Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.
I’m going to kill him! Aria swore to herself. No, first I’m going to kill Sonata right in front of him, THEN I’ll kill him!
She’d made a dozen such promises to herself over the course of the last few minutes, living out each one in the privacy of her thoughts as she stalked through the camp, too angry to remain still. In one of her rage-fueled fantasies, she’d simply confronted Lex directly and blew him away with her magic. In another, she’d enchanted Sonata – that treacherous nag who again, AGAIN had done nothing while she’d lost her voice! – in order to make her attack Lex, forcing him to strike her down in order to defend himself. Still another had her enchant the camp ponies into turning on Lex en masse, shattering his dreams of being a leader when no one would accept him anymore. But for all the different scenarios she’d envisioned, they all ended the same way: with Lex regretting from the bottom of his heart that he’d betrayed her.
Because he had betrayed her. After all of the trust she’d put in him – telling him about all of the shame and degradation she’d gone through when she’d lost her voice back on Everglow – Lex had turned around and used it to hurt her just a few hours later. And for what?! Because I was annoying him a little bit?! Sonata says stuff that’s a thousand times more irritating every single day! He’s never taken HER voice away! But then, Sonata was his special little girlfriend, wasn’t she? Her feelings had to be protected at all costs.
And that was the worst part about what had happened. It wasn’t just that Lex had stabbed her in the back; it was that he’d done it because he hadn’t wanted to look bad in front of Sonata. We didn’t even go all the way and he was STILL ashamed of being with me!
The thought made Aria’s chest tighten to the point of actual pain, and she felt her eyes growing wet. Shaking her head, she savagely wiped them, furious with herself for being brought to the point of tears by Lex’s selfishness. He’s not worth it, she decided. Besides, with how jealous Sonata had been acting, once she found out what happened – that blonde four-eyes would probably tell her sooner or later, since her cutie stamp (or whatever it was called) apparently meant that she loved to gossip – she’d probably chew Lex out anyway. That thought brought a dark smile to Aria’s lips, imagining Sonata and her little friend walking out on Lex and leaving him completely alone. It’s what he deserves. That and the revenge I’m going to bury him under. And once I do, I’m out of here. There was no reason to stay in this pathetic little backwater anymore now that she had her voice back. Now that she could sing again, and with the new magic she’d learned during her time without her voice, she could go anywhere and do anything.
Except that there was no easy way out of here.
Calmer now, Aria slowed to a stop as she considered that. Trying to get out of here on hoof was a losing proposition; her little trip with Cozy and her whipped boyfriend – before they’d also betrayed her – had proven that much. Nor were there any plans for boats or trains to start showing up anytime soon that she was aware of. Even swimming along the coast until she came to another city was out of the question now, since her new pony body couldn’t breathe underwater the way her old one had been able to. If only my flight spell lasted longer, I could-
“Hey. Aria, right?”
Looking up sharply at the male voice calling her name, Aria found herself looking at a smiling pegasus stallion with a grass-green coat. His flank tattoo had a silhouette of a pony catching something round with speed lines behind it. She had a vague sensation that she’d seen him before, but nothing concrete came to mind, and with how she felt right now she wasn’t in the mood to put much thought into it. “Who’re you supposed to be?” she asked bluntly.
The stallion’s grin faltered. “I’m, uh, Disc Jockey. We met a few days ago, remember? When Lex conjured all that food?” When Aria simply frowned, he gave an uncomfortable chuckle. “We bumped into each other when you were leaving the banquet, and I wanted you to tell Lex and Sonata that I was sorry for how I acted when they first arrived.”
“Right,” drawled Aria unhappily as the memory of who this was came back to her. She’d deliberately not passed along his message due to how insulted she’d been at his assumption that Sonata shared Lex’s authority over her. Just being reminded of it – to say nothing of how she felt toward Lex himself right now – made her glare at the idiot pony in front of her. “I remember you now. What do you want?”
Cringing a little at her tone, Disc Jockey’s ears folded back as he took a half-step back away from her. But he seemed to recover a moment later, straightening up as he shuffled one hoof nervously. “I was, you know, just wondering. I mean, I know this isn’t any of my business, but, well, there are a lot of rumors going around and I figured that instead of listening to what everypony else has to say I should just ask you, and then I saw you coming this way and-”
“Will you just spit it out already?!”
“Sorry! Um, are you Lex’s g-girlfriend?”
The question sent a jolt through her, and found herself having to resist the urge to fry the little worm right then and there. “NO! You listen to me!” She darted forward, getting right in Disc Jockey’s face. “I am not Lex’s girl, I am not his friend, and I am definitely not his girlfriend! You got that?!”
Disc Jockey nodded frantically. But the look on his face wasn’t one of fear; at least, not completely. Rather, his cheeks were turning red and his eyes were having a hard time maintaining contact with hers, darting down to look her over before coming back up. It was a look she’d gotten thousands of times before, back when she’d been living on Earth with her sisters, and she recognized it instantly.
Suddenly Aria knew exactly why the bumbling stallion was talking to her.
“Well, in that case,” Disc Jockey gulped. “I was just coming from checking on my mom here.” He waved a hoof toward a small number of tents off to the side, and Aria glanced at them, belatedly realizing that she’d made her way toward the opposite end of the camp in her angry march. “She’s been feeling really run down lately, so I insisted she go here, and the doctors are keeping her for observation right now even though they think it’s just dehydration, but, um…” His nervous grin returned then. “Sorry, I’m rambling. But I was wondering, um…since you’re here and all…d-do you want to go see Princess Celestia with me?”
“Hmm?” Still not sure exactly how to make use of the stallion fawning all over her, Aria only half-heard his question. “Which one is she again?”
Disc Jockey blinked at that, clearly not having expected that question. “Uh, the big white one? She’s right over there.” He pointed behind her, and Aria turned to follow his hoof. Sure enough, in the distance there was a large, white, winged unicorn, her multi-colored mane and tail waving in a non-existent breeze as she spoke to several ponies gathered around her while a second group – wearing golden armor – hung back and watched the proceedings. “She got here a little while ago, and she’s been talking to everypony about what’s happened. I thought maybe we could go join the crowd? It’s not every day that a princess comes to town.”
But Aria was no longer listening, her eyes locked onto the princess as an idea began to form in her mind. This is perfect, she realized. I don’t need to enchant Sonata or the camp ponies in order to get back at Lex. I just need to enchant the princesses! It was absolutely perfect; “I hope those princesses kill you,” had been what she’d told Lex. And now, one of them was right here to help make it happen!
“Um, Aria?” Wandering around so he was in her line of sight again, Disc Jockey waved a hoof awkwardly. “Everything okay?”
