Why fans like Luna over Celestia.

[Persona22 205]

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.

Edited September 26, 2015 by Persona22

[Venomous 18,813]

To be honest, I prefer Celestia over Luna.

Luna is just too overrated for my tastes.

[FrozenSpark 47]

Celestia doesn't do anything in the show because it is up to the mane 6 to save the day, Luna was a villain, has 2 episodes of her own and she helped the cutie mark crusaders in their dreams, of course they gonna like Luna over Celestia since she played a bigger role in the show.

[Persona22 205]

Celestia doesn't do anything in the show because it is up to the mane 6 to save the day, Luna was a villain, has 2 episodes of her own and she helped the cutie mark crusaders in their dreams, of course they gonna like Luna over Celestia since she played a bigger role in the show.

 

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.

[TheLegoBrony 382]

easy as pie

 

Luna looks cuter and everypony has been through what luna has been through plus Celestia expects other ponies to do her dirty work.

 

like why didn't celestia just sent tirek away when he was so weak. and what about discord she could of turned him back into stone.

 

see celestia is lazy while Luna does something about stuff.

[Mesme Rize 15,681]

easy as pie

 

Luna looks cuter and everypony has been through what luna has been through plus Celestia expects other ponies to do her dirty work.

 

like why didn't celestia just sent tirek away when he was so weak. and what about discord she could of turned him back into stone.

 

see celestia is lazy while Luna does something about stuff.

 

It's kind of naive to say that Celestia is "Lazy" when she ruled Equestria for the last 1000 years.

[TheLegoBrony 382]

It's kind of naive to say that Celestia is "Lazy" when she ruled Equestria for the last 1000 years.

 

yea she ruled it but I'm talking about when she sent twilight to ponyville, that's when she became lazy

[Mesme Rize 15,681]

yea she ruled it but I'm talking about when she sent twilight to ponyville, that's when she became lazy

 

Then why didn't you say that before? It comes off as you saying, that Celestia is a bad ruler.

[FrozenSpark 47]

yea she ruled it but I'm talking about when she sent twilight to ponyville, that's when she became lazy

Going to Ponyville was the beginning of Twilight's path to becoming the princess of friendship, I think she knew what she was doing.

Edited September 18, 2015 by FrozenSpark

[Swifty 249]

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.

Where there's a will there's a way. The problem is, the staff IS NOT willing to do anything with Celestia. There are so many things you could do with her, but the writers simply dont want to for whatever reasons.

[Melon Blitz 423]

I really wish we could get a Celestia centered episode. She doesn't really have one does she? Luna even got her own recently with "Do Princesses Dream..." episode.

[FrozenSpark 47]

I really wish we could get a Celestia centered episode. She doesn't really have one does she? Luna even got her own recently with "Do Princesses Dream..." episode.

And don't forget about "Luna Eclipsed", I really want a Celestia episode.

[Thunderlane 550]

I'd say I prefer Luna to Celestia, but I still believe that Celestia herself is underrated as a character.

[yeet 2,026]

Cause she is dark purple, that's why people like twilight, not the character, the purple. XD

[Goat-kun 2,498]

Celestia is Inverse Flash:

People argue that Flash Sentry could have been made into a compelling character if only he’d get more screen time while disregarding the fact that he had been created solely to be Twilight’s incompatible little boy toy  and can be easily converted into a Mary Sue by giving him any sort of relevance. Others argue that Celestia is a bad character because she doesn’t get any screen time, then go further and say that she’s boring because she has been given no other purpose than to be a token queen who briefs Twilight. I guess all she needs now is a tight yellow costume.

 

Luna is Dat Angsty & Depressed Dark Magical Girl:

You know, that obligatory brooding dudette with a dark past, dark clothing, a scarred heart, a serious need for antidepressants, daddy/mommy issues, and who has once been an enemy only to be beaten & befriended by our heroes. Yeah, that one. People flock to them like bears to vanilla ice cream. It’s not your fault, it’s not their fault, it’s just how it works. Other compelling qualities then sprout from fanfiction and the circle is complete. Popular character guaranteed!

 

The Paragon:

The problem I see here is the fact that Diomedes is kind of a side character who hangs out with Odysseus and kills people, Superman is an uninspired bundle of idealistic jibber-jabber produced by equally uninspired industry of his time, and Celestia is an alicorn princess in MLP, a show which should arguably be better constructed than either Iliad or Superman. Besides, I don’t think she is like Diomedes but more like an Olympian deity. If you know anything about Olympians, then you understand how active these gods were, constantly meddling in mortal affairs while being described with quite human faults and weaknesses. Celestia is the same, and she is the same in the fact than we still like to distance these mythological powerhouses from mortal realms by making them more lofty and unapproachable (or useless) than they truly are, cause, you know, writing stuff with such guys in the mix is a major pain for a lot of writers who do not appreciate or understand their divine dynamics.

