True Love or Friendship?

[Old Fluttershy 349]

I've been wondering this for a while now. I always believed that true love is the most powerful magic. But now watching MLP and seeing how powerful friendship can be I'm starting to wonder.

Which is more powerful true love or friendship?

 

Personally I think that true love is still more powerful than friendship mainly because

1. True love is more rare

2. true love saved Equestria once in A Canterlot Wedding. (so it was touched in the series)

 

[Pastel 7,630]

Yeah, I think Love > Friendship was A Canterlot Wedding's moral.

 

But the show is called My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic, so they focus more on friendship than on love.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Blobulle

[Frostgage 7,975]

To be honest, I don't think they're all that different. If you enjoy being around a person, that's all that really matters in my opinion. I've never felt true love, but I do have a number of very close friends who make me happy, so I really don't feel like I'm missing anything.

 

Edit: That awkward moment when I realize this referred to the show.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Frostgage

[Jeric 46,848]

Thank you for providing me the opportunity to use my Princess Bride meme.

 

As a married man with kids ... this is my answer. However I will follow this topic and extend my asnwer in a while when I have time.

 

 

 

[sees the forum this is in]

 

Damn it!

[Anilewe 2,178]

In my opinion, love can't exist without friendship. I want my partner to be first my friend, then my lover. Love is just like the next level of friendship. 

[TenorSounds 832]

I think there's a fair bit of overlap between friendship and love. If anything, they're probably the same thing just wrapped in slightly different vinear. My boyfriend once said to me "In just 9 months, you've become my best friend." and we're very-much in love 

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,159]

Well, I would think you can't have one without the other. I mean, in a relationship, you would have to be friends in a way. The strongest couples are also the closest friends.

[Zefir 34]

Both love and friendship are forms of affection. True love is more powerful, however has a smaller range of one person. Friendship on the other hand is not as powerful, but far more common and accessible.

[Samurai Equine 49,953]

I think I'll go with friendship, especially true, true friendship.

 

If you have true blue friends, you're all ready as close as you can be. Think of the Mane 6. They are as close as can be, and even if they saw each other's darker sides or when they're not at their best (and they have before), they still wouldn't judge. They'd still be best friends, sticking together through thick and thin. With true friends like that, you can always be your true self no matter what, and there will always be acceptance.

 

With love, it's just different. You put your heart on the line, you put so much at risk, and it might not work. I've had my heart broken quite a few times, even when I thought I had found "the one". And if it doesn't work out, good luck being friends. The only time that works out is if it wasn't true love, if the two of you were just dating for fun and not being completely serious about it.

 

I may be a little jaded, but that doesn't mean I've given up on love. I still dream of one day finding that special "somepony" just for me. Getting married, settling down, having children, being there for them, making sure they have a better life than I did. But for now, I'm just a hard luck stallion...

[Inactive01 5,299]

The show's focus is on friendship, given all the morals and lessons that the ponies learn through their relationships, whether it be the Mane 6 interactions or the CMC. However, true love is manifested in many more ways than even friendship covers. Friendship in reality is merely a form of love manifested through what the Greeks called filia, which is brotherly/sisterly love. You see the Mane 6 characters loving each other in a sisterly sense, whether it be through their hugs. The ponies may also feel storge love in just tolerating a pony like Twilight does with Trixie before she became apologetic.

 

However, I feel that true love is manifested in so many more ways than just friendship. Loving your enemy is one such example, where Applejack ends up forgiving Silver Shrill (is that his name?) for putting on costumes to support Flim and Flam's placebo drinking services. And then there's the type of romantic love that's so strong that it defeats what the Elements of Harmony couldn't: the love between a stallion and a mare. It's an interaction of souls that's so perfect and intimate. It's not just the agape, storge, and filia. You add eros, a healthy type of love where two ponies of opposite sex physically desire each other... in an intimate way. I think the show was trying to hint at how powerful marriage's magic can have... a love between a husband and a wife is so special that literally nothing but death will do them part.

 

Friendship is very powerful for sure! Often we have seen that the Elements of Harmony have done so much to save Equestria from the grips of destruction and emptiness. In reality, friendship is the foundation for all love really. You certainly can't get the love you see in marriage without the friendship first! 

 

In conclusion, it really isn't fair to compare the power of friendship with "true love" because first, true love can be manifested in so many ways, from loving your enemy to a simple friendship to marriage. Friendship is the foundation that leads to all other loves, but marital love is so extremely intimate and tight-knit, that nothing will sever it but death.

[Deathstroke 1,564]

In my opinion, love can't exist without friendship. I want my partner to be first my friend, then my lover. Love is just like the next level of friendship. 

So this explains the shipping?

