Pony Tale: Difference between revisions

 

The Pony Tale isn't too worried about originality. This is an extremely formulaic genre, with stock plots, stock plot twists, stock characters (including stock horse characters, no pun intended), and a set of stock tropes.

* The heroine finds her dream horse, but must overcome obstacles (he's too expensive to buy, she lives in the city, he's sickly and will need constant nursing) in order to turn him into the champion she knows he can be.

* People still have difficulty believing that a mere girl could ride around on a horse

* The heroine becomes the special human of an "impossible" horse: earns the trust of a traumatised (or unhandled) horse, figures out the strength of the pariah pony of the stable, etc.

 

* Heroine: [[Always Lawful Good|Always Good]] - [[Anti-Hero]] protagonists are virtually unheard of. Combine elements from [[Tomboy]], [[Plucky Girl]], [[Determinator]] (especially when it's a horse-in-danger plot)

** May also be [[Socially Awkward Hero]] - awkward girl + horses = brave

** [[Pint-Sized Powerhouse]] - little one is teased - proves worth by kicking ass in the equestrian fields. This can be the protagonist, her friend, or a horse.

 

* [[Pet the Dog|Pat The Horse]] and [[Licked by the Dog|Nuzzled By The Horse]] - a character's true nature is always determined by their attitude towards horses and by the attitude horses have with them. In classic Pony Tales a horse that bucks or rears equals "the person handling them is a complete douchebag".

* [[Somewhere an Equestrian Is Crying]] - the only common instance is that buying the horse is the only expense they worry about. Many classic Pony Tales conveniently forget that ''keeping a horse'' (stable fees, fodder, vet expenses, shoeing, tack etc.) makes the initial cost look [[Crack is Cheaper|laughable in comparison]]. Save for the few instances of [[Did Not Do the Research]] from the writer or translator's part (and even then the blunders are minor), this is averted.

 

See also: [[A Boy and His X]] and [[All Girls Like Ponies]].

 

* The works written and drawn by Swedish [[Lena Furberg]] ([http://www.lenafurberg.com/verklighet.html Examples of her series]), especially her longer series such as ''Freddie På Firefoot Farm'' and ''Stallgänget På Tuva'', tend to reconstruct the classic Pony Tale conventions and avert many clichés and instances of [[Somewhere an Equestrian Is Crying]]: horses cost money (and a lot of it, or there will be problems), ''keeping'' horses costs a lot of money, beginners and young horses don't match well (at least without regular help from experts), etc.

 

* One of the most influential Pony Tales was Ruby Ferguson's ''[[Jill]]'' series, one of the first horse books to make riding appear accessible to the general public rather than the premise of the rich. Set in classic English countryside, nowadays it features a fair bit of [[Values Dissonance]] (one of Jill's mentors is a Master of Foxhunting, a sport now banned in the United Kingdom) and language that's the 1950s equivalent of [[Totally Radical]]: "That was jolly good fun!" "Oh, super!" and the occasional "old bean".

* The Pullein-Thompson sisters, Josephine, Diana and Christine, were all highly successful Pony Tale writers. Particularly notable for giving equal page-time to boys and girls, especially Josephine Pullein-Thompson's ''[[Woodbury Pony Club]]'' series. Some of their pony stories crossed over with the children's adventure genre.

* ''[[The Sleepover Club]]'' occasionally went into this territory with Lyndz, who was the resident animal lover. Books centred on her were generally about her wanting to win some horse-related prize.

 

* The ''[[Saddle Club]]'' TV series was set in Australia and fit this trope exactly.

* ''[[Caitlin's Way]]'' matches the trope perfectly.

 

* Played very straight with the "Stormy Arc" of ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'' animated series. Except the girl who loves horses is Ariel, and the horse in question is a Hippocampus.

 

 

* Katie Price (better known as Jordan) wrote a series of pony books called ''[[Perfect Ponies]]'' aimed at younger readers. According to reviews, it has "You can be horsy and still be glam!" as its mantra, frequently dwelling on the beauty of the characters. Might reflect an attempt to integrate "love of ponies" with "interest in fashion and beauty" in order to interest its target audience.

 

* The TV series ''[[Follyfoot]]'' was set at a home of rest for horses. What on the surface might have appeared to be a series with limited interest to young girls with an equine interest was actually aimed squarely at the teenage market, and often had challenging things to say about the treatment of horses and animals generally in British society. The ethos of Follyfoot generally was to give another chance to both horses and people who had been rejected by the rest of society: the stance of the series was recognisably left-wing, and characters who resembled the archetypes of the Pullein-Thompson sisters et al were overwhelmingly shown in a negative light.

 

 

* ''[[The Black Stallion]]'' series -- Very much A Boy and His X. Puts the focus on hero Alec Ramsey's rise to manhood through mastering a difficult and genuinely bad-tempered horse rather than the culture of the stableyard and affection between horse and rider. Alec and the stallion have a mutual respect, rather than more "sentimental" emotions like love. Further, Alec eventually moves full-time into the Thoroughbred industry as a jockey and farm manager.

** On the other hand, one title in the series (''The Black Stallion and the Girl'') is vaguely similar: the titular girl, Pam Athena, is a free spirit who wins the love of Alec and his horses, and her desire to ride as a jockey is genuinely scandalous in the 1960s-era Thoroughbred world in which the books are set. Pam is also directly contrasted to the domineering, aggressive Becky who rides because she wants to win, not because she loves the horses.

* Apart from the usual magic-politics plotline, ''[[The Pinhoe Egg]]'' by [[Diana Wynne Jones]] was this for Eric (Cat) Chant and his horse. There's a bit of recursion in here, in that the horse initially came into the family when Eric's foster sisters began reading [[Pony Tale|horse stories]] and begged [[Chrestomanci]] for a pony. When he acquired one for them, the girls discovered that they were terrified of horses/didn't actually like riding after all, respectively, and the horse came to Eric as the only one who was able to bond with it. They quickly became fast friends, and the horse ends up being Eric's ticket into the fairy world that this book's plot revolves around.

 

* One Word: ''[[Equus]]''.