Post of the Week #3557

Posted by Kyler Thatch on Fri, 20th Jan '12 7:35:53 AM - Post #74854 in the old thread

Woo, decade old conflict! What was this one about?

With the disclaimer that I'm the one who wrote that example to begin with, I'd like to present my thoughts here:

As a general rule, nations in the show — Equestria primarily, plus the others that get visited — are depicted as fairly streamlined monarchies. Fairytale monarchies, if you will, acting essentially as idealized depictions of the process with a lot of the complexity sanded out. The way most of them work is that you've the central monarch (Princess Celestia, the Dragon Lord, Prince Rutherford, Queen Novo, etc.), plus a few family members, who rules more or less directly over the society, and then you have all the citizens of that society. Now, normally in real life you'd have a lot of additional workers, officials and intermediaries, but for the sake of fitting this all into twenty-minute episodes this is narrowed down to just monarch and citizens. None of the in-show societies really have anything like a noble class between the rulers and the subjects; for that matter, there isn't even all that much of a bureaucracy or a civil service, although occasional examples of those might have turned up in Equestria, right now I don't recall.

Almost all of the show's societies function as very direct monarchies, without a lot of complicated political philosophy. Just, you know, fairytale direct monarchies.

Yeah, they don't really draw attention to it, but the implication is very heavily geared towards medieval western European kingdom, complete with aristocracy.

although occasional examples of those might have turned up in Equestria, right now I don't recall.

The only examples that come to mind are Mayor Mare, Chancellor Neighsay and possibly Ms. Harshwhinny.

There's also Dracula's Wizengamot Council of Education thing.

Because of the level of technology and how the economic situation seems to work, those places appear to be the closest analogues politically (if just by accident.) The cultural aesthetics are obviously different, but those are the surviving monarchies of the world today. (Well, north korea is a restored monarchy, not a surviving monarchy, but the point stands.)

cultural aesthetics are irrelevant to what the show has actually shown the system to be like, and so I pick the closest comparisons available for post-feudal nearly-absolute monarchies.

I'd say that's due to those being relatively modern (at most a few centuries vs the 1000+ years of Equestria) institutions. Also note Prince Blueblood was supposed to be a Duke but the executives overruled as they thought kids wouldn't get that nuance, so they were actively refusing to add that level of social complexity, and that Twilight was supposed to be wrong for thinking it was more complex than what she had experience for suggest it never actually changed in-show.

The one RL president I can think of is right after the fall of Rome, which fits how the Windigo's forced the tribes to abandon their old homeland and move to Equestria. They had more complexities (Princess Platinum, Chancellor Puddinghead, Commander Hurricane, Private Pansy) that didn't survive into the social restructuring (at least in a way that kept them relevant/only recently returned).

Besides, if anything, you should compare it to Victorian era kingdom, because that's what the main aesthetics of this show is going for. There's nothing modern about this show aside from the occasional gizmo for an occasional episode.

Do I have to preface every statement with "I assume this is unintentional and due to the writers not caring about this aspect in favor of the other ones, but..." to not get jumped on when talking about the political situation that we're shown in the show and comparing it to the real world's closest analogues just because the aesthetics don't match even though the political system as it is shown is remarkably close?

Because it's unreasonable to compare the political system (not the aesthetics, the aesthetics vaguely fit, but the political system doesn't) to a victorian era kingdom first and foremost, because those weren't absolute monarchies as a general rule, whereas Princess Celestia clearly has a lot of authority and we've only see her be overruled once, and even then twilight immediately found a workaround, so any checks are clearly nominal. It is obviously a non-feudal absolute monarchy as it is shown, and those never really existed in europe, so I can't compare the political system to a european system even though it generally lacks non-european aesthetics.

But it uses Western European terms and visuals, so I don't see how it could ever match middle eastern or Asian kingdoms, much as you apparently want it to.

