Monday, February 24, 2014

Fandom Classics Part 38: Who We Are

To read the story, click the image or follow this link

I was going to get some stuff done this weekend: scraping the snow off the roof, prepping for work this week, getting some writing done.  But what did I do instead?  I binged on Alpha House (highly recommended for fans of political comedy, by the way) and had it brutally demonstrated to me once more that I'm terrible at video games, this time courtesy of a friend trying to get me into Magica.

I did find time to read Kits' Who We Are, though.  Check out my review, after the break.



Impressions before reading:  The description is pretty vague; other than the slice-of-life tag and the "plot hook via Celestia," I don't have a lot to go on.  I've read and enjoyed some of the author's other stories, though, and that's always a good sign.

Zero-ish spoiler summary:  When Twilight and her friends find out that one of them is a changeling--and always has been--there are two questions which everypony needs to grapple with.  First, who's the changeling?  And second, what does this mean for their friendship?

Thoughts after reading:  Let's start with the technical stuff: Kits has some issues with under-comma-ing, and occasionally with run-on sentences, but the writing is generally clear and easy to follow, tending towards the grandiose.  That might not be to everyone's tastes, but I found it appropriate given the extremity of the situation which the story deals with.  The story also does some interesting things with perspective, including several brief first-person snippets of what the yet-unrevealed changeling is thinking as the story progresses.  These do a nice job of filling in the story's corners, and manage not to give away the identity without becoming annoyingly opaque.

Now, onto the part I really want to talk about.

Changelings have been interpreted in a lot of different ways by a lot of different authors; given how little we know about them from their one in-show appearance, they've offered plenty of versatility to fanfic writers, and plenty of opportunities for worldbuilding.  Unfortunately, Kits' vision of changelings is a spectacularly poor fit for the story he's trying to tell, and this made it very hard for me to empathize with the way the characters were approaching their dilemma.

There's a very strong "is she still our friend even if we met under false pretenses" theme through the story, which makes sense in and of itself... but the story also explains that changelings are capable of manipulating memories, and the changeling in question explicitly states that she's done so to her friends in the past (that she hasn't recently is, for me at least, beside the point).  The ponies all know this, which makes the above question feel to me less like a philosophical point and more like Stockholm Syndrome; manipulating thoughts in order to fit in and make friends may be a very workable changeling concept, but it's hard for me to see how that's a forgivable bit of misleading (unless the point is that the changeling is still manipulating their minds, but she denies that in her sections).  The fact is, it destroys the entire basis of that argument; the changeling can talk about how "the love and friendship of her friends was freely given" all she wants, but it explicitly wasn't.  Not just in the sense that "you were our friend under false pretenses," which, again, I could follow easily enough, but in the sense of "we're friends because you mind-raped us into being your friends when we first met."  It's inconceivable to me that any interaction after that point isn't poisoned beyond redemption.

Now, it's been brought to my attention before that I feel much more strongly about the immorality of directly, deliberately tampering with another person's thoughts and memories than some readers.  But it really, really bothers me that, in a story which is at its core about the confluence of friendship and dishonesty, the most disturbing question is never even addressed (save obliquely, if one takes it to be rolled into the "can you be friends with someone who lied to you" issue).  Again, given that all the ponies explicitly know that their memories and/or emotions have probably been forcibly changed to something more amenable to the changeling's wants and needs--and they're right--I just can't imagine that the single most disturbing, frightening, important issue in the entire story is swept under a rug and ignored.  For me, that makes the whole story ring distressingly false; either the characters show a stunning degree of willful ignorance, or the changeling is lying directly to the reader about what it is and isn't doing to the other ponies.  While that might add an interesting meta-element, suggesting that the changeling is affecting the reader's mind just as it affects the ponies', it's pretty obvious that wasn't intended here.  I actually found this story offensive in its morals, in addition to being unbelievable in its characterization; I can understand why others wouldn't, but there's far more unaddressed evil here than I can ignore as a reader.

Star rating:   (what does this mean?)

I was initially going to go rather higher than this, on the grounds that I know a lot of readers won't share my total incredulity with the way everypony reacted throughout the entire fic.  But I truly feel there are "significant, systemic problems with this story," and if I'm not going to one-star something that had me chocking on bile through most of the last half, what should I use it for?

Recommendation:  Kits does a nice job of keeping who the changeling is ambiguous right through to the end; readers looking for an example of how to leave an identity unclear without being grating might want to use this as an example.  But anyone who thinks that things like "free will" or "the sanctity of the mind" have any intrinsic value will probably wonder not only why none of the main six seem to agree, but why they seem to be unaware that those are values in the first place.

Next time:  Thrown Abroad, by Niaeruzu

17 comments:

  1. Oh god, Thrown Abroad is next?

    I love changeling fics. I consistently enjoy them more than I consistently enjoy any other "genre" of MLP fan fiction. Why do you keep on reviewing all of my least favourite changeling fics?

