Background Pony #2E77

@Ferrotter
That’s a terrific bit of reasoning, and a logical explanation for that particular spell. I don’t know that I’ll adopt it as my headcanon wholesale, but I’ll definitely mull it over.

Posted 11 years ago Report

Ferrotter

One: Twilight is not Celestia’s “meat puppet.” Even from the beginning, Faust herself said that Celestia didn’t control things. She simply had fine intuition of what things needed to happen. Celestia didn’t know why she gave Twilight Spike’s egg for a test (direct Word of Faust there), for example. She just had a feeling that it was the right thing to do. There is zero canonical evidence in the show that Celestia gave Star Swirl’s unfinished spell to Twilight with any direct intent to turn her into an alicorn princess. More likely she just felt it was something that should be done, and that destiny would work itself out the way it should.

Two: The “Change Destiny” spell DID NOT change Twilight’s destiny and cause her to become an alicorn princess. It changed the world’s destiny. Look at the first time she cast it, as the imperfect spell: Twilight herself was completely unaffected by it! The effect of the spell was on others who were (by proxy, via the Elements) in her presence. What was it supposed to do? Well, we can assume Star Swirl is not an old name for Discord; Star Swirl was a wise and respected unicorn of old. The intended purpose of the spell could not have been “to fuck up the targets’ destinies and ruin their lives.” Star Swirl didn’t get it to work right, but clearly, that’s not what he was going for. There was a beneficial purpose. I think arguably the idea may have been to rescue a pony cursed with a terrible life, but it really doesn’t matter what it was.

Which brings me to Three: An undefined mystery is a very acceptable narrative device. It is used by Hugo Award-winning authors, in their Hugo Award-winning works. The purpose of the spell, IN THE SHOW, was to provide a way for Twilight to become an alicorn. But the purpose of the spell, IN-WORLD, was not. And it does not matter what the purpose of the spell was, in-world. It is no more important than the 24 spells Twilight cast before giving Spike a moustache. I do understand that, Mungoman. You’re the one who doesn’t. Because, to reiterate, the in-world function of the spell is not “Create Alicorn.” It is “Change Destiny” (whatever the hell that is.)

The only characteristic of the Change Destiny spell that matters is that Star Swirl couldn’t make it work. And perhaps as importantly, neither could Celestia (not with more than a thousand years to work on it)! Nor could Luna, nor could Celestia and Luna together! When Twilight told Apple Bloom that magic couldn’t affect a cutie mark, she was telling the truth. AT THAT TIME, no magic that ever existed could affect a true cutie mark. Twilight could put temporary marks on Apple Bloom’s flank, but they lasted seconds and had no meaning. Cutie Pox could give Apple Bloom fake cutie marks that gave her talents, but no destiny; her destiny, despite all those cutie marks, was to die from them if she couldn’t be cured of them. And even the broken spell could only give her friends a disjointed (and ultimately temporary) change of destiny; they did not inherit the talents of their cutie marks. (And even that mess was arguably only because of its interaction with the Elements of Harmony. By itself there’s no backstory in the series at all that the broken spell could actually do anything. Celestia certainly didn’t see it necessary to warn Twilight not to use it around her friends or the Elements because it could be destructive. That strongly suggests she had no idea the broken spell could do anything at all.) But even Star Swirl’s time travel spell couldn’t change the future; if anything, it only caused the destiny that was already ahead. And that’s what’s important: no unicorn, nor even alicorn, before Twilight ever possessed magic that could beneficially affect a cutie mark or a destiny. Twilight invented that entire branch of magic. She did not cast a “Turn Me Into An Alicorn” spell; she cast an unprecedented spell that changed the world.

In other words, she did not cast herself into an alicorn WITH the Change Destiny spell. She cast the Change Destiny spell, and it did whatever it did. But in being able to cast it, for the first time ever, she herself unlocked, in herself, the potential, and destiny, she herself always had. It does not matter what the Change Destiny spell actually does. All that matters is that she was the first ever to be able to cast anything like it. It’s her magic Ph.D. thesis. She proved that she could do something even Celestia never had the power to do, something that Celestia could not have merely taught her. She became of that same level as Celestia. Not FROM the spell, but because she figured out how to cast it.

Posted 11 years ago Report