“Oh, everything’s wonderful,” she grinned, pleased with herself. Enchanting Sonata would have been troublesome anyway; her sister was an idiot, but she was still a Siren, and if Lex could hold off an army of ghouls then the camp ponies wouldn’t be much of a challenge. But maybe Big White over there could get the job done? “Hey, is Princess Whatsherface strong? I mean, does she have a lot of magic?”
Again, Disc Jockey looked like he wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. “Well…yeah. I mean, I’m no wizard or anything, but Princess Celestia moves the sun all by herself. Plus, she runs a school that teaches magic to the best and brightest unicorns in Equestria. Not to mention that she’s fought off a lot of monsters, like Discord and Nightmare Moon.”
“And her sister’s the same?” The other princess wasn’t here, but that wasn’t a big deal. Even if she could only enchant one of them, Aria felt sure that she could get them into a fight with Lex. After all, once the spells started flying it wouldn’t really matter how the battle started; the other princess would see her sister in a fight with Lex and immediately move to help her out.
Disc Jockey glanced back at Princess Celestia, as though curious what had prompted these questions. “Princess Luna? I’m pretty she is, yeah.” He looked back at Aria again. “Why?”
“Oh, just curious,” mused Aria, the corners of her lips still turned upward as she thought through the logistics of what she was about to do. I’ll need to get close enough for her to hear me singing. That part might be tough; the princesses almost certainly knew she was a Siren, since Sonata had apparently spent most of last night blabbing her head off to her, and so might recognize that her singing was an attack. But if I’m lucky and she doesn’t, or she’s too slow to react, then I’ll be able to get in there and put the thought in her head that she should attack Lex! There was no chance that the princess would be able to resist her enchantment; Aria still remembered how easy it had been to brainwash her human counterpart back on Earth. This big dumb mare could probably be ensorcelled just as easily. That just leaves everyone watching, but they won’t know any better anyway. Even if a lot of people were listening to her song, it was easy to enchant just certain individuals so long as she knew where they were. So no one in the crowd would even know that anything had happened.
Oblivious to what Aria was planning, Disc Jockey shifted his weight between his legs. “So, um, do you want to go?”
Slowly, Aria turned her head to look at him, and this time the smile on her face was the same sultry look she’d given Lex last night. Her plan to sic the princesses on Lex was perfect, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t get back at Lex in another way too. Besides, she was still feeling unsatisfied after Lex had rejected her last night. Time to fix that. “I do,” she purred. “But first, can I ask you for a favor? I just got this body last night, and I was hoping you could help me…break it in.”
Disc Jockey quite clearly picked up on what she was saying, because he was already turning bright red, his eyes widening. “Really?! I mean, s-s-sure!”
Moving so she was alongside the little dupe, Aria pressed her side against his, nuzzling him as she gently directed him toward the rows of tents. “There’s probably an empty one over there we can use, right?” she murmured huskily, her lips brushing his ear. “Just don’t be too rough with me, otherwise I won’t be able to keep my voice down.”
Almost tripping over his hooves, Disc Jockey was grinning like an idiot. “Whatever you say, milady!” Aria had to fight to keep from rolling her eyes at his ridiculous choice of language, but didn’t let her disdain outwardly show. After all, this guy was just a means to an end.
“And then, when we’re done,” she cooed, “you can take me to see the princess.”
A heartbroken Aria plans to take her revenge on Lex, and decides to use the alicorns to do it!
Is this how Celestia's vision comes to pass?
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What listening indeed.
Isn't it 'sic' https://www.dictionary.com/browse/siccing
https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/31/sick-sic/
Doesn't mi'lady usually have an apostrophe there?
You sneaky little bugger. We may get that battle after all.
9562959
And this is how the beginning of the end of the beginning of the end of the world began
9562959
D'oh! Fixed now.
I believe either form is acceptable, but I concur that it should be changed.
I'm not sure if it used to, but it doesn't seem to now.
It suddenly seems that way, doesn't it? But then again, is Aria underestimating pony-Celestia's will by comparing her to her human counterpart?
9562972 Well, if Lex gets into a fight with both alicorns at once, it might be the end of the beginning of the end of his hopes of ruling Equestria.
Okay...I would say I didn't see this happening but I'd be a liar.
Still, I do have to wonder if Aria's plan would even work since her plan depends on her magic being able to affect the Princesses. Sure, she and her sisters did enchant a Celestia and Luna but they were non-magical mortals though on the other hand, Sonata has been shown that she has been able to affect every pony she has used her magic on so far so the odds are unfortunately in Aria's favor.
Still, one could argue that being alicorns could help the princesses resist Aria's magic but in the context of this story, the princesses are still just ponies, seemingly ageless ponies that can move celestial bodies on a daily basis but ponies nonetheless. So who knows, Lex might put the fear of god back into Aria after this or fear of him should her plan work and he founds out afterwards.
9563012 Aria's plan is based on an experience whose applicability here is...questionable at best. But at the same time, Aria's at the top of her game now that she has her voice back. If anything, she's stronger than she's ever been since she's also learned a secondary form of magic to compensate for when she'd lost her voice (though that doesn't really help her with her song-based mind-manipulation powers). After all, the alicorns might be undying powerhouses, but so are the Sirens. Given that we've never really seen the alicorns exhibit any sort of special abilities related to foiling mind-control and, well...it does seem like Aria's plan would have a chance to succeed, doesn't it?
As for what the consequences of her making the attempt, and the fallout from it, will turn out to be, there's no way to be sure. But given how many power-players would be involved (e.g. Lex, the princesses, Aria and likely Sonata as well, etc.) it won't be small either way. Of course, that's if something else doesn't happen in the meantime...
9563020
Discord.
Someone wants to play Puppet Master? Celestia has dropped her mental defences since Discord reformed, or are they almost passive and automatic each day on waking these days?
Which ever way, things are getting messy.
Aria is happy for the moment.
nope there is not chance of this plan going pared shape.
hum a pregnant Aria
now were did this idea cum from.
9563020
And all the while the Night Mare and potentially Kara look on with interest(?) as both mortals and quasi-deities move forward with their goals. Meanwhile, the Night Mare's Knights are seemingly in another lesson with Severance. It wouldn't surprise me if they rush off to 'aid' Lex when the scythe is abruptly called away to his side.
9563313 The problem, of course, is that "mental defenses" are the sort of thing that's entirely presumed to exist without any evidence for them actually being shown in the source material. It's one of those things that's simply assumed under the auspices of "longevity + magical ability + not being an idiot = preparing for every conceivable attack/scheme/situation." The problem, of course, is that this is a very poor fit for what we see in the show. It's not coincidental that the season nine premiere had the Mane Six flat-out noting how Celestia and Luna virtually never helped in a crisis.
Of course, that's slightly more forgivable in this story. The d20 System rules (like virtually all RPGs) doesn't make magic out to be an absolute. Even without having to take active/preemptive measures against it, it's still possible to defend yourself against it, otherwise magic becomes an "I win" button (or at the very least a game of "rocket tag") that makes actually playing the game very little fun at all. Hence "saving throws" against things like magical mental attacks.
