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Review by Huitzil |
2007-12-13
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I think this fic is most effective when you're contrasting the assumed flawless beauty of the Moon Kingdom and faceless evil of the Earth invaders with their actual petty, idiotic, (and humorous) failings. The duke getting trashed on wine coolers and moaning about wanting to "DOOO" the Princess is funny because it's such a complete juxtaposition with the perfect fairy-tale ballroom. When the Earth soldiers start working themselves up into a frenzy about what they're going to do to the women, it's funny because it's so over the top. But when Beryl has to lay down the law to get them back on track it's hilarious, because her army of evil is (contrary to expectation) acting like a bunch of kids, and she is then less of a warlord or queen and becomes their exasperated mother, saying everyone gets their fair share of rapes or there will be no rapes for ANYONE so help me GOD I will turn this Moon around and drive us right back to Iowa!
Endymion sleeping around, Jaedite reassuring everyone in the ballroom that "this is just an old-fashioned, low-tech massacre", Endymion and Serenity wistfully recalling when Serenity got paralyzed and nearly decapitated... all of these things are funny because they play around with our expectations of how things should be.
But even though these things are funny because they run counter to the reader's expectations, they're funny because they're not random. Rather than being nonsensical, they make perfect sense within the context of the scene, they just do it in an unexpected way. Serenity and Endymion recalling her spinal trauma is funny not JUST because we don't expect the prince and princess to have such an ugly, violent first meeting, but also because the event works in the context of the story: it was the first time they met, and Endymion's actions defending himself showed Serenity he was the one for her, so they recall it as wistfully as people might recall any first meeting. When Beryl's army is talking about firing pregnant women out of cannons, they're getting psyched up about what they're actually about to do, and when Beryl shuts them down she actually is regaining control of her troops, she's just doing it like a mother.
What doesn't work for me is the stuff that's random just for the sake of being random. Yes, I am saying I do not like the Pop-Tarts. It's too unnecessary, superfluous to what's happening; it doesn't juxtapose anything because it doesn't really relate to anything. Having someone eating, talking about, or referencing Pop-Tarts doesn't work in the scene; sure, you don't expect a Moon guy to eat a Pop-Tart, but how is eating a Pop-Tart funny? Pop-Tarts don't really do anything funny, I think, and to expect them to be inherently funny is to subscribe to the same school of "Livejournal Humor" that thinks the insertion of the words "Monkey", "Ninja", or "Cheese" into anything always makes it funnier. It works a couple of places -- quelling the troops by threatening to take them away, for example, but that gag doesn't have the legs to run the whole way through the fic.
So, uh, yeah. Good fic, but less "randomness" and more "dissonance".
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