Pretty much what Seraph said. Plus, the zebras are aware that Nightmare Moon was defeated. They thought that she was lying to Celestia in order to bide her time for when she could take over and look, this is the best oppertunity she's had in years. I understood the zebra beliefs well enough to know that if I believed them, I'd be as desperate. To the zebras Luna was basically Hitler with superpowers.
As for schooling, I know that my country doesn't teach Shona for instance (of course my country ha eleven oficial languages, so it might not be the best example) but as Seraph said, it's a specialty school.
