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King Sombra wages his war. Equestria resists. Masterduke developed the techniques with which Celestia combats the enemy's mind control. He travels to the front.
Sombraverse AU
In honour of Stanku, whose work inspired me not only to write here but to keep writing.
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Is Masterduke supposed to mean something...I haven't come across it before?
11635461
It's his name.
11635466
Well, yeah, but why is he named that?
11862012
Because I liked the sound of it. It reads like an MLP name and suits the character.
Hmm, it's certainly an interesting argument they have, but it feels like way too much when out in the field like this, like most sane people would cut it short much earlier.
The wording at the end seems rather unclear to me. Were her hooves still attached to her body, or cut off as well, and are the stumps just her body's, or all the other ponies' too?
Hmm, overall, this story just seems strange to me, because it's just a guy with superpowers messing up and getting unwanted attention, with little more going on other than a lot of arguing about details. I guess I don't see the point (to me, this felt like it was a backstory being set up, for Masterduke to have this troubled past...but then the fic suddenly ended), and while it had some really interesting moments, it seemed like it spent too long between them.
11865271
And that absolutely fascinates me.
I guess we have different priorities when it comes to stories. Anyway, I really appreciate this. Thanks for reading. I hope you got some sort of a kick.
I'll take that as one! All best.
11865271
The point – the theme – was the perils of selfishness, ability and intellect.
11865276
We certainly do have different priorities, but I have to wonder if the story could still be improved for both sets of priorities. My main feeling is that the story spent too much time on Honey's POV before she confronts Masterduke, which puts too much information to the audience while padding things out (and frankly, Honey isn't that interesting because she's just a bad person with no apparent redeeming qualities), and that something else significant could've happened either while she was around (like she has to pause her search and be less of a cold-hearted jerk to Masterduke for a bit, making it more interesting that they're forced into being enemies), or afterwards (allowing for more time before Masterduke has to leg it out of there).
11865289
I see, it certainly does serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers of revealing you have a trump card. It I think got muddled with Honey's search taking up so much, and how things seem like they're just stacked against Masterduke; maybe I missed places he could've calmed things down, though.
11865293
… I am wondering whether we read the same story. But this is what I love about showing because we get to decide for ourselves how to feel about these characters. I don't want to spoil for others, so… To my eyes, Honey's a good pony – principled, sincere, dutiful. She has her flaws, it's true – willing to play dirty for the greater good. But it's war, and who doesn't have flaws? Masterduke's certainly the evil to me – disgustingly selfish and self-serving for all he's helped others indirectly. One's comely in speech yet horrid in deeds. The other's cold in manner but far purer of heart. It's these subtleties and conflicts that delight me.
Honestly, this just fascinates me – how differently we interpret the same text.
11865293
Yeah, once again – this sounds like a turn-off for me. But I wonder how much of that has to do with our fascinating contrast in perception of the events!
11865301
Honey starts out by immediately fretting over licensing, a mere technicality, on vital work saving lives, then moves on to interrogations that at best show her as a little dishonest, then finally to her wanting to use technicalities of the law to condemn two ponies out fighting the fight over mere dishonesty (something she herself is guilty of regularly!), one of whom is from all the information she knows potentially vital to winning that war. I...literally thought, until your comments, that you wrote Honey this way to make us want her dead so that her death would be a moment of relief.
I think the disconnect on Honey is that you value principles very highly, and may have in mind things not in the story that you as the writer know about her reasons (like maybe she's a great family mare only in it for them, who actually believes Masterduke and company are a serious threat that'll lead to Sombra winning); her pureness of heart isn't established in the story.
By the way, on scrutinizing things a bit to put this into words, I realized there's similarities between her and a character in Star Wars: Andor, who is very much a villain, and that has me questioning whether part of the issue here is about worldview in relation to authority.
As to Masterduke, I find it hard to have strong feelings about him. He seems like just a typical soldier with higher intelligence, and it's hard to fault him too badly given his circumstances.