^I mean, Florien's been pretty explicit about answering that question. The terms and visuals are mostly the same, but it doesn't work like Western Europeans kingdoms did and do. Similar coat of paint, different engine under the hood.

I don't know enough about Asian government institutions to comment on accuracy, but it's a very simple analogy. "The political system as shown, in its very simplified form, works more or less like this real-life system, and doesn't function like any of the other real-life systems".

For example, if the show used modern American terms and visuals but otherwise everything worked exactly as it does now, it would still be obvious that Equestria works as a monarchy of some sort instead of being a presidential republic, right?

Edited by Theriocephalus on May 13th 2023 at 7:36:50 AM

But it's not anything like modern real-life monarchies either. Arguing for "the closest real-life analogue" is like arguing about which real-life horse is most like a unicorn.

Woo, decade old conflict! What was this one about?

I dug up my archives to check, and it turns out to have been about people trying to convince Ginger Ninja to read Fallout Equestria. Somehow I managed to guess that before I even checked (well I guessed that it would probably involve FOE and/or Ginger Ninja, not necessarily both).

Speaking of Fo E, what is everyone's opinion on it? I remember reading it when I was younger and liking it. Also remember reading Project Horizons, but never finished it (and felt it too grimdark anyway).

It's ok. I remember being really moved by some of the sad flashbacks back when I read it.

As a fan of both series, I loved it. It was a lot of fun to read, and very interesting how the two universes meshed (and how well they meshed in some ways).

"This was unexpected."

But seriously, I actually don't think Cadance not being explicitly referred to as "The Princess of Love" breaks the worldbuilding. While it might be fanon and never outright stated, it's supported enough through canon that it could be legit. After all, Cadance spreads love, has a heart cutie-mark, protects an Empire filled with love, guards the Crystal "Heart", her first name is "My Love" in Spanish, and defeated a villain that steals love.

Yeah, she's pretty clearly meant to be the princess of love, even if no one technically ever calls her that.

And S4 and The Movie showed her magic was comparable to Celestia, Luna, and Twilight's. But most of Twilight's role as Princess of Friendship was as diplomat as opposed to anything relating to her powers, and there's the question of why S9 didn't have her replace them instead of/alongside Twilight given their supposedly similar power levels/the latter's greater experience running a nation by now but she needed Twilight's help practically every time so...

Anyway, Big Mac x Cheerilee was sunk because they realized the implications of getting together due to love potion, maybe that's why that aspect of Cadence hasn't been touched upon since and it seems like they tried replacing it with the Crystal Empire stuff. So maybe the Princess of Love stuff is something that was planned/half-implemented but put to the wayside since they couldn't figure out what to do with it like they did the other Princesses?

Speaking of Cadance, found this under VagueAge.Western Animation>

• This is even worse for supporting and background characters, with whom the writers care little about episode-to-episode consistency. The ones you might assume are the same age may be either adults or foals in flashbacks.
• Cadence. "Twilight's Kingdom" implies that Tirek knows about her, but not Twilight, which means that she's at least a thousand years old (since Tirek was defeated a thousand years ago). Yet in flashbacks to when she used to babysit Twilight, she looks like a teenager, with any supplemental material that covers her backstory similarly marking her as being a teenager who even attended school with her husband and Twilight's older brother, Shining Armor.

My issues is that I believe compared to the above, Cadance has been consistently portrayed as merely as much older as Shining. I've seen the her being far older fanon but the Tirek thing seems the only thing supporting that, which is a minor part of the story compared to her other age establishing appearances. Thoughts about removing the latter as more Fridge Logic than intended indicator of age?

Could Tirek have learned about Cadance after his escape somehow? Otherwise, it just seems like a Plot Hole.

That seems plausible, he could have learned about her as being one of the rulers of the pony kingdoms, which naturally would not have included Twilight.

And then I eventually did read Fallout Equestria and now I have fond memories of it. I printed the entire thing off the internet (it cost me like £300) and read it on the bus late at night.

Makes me glad kindles are a thing