Persona22

I do admit that there was a lot of analysis of what Celestia represents as an idea and such things. Basically, because every single character in every single work of fiction can be reduced to a trope or concept. The Hero, the Anti Hero, the Villain, the Anti Villain, and so on and so forth. Celestia fits into a trope, but so does Luna, and Discord, and Twilight, and Rarity, and Rainbow Dash... But the main reason I did that analysis is to try and find an explanation as of why most people like Luna over her. And I do also understand that for some people it would be a different reason, or have an opposite opinion. My goal was to try and find a common ground. And if the post creates a good debate about how and why Characters are the way they are, even better.

So apparently, Pinkie's cake is becoming a meme... https://www.derpiboo.ru/989921?scope=scpe67d595674d3c76eab7e30abb718b3e854f118c0d Here, go nuts:

So, when Sunset yelled at Human Twilight for the whole portal opening during the race thing, do you think she was yelling at her, or at HERSELF?

That's totally true. However, no writer for either TV, comics or movies will EVER make a story about THAT point of view of Superman.

While I completely agree with most of what you said, the thing is that I was trying to analyze is why the FANS liked Luna over Celestia, by analyzing how Celestia is portrayed in the show by Hasbro's writers. Not what Celestia is supposed to be or if she represents some deeper meaning. Just how her character is used in the show. The comparsions used were for ease of explanation.

Celestia doesn't do anything on the show because there is nothing left for her TO DO. Nothing except being nice to everyone and do Princess stuff. Luna has a lot of things to make up to and self discovery to pursue.