This doesn't really fit with most narrative depictions of magic, of course, where it usually is presented as an absolute. Of course, those narrative depictions do often include a loophole for mind-affecting magic, wherein a strong act of will can potentially shake off (or at least suspend) a spell. Hence why you have a brainwashed hero suddenly breaking free of their enemy's spell when they see a close friend/ally/lover suffer a grievous attack. It's just that in the stories this happens after they've already been affected, as opposed to shaking it off as soon as the spell is cast on them.
In Princess Celestia's sake, it's going to come down to comparing her total Will save bonus versus the DC of Aria's magic, with a roll of the dice (which, ironically enough, is an in-character metaphor but an out-of-character literal truth!) to determine who wins this particular contest of wills.
9563029 It's no coincidence that I've barely touched on Discord in this story (he's been mentioned a grand total of twice, I think). That's because he's exceptionally difficult to write for, not just in attitude and presentation, but also for his outsized potential to impact everything going on around him. The show usually (but not always) ignores that, but that's much harder to do if a story wants to take a more cohesive stance on the issue of Equestria's power-players.
That, and putting Discord into game terms so as to be able to measure his power within the context of the game rules that this story uses is rather difficult. It's not that he can't be adequately presented – he can – but that the most obvious methods of doing so rely on using heaping helpings of levels, which is an approach I consider to be artless and ill-considered. After all, Discord has lost most of the fights we've seen him in.
That doesn't mean to say I've overlooked his potential presence in this story though. In fact, I laid down one very subtle line in this story specifically with that thought in mind quite some time ago, though I'm sure no one else realized that's what it was...
9563469 You know, the question of the Sirens and fertility is one of those things that touches back to the whole issue of "they spent over a thousand years on Earth, have hedonistic personalities and want to be adored, and still possessed enough magic to manipulate everyone around them." In other words, the Sirens should have had so much sex that counting the number of times they got laid would need to be represented by exponential notation, and presumably they bore a corresponding number of children...at least, if they're fertile and biologically compatible with their partners, neither of which are necessarily a given.
All of which, of course, are issues I'm ignoring in this story...so far.
9563559 No doubt the gods are watching closely...or at least, the ones that can are. Remember, Kara wanted badly to get to Equestria, and so far the one real foothold she had (Thermal Draft) has been slain. Now it's all up to Sonata, who isn't actually worshiping her.
As for the Knights, well...Lex is going to collect Severance, so I suspect we'll see his reaction to them soon enough.
I kind of want a druid to come to equestria and put applejack in her place because she is trying to destroy the last natural place in equestria.
you should have lex get a reality check on how his whole "principles" that make him challenge the princesses is just justification he has made to make himself feel better about his desire for control. He is sombra without the guts to admit who he is.
9563657 You lost me on this one.
9563661 The desire for control isn't something that's inherently bad; wanting control over one's self and one's circumstances are entirely normal. Even control over others isn't necessarily a bad thing, as every parent, teacher, workplace boss, police officer, and politician has discovered. It's the manner in which that control is gained, and exercised, that determines the moral dimension of it. Sombra was quite willing to force his control upon others via mind control magic, and for no greater purpose that we ever see besides his own sense of entitlement.
Lex, by contrast, is determined to do everything he can to help others – and in a manner that doesn't try to use virtuous ends to justify corrupt means – in order to justify his own existence to himself.
9563571
I'd say that's because most of the fights he has been in involved a major magical artifact, on the opposing side, but that's just me.
Something else here, Discord can't ignore Lex forever. He will make an appearance, at some point.
I would say the main problem with Discord is that he is not very experienced outside of causing Chaos. He is mostly incapable of any magic that doesn't involve chaos of some sort. And it's also not like we've actually seen him do much, aside from teleporting. But I would say his version works radically differently than, say, the way Twilight casts it.
9564925
The thing there is that "major artifact" (like "god") tends to be one of those terms where a lot of people bring their own interpretations of that label to the field, without stopping to actually examine what it actually means. That's compounded by us having very little concrete information about how the Elements of Harmony actually operate (which is where problems like "Why didn't Celestia use the Elements to immediately redeem Nightmare Moon instead of sealing her in the moon for a thousand years?" come from). I made my own attempt to represent what the Elements of Harmony can do, and it basically boiled down to "they can cast whatever (single) spell is appropriate for the situation, with a high caster level check and an increased save DC."
Now, that's pretty impressive unto itself, but it reflects the underlying nature of artifact-generated effects in the d20 System: they're not really different from effects generated by anything else. A flesh to stone spell generated by the Elements of Harmony isn't really going to be different from a flesh to stone spell that anyone else casts; the only real points of comparison are going to be the caster level (which lets it get through spell resistance, and the range from which it can be cast, though that's only going to be different by a few tens of feet) and the save DC. The idea that Discord couldn't be affected by that same spell if it didn't come from the Elements isn't really something that's otherwise supported via the game rules; it's just going to be an instance of SR (presuming he has spell resistance at all) and the DC that he has to save against. (Now, I have seen instances of extremely high-powered creatures who couldn't be affected by sub-epic spells or magic items that weren't artifacts, but it strikes me as a stretch to apply that to Discord, based on what we've seen of his limitations in the show.)
Of that I have no doubt. The problem is trying to figure out when.
While it might not be inappropriate for the self-styled Lord of Chaos to make random appearances (e.g. deciding to screw with Twilight's hanging out with Cadance, but not showing up when a major villain appears) that makes it hard to judge when he would or would not get involved with a situation. The presumable exception to this is when Fluttershy is involved (a la the sixth season finale), but even that's not a very good guideline: he didn't seem to be too concerned when the Storm King invaded, after all.
The thing is that "chaos" (at least as we see Discord use it) is that it's essentially "randomness." Strictly speaking, he's wreaking havoc with cause-and-effect relationships by creating effects with no cause (other than him willing them to happen) and (to a lesser degree) negating or altering the effects that other causes should have. Since he seems to have full control over what he makes happen, that's how he can essentially edit reality itself however he wants. That's not a question of experience per se; he doesn't need to worry about "using it for things that aren't causing chaos" since his version of "chaos" is "make whatever I want to happen, happen" all the time.
