After I posted my incredibly irreverent and scathing review of Fallout: Equestria (which, to my wonderful surprise, /r/falloutequestria seemed to like), people had a few things to say to me. Here are some quotes (I paraphrase):

“Oh, give it twenty chapters! It gets better after twenty chapters.”

“Oh, read Project Horizons instead! It’s not as well-written, but it’s good!”

“You might like Murky Number Seven. I think you’ll find it has everything that you thought was lacking from Fallout: Equestria.”

“Murky Number Seven is great. Fuzzy has a very deliberate, slow way of telling a story.”

“Murky Number Seven is my favorite! But it’s very, very depressing.”

“Murky Number Seven!”

“Murky Number Seven!”

“Murky Number Seven!”

Alright, alright, shut up! I got it!

I don’t usually read pony fan fictions, but after enough recommendations, I couldn’t avoid this one. I started reading last night.

Now, I usually read a few chapters before forming an opinion. And, in addition, I’m an exceptionally slow reader. I’ve only read about half of “Flying Without Wings” so far (took me two hours); so this is not a “review” but more of a “first impressions,” and this opinion should be regarded as in no way complete. I would want to wait, to write a proper review, but I was amazed that, even after the first ten thousand or so words, there is so much to say about this thing.

To begin, let me start off by stating my three favorite novels of all time:

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

What do these have in common? They’re all romantic epic/adventure novels. They have adventures that take place on massive scales, are all thought-provoking; and all have conflicts, struggles, and conversations that are all timeless. The characters in all these are larger-than-life, depicted not how people actually are but how they ought to be; the plots are moved solely by their choices. Their values conflict with one another; and each character has to make a choice, and that choice, depending on whether or not it is consonant with their values, moves the plot in one way or another. Nothing in these stories is left up to God, Providence, outside powers, acts of nature—in these stories, you have the plot moved solely by the choices of the characters involved. And, wow, are these characters memorable. Everything they say seems thought out hours in advance; they know, for the most part, exactly what to say when to make the maximum impact. And, above all, I can’t say about any of the action scenes in any of these novels “it’s just an action scene.” Every action scene has a purpose; they’re all connected in some way to the values of the characters.

After reading this, you might say to yourself: “As opposed to what? What stories don’t have characters that are larger than life? What stories aren’t entirely influenced by character decisions? What stories have action unconnected to everything?”

To answer the second question, characters who are written to emulate real people. To answer the third question, stories like those Roman dramas, with their whole deus ex machina thing (stories where the characters are powerless, where their actions are futile, etc.). To answer the fourth question, stories that I see no point to (see Chapters 1 to 10 of Fallout: Equestria for a perfect example of action for the sake of action).

With that in mind, let’s dive into Murky Number Seven.

The story starts off simple enough: the life of someone born into slavery. It’s goes into more and more horrible detail as it progresses while revealing very little about our narrator, Murky Number Seven. The best way to describe my reaction is one of shock and disgust. But it was shock and disgust connected to nothing. It didn’t seem like there was a reason for me to be shocked and disgusted.

No matter, I thought. It’s just setting the stage for our narrator and his struggles and his conflicts and his desires, etc.

Whatever the opposite of “larger-than-life” is, that’s Murky Number Seven. He’s small, weak; his past-time is crying, getting beaten up, and stepped on. He describes his life with vivid detail. Each sentence he says is more horrible than the last.

As shock and disgust followed shock and disgust, I still waited for the character motivations. I thought I knew where this is going. Slave stories are nothing new: you usually have one or a group of slaves who risk everything for a hint of freedom, or a few who work and hope that one day they’ll be free? Note the conflict here: the slaves want to be free while the masters want to keep the slaves.

So, I was thinking, is Murky Number Seven a slave that will risk it all? Or is he a slave that will just keep quiet, his protests being all in his head, waiting, surviving, until he can be free? Well, I thought, after this description of horribleness and wretchedness, I’ll find out.

But it doesn’t stop. The details climb more and more.

I was getting worried. I had my suspicions that Murky Number Seven wasn’t an individual, that he wasn’t a slave; that he was just a black hole—not even that, because a black whole has mass and darkness. I worried that Murky Number Seven was the worst thing a character could be: nothing. A literary device that leaves no room for plot, no room for conflict, no room for anything. That the descriptions of violence and torture were just there for their own sake, for that cheap shock value. But, I thought again, he’s a slave; there’s no possible way that he’s nothing. A slave has to be something. That word alone carries so much, and he—

And then we’re told that his cutie mark is a pair of shackles.

And then I realized it. I think he may have explicitly said it once or twice, but I glanced over it. But it hit me then when this was revealed:

Murky Number Seven is nothing. He’s not a character, not even an entity. He’s nothing.

He’s not a slave who would risk it all for freedom. He’s not a slave that damns the masters under his breath. He’s nothing.

He has no thoughts other than to tell the reader what’s happening around him (very few parts of the narration are actually what he thinks); he has no desires, no dreams, no wishes (he thinks those who risk everything for freedom are stupid for dying).

And, worst of all, he has absolutely no volition.

And I looked back at all the descriptions of slavery, and it struck me: Because he has no volition, there is no conflict in this story, i.e., there is none of that "thing" which makes a story a story, a plot a plot.

