Cold in Gardez: Ms. Berrow, thank you for agreeing to this interview. I understand Hasbro was reluctant to let you speak about your role in expanding their intellectual property?

G. M. Berrow: They were, but not for the reasons you might expect. They had no qualms at all with discussing Through the Mirror, despite the controversy it’s generated. They were more concerned with several future projects I am collaborating on with them, and I’m afraid I can say no more on that topic today.

CiG: I understand completely. I’ll start by addressing the elephant in the room: why is your novelization of the Equestria Girls movie so much more mature than the movie itself?

GMB: There are several reasons. The first and most obvious is that novels, by their nature, require more intellect and maturity to understand than simple cartoons. A child may enjoy a cartoon without fully comprehending it, simply because they enjoy bright colors and joyful music. Novels require a bit more than that.

CiG: Fair enough. Does that apply to the content of the novel, in addition to its reading level?

GMB: I think children, especially girls, are more mature than we give them credit for. Yes, the Twilight Sparkle in my novel does engage in some adult behaviors that were not depicted in the movie, but any girl who is smart enough to pick up a novel is ready to confront topics like intimacy, love and death.

CiG: And sex?

GMB: Yes, and sex. Most human activity can be reduced to its component parts: writing, for instance, is a combination of creativity, technical expertise, patience and social interaction. But there are a small number of activities that cannot be simplified; they are irreducible and thus constitute the basic building blocks of what it means to be human. I speak of things like friendship, eating, and -- yes -- sex. To ignore sex is to ignore part of what makes us human, and I think that does a disservice to my readers, regardless of their ages.

CiG: Does including sex necessitate graphic depictions of sexual acts, though? I specifically refer to the scene at the beginning of book three, when Buck Withers and Flash Sentry finish their duel and agree to—

GMB: Yes, I know the scene you refer to. I’ll admit I thought I might be “pushing the envelope” a little far, especially with some of the particular fetishes Twilight indulged in, but ultimately it was Hasbro’s decision, and they decided to include it.

CiG: Onto another topic. Over the course of the three books that comprise your novel, you adopt a progressively more literary tone, until the sappy romance of the early pages is lost entirely. Was that deliberate?

GMB: It was. I had more freedom once I started describing Twilight’s flight from Canterlot and her slow descent into wantonness and lust. I felt the subject matter deserved a different tone, and I set out to make it clear that we had, at last, passed through the looking glass.

CiG: Touche. Book two was also the first time you started each chapter with an epigraph. I remember thinking at the time how odd it was to see Twilight’s joyous reunion with her pony friends in Canterlot beneath the line from Dante’s Purgatorio:

‘Be mindful in due time of my pain.’

Then dove he back into that fire which refines them.

GMB: My intent was that the epigraphs would foreshadow the moral struggles the ponies would soon face. Obviously book 2 starts on a seemingly happy note, but by this point Twilight has already sown (or, should I say, harvested) the seeds of her own destruction. She has joined, body and soul, with a man from another world, and this transgression against the natural order will doom them all.

CiG: On that note, you use numerous allegorical passages in the novel. Some, like the epigraph, are explicit; others are obvious only upon rereading the text with an eye for them. Can you tell us why Luna chooses to recite this line toward the end of book three?

Fate – monstrous

and empty,

you whirling wheel,

you are malevolent,

well-being is vain

and always fades to nothing,

shadowed

and veiled

GMB: That’s from O Fortuna. I think at some level Luna is aware of her incipient death. She knows, now that the world-walls have crumbled, that soon Equestria will succumb to the same dissolution that has already ended millions of other universes. There is nothing she could have done to prevent this, nothing anyone could have done. Their deaths are preordained, and she can do nothing but rail against fate.

CiG: Hopelessness and surrender to inevitable death seem like weighty topics for a novel aimed at tween girls. Did your publisher ever question these decisions?

GMB: They did not. Like I said, Hasbro stuck up for me through the entire process. I couldn’t ask for a better partner.

CiG: I hope it continues to work out. I can’t wait to see the next book!