http://www.fimfiction.net/story/270527/lunas-turn
This is a
comedy story; about Luna and her want to see the sister she loves banished.
Wipe the track record clean, as she would put it. It’s only fair, after all
those years, her reasoning is hilarious and absurd, all those things. Sad that,
because the focus instead, turns the story into a vehicle for gruelingly set up
capsule-jokes that come and go without notice.
Luna’s aim
involves challenging the reader’s expectations, for absurdity’s sake. I think
this kind of comedy works best when there is someone down-to-earth with whom we
can connect and relate the story to. But Celestia doesn’t mind being sent to
the moon, Twilight doesn’t care, whom we’d expect to. The only ones that do are
the royal guards and we have no idea who they are, really.
Indeed,
this is a harmless entertainment. My
blithering buttocks aren’t going to change that; I can only supply what I
think. Basically, I didn’t laugh. Furthermore, I found some serious problems
with its narrative voice, grammar, exposition and Twilight.
First and
foremost, the narrator uses a lot of colloquial language, with phrases such as
“to be exact”, “in plain shock”, “spilling the beans”, and so on. A lot of
qualifiers make the style too personal and forces you to associate away from
the action, which is the meat of the story. The voice doesn’t belong to any
particular character either; also, its position on the
subjectivity/objectivity-axis is unclear. Sometimes, the narrator uses words
like “seem” and “probably” when talking about a character and other times, everything
is stated as fact.
Said tags
describe the characters’ thoughts and emotions directly, which is deadly to a
concept where reactions are everything, not to mention fundamentally unsound. The royal guard becomes the focus until the story is done with the “imma send
you to the moon”-gag, about halfway through its 1,300 words. Not much about
them is clear. We know they’re guards because we’re told so in the story’s
exposition. We’re also told about: the current day of the week; the time of the
day (sundown, *groan*);
Canterlot crepuscular activity on Saturdays; and what book Twilight is reading (Daring Doo and the False Jewel, *wink*
*wink*), all redundant information that doesn’t belong in this story, period.
Weak
character voices there are, use of words “pretty” and “kinda”––one of which may
or may not be an actual word––handicaps their clout. None of the characters are
accurately portrayed and I feel one of them needs to be to give the comedy an
edge. In fact, Twilight would be perfect for it; it would give her an actual
reason to be in this story. Instead, she’s used for a joke that I have no idea
why it’s supposed to be funny. She’s calm, absolutely calm; Zen itself embodies
her, you might say. Meanwhile, Luna is in the middle of negotiating Celestia’s
departure to the sun. That is the joke: if some of the characters acts like
they’re expected to and some of them doesn’t, that’s not inherently funny. It’s
rather confused even, from my perspective. It’s like a limbo between absurdist
humor and situation comedy; everything makes sense while still making no sense
at all. Is Twilight’s nonchalance warranted or are the royal guards’
astonishment? Which one is supposed to be funny? Are both supposed to be funny,
even though they play off of the same setup in completely opposite ways?
The premise
isn’t bad per se; it’s a nice basis for a comedy story. There is timing to the jokes, and a
happy-go-lucky, lighthearted tone serves them well. Moreover, some of the
witticism works for me, as with Twilight butting in to ask if she can attack
someone, or Luna’s quip when she barged into Celestia’s chamber, there are
lines that, when taken out-of-context, are hilarious, and unexpected. I
would’ve asked for more of that, unexpected. Every single scenario is old,
tested and patented: everything from the “this person, that person”
ratatat-exchange between the royal guards, all the way to the speech held by
Luna in an attempt to transgress our expectations without actually doing so.
There is a
streak of bad grammar going through the story, most notably the use of everyday
locution in a grammatical context: “kinda”, “we better start the”, etc. Tense
changes, incorrect use of said tags and needlessly short sentences––while not
fragments––also hurt the presentation.
The story
overall, I can do without. It’s whimsical and quirky in kind of a generic way,
while still lacking in writing quality. Sure, you might get a little smirk out
of lines like “Huzzah! Celestia! We hath arrived to thy chambers!” or “I
just… wasn’t sure. And I was kinda hoping for you not to banish me.” but there are by far smarter, more
calculated comedy stories out there, just waiting to be gobbled up by the
sullen whims of our eyes. Nevertheless, I hope this author makes good with the
attention they get. I’m off!
