![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptChallenge #6 asks us to find a moment in our fannish lives that cemented for us why this property was one of the keepers.
Choosing just one, of course, is always difficult, because fans are the sum and more of their experiences. And in several of the science fiction and fantasy fandoms, or in animation fandoms, you get to have a laugh when an actor you know from somewhere else pops up, because even though the makeup is different, that's the same voice. And how you can find people who would go on to be stars in their own right show up for bit parts in other programs and series beforehand. Having to rescue Stan Lee in Marvel Lego games, or Adam West in Batman LEGO games doesn't make much sense unless you know their relationship to the properties themselves.
I think I've talked before about how the Muppet Christmas Carol (besides being a faithful adaptation even though it's Muppets, seriously), has a moment of genuinely effective storytelling in it that seems like a gag when you watch it first. Gonzo, as Charles Dickens, the supposed narrator and author of the story, and Rizzo the Rat, his comic relief and recipient of physical comedy, are about to enter the space of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, and they both decide to nope out.
The promise of meeting them at the finale is immediately mentioned when they get to that point, but this part of the movie has had the narrator and the comedy both disappear themselves. At that point, all the jokes that get cracked are cruel ones about the poor sod who died and nobody missed him, nobody wants to go to his funeral unless some incentive, like lunch, were provided, and whose belongings were stolen from his bedchambers while the blankets were still warm. The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come doesn't speak a line, leaving Scrooge to carry the narrative all on his own right at the point where it is the most terrifying, where Scrooge is shown that he is completely alone and without allies or assistance from any other entity. He comes to the conclusion, before he wipes off the gravestone to reveal what he already knows, that the person who is responsible for such misery and who receives no human kindness in death, is himself. Which is why he pleads with the Spirit to give him a crumb of hope to have the knowledge that this conclusion has not been fated, but is changeable. (The Marleys told him as much as the beginning, but he wasn't receptive to their message at that point.) Scrooge stares his fate in the face and has to acknowledge that this is what he's earned before he returns to his bedchambers. A crucial decision made without the benefit of a narrator, or a Spirit, and only seeing the misery writ large as a result of his actions (including the death of an innocent.)
The whole thing is set up to show us that only Scrooge can change, and only Scrooge makes the decision to change. It's the scariest moment in a life, the moment where it's just you, and you have the choice between continuing as you have before, believing those shadows are just that, or changing course to do something better. (Whether out of fear or hope, it's not fully clear, but it may not matter.) It's the scariest scene ever shot in a Muppet movie, and it's the first Muppet movie shot since Jim Henson died, (I think) so it makes sense to do the story about a person's legacy right then.
Compare, if you like, the Equestria version of the story, A Hearth's Warming Tail, in the sixth season of Friendship is Magic. Having gotten the stage play version of what Hearth's Warming is about, and the very real danger the founders faced from the windigos several seasons earlier, this episode cats Starlight Glimmer in the role of Scrooge, through Snowfall Frost being Scrooge but colored essentially the same way as Starlight Glimmer. In this story, while there was supposed to be a Marley, it didn't happen for time reasons, but we can assume that in a perfected version, there is such a character who sets Snowfall Frost on the pathway to being visited by the spirits. They need to appear, though, because Snowfall Frost intends to magically erase the holiday in its entirety from the timeline. So rather than being sent to save Scrooge's soul, the spirits are there for self-preservation. Which also tilts the story away from the Dickensian version, making the instructor the one who tries to burn away the happy feelings young Snowfall Frost has about Hearth's Warming Eve, rather than Snowfall doing it herself and closing herself off.
The Spirit of Hearth's Warming Presents tries to get things back on track, but because of the pun in the name, she puts focus on the exchange of gifts and social time with others, which backfires spectacularly when Snowfall overhears other ponies criticizing her and her motives. It's supposed to be the analogue of the guessing game scene with Fred, where Scrooge is surprised to find that even his own family thinks of him so poorly. Here, the shallowness of giving gifts is unintentionally exposed by Snowfall finding out that her relationships with others are similarly shallow and based more in social niceties than genuine friendships. It wouldn't be a difficult conclusion to draw from that scene that Snowfall is right to destroy a holiday that has changed the remembrance of having to work together to survive to another obligation to be social in specific ways.
