This song, while not related to King Sombra, reminds me of the duties of those in power in Equestria. I know of the name Mercedes Lackey because of her work in the filking* community back in the 80’s when I dove head-first into the science fiction and fantasy convention circuit. Back them we attended everything from the small, one-day local conventions, to Regional Westercons to the massive WorldCons hosted in the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, Arizona at the time. While Mecedes is well known for her INSANELY prolific book publishing schedule (a STAGGERING 5.5 per year on average), I was more intrigued at the time by her songs; tales of elves, mages, vampires and other mythical beings.
As our real-life world royalty often does, the royalty of Equestria and outlying lands have had to make personal sacrifices for the good of their peoples/ponies. If King Sombra was, at one time, a good King, he too would have been bound by this code. The possibilities of this heavy burden of responsibility actually assisting in breaking his mind and spirit are beautifully explored in the wonderful YouTube operatic piece by L-Train, “Fall of an Empire – Royal Canterlot Symphonic Metal Orchestra“. Indeed, Chapter 3, Heavy Is The Crown inspired my FIMFic piece of the same name – a story that was #2 of all my stories in likes it’s first year and a half and is now #3.
This song proves, yet again in my mind that music can be the conduit and inspiration for a storytellers words to flow, thus expanding ones universe and in my case, the untold tales of King Sombra.
– Nyx
* “filking” is the art of taking an existing song and swapping out the words for something related to science fiction and/or fantasy. A perfect example of a big-time, successful “Filksinger” would be Weird Al Yankovic.
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