So I finally finished Past Sins · 10:36pm Jan 9th, 2016
A few days ago, that is; and it took me roughly five days to complete 200,000+ words. Jeez, I have a lot of time on my hands. This isn't a review, per se, but more of my final thoughts.
First of all, yes, it took me this long to read a story this big on Fimfiction. The reason is because I honestly never found myself with the desire to read something so popular. Not that I'm lazy, but because it never seemed so terribly important to me. Of course, I did manage to start and finish it due to the hype surrounding its supposed " save gracing" back in 2011. Okay, that seems fair. This was the best fan-fic at the time, and certainly it has paved the way for authors to write other things.
I've also heard the opinions from both Past Sins' loyal fans and its haters—everything from "best story ever" to "overrated and poorly written". Of course, you expect me to be one of those people who try and sound smart by saying, "Yeah, it was okay, but nothing too good", because, quite frankly, I don't care to put down a story if it doesn't deserve it. I also say that because I never let myself get too hyped up. Sure, I expected a decent story, but just that: my expectations were moderate at best, so I could be as unbiased as possible.
...
No, it's not as good as every says it is. Those people who I said were trying to sound smart are smart and they're right: it's okay, really, even at reasonable levels of expectations.
The first half was very good, I thought. The storytelling was nicely done, it established what was going on and why should we care, and I really liked the character interactions. Seriously, I preferred the slice of life stuff more than the adventure-esque stuff. The pacing is probably the best thing about Past Sins.
But the writing—both narratively and technically—seemed to have somewhat of a quality drop as the plot went on. The prose is absurdly simple, to the point where people have criticized it for being dull and uninteresting. I won't do that. See, I'm not an obsessive reader; I'll be fine with any written prose as long as I can understand what the hell is going on. Never mind it if you're unable to make me cry with some beautifully vivid descriptions of mountains or whatnot. Pfft, some people are way too picky.
But yeah, at a certain point, things became way too predictable. I mean, I legitimately found myself guessing what was going to happen next, only for it to happen in all of the details that I thought up. While the story is good, it plays things way too safe, to the point where my intrigue was gradually dwindling by the last quarter. Don't mistaken me, though, as there were some moments that I thought were great: Nightmare Moon raising the sun especially was terrifically executed.
And yes, while I'm not one to be too harsh on prose, at times, it became way too telly. Look at this shit:
The other guard huffed in irritation but nodded his head all the same. He turned away from the pile, rejoined his comrade in the hallway, and pulled the door shut behind him. Once more the storeroom became consumed by darkness, but it did not stay that way for long as a light in the pile of dismembered dummies flicked to life.
Twilight, in a last panicked move, had dove into the pile of dummies to hide from the guards. It had been creepy to be surrounded by the dismembered bits of things that resembled her and her friends, but it had allowed her to go undetected. Her motivations, however, had now drastically shifted from wanting to avoid the guards to wanting to follow the pair that had almost discovered her.
Wow, Pen Stroke, thanks for telling me that Twilight dived into the pile of dummies. I would have never been able to guess that just by her emerging from the pile after the guards left.
But besides that, the prose was perfectly fine.
But what do I think of Nyx? Listen, Fluttershy is my least favorite of the Main Six for one reason: she is blatantly uninteresting. The biggest reason why people love her so much is because she's cute and shy, and that's it. While I wouldn't put Nyx in the same category, a character needs to be more than just "cute" to get on my good side.
Going past that, I kinda liked Nyx. Sure, she wasn't the most interesting character in the world, and she cried way too often, but her intersections with the others were touching enough (for the most part). And when she was Nightmare Moon, I liked witnessing her slowly develop from an evil tyrant to a caring pony who's only confused.
Just about everything from the fight scenes in Ponyville and onward, which is about the last fifth, was poorly written in my opinion. There were more frequent OOC moments, the dialogue was boring, and the ending was far too predictably happy.
In the end, I give Past Sins a 6–7/10. The first half was very well done, and plenty in the second half was good. Despite the serviceable prose, good characterization, and well-paced storytelling, the unmemorable dialogue, inconsistencies, and predictability really marred my overall enjoyment of the thing.
This isn't a review... okay, it's a review now.
Very well done. Another reveiw that was very enjoyable to read. Straight and to the point with positives and negatives.