Now, we do know that he has weaknesses. His abilities are blatantly shown to be magical in nature (and so can be defeated by counter-magical effects such as Tirek eating magic or Chrysalis' (non-changeling) magic-absorbing throne). He seems to be an extra-planar entity, since his home is in what looks like another plane and he can be summoned (though that last one isn't a very good point; quite a few characters are magically summoned in the series, most of whom are quite clearly natives of that world). He can be adversely affected by things like petrification. Celestia was of the opinion (and we never saw anything to the contrary) that her spell to stop Discord from hiding the Elements of Harmony in Keep Calm and Flutter On (season three, episode ten) would work. There's at least some hint that Discord's magical alterations of the local environment can be undone (hence how Twilight was changed back from her "discorded" state in Return of Harmony - Part 2, season two, episode two. In that same episode, right before Discord is defeated, notice the ground that the Mane Six are standing on). And of course, we see in Discordant Harmony (season seven, episode twelve) that if Discord tries to stop being chaotic, he'll start to fade away...presumably completely out of existence. That last one seems like the closest he can come to actually dying, at least that we see.
But as for "how" it all works, well...that doesn't seem to matter very much beyond knowing that it's magic. From a game rules standpoint, there are ways of having "this magic works differently" be an issue (those being the old "Psionics are Different" rules, as well as Shadow Weave Magic in the Forgotten Realms), but the practical impact of that is that it makes the two different types of magic have a hard time affecting each other, which isn't really the case where Discord's magic is concerned. His magic is quite able to affect and be affected by other magic, as shown above. It's just that he can use it on a grand scale as frequently as he wants, which is hard to codify under the d20 System game rules.
But it's not impossible to do, which means that when we do eventually see him, well...he won't just be a draconequus ex machina.
9565390
That brings up an interesting question. Have we seen the elements do any other spell? They've banished NMM, and turned Discord to stone, along with purifying Luna of the Nightmare. There is presumably a reason they have not been used to do anything else, and I don't think that it's because the wielders didn't want to.
In any case, I do look forward to how you handle Discord.
9565405 Of the top of my head, we've seen the Elements of Harmony be used for the following:
With regards to "purifying Luna of the Nightmare," that's a bit of fanon that I don't subscribe to. The show never suggests that Luna is corrupted because of some sort of external force or entity; it's entirely due to her own bitterness and jealousy. Even the change in her appearance seems to be entirely under her control (since we see her change her form to look like Nightmare Moon again in Luna Eclipsed (season two, episode four), save only for her teeth for some reason). The idea of her being possessed or otherwise influenced is, from that I can tell, largely due to how she has such an abrupt change of mindset after she's defeated in Friendship is Magic - Part 2 (season one, episode two), going from megalomaniacal to contrite once the Elements of Harmony are used on her. That is odd, but no more so than Sunset Shimmer doing the same thing at the end of Equestria Girls (and, you'll remember, once Nightmare Moon is defeated Celestia basically asks Luna if she's had a change of heart, suggesting that she's hopeful but not certain).
Now, there's reason to believe that Luna had some sort of power-up as Nightmare Moon. In Luna Eclipsed (season two, episode four) she flat-out says to Twilight, "It was thou who unleashed the powers of harmony upon us and took away our dark powers!" But what exactly those were remains uncertain; as I recall, turning into mist was pretty much the only thing that Nightmare Moon did that we've never seen Luna do; the illusion she showed Rainbow Dash in Friendship is Magic - Part 2 (season one, episode two) might be the same, but as noted Luna was able to change her own appearance into Nightmare Moon even after she was redeemed, so it's iffy.
As for what happens with Discord in this fic...well, I have some ideas, and when it comes time to put them to use, I hope you'll enjoy them!
Hmm. I kind of think of Celestia as having an insanely high Wisdom, so she's got a pretty good chance of shaking off Aria's spell (plus probably her class bonuses give her good will saves I bet her magical gear strengthens her against hostile influence). But she could still fail, and Luna seems more likely to.
9565390 So based on the S9 Opener Discord is utterly immune to Sombra's magic, even that reanimated version that Grogar made much stronger. I'm pointing it out because one of Lex's power sources is still that horn though presumably Lex knows more varied types of spells than Sombra did. Of course, I honestly doubt he will show up in this series anytime soon. He seems to prefer to avoid orderly places most of the time, and Lex is an extremely orderly person working 24/7 to impose order, and his camp already feels pretty orderly.
9566785 Anyone can roll a natural 1 on their saving throw. That said, I'm not sure I agree with regards to Celestia's Wisdom score. While she presents herself as having an air of serenity and composure (all the more so for having lived so long, as every story about how isolating eternal life can be reminds us), she's also made a considerable number of really dumb mistakes and weird contradictions. Remember how widely critical the fandom was of her "we must give up our magic!" plan when Tirek came back? Or the times she's left magical artifacts lying around (e.g. Star-Swirl's mirror was pretty much just waiting for Sunset Shimmer to come back through it; just place it flat against a wall Celestia!)? Or filling the restricted section of the Canterlot archives with things like Chancellor Puddinghead's old decree (which apparently didn't take effect) that earth ponies drink carrot juice with every meal (did that really need to be there)? Or telling Twilight during the beginning of My Little Pony: The Movie that the alicorns' magic wasn't meant to be used frivolously, and then using it frivolously at the end of a play about her in Horse Play (season eight, episode seven)?
This isn't to say that Celestia is a complete idiot. One can easily compile a list of her insights to go along with her mistakes, the most notable being her successful mentoring of Twilight down the path of meeting her friends, becoming the new bearers of the Elements of Harmony, and redeeming Nightmare Moon, to say nothing of becoming an alicorn herself. But when you have a notable list of insights and a notable list of missteps, then that suggests a Wisdom score that's altogether...average. Or at least, only somewhat above average, given that she does seem to have succeeded more than she's failed.
Overall, I'm more inclined to say that Princess Celestia's Wisdom score is somewhat good, but nothing phenomenal. I'd be more inclined to put that towards her Charisma...even if she has no ranks in Perform (acting) whatsoever (except when she's pulling pranks, I guess?).
With regards to the season nine premiere, I have to take issue with something you mentioned. I see no particular reason to assume that the King Sombra we saw was a "version" created by Grogar, nor that Grogar made him stronger in any way. Insofar as I can tell, that particular idea is something put forward by Oliver in his breakdown of the episode, and while I have a great deal of respect for the work he puts into his examinations of the series, I disagree with a lot of his conclusions, including this one. For one thing, suggesting that the King Sombra that we're seeing isn't the genuine article is done solely to explain some altogether minor inconsistencies, and even then it strikes me as a poor explanation; that won't tell us why King Sombra creates mind-control helmets to brainwash some ponies while others he brainwashes directly (with that "eye projection" thing; was that some sort of variant eyebite spell?). Likewise, the idea that Grogar "made him stronger" is likewise baseless; it's a misinterpretation of how Grogar gave Tirek some magic to increase his power. That's a function of Tirek, not Grogar.