11865336
She shows she's principled. Her talk with Smoothtooth explains, albeit subtly, why she does it all – because, if the cogs refuse to participate, the machine doesn't run. If you don't do X, suffering happens. She is against that, which indicates to me a fundamental wish to help the world. Her grey area is rightly identified by you – tactical nous. And, ironically, it is precisely this flaw that leads to her downfall. Her immoral cleverness – relying on a bluff to pressure Masterduke into revealing himself – is the final nail in the coffin.
Now, it so happens that I agree with Masterduke's philosophy far more than with Honey's. But look at what they do. Honey knows her duty, and she does it as best she can. It might not be the nicest duty. It might not be the right duty. But she does it. Ultimately, Masterduke does what – and kills whom – he wants when he wants. And you are right: Honey is no hero. There are no heroes here. One pony is principled and dutiful, but what does it lead to? Little good, that's for sure. One pony is, ultimately, a murderer and a narcissist – but his contribution, arguably, has been of far greater good overall.
It's a lovely conflict.
(Haven't seen Andor, so I don't know.)
11865336
I do. I admire the self-imposed certainty and loyalty to an ideal. That's why, even though her deeds lead to ill, she's the side I respect.
For all that I agree with Masterduke's Pyrrhonism.
11865336
I didn't say she is pure of heart. I said she's purer of heart than Masterduke. Edit: And I think that's blatant from their deeds in the story.
When I say she's a good pony, I mean she's a good enough pony – someone I could live beside in peacetime.
11865336
I think, if we zoom out a little, the clearer explanation for my preference is this.
In the long term behaviour that puts the good of others first at your own expense shall attract in comparison to behaviour that puts your whims ahead of everything, which shall repulse.
Honey puts her industry into acting for her beliefs, and she gives her life for them in the end – indirectly, yes, but still she dies doing what she thinks must be done for the greater good. Masterduke puts his industry into serving himself, only himself and no one but himself. The conflict of morality comes from the way these things result: Honey treads on hooves and risks the outcome of the war. Masterduke manipulates and kills, yet his spells have given the world its best chance. But I think that's one of the amusingly conflicting outcomes of life – and, for the story, a poignant one, which is partly the point (underling how good and evil is never that simple).
But in the long term it's the Honeys of the world who make it better – those who will do their duty in service of an ideal. Not the Masterdukes, who will destroy anything to serve themselves. I think that's a better way to phrase why I'm on her side. Let me know if you agree.
11865682
I don't agree. Duty to service is not the same thing as duty to the country; the way they differ is that duty to service is much more bound to specific rules and not the actual greater good, which creates severe long-term problems.
...and we can see this in her actions: In asking for a fake pardon, not only is she violating the rules around faking documents (it's allowed to lie to people you're after in the state, but faking documents is a big extra step when they're internal, because fake documents are not just tricking the people you're after, but the state itself). More importantly, the entire purpose of pardons is to provide a path for those who've messed up to have that overridden for the greater good of making them serve the state, and faking that will, if the press finds out, forever taint the entire process, effectively removing that tool and making future situations unwinnable. This is...entirely unnecessary, because Masterduke can still be leveraged on his reputation with others even while pardoned, as he'd want to keep things a secret, so Honey has effectively pulled a critical safety component from the metaphorical machine that may doom it even long after the war is over, and done so in an unnecessary way that suggests she is more interested in her own career than the potential damage she's done to the state.
People like Honey are prone to this sort of short-term thinking, and it has serious repercussions not even just limited to the eventual destruction of state apparatuses and public trust, but also, more invisibly, to the capacity for the people to fix problems in their country. J Edgar Hoover had Honey's approach, and his FBI went around stopping political subversives, but in doing so, it didn't just keep out communism, but strangled anything that challenged the exact status quo, leading to stifling of both labor movements and any reforms to racist laws; it delayed much of these until the 60s, resulting in sudden political upheaval, and even then, it tried to defame Martin Luther King Jr. and almost certainly was behind the assassination of the Black Panther leader who was up to such nefarious things as...free school lunches. To this day, the effect of Hoover's legacy is to make people distrust the intentions of the FBI, as Hoover back in the day was very buddy-buddy with Congress, while going behind their backs to do things in line with their stated goals, but with means that would horrify them upon discovery.