The Spirit of Hearth's Warming Yet To Come has a trump to play on Snowfall, however, and it has to do with the nature of Hearth's Warming. In the future where Snowfall succeeds in eradicating the celebration, she also gets rid of the reason for the celebration, and therefore the world is coated in snow and howling windigos, because the flame of friendship between all the three ponies extinguishes when they don't celebrate and renew their commitments to working together. Mind you, Princess Luna, as said Spirit, gets a pretty rad song about how Snowfall royally fucked up, but by this point it's not actually a story about a character realizing their lifetime of selfish and cruel behavior will bite them in the ass when they're no longer around, but instead about the world-ending consequences of someone choosing to get rid of a celebration for everyone else.
When everything comes back to Starlight, she decides that she's going to go along with the others and celebrate the holiday. It's not an above-board threat, but it could be interpreted as one to Starlight to conform (since she's the one who replaced other ponies' cutie marks to make them all equal). It's a very big difference between "this shit's so scary even the narrator says nope" to "we tell a story about someone who tried to erase a holiday from the timestream because they didn't like it as a way of getting someone else who doesn't like it to go along with it." Sucks to be you, Starlight Glimmer, hope you didn't have any plans, or a thought about saying to any other pony that you don't like the celebration. (This is also the pony, who when she gets tired of hearing the god-ponies of Canterlot bickering, she swaps their cutie marks to make them deal with everything the other one does, so she's not shy about having an opinion and it coming out when she gets frustrated.
And here I thought I wouldn't have anything to talk about. Sometimes I guess the best thing to do is say what comes to mind first.
In your own space, share a favourite piece of original canon (a show, a specific TV episode, a storyline, a book or series, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.
[…]
Promote those you wish had more love, find people who share your fandoms, discover something you never knew about before but like the sound of.
Choosing just one, of course, is always difficult, because fans are the sum and more of their experiences. And in several of the science fiction and fantasy fandoms, or in animation fandoms, you get to have a laugh when an actor you know from somewhere else pops up, because even though the makeup is different, that's the same voice. And how you can find people who would go on to be stars in their own right show up for bit parts in other programs and series beforehand. Having to rescue Stan Lee in Marvel Lego games, or Adam West in Batman LEGO games doesn't make much sense unless you know their relationship to the properties themselves.
I think I've talked before about how the Muppet Christmas Carol (besides being a faithful adaptation even though it's Muppets, seriously), has a moment of genuinely effective storytelling in it that seems like a gag when you watch it first. Gonzo, as Charles Dickens, the supposed narrator and author of the story, and Rizzo the Rat, his comic relief and recipient of physical comedy, are about to enter the space of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, and they both decide to nope out.
Rizzo the Rat: I don't think I can watch any more!
Gonzo: When you're right, you're right. You're on your own, folks. We'll meet you at the finale!
Rizzo the Rat: Yeah!
The promise of meeting them at the finale is immediately mentioned when they get to that point, but this part of the movie has had the narrator and the comedy both disappear themselves. At that point, all the jokes that get cracked are cruel ones about the poor sod who died and nobody missed him, nobody wants to go to his funeral unless some incentive, like lunch, were provided, and whose belongings were stolen from his bedchambers while the blankets were still warm. The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come doesn't speak a line, leaving Scrooge to carry the narrative all on his own right at the point where it is the most terrifying, where Scrooge is shown that he is completely alone and without allies or assistance from any other entity. He comes to the conclusion, before he wipes off the gravestone to reveal what he already knows, that the person who is responsible for such misery and who receives no human kindness in death, is himself. Which is why he pleads with the Spirit to give him a crumb of hope to have the knowledge that this conclusion has not been fated, but is changeable. (The Marleys told him as much as the beginning, but he wasn't receptive to their message at that point.) Scrooge stares his fate in the face and has to acknowledge that this is what he's earned before he returns to his bedchambers. A crucial decision made without the benefit of a narrator, or a Spirit, and only seeing the misery writ large as a result of his actions (including the death of an innocent.)
The whole thing is set up to show us that only Scrooge can change, and only Scrooge makes the decision to change. It's the scariest moment in a life, the moment where it's just you, and you have the choice between continuing as you have before, believing those shadows are just that, or changing course to do something better. (Whether out of fear or hope, it's not fully clear, but it may not matter.) It's the scariest scene ever shot in a Muppet movie, and it's the first Muppet movie shot since Jim Henson died, (I think) so it makes sense to do the story about a person's legacy right then.