Absolutely none. Murky Number Seven’s cutie mark is a pair of shackles. He has no volition of his own. He does things because his masters say so. “I get beaten? That’s because my masters told me I should be beaten. What other way would there be?” And I realized that, because Murky Number Seven tells very little about how he thinks, everything that I, the reader, thinks is depressing, comes from me projecting my own feelings onto him. Him, on the other hand, doesn’t know; he doesn’t know that the abuses are actually abuses. He’s like an animal we feel sad for—but we’re only putting our own silly human emotions on him, when in reality, he doesn’t feel those things.

He’s a slave because that’s who he is. He does things for his masters because he’s a slave and that’s who he is. He gets beaten up because he does things for his masters because he’s a slave and that’s who he is. There’s no conflict of values here. His cutie mark is a symbol for slavery. And he’s a slave. What more can be asked of him?

And all of this, the actions of this non-character, taking non-actions, in a non-conflict—all of this is horribly, horribly well-written.

The amount of detail describing the actions is horribly thorough. The descriptions Murky Number Seven’s tortures and the treatment of the masters are vividly gruesome. The fog, that stench that hangs constantly over Fillydelphia can be felt to hang in the nose. I read a fifty-word long sentence, and it seems like each word has been deliberately chosen to be more terrible than the last. I read the sentence and I think: “What part of that sentence had even an atom of hope and possibility?”

When Murky Number Seven mentions his drawings, I thought that that would show that he wasn’t unconscious, that he had some presence, that he knew what ought to be and that his art would be the outlet for that. I thought his art would be the medium in which he would be able to externalize his thoughts. Maybe he’s just not a good narrator (he's certainly a good describer; as I've said, what's actually happening is horribly well-written). Maybe he can’t describe what he feels with words. Maybe it’s only in drawing that he can depict what he thinks. Maybe his art would give me the reason to read about him. Maybe his art would make this non-character a character.

I was wrong. He draws the world exactly as he sees it. He draws charred bodies and smoking craters. He has no more artistic skill than a camera.

Murky Number Seven cries because he cries. He’s a slave because he’s a slave. He takes orders because he’s a slave because he’s a slave. And he draws what’s around him because that’s what’s around him. I was shocked when he describes all these things, but I could not feel bad; to feel bad for someone, he has to be something. Murky Number Seven is not.

It’s hinted that other slaves kill themselves for freedom, but we don’t follow them. We only follow Murky Number Seven. And, between him and his masters, there’s no conflict of values. “Getting beaten up” is not a conflict; masters are supposed to beat up slaves. If the master thinks it’s right for him to be a master and the slave thinks that it’s right for him to be a slave, then the act of a master beating up a slave has no conflict of values.

There is no conflict. All we have are excessive descriptions of goriness. The more I read, the more the story looked to me to be nothing more than sadist porn. And it was at that point that my cynicism started to increase exponentially:

“Oh, he runs into the only girl slave! What a stupid love interest! Oh, he blushes when he looks at her but he has no desire for mares? Oh why, oh why, am I not surprised!” Just enter The Pit and be done with it, you nothing, I was thinking.

But no, he has to draw first. He’s thinking about her. Oh, he’s going to draw her, and it’s supposed to be sweet, and all that. How are you going to draw her, nonentity? Covered in mud exactly how you saw her? Ugly exactly as you saw her? And we’re supposed to go “aww” and stuff, right?

He sketches and sketches and sketches . . .

Hurry up with that picture and die already! As horrible as it might sound, I was starting to sympathize with the slavers. At least they had values. At least they were some people. At least they were characters.

That took forever! Alright, how ugly did you make her?

He didn’t draw her. He drew himself. Alive, at that.

Alright . . . that gave me a moment to pause. I wasn’t expecting that. Still, he’s drawn himself before a million times. What? Are you missing an eye this time in your picture? Are you an animated corpse, your brain drawn ten feet from your body? Are you . . .

He’s smiling in it.

He doesn’t even know what a smile is. And he drew himself smiling.

And that’s when I felt the punch to my stomach as, suddenly, all matter in the universe rushed toward the empty space that was calling itself Murky Number Seven.

For the first time in his life, Murky Number Seven has the image of a romantic character. Not only that, but he depicts himself as it. He depicts himself as a romantic character—him as he ought to be. He knows what is and what ought.

To love someone, you have to first love yourself.

In that instant, a million conflicts of value rushed into the story. Subsequently, when Murky Number Seven cries in his corner, I cried with him. When he heard the bones of his allies cracking, I cowered with him. When he said he didn’t want to die, I believed him. I think he may have said that he didn’t want to die before that, but I didn’t believe him; it sounded too hollow.

I had been reading for two hours, and I had to take a break after the image of the pony flying without wings. I took a break when Murky Number Seven has his first desire—to be free.

In that one instant, Murky Number Seven became a character. He now has thoughts, desires, and wishes. And they’re all in conflict with his masters. And there will be a struggle and a story (how well that plays out remains to be seen).

This story is as promising as hell, and I will get back to reading it (it’ll take me a while; years, even), and I fully expect to cry with Murky Number Seven when he describes, with amazing detail, everything that happens, everything he thinks and feels. A reaction like that (which I’ve done my best to document) has never been gotten out of me by a fan fiction before.

I don’t know if you did this all on purpose, Mr. Fuzzy; I don’t know if you knew that the story had no conflict, that you set it up that way, that you knew that no meaning to the story would come until you demonstrated that Murky Number Seven had desires; that you knew that when you did, it would make everything beforehand and everything to come have meaning. I don’t know if you had all this in mind; but, regardless, I will say it: Well, played, sir. Well-played. Murky Number Seven drawing a picture of him smiling is symbolically one of the most profound things I have ever read.