Should Luna Have Been A Bat-Pony?

[Denim&Venöm 18,723]

Since she is princess of the night and we saw her chariot being pulled by Thestrals in Luna Eclipsed, would it have made more sense for Luna to have been a bat pony?

 

 

 

[Buck Testa 5,505]

Not really. She is an Alicorn not a thestral. Now flutters on the other hand, I would love to see her go batty when she rages, nothing scarier then a shy little mare sprouting fangs and flipping on the mailman again lol.

[silvadel 1,393]

No because that detracts from the lesson.  If she looked a monster then the whole ponies avoiding her night would have lost a lot of punch/sympathy.

[ghostfacekiller39 23,860]

No. I think I heard somewhere that those weren't even actual bat ponies pulling her carriage thingy, they were pegasi fitted with suits, but I'm not for certain so don't take that as if it's fact.

 

Anyway, no - just because she's princess of the night and has bat pony slaves carriage puller-thing-ponies doesn't say much about why she should be a bat pony permanently. If anything, that concept being stretched out over a long period of time would deteriorate the quality of her character and every episode she'd appear in because of how far fetched it'd be. If anything, it'd be a cooler character design but giving serious dialogue to something like that would make it a bit less serious and take away from her depth. 

It'd also be a bit overly-complex. If you try to complicate things too much, it gets confusing and hard to follow - which is why I like complex simplicity, and MLP executes that perfectly with the 3 major races (plus an OP race for royals) and simple designs, color schemes, and (occasionally) simple plotlines. It makes up for it's simplicity by counter-balancing that with a degree of character development and dialogue - and that's why we've got a show that is popular with all ages - it's simple yet complex.

 

If you start taking things and throwing complex things like changing Luna from an alicorn to a bat pony permanently, there'd be so much left unsaid. Why is she a bat pony but her sister isn't? That's a bit strange. So they'd have to delve into their family background and that'd just over-complicate things and take away from the main focus of the show - that being the mane 6 - in order to give the fans the explanation of why Luna is a Bat Pony and Celestia, her sister, isn't. You could follow it up by saying that one parent was a bat pony and the other was an alicorn, but that'd just be something the writers pulled out of their ass so they could give one character a unique race and that'd be far from the quality writing we see in FiM - which is especially necessary with cartoons like "Breadwinners" and "Sanjay and Craig" being aired, because the vast majority of cartoons out there today are stupid. Back on topic, that wouldn't work.

 

So why not just make her princess of the night and not have them be related? Then you'd have no emotional conflict in Luna nor Celestia when Luna became Nightmare Moon and got banished from the moon and Celestia would have no reason to keep a threat like her around, especially since her power was corrupted, so we wouldn't even have Luna around, for the most part - if they decided to shoehorn her in, it wouldn't work. Shoehorning never works.

 

Do you see what I'm saying? They'd have to restructure so much about the show as it is as well as its lore (and this show has been very successful with the current writing formula) just to shoehorn one character concept in there - and this concept doesn't even apply to a major character.

So, no. She shouldn't have been a bat pony. It'd do no good and would really just damage quality.

 

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,161]

Honestly, Fluttershy's example aside, are bat-ponies even canon in the first place? The only non-Fluttershy example we see in the show was in Luna Eclipsed. We never see hide nor hair of them again.

 

As @ghostfacekiller39 mentioned, it had been thought that the stallions pulling Luna's chariot weren't even bat-ponies at all. Maybe they had suits are maybe it was some Nightmare Night magic; it's difficult to say, and unless one of the writing staff says something, it will be something left to fan speculation.

[Nulln 755]

No, she's an alicorn.  The bat ponies were just her carriage pullers, possible servants.  They probably live on the moon.

[Luna 831 466]

no heck no she should not have been a bat pony .no