Hi Equestrian Historical society! A re-viewing of the Hearths Warming play way back in season two, as well as the story I'm currently writing caused me to think on the reliability of history books and plays in Equestria.

I'm just wondering how would one go about censoring parts of history or misleading ponies (and other beings) about them. Any ideas? Also how would a group of ponies react when their knowledge of their history (as in Equestria) are proven false? Panic, aggression, indifferent?

It would be awesome if you guys could take the time to answer these questions, thanks!

4750917 Censoring history is hard, but getting it wrong is rather easy. Historians debate what's been going on in our own history for years, and different accounts prove different things.

Censoring is harder, since people tend to notice the censor the larger the censor is. Mistakes and errors and misconceptions just sort of spread on their own.

As for how people react to it, well, look at how people react to it here. It depends on what mistakes were made and what errors were rectified. This can shock people or relieve others: it's highly context sensitive. Ponies would react differently to learning that Celestia died a long time ago and was replaced continuously over the course of centuries in order to cover it up than they would to learning that actually, Ponyville was founded by a group of all three tribes in an effort at collaboration, not just Earth ponies.

4750919 Very thoutful insights. Heh, I'm actually curious to see how well ponies react to Celestia being replaced continuously over the years.

The only ways of censor I can think of are ponies being replaced by changelings, who can unanimously deny anything or systematic brainwash/elimination.

4750917
The thing is with the play is that its a play for foals, its always going to be dumbed down and a lot of facts just plain missing. And we are talking about a rather large span of history between HWE and the present time. How much do you know about what happened over 1000 years ago?

4750917 I would say that a large event that no one expected, like Discord taking over and reigning with chaos, would be a good way to not 'censor', but 'forget' a lot of what happened. At that point it's not what happened before, but what's happening at the time that's important.

4750925 It was just a quick crackpot theory I came up with on the fly.

I imagine it'd be the cause of some concern, seeing as it'd have been a lie that would have lasted a great many years changing ponies perception of their society and government. I suspect the degree of unhappiness might vary between 'I'm unhappy I was lied to' and 'I am outraged that our government would keep such a crucial secret from us', depending on how much they care.

Ponies are very good at panicking

The easiest way for a censor to get away with things is to have an audience that doesn't care much about the truth. This is especially so if "common sense" rules it out, and especially so if the truth doesn't flatter them as much as a happy white lie.

A general, easy-going patriotism and cardboard cut-out view of history, for instance, would make it hard for ponies to believe that their country had ever done anything bad, or at least seriously bad. Well, probably anything bad had been done by a few rotten apples and everyone else had been an innocent sweet lambkin and of course would never do anything so horrid. And, of course, the more uncertain or inconclusive a particular bit of history is, the more scope there is for using "common sense" to fill in the blanks with a neutral or even self-aggrandizing place-holder. After all, "we" wouldn't do anything bad, would we? We're not that type of character.

On this cynical line, revealing the dark truth - even with the best evidence possible - is a bit like telling the Duchess of Equestria that her dress makes her look fat. You just don't say that sort of thing. It doesn't fit into anyone's polite and cultured view of the world, which is just "common sense". It doesn't fit in at all. Even worse, it marks out the trespasser as a crass, contemptible, and sensationalist boor, a shouty kid trying to shake everyone up for amusement. The politest thing that'll happen to the unlucky truth-teller is that they'll be shown the door.

And for relatively neutral historical topics... well, only swotty, pedantic history buffs are likely to care a fig about little details that happened so long ago. "They'll" probably change their minds again tomorrow; "they're" always doing that. "We" will probably forget all about it next morning, anyway.

Hope this helps!

4750917

Well, if you're an immortal Alicorn who rules the land for over a millennium, you do it slowly and through attrition. Endow scholars to study things other than the thing you want suppressed. Gradually take the books about the thing out of circulation -- you don't actually need to destroy the books, just keep them somewhere to which most Ponies have no access. If the thing is famous, encourage the writing of books -- maybe write some yourself -- that talk about the censored thing as an absurd legend which modern scholarship has disproved. Make it unfashionable to discuss the thing (according to the bibulous scholar Goodwine, if you bring up nonsense like Celestia having had a thing for Discord, you're behaving in a childish and illogical manner and you're tautologically wrong -- that's Goodwine's Law!) Continue until everypony forgets that they ever believed in the thing.

The reason this works is that Celestia has lived dozens of times longer than any normal Pony.