While visiting the earth pony town of Promise, the Great and Powerful Trixie is coerced into searching for a missing foal against her own better judgment. But things are not as straightforward as they first appear. When push comes to shove, what kind of pony is Trixie at heart?
A Great and Powerful Heart
is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic by Deep Pond. Deep Pond would eventually give his permission for the characters and events to be used in RHJunior's fanfic The Great Alicorn Hunt.
Tropes Are:
- Anti-Hero: Trixie, who is just as boastful and egotistical as canon and initially only searched for the foals out of a plea bargain. But she proves herself willing to risk her life and enter a dangerous forest to rescue two foals she doesn't know, to help a poor grieving mother.
- Big Bad: Sheriff Brass, the corrupt lawpony who forces Trixie to search for a missing foal just to cover his own hide and is the local leader of the Filli Terram, an earth pony supremacist group, essentially the Equestrian equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan.
- Big Damn Heroes: Derpy pulls this twice on Trixie, saving her skin from a carnivorous eel and from a dangerous sea serpent.Derpy: Derpy Delivery!
- Character Development: Trixie starts out as self-centered, only doing the right thing out of obligation, and preferring solitude. But over the course of the story, she grows to be concerned for others and becomes content to care for the orphaned Jasper.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Derpy is as ditzy as usual, to Trixie's chagrin, but saves Trixie's life twice, the second time with her wing injured and bleeding.
- Cruel Mercy: Trixie, with all her showmare bombast, vocally threatens all of Promise for their behavior, but then declares them "not worth it". In The Great Alicorn Hunt, this ends up backfiring since it motivates Sheriff Brass to arrest Trixie, fearing she'll expose the kind of pony he is.
- Dirty Cop: Sheriff Brass and his deputies, oh so much. They were willing to let not one but two innocent children die for the "crime" of being unicorns.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Jasper endures racism, neglect and near death before he can finally leave his horrible town for good with Trixie.
- Fantastic Racism: The residents of Promise are members of Filli Terram, an Earth Pony extremist group. They harass Trixie for being a unicorn and chose not to lift a hoof to rescue Dinky and Jasper for being unicorns born of non-unicorns.
- Felony Misdemeanor: Trixie ends jailed and heavily fined over a simple paper work error and letting foals too near her cart. Justified as Sheriff Brass is an anti-unicorn supremacist who had it in for her, and was also trying to recruit her into an unwanted task.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Trixie and Derpy, and Jasper and Dinky become this having had to survive in the woods.
- Happily Adopted: Jasper at the end by Trixie, who's grown to genuinely care for him and knows Promise is not a safe home.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Trixie lures the evil serpent away from Jasper and Derpy, knowing she'll die in the process. Subverted, however, when Derpy swoops in at the last moment to save her bacon.
- Karma Houdini: Aside from an angry speech from Trixie, Brass and the rest of Promise get away with their racism and leaving two foals to die. Subverted in The Great Alicorn Hunt, where they're finally caught and arrested — by Celestia herself, no less — after Trixie and Jasper lure them into a trap.
- Kick the Dog: Sheriff Brass is already an asshole for refusing to help Derpy find Dinky, but the cherry on top is calling poor Derpy irresponsible and blaming her (an upset mother) for the disappearance.
- Mama Bear: Derpy is willing to enter a dangerous wood to rescue her daughter. Trixie herself becomes fiercely protective of Jasper, even calling out the town of Promise for mistreating and abandoning the poor colt.
- Missing Mom: Jasper's mother died when he was young.
- Noble Demon: Sherif Brass is a crooked and bigoted jerk. But when Trixie completes the work he forced her to do, he does keep his word, lets her off the hook, and even gives her a few bits for her trouble. Subverted in The Great Alicorn Hunt, where he and his deputies proceed to harass and pursue her and Jasper for a whole year; this comes back to bite him hard.
- Playing with Fire: Jasper's specialty is in fire magic. Unfortunately, his flame is too weak to use against timberwolves, but Trixie creates an illusion of a large flare to scare them off.
- Scarily Competent Tracker: Trixie is able to use both magic and simple observation to find the foals. At one point, by finding some of Dinky's hairs, and determine which way it was pulled.
- Snakes Are Sinister: One of the dangerous animals that Derpy and Trixie encounter is a large aquatic serpent that not only comes the closest to eating Dinky and Jasper, but also spends an indefinite amount of time taunting them too as it has them cornered.
- Sustained Misunderstanding: Derpy refers to Dinky as her "muffin", which causes some confusion when she asks Trixie to find her.Derpy: I've lost my muffin.
Trixie: Your...muffin?
Derpy:: My little muffin.
Trixie: Trixie...is not sure she understands. You've lost a muffin?
Derpy: Not a muffin! My muffin! My little Dinky!
Trixie: Dinky? ...oh. Is that a pony? - Town with a Dark Secret: Promise is a town run by Filli Terram, an earth pony supremacist hate group.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- Sheriff Brass and the town of Promise were willing to abandon two poor foals to die in a dangerous forest.
- The aquatic serpent was eager to eat the poor foals.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Trixie and Derpy both assure Jasper of this. It is clear the poor colt really needed to hear it, after a lifetime of being mistreated for something he can't help (being born a unicorn).