That really leads to a broader point around trying to interpret canon in general and reconcile inconsistencies in particular. I've seen plenty of folks who want to reconcile every point of inconsistency if at all possible, and I can understand that urge. But doing so by positing the existence of an apparatus that otherwise has no suggestion of being present in the actual source material isn't an approach that I agree with. That particular tact is "making stuff up" by another name, and flies in the face of Occam's razor as a guiding principle. It's not enough to want to reconcile contradictions in the canon; if you can't do that without introducing brand new – and, by definition, non-canon – aspects, then you're undercutting the very thing that you want to achieve. It's why I can't take the idea of a "Second Sith" for Starlight Glimmer's making a village where everyone was equal seriously. Patching a hole by building an entirely new house is wrong-headed, because it elevates the goal to the point of justifying the means used to achieve it, and I've never been a fan of consequentialism. That's fine for fanfiction, of course, but as an examination of canon I don't think it's a very good position to take. There are certainly interpretations of canon that can be made (for instance, noting how Grogar's rune that he used to bring King Sombra back was Elder Futhark, which we've seen exactly one other place in this series: Pone Henge, raising the possibility of a connection), but adding new materials is "headcanon" (to use a term I don't like) without the appellation.
As for what we saw in the ninth season premiere regarding Discord easily stopping King Sombra's attacks, well...putting that in game terms isn't that hard, largely because the game allows for numerous interpretations of defeating a magical attack. If King Sombra's attacks required an attack roll (as opposed to a saving throw), then that might just be Discord taking a total defense action. Or he might be readying an action to dispel each attack. Or something else; there are multiple possibilities. The more notable one was that he was hit by an attack and apparently suffered no damage. That's a little harder to interpret, but still not impossible to reconcile with the game rules. But as you said, it doesn't seem too likely that we'll see Discord in and around Vanhoover anytime soon...right?
9567377 Yeah, I could buy the argument that Celestia's Charisma is higher than her Wisdom. Her smartest decisions really rest on getting the best out of other people, like Twilight or persuading Luna to take the throne or getting Fluttershy to reform Discord, most of which rely on some form of Diplomacy.
It's pretty necessary to come up with some forms of "headcanon" as you call them, if you're going to try and treat the show as a serious setting where cause and effect and history matter. There are so many plotholes in a show with a large cast trying to accomplish many things (especially in the last few seasons, where it seems like the writers are trying to make each episode faster paced) that the show literally doesn't have the time to answer the questions they raise. (And maybe that was a poor decision on their part to go for fast-pace over methodical and high verisimilitude, but that's the writers' decision).
When you write a story about a setting like Equestria, you are forced to invent some headcanons no matter what. We constantly see ponies pull objects out of nowhere. If you say they have saddlebags that are not show, that they pull objects out of extra-dimensional "pockets," or if they all have stashes of necessary stuff nearby like Pinkie does, you are picking a headcanon no matter what. Oliver and Company are trying to make those headcanon assumptions explicit ahead of time, so they can be discussed and debated and the simplest and most reasonable headcanons that follow, as you pointed out, Occam's Razor. I think the 2nd Sith and Sombra being a projection are two examples of headcanons that follow Occam's Razor, since they explain a lot of inconsistencies while making creating the least additional material. Heck, Oliver came up with that 2nd Sith idea in season 6, and it seemed unlikely at the time, and then we find out in the S8 Finale that Tirek and Cozy Glow had that exact relationship, giving that theory some pretty strong validation.
I suppose you could say that if an author just tries really hard to ignore those inconsistencies and just write a story where things happen because they happen, they can avoid creating any headcanons, but their story will suffer greatly for it. The reason you use Eclipse and Pathfinder rules for Lex and others instead of just saying "Lex casts a spell and it defeats the enemy" is because you want that same sense of consistency and verisimilitude.
Heck, look at this story, which by necessity interacts with the history and society of Equestria on a much more complex way than say, a short about Applejack and Rainbow Dash hanging out in her orchard. You're story has things like Celestia and Luna ruling Canterlot only and treating the other cities like semi-independent vassal states. You also have technology present with the aid of magic and cutie marks on a much different time scale than the typical human industrial revolution timeline gives it. You added those elements because you believe the show supports that, right? You added your headcanon into the work by necessity to make it a deep setting, with a logical society and history. That's great, and it's extremely similar to the Points of Canon series.
Recently you've been expanding on the high society of Van Hoover. Of course, we have no hint of canon of the Banks family or others like them, so you're inventing them, but based on our experiences of human society and the ways in which ponies are similar to humans, I quite agree with your headcanon that it's logical someone like the Banks and their competitors would exist, especially when the sisters leave the rule of other cities to mortal ponies to a large extent.
9567377 Regarding Discord, you're right. I think the spells were hitting him, I just think either he's got an SR in the 30s, and/or he was just readying a greater dispel magic each round but playing it off like it was nothing.
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I agree. Hence why I made Diplomacy one of her highest skills.
I'm starting with this line because it goes to the heart of something that I feel needs to be made clear, and is already at the point of being overlooked in this particular conversation: that being that there are two separate things being discussed here. One is the issue of how to resolve internal contradictions in a given canon, and the other is utilizing said canon as part of a derivative work (i.e. fanfiction). These are different things, and (as I see them) what goes for one does not necessarily (but still might) go for another.
Insofar as the canon of MLP:FiM unto itself goes, it is without argument poorly constructed. That's not surprising; the people making the show are concerned with its entertainment value (and its ability to seed its consumer base with the desire to purchase related merchandise) far and away more than they are with world-building (of which maintaining internal logic and self-consistency is paramount). Even if we can forgive the large gaps of knowledge, the areas where the show contradicts itself, is maddeningly unclear, or otherwise works to inhibit our understanding of it are naturally areas where the fans are going to try and find answers, since it's self-evident that doing so enhances their enjoyment of the series.
But I believe it's important to understand and accept that, if we're trying to understand the canon as it is, unto itself – and hold (as I believe we should) that an important part of this process is not creating our own answers to questions raised by the canon – then we need to accept a basic premise: not everything can be reconciled. There will be places where the canon doesn't provide a clear answer, and such instances do not somehow "require" that we invent new material to resolve the underlying issue(s). Honestly, I'd say that the best we can do in such cases is to examine the contradiction and make speculative inquiries as to which instance (or instances) of contradictory material(s) should be held as more reliable than others. But even then, that's a process that's necessarily going to be inconclusive; the best that can be reasonably expected is to lay out your line of reasoning and leave it at that.
All of this, however, is different from writing fanfiction.
Insofar as creating a derivative work goes, well...it's right there in the description: such an act is creative in nature. While I'm not sure I'd phrase it as "you're forced to invent some headcanons," I do believe that engaging in such a work necessarily requires that you inject something into the body of work that otherwise isn't there (even if it's just a particular narrative sequence that doesn't otherwise seek to fill in any aspects that the canon has otherwise left blank or created a problem). To that end, such an endeavor does not and can not attempt to reconcile issues with the canon, as it necessarily involves the writer(s) openly imbuing what's there with their own spin on things. At most, I'd expect that they could use such a story as a vehicle to highlight such an issue, but by its very nature no such work can solve one.