[Commissar Alexer 763]

Well, ask yourself a question: What would be more important to you, your true love or your best friend?

[Derpaholic 1,155]

Friendship is a form of love, too, you know; Platonic love, aka, non-romantic love.

[Anilewe 2,178]

So this explains the shipping?

 

Not really, considering that plenty of ship-fics is about enemy x main character. But if they first become friends and then lovers then it'd make sense. For me love without friendship just isn't a TRUE love. I trust my friends and I love them, though in a non-romantic way. I want this kind of relationship with my partner + passion, lust and all the other elements that make a relationship romantic.

[Venomous 18,859]

I think that love overrides friendship.

 

'The Crystal Empire' is really a good example of it.

Even though the show as a whole is about friendship, I still think that love is more important.

[Gone Airbourne 21,977]

In my opinion, love can't exist without friendship. I want my partner to be first my friend, then my lover. Love is just like the next level of friendship. 

This is a beautiful answer thank you i agree 100%

[Zekromic 1,054]

Friendship, there can't be true love without friendship in the first place. People are misinformed about friendship being exclusively to non related buds, it's can be with anyone, being parent, sibling, cousin, grandparent, teacher, couple, etc, etc, etc. How can you tell your mother "you are my mother, thus, you can't be my friend" sounds awful right? 

[BastementSparkle 20,321]

I don't even view them as anything different really. True love isn't more powerful than friendship at all, because they are essentially the same. The power of love is no different than that of friendship.

 

 I think you can truly love someone in a platonic way. You don't necessarily need romance for it to be true love. If you had two friends who were willing to do anything for each other, even giving up their own lives for one another if needed, and a romantic couple who would do the same., would you really say one relationship is stronger than the other just because of the type of love?

 

 Loving your friends, spouse, kids, parents, pets, or whatever else is all essentially the same. I think it's incredibly shallow to point to just one type of love and say it's the strongest. People are different. Someone's spouse may be the love of their life. But to someone else it may be their brother, or their best friend. They may even love all those different people equally. Differently, but equally.

[Samurai Equine 49,953]

I find it adorable that people are citing the royal wedding episodes as proof that love is greater than friendship.

 

Now don't get me wrong, I'm fine with those episodes, and I've accepted Cadence and Shining as perfectly fine canon characters. However, you have to understand... Those episodes are practically the equivalent of a Disney movie; like The Little Mermaid or something. We never see Cadence and Shining communicating or acting like a real couple. True love is a great idea, but it's not all rainbows and sunshine. Everything doesn't always just fall into place with ease. Oh, you might run into a few rough patches or some hard times, but they won't be in the form of a super villain. You'll just have moments where you and your special "somepony" don't always agree or see eye to eye. You see, TRUE LOVE is about sacrifice, patience, and dedication. And in a romantic relationship, trust me, these things will be put to the test.

 

Friendship, especially true friendship, might also test these things sometimes. But it will get tested in a different capacity.

Edited August 16, 2014 by Samurai Equine

[EpitomeOfTruth 243]

 

 

2. true love saved Equestria once in A Canterlot Wedding. (so it was touched in the series)  

 

 

Yes, but friendship saved Equestria 5 times, also, friendship isn't as easy to manipulate.

[SparklingSquirrels 21,298]

Yeah, I basically agree with Anilewe. My boyfriend is definitely one of my closest friends, especially since we were friends for awhile before we fell in love.

 

I love the rest of my close friends too, and although it's not love in a romantic way, they're really important to me as well.

Edited August 16, 2014 by SparklingSwirls

[Zekromic 1,054]

Yeah, I basically agree with Anilewe. My boyfriend is definitely one of my closest friends, especially since we were friends for awhile before we fell in love.

 

I love the rest of my close friends too, and although it's not love in a romantic way, they're really important to me as well.

I've started to see this friendzone bullshit as....... bullshit  . I mean I don't mind a girl being my friend, or rule out the chance to develop in a romantic relationship, but others find it awful because they only want sex sex and more sex 

[Conred 274]

True love require friendship. So love is a higher power. 

And yes shippers. In this show only good friends are more likely to get shipped

[Admiral Regulus 2,769]

I've never looked at the two differently. As far as I'm aware, true love is just friendship with added benefits.

 

But don't get confused. "Friends with benefits" aren't exactly friends, in my interpretation. I have a very deep definition of friend, and I'm not one to use the term loosely.

[Abia 258]

I don't think the two can really be compared. Both are deep bonds that greatly improve lives, both can hurt and heal and both have the potential to be immensely complicated. I don't think one is more powerful than the other, but I do think they can be more useful in different situations: tape's not good for holding papers together, and paper clips suck at doing basically anything other than that.