Some Paintings of Snowdrop "Flakewright" Wind, Through Her Life · 5:08am Aug 13th, 2016
Some paintings of Snowdrop "Flakewright" Wind (477-533), the great artist, blindfighter, chionimancer and militray captain of the early Century of Darkness
Snowdrop, aged 7-8, with her mother, Primrose Wind, early YOH 485, around the time that she first met Princess Luna. They were of a cadet branch of Clan Wind. Primrose's resemblance to her most famous distant kinsmare, Fluttershy Wind, is obvious in this picture. This was almost certainly painted after Snowdrop had met Luna, even though the scene it depicts was from before Snowdrop met Luna.
Snowdrop, aged 14-15, with Princess Luna regarding a snowfall. Painted YOH 492 by Haruliina. Luna took great comfort from the gentle kindness of her protegee, and this almost certainly slowed her descent into Nightmare. Snowdrop looks very small and innocent in this (she is next to a full-grown Alicorn), but she had already begun blindfighting training under Luna, and was a precise and deadly fighter even as a teenaged filly.
Snowdrop, aged about 19-20. Painted YOH 497. She is now a Lieutenant in Luna's Loyal Band of the Night Watch, Luna's elite personal guard unit. She has mastered blindfighting and her chionimantic abilities, and plays a vital role in holding back the Windigos from destroying the remnant provinces of the vanished Crystal Empire. Source.
Captain Snowdrop of the Night Watch, aged about 25, thus painted around YOH 502. Documentation started breaking down as the Century of Darkness began. Snowdrop led campaigns in the north to stop the Windigos and keep the former Crystal-Imperials, now subjects of Equestria, alive in the worsening storms. She deeply missed Luna by this point, and had seen a lot of suffering, and the painter has captured this on her face.
Captain-General Snowdrop of the Night Watch, aged about 35, thus painted around YOH 512. Snowdrop is in her prime; she has successully stopped the Windigos and saved what are now Equestria's Northeastern Provinces -- Neigh Yoke, Morgan and Mane -- from depopulation and glaciation. She has crafted enough of her special snowflakes that her successors can turn the storms against the monsters should they attack after she's no longer there. She's married and had her first foals. She looks happier now.
An idealized painting by Icesnow of Marshal Snowdrop, aged around 50 in YOH 527, about six years before her death. The underlying truth is that Snowdrop grew gaunt toward the end of her life -- her illnesses had already begun to afflict her -- and she stopped growing surprisingly late in life, around 28. Some, given her remarkable abilities, think she might have undergone an unsuccesul Ascension, remaining a Pegasus but with some Alicorn characteristics. At this point Snowdrop was Lady Marshal of the North, Protector of the Northeastern Provinces, and had taken onto herself much of the burden that Princess Luna had once borne. The stress was too much, and probably contributed to her death.
A fascinating synthesis of the original source material and my favorite interpretation of the character. I quite like it.
I wonder, due to her success, was her line re-folded into the main line, due to her success? After all her strong cold based Pegasus magic, combined with her keen Aero sense must have been hoped to pass on to her foals. Also I wonder how she learned to fly blind, that must be a sight to see so to speak.
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In the original video, her hearing is good enough that she extends it to hear starlight. This is actually physically possible, but one's hearing would have to be good enough to hear the temperature changes caused by single photons striking electron shells. That is probably well beyond the capability of most echolocating bats. Video already mentions she can sense the location of clouds by touch without disturbing them, meaning that she's alredy short-range echolocating. She's doing this at what looks to be around 8 years old.
What Luna teaches her how to do in the SWSV is the skill WInd Whistler mastered and taught her: namely vibrating her flightfield to produce controlled active-sonar pulses and form a 360 degree spherical map of her surroundings with the return. Snowdrop's optical cortex is mostly rerouted through training to serve her ears. She can "see" by sound, though this is a higher-energy technique than normal vision and does not provide as fine a detail or color contrasts. For instance, she can only read embossed texts and cannot see other Ponies' Marks at a glance.
Snowdrop has good and precise reflexes. Luna trains her in armed and unarmed combat. Snowdrop becomes a deadly and precise fighter -- not as much so as Wind Whistler, but better than almost all of her contemporaries. Luna has her for about fifteen years -- from 485 to Luna's Banishment in 500 -- and Snowdrop seriously benefits from the training.
Mind you, her personality evolves into marehood, it doesn't suddenly transform into anything like her opposite. Socially, Snowdrop remains a caring, good, kind and rather sweet Pony. She's just a very dangerous opponent in battle. In terms of her skills, the most amazing thing she can do is craft snowflakes which by morphic resonance can control the weather patterns of whole winters through an extreme amplification of normal Pegasus weather control.
This becomes very important because she's fighting the Windigos and other creatures of the Frozen Waste, who are trying to force the Crystal Mountains and overrun the Northeastern Provinces. She can turn their own storms against them.
Her personality is important to this, too. She is socially a kind and loving Pony; and in battle a tranquil rather than hate-filled fighter, and thus her weaknesses are not ones which the Windigos can turn against her. In this she's actually better suited to fight the Windigos than was Luna after Sombra broke her spirit. (Though Snowdrop mostly saw Luna's kinder side).
Nice pictures.
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I made none of them, only found them.
4147492 That means that she wouldn't be able to break the sound barrier or she would out pace her own vision. That would make her one hay of a technical flier though.
4147885 I know, but they're still nice.
Great use of just the right pieces of fan art to capture personality you've given her at the various stages of her life. Have you actually used Snowdrop in any of your stories yet?
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Not yet. She might cameo in Ruby's flashback in Fools and Drunks, though.
I'm glad you liked my picture selection. You should realize, these aren't my pictures. I can't draw for crap when it comes to character representational art -- I wish I could, I'd draw a number of my OC's, especially Goldie Pie. I searched for them.
I wonder if the young teen one was meant to be a young teenager. The size is about right when you consider that Princess Luna is the size of a very large normal stallion. I arranged the adult ones (starting with the late teen one) in order of perceived decreasing innocence and increasing cynicism, then I picked the last one as "full wisdom" in part because she's drawn almost like an Alicorn in that one.
Snowdrop's service would have been very rough, as she fought in one of the worst times in Equestria's history -- the tail end of the Century of Disaster and the start of the Century of Darkness. It's thanks to Ponies like her that the Realm even survived. It's no wonder she died relatively young for someone of her social status.
4153015 I knew they weren't your art, at least not all of them, the styles are too different. Butt thanks anyway for the honesty. Ad I'd say you did an amazing job of choosing just which pictures to use when for the various stages of her life.