Which is to say, writing fanfiction is fundamentally different from an examination of a series' canon. While they might both deal with the same topics, issues, and even utilize similar techniques, they're ultimately different activities. Hence why I say that, if you're postulating entirely new material (where "material" can include new characters, explanations of events, narrative sequences or other literary apparatuses) in your examination of the canon, you're not actually serving the goal that you're ostensibly working toward.
Which brings me to this:
Leaving aside the amusing irony of linking a song about not sweating details with regards to an attempt to examine the finer details of a body of work, I see the above sentence as paradoxical. When you're examining a point of canon with the goal of understanding it better, you do not write your own material into it, even if you're otherwise unable to resolve a contradiction. Now, if you're writing fanfiction, that's something else; by all means, make something up. That's what fanfiction is for. For that matter, there's nothing wrong with prepackaging your fanfiction and letting someone else play in the sandbox that you've made. But don't do so under the guise of saying that "this is the explanation that makes the (flawed) canon work." Any explanation can do that, and one is no more or less useful than another (though it may be more artful than another). With regards to the canon itself, not everything can be explained, and trying to say "A = B, and B = C, yet the canon tells us that A does not equal C, so I'm going to invent D, E, F, G, and H in order to explain how A really does equal C in the canon!" doesn't provide greater understanding; it's just fanfiction.
No, I don't call them that. Other people call them that, and I used the term here (with a note expressing my disapproval) purely for clarity, since the term has (unfortunately) gained popularity. As a term, it's ridiculously self-contradictory; it makes no sense to create a word that merges something that's inherently objective (i.e. canon) with something that's inherently personal (i.e. "head"; as in "in my head"). I don't like it at all, and I'm already regretting using it here.
It didn't give it any validation whatsoever. The issue wasn't whether or not it was possible, but whether or not there was anything to support it, especially given how much it necessarily presumed. The fact that we actually saw an instance of a similar relationship to the one he purported (the operative words here being "actually saw") doesn't lend that theory any sort of greater credence. The issue isn't whether or not it could have happened, but if there's anything to affirmatively suggest that it actually did.
Which, as I noted, is fanfiction, not an investigation into the MLP:FiM canon. Now, I certainly draw upon the canon wherever I can – to the point of editing things when I find that I've made an error in that regard – but I'm quite open about having invented numerous other things in this story that aren't in the show. The open attitude towards same-sex couples (e.g. Thermal Draft and Cloudbank) being such an instance; the show is absent such things, save for the occasional character with a metrosexual disposition (e.g. Stephen Magnet, Fashion Plate) or characters who seem unusually close (e.g. Lyra and Bon-Bon, particularly with regard to their scene in The Break Up Break Down, season eight, episode ten). I broke from the canon in that regard because I wanted to present something different, and did so without hesitation or regret. I've done so numerous times over the course of writing this. That's because this is a story, and shouldn't be used to gain a greater understanding of MLP:FiM unto itself.
I disagree. Both of those necessarily come up with explanations that don't rely on what the show actually suggests as their foundation. Rather, they rely on "there's a problem; let's make up something to fix it." That's necessarily going to have more assumptions that are strictly required, because it again operates from a place of reconciling issues (altogether minor issues, and in some case I don't think they're issues with the canon so much as with the stated understanding of it) with the canon as a necessity, rather than a goal that cannot always be reached. Even then, I don't think that they fit Occam's razor, because neither strikes me as requiring the fewest possible assumptions. King Sombra being some sort of empowered simulacrum requires far more assumptions – since it also relies on the idea that Grogar can grant new powers as opposed to him just giving some magic to Tirek to eat (which is what happened) – than, say, his simply having not died at all (since apparently he was just "dispelled into the ether") and grown stronger from his time in "the darkness from which he was summoned" (as Grogar put it) since King Sombra's a user of shadows himself, making some minor changes to his magic as a result of that.
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Precisely. In game terms, there are a lot of ways to represent that particular sequence, even before getting into the greater flexibility that Eclipse: The Codex Persona offers.
9567730 I think you're right that there is the option of just ignoring contradictions, I also think people who are examining canon are usually pretty good at separating A)What we know and B)Likely inferences. Stuff like the 2nd Sith has always been presented as a guess or an extrapolation more than a necessary component of canon observations. That group has been pretty good about separating the two so you can accept the first part without the second.
Where I think we disagree is that you seem to think there are different types of "coming up with explanations." Some explanations seem suggested in the show to you, like same-sex tolerance, and so having them is a much smaller leap than the Second Sith. I don't see this clear line you seem to see about inventing things. I can agree that the gap in plot is larger for some explanations than others. In this example, the gap of "ponies never discuss same-sex relationships" is arguably smaller than the gap of "Starlight Glimmer is an incredibly practiced wizard despite having no explained education." (Though Bon Bon and Lyra calling themselves friends in that weird hinty version could be a suggestion against tolerance, since they don't just call each other special someponies). But to me it's exactly the same except for the manner of degree. A larger unexplained plot hole would by necessity require more puzzling out, and it will always be speculative, but assuming certain elements using Occam's Razor is the same to me whether it involves an individual character or just a general attitude.
Let's stick with pony tolerance for same-sex couples as a good example, I think we both agree that's the most logical inference from the show. Do you think ponies have always felt this way since the beginning of time? Did they use to believe that heterosexuality was superior because it more easily led to reproduction? Was that attitude banished centuries ago by some big speech Celestia made? And is there a magic spell that lets same-sex couples reproduce, or do they just commonly choose adoption?
You can answer every question above with "I don't care to speculate as there isn't enough evidence to make a likely judgement" if you choose. An author can avoid deciding on questions like this by not having same sex couples be major characters in their story if they want. But if the goal is to create an informal, shared understanding of the setting, choosing not to make hypothesis leaves the setting poorer for having sections of it ill-defined. Certainly our understandings and assumptions should be updated based on new data, but I think building a strong setting will always involve making a lot of assumptions and reasoned guesses, with however little evidence we have. Perhaps it's arrogant to compare a silly exercise like this to something like astrophysics, but there are tons of hypotheses in that field with very little data to back it up, just a lot of clever mathematics and logical inferences waiting for the day we can test them.
And you're right, the song I linked to is pretty contradictory to my point, but I'd never let logic get in the way of making a funny reference!