In different episodes of Friendship is Magic we have seen plenty of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna to understand that they are both equal when it comes to how powerful they are, they both have a lot of magical powers, they both are ancient alicorns and they can both move celestial bodies at will. However, most fans of the show would say that, of the two, they like Pirncess Luna more than Princess Celestia. Let's analyze why with this three points: 1. The Superman Dilemma. Anyone ever read The Illiad? If you didn't then it's almost entirely about Achilles being really, really angry and killing a lot of people. The son of a goddess and destined for glory, Homer won't shut up about how awesome Achilles is and how he has no equal. Achilles is, in all respects, a superhero before superheroes existed. But unless you're a person that enjoys every single little detail of every work of literature, you probably don't remember that there's one other Greek warrior who consistently and quietly proves throughout the entire epic poem to be just as great if not greater than Achilles. His name is Diomedes, and understanding why he's so forgettable is crucial to understanding why fans don't really care about Princess Celestia. Diomedes is essentially Achilles without the existential crisis. He is younger, smarter, and more consistent. He defeats everyone he faces, and when he runs out of Trojans to kill because the war is over, he starts fighting and injuring gods instead. Not even Achilles can make that claim, because he dies right at the end of the Trojan war. When talking about Diomedes, the Trojans say, "He fights with fury and fills men's souls with panic. I hold him mightiest of them all; we did not fear even their great champion Achilles, son of a goddess though he be, as we do this man: His rage is beyond all bounds." And while you may have never heard of him before now, you can still see the Diomedes archetype pop up again and again in pop culture: Legolas in The Lord of the Rings, Snake Eyes in G.I. Joe, and especially Superman in the DC universe. And of course, Princess Celestia in My Little Pony. They are the people (and pony) who are reliable, morally uncomplicated, and generally superior to all the other characters. While we love them, we will never be willing to watch an entire movie, an entire comic book, or an entire TV show made about them and only them. Why? Because those characters are pillars of solidarity, they are ideals, but unfortunately they have nowhere left to go. For an audience, at least an adult audience, we want the central character to change for the better by the end of a story. We want someone who is deeply broken, who is struggling to keep himself or herself together in the face of adversity, and most importantly, we want a character who isn't invincible. We love Princess Luna and Batman because they are driven by complicated, selfish emotions like guilt and revenge to do extraordinary things under the constant looming threat of them being less than perfect. Superman is what each of those characters would look like divorced of any such threat or ugly motivation. Is it still heroism to leap into a burning building when you know it can't hurt you? That is the Superman Dillema. True with Diomedes in ancient Greece, and true now. We aren't nearly as interested in acts of heroism as we are in the madness it takes for vulnerable people, or pony, to become heroes. The only way to fit Princess Celestia into that mold is to strip away some of her perfect traits, but the problem with that is ... 2. Princess Celestia stops being Princess Celestia as soon as she has a defect. The moment Princess Celestia is no longer a paragon of absolute virtue and wisdom, it negates everything she stands for as a character. Quick, what are Princess Celestia's special abilities? Flight, magic, solar power (we suppose), moving the sun around, but what about the intangible power she possesses? Arguably the biggest part of what makes Princess Celestia Princess Celestia is that she maintains an incorruptible moral fiber and an urge to help and guide ponies despite her overwhelming superiority over all of them. Like standing on top of an ant hill while they all bite you and each other, Princess Celestia has the patience to try to help them every day. It is the one thing separating her from other super powerful characters like Princess Luna or Discord: Given the potential to control the world, Princess Celestia never succumbs to ego, or entitlement, or even objective detachment, because she has a sort of super humility. Despite everything she's seen (and being over 1000 years old, she must have seen some really heavy stuff), she stays compassionate towards mortal, non-alicorn ponies, but that compassion only means something as long as she possesses the power to destroy everyone on a whim if she felt like it. The moment Princess Celestia starts being a jerk that power of character that makes Princess Celestia a symbol of greatness is suddenly gone. A story writer forcing her to falter is actually ruining the best part of who Princess Celestia is. And the worst part is that she not only has power in the form of her being an Alicorn, she also has power in the form of her being a Princess. Which brings us to the third point... 3. She must never have a defect. I mentioned Superman before because he is basically a character that shares a lot of traits with Princess Celestia, but even Superman has an interesting side: Is he doing the right thing? Can he solve every problem? Superman has super powers, but a man who can travel faster than a speeding bullet still can't be everywhere at once, which suggests that somewhere there are people dying in warehouse explosions and mass murders and roofing accidents every single day because he's busy stopping a giant meteor from hitting Earth or fighting Lex Luthor. For every person he saves, there are hundreds more, some of them children, taking their last breath while staring hopefully at empty skies waiting for Superman to show up. Superman can't help but set a precedent he can never live up to. From the first time he stopped a bridge from collapsing or diverted a tornado from a town, he instilled a false hope among people: That Superman will save them. That means that every day, even if he never bothered to put on glasses and go to work again at The Daily Planet, Superman is still letting down hundreds if not thousands of people. Add on top of that everyone who is dying of societal problems that are beyond his capacity to fix: homelessness, diseases, hunger... There's no way Superman can stop homelessness, disease, teen suicide, or domestic abuse. How could he? One of his powers isn't lobbying local politicians. He holds no political power. He can't give homeless people a home. Princess Celestia rules Equestria, she can totally do that. In fact she did, when she gave land to the Apple family and they settled and started making Zap Apple Jam and helped found Ponyville in the process. She runs the place. If there is hunger, she can divert state funds to plant more crops and provide food to the hungry. If there is disease she can divert state funds to build more hospitals. If there is homelessness she can grant state owned land to build more houses. There is no problem Princess Celestia cannot resolve if she wanted to. She has all the magical power she needs, all the political power she needs, and all the time she needs (because she's immortal) to solve every single problem of every single pony living in Equestria, all the time. And she does. Princess Luna couldn't handle that, she wanted more attention and turned into Nightmare Moon. Now she's back, she understands her mistakes, and tries to make amends all the time of her past actions. Discord was a villain, he has so much magic that he can do whatever he wants, he eventually realized that there are more important things in life and reformed with the help of Fluttershy, and now is starting to learn what it actually means to be a good friend and a good character. Princess Celestia needs to be free of defects, because the moment she starts having one, then she simply becomes like Princess Luna or Discord. Princess Celestia is what characters that also have all the power of magic, and immortality, aspire to be like. She is a role model, and cannot stop being one, because when she does the whole thing falls apart. Princess Luna doesn't have that kind of "pressue". She has the same power of Celestia, both magical and political, but she is struggling to become good, to improve herself, to be like her sister. She has a road to travel, and we like seeing her traveling it, we relate to that. Princess Celestia is already at the end of that road, she has no more growth to have. By design, Luna is relatable and therefore more likable. And by design, Celestia is unrelatable, and therefore less likable.

I just found out something about the Friendship Games...

