6-Star Reviews Part 34: The Misted Stage

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Since I've found in the past that there's not a huge crossover demographic between fanfic readers and (american rules) football fans, and since a significant fraction of the people coming to this blog are from overseas in any case, I'm going to guess that most of my readership are not too big into the Super Bowl.  If that's true of you, here's all you need to know: there's a New York-based team playing in it this year.

So, if you don't want the media, celebrities, and posers of every stripe (not to mention actual New Yorkers, but at least they have an excuse) babbling on about how wonderful "their" football team is for the next twelve months, please do your part and ask the deity of your choice to make sure the Giants lose on Sunday.  For pity's sake, they haven't even played the game yet and some of the NY sports media are already talking about how Eli Manning might be the greatest quarterback of all time.  What?  He's not even the best quarterback in this game!  He's not even in the top five of current QBs!  Arrgh!

Anyway, if New York wins on Sunday, we're going to be hearing a lot more talk like that over the coming months.  Trust me, it's better for everyone if we don't have to listen to that.

Below, my review of Raz_Fox's The Misted Stage.

Impressions before reading:  The "alternate universe" tag makes me leery, for reasons I've discussed before.  Also, shipping stories aren't generally my favorite, though there are always exceptions.

On the plus side, this appears to be an Arabian Nights crossover.  Crossovers with literature/folklore seem to be good a disproportionate amount of the time, I suspect because familiarity with literature/folklore goes hand in hand with writing ability--an extension of the idea that the best writers are good readers.  Also, when glancing at the comments I noticed that several of the fandom's better-known authors (including a few who's work I've reviewed in previous 6-star reviews) were showering it with praise.  I've never been afraid to provide a minority opinion, but that seems to me like a good sign.


Zero-ish spoiler summary:  When Braeburn and the other members of Trixie's troupe of traveling actors arrive in Agrabay to perform for Sultana Celestia, they quickly become embroiled in events beyond their depth.


Thoughts after reading:  This is an infuriatingly difficult story to write a review of, because I feel like there's so little I can say about the last 5-6 chapters that isn't a spoiler.  Let's start with the easy stuff.

The story begins, as you probably gathered from the summary, with a number of familiar characters in unfamiliar roles.  Despite being put in strange and (initially) unexplained positions (and despite Twilight, bizarrely, having her gender switched), all of the familiar ponies are instantly recognizable and as well in-character as, say, Grand Vizier Fluttershy could reasonably hope to be.

The entire story is told by Braeburn, whose folksy, rambling narration perfectly hits the sweet spot between too dull and overly obnoxious.  Reading his recounting of his own thoughts and actions is a real pleasure; his "voice" in the narrative is strong and consistent, and makes for enjoyable reading.

As for the question of why the ponies are all suddenly Persian nobles and traveling performers... well, it will have to suffice to say that there is a reason, and it's a sufficent one, as far as it goes.  That said... ugh, I'm going to have to put a bunch of stuff behind the spoiler tag.  I'll confine myself up here to saying that while I understood the cause just fine, I didn't understand its cause.  If that's at all clear.

A few of the characterizations I felt moved too far into caricature/meme territory.  Particularly, Dr. Whooves makes an appearance that leaves it unclear why he's so damn special or how he knows what's going on (not helping: the fact that it's never made clear if he's actually The Doctor or just a smart pony), and Pinkie Pie's "freaky knowledge" is in full display.  Forgive me if I've failed to absorb the lesson of Feeling Pinkie Keen, but it's not enough for me to just have her knowledge and abilities brushed off as her "being Pinkie Pie."  This is a relatively dramatic story, not an ephemeral bit of comedy.  I can't buy Pinkie's portrayal at all, given the seriousness of the situation and her apparent awareness of it.

As you may have gathered, this story has a number of layers, which slowly are stripped away as the reader progresses.  The way that these revelations were handled was excellent and engaging.  But when the last chapter concluded, there were several questions left unanswered, and several problems I had with the final accounting.  I'll put them behind the spoiler tag, and I'll add an additional warning here: don't read the stuff below if you haven't already read the story.  Seriously.  I'm mostly including it here to help make clear why I rated the story the way I did.  Reading it completely ruins the effect of reading the story for the first time.  You have been warned.

Alright, let's start with the problem I mentioned earlier.  I get that Tirak was the force behind everything going Arabian Nights-y, but how did he do that in the first place?  Did somepony find the lamp in the real world (real Equestria?) and make a wish?  What possible wish could they have made that would result in what we saw?  Whoever made that wish, what happened to them when everypony else found out that the Princess and all her supporters came within one Fluttershy breakdown of being killed as a result of that initial wish?  I realize these questions might have been answered "off-camera" while Braeburn and Dash were chasing down Fluttershy, but it seems like a pretty major issue to me.  At the risk of sounding callous, I'd say that as a reader, that knowledge would have been more valuable and interesting to me than finding out how Fluttershy handled her return to reality.

And the shipping.  I was actually really happy with that aspect of the story going into the last chapter, because I thought the author was doing a deconstruction of the implausible romances which are the hallmark of theatre.  Raz_Fox set him/herself up so well, with an opportunity for Braeburn and Dash to react to basically being forced to fall in love.  Would they respond with disgust?  Would they try to see if they could make their fictitious romance work in the real world?  Would they even want to see each other again, or would they be an unbearable reminder to each other of this alternate world they'd inhabited?

Instead, they apparently decide that three days knowing each other, and only an hour or two tops spent in each others presence, really is plenty of time to fall in love.  Maybe I missed something important, but that feels like an unbelievable (in the sense that I don't believe for one minute that that's how real people/ponies would react in their situation) letdown after being given such a promising setup.  Derpy and Fluttershy's romance was similarly mind-boggling to me, unless the implication was that they were already dating in "real" Equestria.

In the end, I think the author took one of the more promising conclusions I've seen to a story, and tossed it out the window in favor of a trite, unbelievable romance that strained credulity past the breaking point and left many of the major questions raised by the story unanswered.

Hopefully, that makes my opinions clear.

Star rating:  ★★★☆☆ (what does this mean?)

There were multiple aspects of the ending that were major letdowns for me, but the rest of the story was captivating.  The writing style was a joy to read, and the way that the machinations which drove the story were slowly revealed was highly satisfying.  Although I felt that a few of the minor characters were not portrayed well, the major players (and Braeburn especially) were spot-on.

Recommendation:  In the end, I found the shipping aspect of the story highly unsatisfying.  I think anyone with a strong aversion to poorly handled or incomprehensible romance might want to give this one a pass.  Other readers, however, will probably find that there's more than enough good stuff tucked inside this story to justify reading.

Next time:  Vengeance and Fashion, by Tumbleweed