9567816 To be clear, it's not so much that I'm saying that contradictions in the canon should be ignored; it's that if there's no easy way to reconcile them without having to make things up, then your best bet (in terms of coming to a greater understanding of the canon unto itself) is to simply note that irreconcilability and why it cannot be resolved based on what we know. If you are going to suggest an interpretation based on what's there (and that's something that I think should be done very conservatively), then it should be based on affirmative presumptions with regards to what the show suggests, and only those. Don't presume that there's an evil mentor waiting in the wings when there's no hint of one, because "how else would this character have gained that much power." If you have to make a presumption about where Starlight Glimmer gained so much magical strength, it's far easier to presume a combination of her cutie mark being related to magic, her auto-didactic nature (since we see her invent a new spell on the fly in Every Little Thing She Does, season six, episode twenty-one), and her ability to use her emotions as power (a la All Bottled Up, season seven, episode two: "Well, I've always found magic is tied to my emotions. Whatever I'm feeling fuels whatever I'm doing, and the stronger I'm feeling, the stronger the magic").
That last one ticked me off rather badly when I first saw it, since it seemed to fly in the face of the suggestion that Starlight was studious in her pursuit of magic (she says she studied that attack spell of hers for years in The Cutie Map - Part 2, season five, episode two). I've since come around on the idea, and now think of that as a supplementary reason for why she's so magically strong; in addition to her cutie mark, she's also turning the strength of her emotions into power, in a process somewhat similar to what wilders do. In this regard, she's essentially reversed the process that Lex uses; he's boosting his magic by channeling additional energy through his body to increase the power of his thought-based spells. Starlight is pouring energy stored in her emotions into the magical that she's utilizing through her body (and out her horn, like a normal unicorn). Of course, containing energy in her emotions is far more crude than doing so in thought-matrices the way Lex does, hence why she can't store actual spells that way, but she's able to gather energy with far less effort than he is. That's my current working theory, at least. I can't guarantee that it won't change if and when Starlight shows up in this fic. But that explanation is only insofar as this fic goes; I wouldn't suggest it was canon.
With regards to how one comes up with possible explanations for areas that aren't straightforward in the canon, I do see a difference. There is, to me, a notable difference between something that arguably has an affirmative suggestion within the source material itself versus something that's presumed ex nihilo. Now, the nature of affirmative suggestions exists on a continuum; the fact that they're suggestions means that what's under discussion has some nature of subjective interpretation to them. Hence, you could look at issues of homosexuality in Equestria as possibly implied by the existence of metrosexual characters and Lyra and Bon-Bon's relationship in two ways: 1) they're both indicative of homosexuality being present in Equestria, or 2) metrosexuality is a signifier that does not necessarily indicate homosexuality, and Lyra and Bon-Bon are simply closer than usual friends, such that giving each other gifts and a hug on Hearts and Hooves Day could easily be "camaraderie in being single" rather than them being a couple.
Now for those, determining which explanation properly adheres to Occam's razor is going to be tricky, as the degree of assumptions made can be justified in different manners. A meta-contextual (i.e. out-of-character) explanation could look at possibility #1 and find it to be more plausible, because it relies on shared understanding between the writers and the audience regarding the implications being made, similar to the shared understanding of how language itself works, and that's the explanation with the fewest assumptions. By contrast, an in-character explanation could look at possibility #2 and find that to be more plausible, because of the reasons given in that explanation above; from an in-character standpoint, vocal inflection and personal grooming habits, as well as a particular hug on a particular holiday, aren't inherently definitive, and so we can't assume anything else than what we're shown.
Both interpretations are plausible for different reasons, and insofar as understanding the canon goes, both certainly deserve to be weighed and discussed, though I think it would be a mistake to claim that either are definitive. But neither should rely on some sort of made-up reason like one of the ones you listed. There's nothing that tells us anything about issues of legality, Celestia's stance on the issue, societal issues of birth rates, etc. Those aren't things that should be brought into an issue of this topic with regards to the canon, because on those areas the canon is utterly silent. (Note that I'm discounting the comics, chapter books, and related secondary materials out of hand, here; another place where I disagree with Oliver.)
Now, there's nothing wrong with making things like up for a particular fanfic. Or simply for fun, for that matter. My only objection to that is with regards to when those presumptions find themselves getting wrapped up with regards to what the actual canon is, and attempts to understand it better. Of course Equestria doesn't have "herds." We've never seen anything remotely resembling polygamous relationships in the show, and we have seen monogamous pairings all over the place. Ergo, even if you want to discuss the intersection of the apparent skew between male and female ponies with regards to relationships in the context of the setting's canon, that's fine, but don't presume that polygamous relationships are a given. They're not.
You say that leaving gaps in our understanding leaves our shared knowledge of the setting poorer, and I don't disagree. But that strikes me as being less of a problem than having shared misunderstandings, because those are inherently fractious to the body of the fandom among those who don't have them. (Hence why I brought up herds, which confused the hell out of me when I first heard about them, since they were so obviously made up that I had no idea why so many people knew about them.) Any given canon might always have issues that aren't explicitly stated, but if there's at least an affirmative suggestion of how things are, that will always be better than leaving a completely empty gap of knowledge where the best line of reasoning is "there's no reason why it can't be this way."
9567898 Interesting take. It sounds like you think the problem of the Second Sith is that there is a simpler solution you can Occam's Razor to reach: Starlight is just really smart and good at studying. You can certainly make that argument plausibly.
Your use of meta-contextual versus in-character is a lot like the Doylist versus Watsonian views that group uses. You've gotten some really good analysis here of the context and evidence around same-sex relationships. I don't see really any reason to privilege position assumptions over Ex Nihlio reasoning, if only because I've always been a big believe in "the dog that doesn't bark." I don't think "negative facts" are inherently weaker to "positive facts" when doing this kind of analysis.
I agree that your point of misunderstandings being possibly worse than no understandings is valid, and herds is a great example. When I started reading about them too I was really confused back in the day. But big picture, what I take from these discussions is that you should really be more involved in those points of canon. You're very smart and analytical and you do a great job pulling disparate points together to assemble evidence. You'd make a huge contribution to growing our shared understanding...
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That does sum it up pretty well. The "Second Sith" idea is certainly interesting, and I have no doubt that if written well it would make for a very entertaining story for its ability to intersect with a lot of what we see regarding Starlight Glimmer's original portrayal. My issue is that it's being presented as the best explanation for Starlight's circumstances when we first see her in the series (where "best" is taken to mean "most plausible, based on what we see in the show and can reasonably interpret and extrapolate from"). I don't believe that to be true, and I don't think it should be put up in an examination of the canon.
It's exactly the same. I just don't use those terms out of a curmudgeonly resistance to the shorthandification of everything (see what I did there?).
Thanks! Of course, the ultimate takeaway is that there's nothing truly decisive depending on how you weigh what's presented in the series proper, which is the real point.
The problem with negative proofs is that almost always lack a conclusively comprehensive aspect that's required for them to satisfy the presumed burden (of proof). In the Sherlock Holmes story mentioned in that link, the key to the story is that the guard dog didn't bark when the crime was committed, "proving" that the dog was familiar with the culprit. The problem here, and the reason I put quotation marks around "proving," is that this isn't necessarily the case to the point where all other possible explanations can be ruled out. Now, I haven't read the story in question, so maybe it features Sherlock going about this, but just off the top of my head, there are numerous other possible explanations for why the dog didn't bark. Was its food drugged ahead of time? Did it break out of its kennel and go somewhere else that night, returning before sunrise? Did the culprit simply throw it a steak to keep it quiet (as happens so often in cartoons and bad movies)? More to the point though: can any of those possibilities be definitively ruled out?
