If enchanted comics exist, why doesn't Celestia just trap Tirek in one?

[EmeraldStar04 250]

I'm surprised the fandom hasn't taken this concept and ran with it.

I CALL DIBS ON WRITING A FANFIC WHERE RAINBOW DASH GETS A RAINBOW DASH COMIC, ENTERS IT, RACES HERSELF, AND THEN HAS TO DATE HERSELF TO GET OUT.

[Lil Pip 775]

Well Celestia doesn't seem to know about that comic and no pony seems to know how it really works. The thing with magic is that it's very chaotic in nature and you shouldn't mess around with it too much. 

Not true. Twilight studies magic, sure its somewhat chaotic but there are safety precautions and ponies are made of sturdy stuff. This also implies they understand magic, even with the Sombra 2 parter Twi was prepped on how dark magic worked. They aren't ignorant.

Because Tirek isn't stupid, and all he would have to do is play along until he was set free, just like the mane 6 + spike did. 

 

   Aye, you're quite right. Where does the line end when it comes to where humanity begins? (Wait, can we call it humanity if we're referring to ponies? Don't want to be speciest and leave out entire kinds!)  Even if they can't exactly be killed, its still not a moral choice exactly. Though sacrificing a smaller, city-sized pocket dimension at the expense of an entire planet getting eaten & demolished does sound like the kind of tough choice Celestia has had to go though before.  And no doubt because she has, is why she wouldn't again.

 

   Yyyyye-...yeah....One would have to rewrite the spell to not let him back out then if it came to that, but then it'd be pretty much an entirely different spell that way so.....  Fizzle & Pop. This plan's gone to pot!

         ...What was that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie where they put their violent prisoners into essentially mind control virtual reality? That's gonna bother me now...

 

You're not wrong, but at the same time, this solution doesn't take into account how Celestia would feel. Condemning an entire population of ponies to die, fictional or not, might not be something she'd want on her conscience for the simple fact they're self-aware, even by means of magic. Just look at how people in the Star Trek universe treat holograms. Everyone knows they're not real. That doesn't make the Doctor any less a valued member of the Voyager crew. And it didn't stop Janeway from explaining the Fair Haven characters' entire existence to them when failed subroutines caused them to become aware of everything outside their holodeck program. She could have easily deleted them all when things got out of hand; she chose not to because like real humans, she had too much respect for them.

 

And assuming there are other copies of the same books for these pony characters to thrive in, you can easily compare them to clones. Sure, you can have multiple copies of yourself, but having the ability to create more clones that are aware doesn't provide any moral justification for killing one, directly or otherwise.

 

Now, if this was a video game universe where you could simply reset everything to default conditions at any time, I don't think Celestia would have any qualms sending Tirek there to terrorize ponies until he changed his ways. But until some unicorn does create such a game, I don't see this kind of reformation happening.

To be technical, they could just provide a search for whoever made it and make a very Tartarus-prisoner-friendly version that spits you back up if you happen to not have malicious intentions or results of your actions, and keeps villains in it until they're permanently reformed and it keeps creating new lessons or such to drive home the main message of friendship or such. Starlight Twi Sunburst the original comic enchanter, etc can work on it. Not the biggest of dealios, its as simple as that. Send out a searching spell to find whoever made it. No biggie.

[cider float 2,538]

Less control and knowledge of the magic comic. When you want to imprison a Class A criminal like Tirek you would want to imprison him somewhere you have better knowledge, control and somewhat surveillance to.