 

TL; DR: Celestia is not a paragon of harmony. She is just underdeveloped cause Larson is too confused by the fact he can’t duct tape more wings to her body.

[Guest]

While you bring up a lot of interesting and thought out points, I think you may be reading too far into it. Let's be honest here: a lot of people just base their like on cuteness. Celestia isn't cute, she's your mom telling you to stop reaching into the cookie jar. Luna is your dorky sheltered little sister who gets herself into trouble because of how naive she is.

[PROJECT: Simon 3,953]

Probably because Luna had more action in the show..? I don't know xD '~' <3 

[Busker 42]

I think it's very self-explanatory. 

Luna is a MUCH more developed and interesting character than Celestia. I'm not saying Celestia is bad, but Luna is just plain better. She shows emotion and a very rich personality, when Celestia is just a god with not a lot of personality to her (so far).

[CookieK 74]

I prefer Celestia,I don't mind Luna but her fans are just as bad as Fluttershy fans.  

[Mesme Rize 15,681]

I think what it also comes down to, is that the fandom like to portray Celestia as a ruthless tyrant, that needs to be punished. Especially because she treated Luna badly.

 

That's why fractions like the Solar Empire and the new Lunar Republic exist in the fandom.

 

Tyrantlestia is the worst headcanon that i know of.

[Guest]

Every time this fandom seems to do an in depth analysis like this it usually just boils down to the fact that people are overanalyzing what is usually a very simple explanation in hopes of trying to find some kind of deeper meaning that isn't there. Psychology is based upon pseudo-science after all, and a majority of psychologists who paved the way for the field have been proven horrendously wrong many times over. Ironically the only thing that I think Freud (may have, as it's never been confirmed) said that made sense was "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". In other words: sometimes there is no deeper meaning behind something.

 

In this case, Luna gets entire episodes focused around her, Celestia does not. Luna is clearly made out to be very "cute" at first in that she is naive and prone to childish tendencies, Celestia is far less so. Up to this point Celestia (shy of a few break out moments) has been portrayed as an elegant ruler who is more of a motherly figure, so naturally people don't like her as much because she's just a prop. She's merely used as an asset to the story and not part of the story like Luna is. Entire episodes have focused around Luna, her past, her present, her growth and her nature. Celestia has not really had any episodes of the sort. Celestia is treated more like a background character, so naturally people are more prone to fall in love with characters that they see more often and that are fleshed out more.

 

There is no Superman dilemma or any real psychology behind it. I wish people would stop overanalyzing a cartoon intended for young children and insist that it being for children does not mean there are deeper intentions involved. Yes, that is exactly what it means. It means it's not intended to be analyzed beyond a surface level. If the writers had intended deeper meanings to characters and episodes doesn't anyone think that they may have come forward and stated it by now? in Steven Universe, when asked if a character was romantic with a character of the same gender, one of the writers came forward and stated it was intentional and that they wanted the show to focus on all kinds of love and not just traditional love. A similar occurrence happened with Legend of Korra where the writers came forward and blatantly stated that the ending was intentionally meant to be interpreted as a lot of fans interpreted.

 

To my knowledge, Hasbro has never made any kind of statement regarding 90% of the stuff people seem to analyze, including Celestia being purposefully portrayed in this manner to allude to the Superman dilemma. It could all merely be explained by coincidence. Given the target audience, I am highly doubting any of this was intentional.

['Tia Leaf 200]

First off...WOW. That was a read. Though one that I enjoyed. You obviously put a lot of thought into it, and I must say it is really impressive.

 

Secondly, I myself prefer Celestia over Luna. I have an insanely large crush on her, and do wish she had an episode to herself. One that perhaps delved a little more into who she is, or was even. She could not have always been this soft spoken motherly figure. Surely she was a kid once, right? Made some mistakes, learned from them, became the wise ruler she is.

 

I am super curious about what makes her tick. Being immortal seems like it is quite rough, watching the world go by, ponies coming and going in your life, never growing attached to anyone out of fear of losing them. There is a lot you can learn in such a long time, but I would think it would get to you after awhile. Yet she keeps going. She continues to be that beacon of hope for Equestria, the wise ruler that ponies look to for guidance.

[Persona22 205]

Every time this fandom seems to do an in depth analysis like this it usually just boils down to the fact that people are overanalyzing what is usually a very simple explanation in hopes of trying to find some kind of deeper meaning that isn't there. Psychology is based upon pseudo-science after all, and a majority of psychologists who paved the way for the field have been proven horrendously wrong many times over. Ironically the only thing that I think Freud (may have, as it's never been confirmed) said that made sense was "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". In other words: sometimes there is no deeper meaning behind something.

 

 

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.

[Singe 2,109]

I find Princess Celestia and Princess Luna much better in the comics than in the show.

[DeadAccount 4,603]

I am also one who prefers Celestia over Luna. Celestia really needs her own episode and I find Luna to be a tad overrated.