The writer's examples of their trials are much the same. They might suggest that someone claiming emotional distress is being disingenuous because they didn't apply for disability benefits, but that doesn't conclusively mean that the person in question didn't suffer. After all, can we definitively state that the reason they didn't apply for benefits wasn't because they were ashamed of what they were going through and couldn't bring themselves to ask for help? It's all just a suggestion, presenting itself as being more plausible than literally all other possible suggestions without actually backing it up.
The problem with setting the bar for potential explanations to the point of "there's no definitive evidence that it couldn't be this way" is that that's a criteria that almost anything can meet, and so it's functionally useless in terms of actually making determinations. My go-to example for this is to say "nothing after The Return of Harmony - Part 1 (season two, episode one) actually happened. Why? Because everything we see is a complex simulation that Discord created within Twilight's mind to make her think she won. That's why he just sat there and 'let' the Mane Six turn him to stone, despite knowing exactly what was about to happen. Everything after that is all taking place in Twilight's head. All of those inconsistencies we see in the series? Those are just places where Discord's mental illusion is cracking at the edges, where Twilight's mind is pushing at how complex and realistic Discord can make the fantasy. She just hasn't noticed them yet, and so she's still trapped in there. That might sound far-fetched, but it fits with the scope of Discord's powers and makes sense, so you can't say it can't be true."
The above is entirely plausible with what we see in the series, as it notes. It's also entirely unsatisfying, since it means that everything after the beginning of season two can be discarded as "just a dream." It also has nothing to suggest that it actually is true within the scope of the series itself, and in doing so illustrates why we set the bar for what we seriously consider when interpreting canon to be more than just "lacks (definitive) evidence against it." Otherwise this explanation sits equal to virtually everything else in terms of validity. "Negative facts" need to be held to be weaker than positive facts, because we need more than to say that we can't rule out what didn't happen; we need to be able to rule in favor of what did.
Those are one of the most notable examples, but they're far from the only one. I'm given to understand that there was a large contingent of fans who thought that Luna was some sort of political separatist who wanted to create some sort of more equitable state (for who, exactly? The purported "lunar ponies"? At least those have some evidence for their existence, even if the counter-evidence is stronger, i.e. that Luna can create illusions and we've never seen those creatures again). That one, at least, seems to have fallen away insofar as I know.
Thank you for saying that; that really put a smile on my face.
That said, I just don't have the time or energy for regularly engage in these long discussions and debates the way I used to. I still enjoy them, but that's a separate concern from finding a way to engage in those while juggling everything else I have going on. But I do appreciate you saying so.
9568278 Ah yeah, Discord's version of the singularity. I'll admit that when I have discussed stuff with Oliver, I have a sole focus on "simplest, mot plausible" while others think there should be a bias in favor of "assumptions that create interesting story elements." That's tricky, because the more you try to assume a fantasy setting is like real life, the more you bump into reality versus fundamental narrative structure. Like things happening randomly for no reason, people dying of accidents with nothing to teach us, happens all the time in real life, basically never in any kind of story.
Now, if I was recklessly speculating with no canon to support me, I'd go on to my theory that earth ponies are the only naturally occurring tribe, and that interbreeding with griffons and dragons leads to hippogriffs and kirin, and hippogriffs and kirin interbreeding with ponies leads to pegasi and unicorns...
but that would be wild speculation.
I think that in practice, positive facts almost always outweigh negative facts, because they are more specific. Whenever someone uses a negative fact, it's usually along the lines of eliminating all other possibilities, therefore this negative fact. A positive fact is one of those possibilities, invalidating the negative fact. That said, a negative fact needs to outweigh nothing at all.
And yeah, I hear you about the energy. I joined the Discord chat on that subject for a while but kind of dropped off, because it was full of great people with interesting ideas, but it was also like trying to drink a firehose.
9568348 I see the issue of "real life" versus "(interesting) story elements" as being something of a tangential aspect to what we're discussing. That's because an understanding of the canon isn't particularly concerned with either one per se; canon is concerned with the setting's internal logic and self-consistency in terms of how things work, the sequence(s) of events, and similar aspects of understanding the nature of the world in question. "Realism vs. interesting," by contrast, is a question of narrative structure, which as noted previously is something different. There's nothing wrong with going one way or the other where mundane versus entertaining ideas are concerned, but it's ultimately orthogonal to trying to better understand the canon, and building such a discussion into a dissection of the canon serves only to confuse the issue, to my mind. (Though, to be fair, it's not exactly a surprise that people do this; most such discussions about these things tend to be informal even when the difference between the two topics is clearly demarcated, which it usually isn't).
With regards to negative proofs, the reason they're "outweighed" by positive proofs isn't so much because the latter is more specific (though they usually are), but because negative proofs almost always postulate a singular reason for why something is absent, but making a conclusive demonstration of the circumstances that lead to something being absent are hard to do, because there are there can conceivably be any number of reasons for why something didn't happen. Things don't happen all the time; imagine everything else (plausible or not) that you could be doing right now, as you're reading these words. All of them didn't happen; the only thing that did happen is you reading this. So negative proofs are saddled with the much higher burden of conclusively discounting, essentially, "infinity minus one" reasons for why something is absent (though typically, the vast majority of them will be discounted automatically by all involved; almost no one takes "the mind-control beams of the lizard people" as a serious issue that has to be disproven, after all), saying that the one remaining reason is necessarily the definitive reason for it not being found. It's much easier to make a positive proof, which is stating that there's one singular reason for something which did happen, which can then be investigated as being true or not.
Insofar as ponies, kirins, dragons, etc. goes...ever notice that the show has never once shown us an individual of mixed parentage where different creatures are concerned? While certain races might have the cosmetic appearance of looking like a mixture of other creatures (Gabby even sings about this in "The Purpose In My Life" from The Fault in Our Cutie Marks, season six episode nineteen, when she says "a griffon mixes lion's strength with winged eagle's might"), they're still either shown to have a population of their own which presumably breeds true (even if the numbers we see on screen rarely support that idea unto themselves) or are presented as singular individuals with no hint of their backstory. But the closest we've ever seen to a creature with actual parentage that doesn't match its own is that ponies of one tribe can bear ponies of different tribes (e.g. the Cake twins). Hence why Lex was so disgusted when he met Soft Mane, a human/pony hybrid.
As for joining a Discord...yeah, I've been invited to some, and I keep politely refusing. It sounds interesting, but I can't quite muster up the energy to take the leap.