Poison Truffle

Ultimately, I think that we don't have enough information yet. For example, how long can changelings go without love, and what happens if they don't have it. Chrysalis likens in to food, whereas Cadenza just says that they consume it to get stronger. It made me wonder, among other things, if Changelings need it to use/increase their powers, rather then to survive. But even if they do, I still would classify her as evil for her methods, as their needlessly cruel. Actually, I really don't understand what the plan was. I've seen some people point out that making the threat was counterproductive, since it led to the shield in the first place, and theorizing that she might have just taken advantage of someone else's threat. Personally I think that she made it, as it led to Shining Armor, who is a master of defensive magic and so may have been able to shrug off the mind control normally, to be at a weaker state. It also put Celestia and Luna on constant vigil, wearing them down for days so that, even if Shining Armor's love wasn't as strong as Chrysalis thought, she'd still have the advantage in a fight. But I don't understand why she'd take over Canterlot. We've seen nothing about Changelings being able to extract love, they have to receive it willingly, so what benefit comes from capturing everyone? The only thing that makes sense to me, is that they were trying to establish a capital. We know that she plans to take over all of Equestria, and a base would be useful, but that just goes in more with my theory that these changelings are lazy. In my mind, there are overall three kinds of changelings. The first would copy a pony's appearance, but create their own identity with it, go somewhere else, and earn their own love. Of course, depending on how long they can go without it, they may need to act as a "migratory" changeling for a while. That's the second type. This one would, for example, go into a mall where a couple is, and wait for one to leave. Then they'd walk up to the pony as their loved one, chat a bit, feed off enough to get through the day, and then leave, the two probably being a bit confused when the real one gets back, but no harm done. As far as we know, a substantial chunk of ponyville could be either of these type of changelings without it ever affecting the series. They could go public, but I assume most are either scared of the reaction, or just don't see any need to. And that gets us into Chrysalis' changelings. Of course they could also be from somewhere outside Equestria, based on one comment, and so the only changelings, but either way both of the above would be options for ways they could live. And even if we go with the predator/prey relationship discussed, they go past it. A good example is with some vampires. Biting a single person every few nights to survive, the human won't like that very much, but it's how you survive. Rounding up all of humanity and putting them into farms to exist only as sources of blood, that is evil. Once again, I don't understand what the plan was, but based off capturing everypony, that's probably along the lines of what they had in mind. Feeding off pony's love doesn't make her evil, and trying to take over Equestria doesn't really make her evil either (afterall, Celestia and Luna took it from Discord), it's how she goes about it, and what kind of world she intends to make, and both seem to be needlessly cruel.