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    1. I, on the other hand, do not like Changeling Fics. I consistently dislike them... well I wouldn't say more than any other genre, but I still consistently dislike them. SO naturally, I won't be reading this one.

      Word of the Day: Amenable.

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    1. Funny you should mention "free will" and "sanctity of the mind"; I just finished reading Friendship is Optimal earlier today. Slow start - as mentioned in your review - to the point that I almost quit only a few chapters in, but I started getting into it after awhile

      I don't have anything to add regarding Who We Are or Thrown Abroad, unfortunately. Just thought that was an interesting coincidence

      Oh, and the "k" fell outside the link at the top

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  3. Recently the story Exit Through Canterlot had a mention of Zero Tolerance law that the author put in without really understanding the implications of it. There was a huge reader outcry over it because so many people objected to its presence in the story and how it adversely affected an important character. As the author later admitted, it was just a last-minute whim that on further reflection the author realized would really mess up his story. (I'm telling this kinda badly, sorry. Here is the relevant blog if you're interested.)

    I think that this detail that has completely jarred you out of the story seriously doesn't belong, yes, but I doubt it was put in with any thought as the the implications you're talking about. (And this is a bit of a stretch here, but it might have been meant as an extremely weak ability that only obscured tiny details and inconsistencies.) I think that most readers probably blanked out the details of that detail the same way the author did, and basically read the story as if they weren't there.

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  4. The worst thing about the Memory-altering spell is that it isn't necessary for the story – it seems to be there mostly so that questions like "X isn't a changeling because the town knew her before" can be handwaved with "A memory altering spell did it". Having the changeling be more crafty than this, or even having it take the place of a pony that died of natural causes, would have been much better.

    And Thrown Aboard is next! I like the broader aspects of that story, but it isn't one I can actually defend too much. At least the sequel is better.

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  5. I am, frankly, shocked. This is one of the best stories I've ever read, and I straight up do not recall there being any memory manipulation at play. Like you, I take great umbrage to mental manipulation, so I feel like it's something I not only would have noticed, but would have taken the author to task over myself. I literally have to ask if you read a different story than I.

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    1. Same here. I had completely forgotten the memory-alteration part until now. I think it's like what Derpmind said and we just didn't notice it because it seemed like an unimportant detail.

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    2. In answer to PP... the memory-manipulation is explicitly given as the reason why anypony, not just Pinkie, could be the changeling. It's later explicitly stated by the changeling that she used her memory-altering magic to insert herself into pony society, and that she'd never have met them if she hadn't altered memories, which would pretty much necessarily include at least one of the main six (Fluttershy and Dash would, at minimum, have had to each alter the other's memories; ditto AJ and Rarity; Pinkie is the only one who possibly could have avoided mind-raping any of her friends, thought the guilt-laden context suggests that the changeling did). If that's also the sort of thing that bothers you... I really don't know how you could have missed it. Whether my reaction is the norm or not, the fact that this is in the fic isn't just "Chris reading too deeply into things;" its an integral plot point.

      Just, sadly, one whose implications are never addressed.

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    3. That's because it altered your memories.
      DUN DUN DUNNNN

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    4. I'm genuinely surprised you thought it was good, PP. I wasn't going to say anything because I really couldn't remember why I disliked it so much, but then Grimy made a post on the story that reminded me exactly why: the story has little or no interesting conflict in it.

      The central premise comes up empty--the problem was implied, but everyone gets over it pretty quickly and is going in the same direction. When the outcome of scene after scene doesn't matter, the story doesn't matter. The story bored me because, as I said below, the core 'conflict' was meaningless.

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    5. It's about affirmation of friendship. Given the setup, their friendship is being tested. That's the conflict. It doesn't matter that they end up reaffirming what they already know, but that they delve deep into what their friendship means. It's pretty much what fanfic about this show should be about.

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    6. Wow, I'm with PP on this one. I thought this was a great story about the bonds of friendship, and the technical skill it took to craft a scenario where the reader never really learns who the changeling is was pretty impressive.

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  6. I think Soge and Derpmind pretty much covered it: the mind-manipulation was unnecessary and caused the story to collapse under it's own logic. The premise was really good, but the execution was stilted and sufficiently meaningless to make it a long trudge.

    Bottom line: it just didn't make much sense. I'd probably have given it one star, too, but I wasn't offended by it in the way Chris was.

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    1. For the record, I never noticed the mind stuff until this review and I still think it's a good story even with that error. Not all of the execution was good but keeping it possible to be any of the mane 6 was probably harder than the rest of all of it, and I appreciate that.

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  7. Wow. Chris does not like mind rape.

    I want to see you review "More Than You Know" and "Happily Ever After".

    Prediction for "Thrown Abroad": 2/5 for everyone acting like idiots.

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  8. Wow. I do not remember the mind-altering spell plot point in this fic. To think, I thought this was one of the better changeling fics out there...

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