Compare, if you like, the Equestria version of the story, A Hearth's Warming Tail, in the sixth season of Friendship is Magic. Having gotten the stage play version of what Hearth's Warming is about, and the very real danger the founders faced from the windigos several seasons earlier, this episode cats Starlight Glimmer in the role of Scrooge, through Snowfall Frost being Scrooge but colored essentially the same way as Starlight Glimmer. In this story, while there was supposed to be a Marley, it didn't happen for time reasons, but we can assume that in a perfected version, there is such a character who sets Snowfall Frost on the pathway to being visited by the spirits. They need to appear, though, because Snowfall Frost intends to magically erase the holiday in its entirety from the timeline. So rather than being sent to save Scrooge's soul, the spirits are there for self-preservation. Which also tilts the story away from the Dickensian version, making the instructor the one who tries to burn away the happy feelings young Snowfall Frost has about Hearth's Warming Eve, rather than Snowfall doing it herself and closing herself off.
The Spirit of Hearth's Warming Presents tries to get things back on track, but because of the pun in the name, she puts focus on the exchange of gifts and social time with others, which backfires spectacularly when Snowfall overhears other ponies criticizing her and her motives. It's supposed to be the analogue of the guessing game scene with Fred, where Scrooge is surprised to find that even his own family thinks of him so poorly. Here, the shallowness of giving gifts is unintentionally exposed by Snowfall finding out that her relationships with others are similarly shallow and based more in social niceties than genuine friendships. It wouldn't be a difficult conclusion to draw from that scene that Snowfall is right to destroy a holiday that has changed the remembrance of having to work together to survive to another obligation to be social in specific ways.
The Spirit of Hearth's Warming Yet To Come has a trump to play on Snowfall, however, and it has to do with the nature of Hearth's Warming. In the future where Snowfall succeeds in eradicating the celebration, she also gets rid of the reason for the celebration, and therefore the world is coated in snow and howling windigos, because the flame of friendship between all the three ponies extinguishes when they don't celebrate and renew their commitments to working together. Mind you, Princess Luna, as said Spirit, gets a pretty rad song about how Snowfall royally fucked up, but by this point it's not actually a story about a character realizing their lifetime of selfish and cruel behavior will bite them in the ass when they're no longer around, but instead about the world-ending consequences of someone choosing to get rid of a celebration for everyone else.
When everything comes back to Starlight, she decides that she's going to go along with the others and celebrate the holiday. It's not an above-board threat, but it could be interpreted as one to Starlight to conform (since she's the one who replaced other ponies' cutie marks to make them all equal). It's a very big difference between "this shit's so scary even the narrator says nope" to "we tell a story about someone who tried to erase a holiday from the timestream because they didn't like it as a way of getting someone else who doesn't like it to go along with it." Sucks to be you, Starlight Glimmer, hope you didn't have any plans, or a thought about saying to any other pony that you don't like the celebration. (This is also the pony, who when she gets tired of hearing the god-ponies of Canterlot bickering, she swaps their cutie marks to make them deal with everything the other one does, so she's not shy about having an opinion and it coming out when she gets frustrated.
And here I thought I wouldn't have anything to talk about. Sometimes I guess the best thing to do is say what comes to mind first.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-12 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-12 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-12 03:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-12 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-12 04:22 pm (UTC)It's interesting how adaptation can go in different ways. The MLP version serms to have missed the message. Besides, I doubt that erasure of a holiday celebration will necessarily end the world.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-12 06:24 pm (UTC)Yeah, the MLP one didn't quite get it. And the erasure of the holiday from the timeline causes some because apparently the holiday celebration keeps feeding the fire of friendship that keeps the windigos away from the space. It's much more like Hogswatch turning out to be a magical ritual that brings back the sun every winter, even if it hasn't been celebrated specifically as that for a very long time.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-13 02:23 am (UTC)The cynic in me thinks that the Spirit of Hearth makes up this future to scare Starlight into compliance for self preservation, but MLP just probably doesn't think through with the message.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-12 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-12 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-13 12:45 pm (UTC)