Anyone seen shorts 3, 4 and 5? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5aJNKmbkG0 Here's the other one (apparently only two videos fit in one post) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU41R_f9YQU

So, anyone else was thinking this when they saw it?

People of this fandom sometimes...

I noticed that a lot of people are freaking out at Moon Dancer being a palette swap with Twilight Sparkle. Not only I don't mind it, but I find it kind of clever. Just think about it. The mane 6 are two unicorns, two pegasi and two Earth ponies. (Well, Twilight is an Alicorn now, but you get what I mean) The, let's call them, Canterlot 6 are all unicorns. So we have pairs of twos as well. Lemon Hearts and Twinkle Shine are palette swaps of each other. Minuette and Lyra Heartstrings are palette swaps of each other. And Twilight Sparkle and Moon Dancer are palette swaps of each other.

Seriously... they are way too into those books.

Starlight Glimmer! She is following Twilight Sparkle around, incognito!

This came to my mind when I saw that scene in the episode

In "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" we learn that the country of the girffons is basically in the verge of collapse: No governemnt, infrastructure gone, no sense of nation at all. But in the episode "Rainbow Falls" and then later in "Equestria Games" we saw Griffons competing. Where we see them even having a flag. However, the name of the event is "EQUESTRIA Games". It is clearly only memmbers of Equestria that can compete. Now, here's my theory: What if after the Griffon King fell from power from losing the Golden Idol, and the nation of Griffinstone began to collapse, one of the cities that formed it, a city populated by Griffons, but close to the Equestrian border, decided to leave Griffinstone and join Equestria as one of their city/states or whatever one would call how different cities of Equestria work. Because then in "Princess Spike" we see one Griffon among the different representatives of the different cities that make up Equestria. The statue they made was built with the jewels that each representative gave to make it. And the ones that gave those jewels were explicity described in the episode as cities that were part of Equestria. What do you think? Are the griffons that competed in the Equestria Games, and the City that gave that jewel for the statue, a Griffon city near the border of Equestria that left Griffonstone when the government there collapse and joined Equestria?

What is life? Is it the endless quest for a cutie mark?

I was re-watching the episode when something came to my mind. Despite of the huge fandom this show has, the show is made, in esscence, for little kids. The show is to adress issues that little kids may face in their lives growing up, and tries to present them with a solution, or at least have them confront said problem. Now, regardless of what you might think, communism, or even the idea of what communism is, is not something that might affect little kids. So, what was the episode about then? Then I remembered an old news article I read a few years ago: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/preps/basketball/2009-01-25-coach-fired_N.htm We live in a society that, more and more often, has our youth trying to be the same in all aspects so nobody would feel left behind. A coach that has a team that wins 100 to 0 is fired. Kids get "participant" trophies all the time. Then this So, maybe, the episode was not about communism, or anything of that nature. Starlight Glimmer is the society that sees excellence as a bad thing, being talented is frowned upon, being proud of your achievements is bad. You must comform, you must become less of what you are so the rest of society is happy. Then comes Twilight, saying that no, it's not wrong to be talented, its okay to be good at something as long as you don't bully others or try to push them down in your quest to reach the top. To be great at something is amazing and it should be cultivated. Being proven wrong, or being beaten at something, is not bad, because it provides you with an opportunity of growth. But when Starlight Glimmer is confronted by this, she shuts Twilight up. She will not change her mind. The episode (episodes) are not about communism. They are a critisims on our educational system and society as a whole that pushes down kids so the other, less talented kids will not feel left behind, instead of encouraging those other kids to do better so as to reach or even surpass those that are great at things. This little video kind of explains it better. What do you think?

Amethyst Star: I used to be the best organizer in all of Ponyville. You bet I'll—

So, you watch the episode and its all like... Derpy being adorable... Derpy being adorable... DERPY BEING ADORABLE!

Okay, now this scene: Is it a reference to "Ponies with hats"? (Jump to 45 seconds into the video)

Do you realize what this means... LYRA is the NORMAL one of the two.

In case you live somewhere that the show doesn't air, or have no cable, or whatever, here's a link to watch, or download, the episode http://www.mediafire.com/watch/u21ks5esfl8p1ex/sliceoflife.mp4

Something that the scene reminded me of.