A similar thing happened in the UK, where the Tory gov't was so restrictive in the 50s and 60s, bound to exact rules, that it drove Alan Turing (a great mathematician who likely shortened the war by 2 years with his work) to suicide, and later drove other gay men to become Soviet spies. Combined with three separate cases of hangings done to fulfill exact legal standards, two in a way that were obviously not interceded against because of deference to those in a position of duty, the police (a youth said the wrong word and made his teen accomplice kill a cop, a woman killed her abusive ex-boyfriend in a fit of rage, a man didn't kill his wife and kids and blamed the downstairs neighbor cop), its inquest of the last that found the gov't had done no wrong in hanging an innocent man, and other factors going on...the ruling gov't was tossed out like a bag of manure, along with literally its veryaccent. This changeover was not without consequence, and the aftershocks can be seen politically to this day, with a weak, unstable executive due to the massive divides created.
East Germany also had an organization Honey would be right at home in, that effectively kept the country poor via having a person ready to report anything wrong on every street corner. To this day, the eastern half of Germany is much poorer, to the point that its most well-off area, Berlin, is poorer than the country overall, which is strange for a capital city. It certainly had some upsides, as relationships were most equitable then (women literally had better orgasms in East Germany, because they were more free to choose a mate without wealth inequalities), but it also created a hugely unstable society that fell apart the moment a few rules were lifted, and scars that may take another century to heal.
People like Masterduke and Honey both need to be on leashes in the end, as people like Masterduke start wars (Caesar, as an example, started a civil war largely because it was the only way to prevent his own prosecution) and people like Honey destroy countries without wars, but people like Masterduke don't need nearly as much leashing to avoid causing harm, as they usually just need a workshop and a project to do and someone watching to be directed towards ways to make the world better (and even if they do go out and do repulsive things, usually people won't mind to an extent), while people like Honey will literally use a workshop to craft things that undermine society as a whole.
The basic problem to use a materials metaphor is people like Honey see a messy world of mostly things like steel and rubber that change shape too much for their liking, and they use its flexibility to fill it with concrete to stop all the dangerous bouncing around from people like Masterduke, but then they make it vulnerable to cracking in the future. It's generally better to just put some rubber cages around the Masterdukes regularly and call it a day.
11866043
I am about to repeat the same thing a few different ways, so apologies for that – but maybe that'll help clear things up because, if one way fails, there's another waiting below.
I made no distinction between types of duty because I am talking in the broadest sense. I think you should focus on that. What’s the virtue? Duty or selfishness? That’s why Honey for me – the idea of Honey, what she represents – beats Masterduke in my mind.
Even simpler explanation: Honey = duty and Masterduke = selfishness. Duty > selfishness ergo Honey > Masterduke. And that’s all I’m saying.
I take duty over selfishness even though in this case the pony representing duty has fallen short – and you have illustrated ways where similar people have fallen short. But does that mean duty loses outright? Meaning that selfishness beats it? No. That’s why I’m for her. Once again, in the simplest terms – I admire duty and frown upon selfishness. And the reason for my preference is as simple as that.
When I say the Honeys of this world, I mean the dutiful as a whole – all the dutiful, the ones like those you have criticised (if I take for granted that they are dutiful) and those who you admire (if you admire any dutiful people). I think you’ve taken my idea of the Honeys of this world too narrowly.
You are focusing on Honey’s negatives rather than her positives. You are focusing on Honey instead of duty as a mass concept. I like Honey because she represents duty as a mass concept – for better or ill. I dislike Masterduke because he represents selfishness as a mass concept – for better or ill. I am on Team Duty. I will cheer for Miss Duty. I don’t care if Miss Duty’s actions lead to negatives in the story. She is Miss Duty, and I want her to beat Mr Selfishness.
So far as rooting for a particular character in a story goes, in this case it’s that simple for me. I appreciate that it isn’t for you and that you choose to perceive a story in a more practical way. But I don’t, and perhaps that’s what’s been causing the disconnect.
I admire duty and frown upon selfishness, so I admire Honey and frown upon Masterduke. It's that simple.