Are the princesses really all that powerful?

[Shamira 13]

Not that long ago I watched a video by Lily Peet called Down with Celestia, in it he talked about Celestia's previous failings and how she basically relies on others to get things done. It got me thinking and I've come up with a theory, one I'm sure I've heard before but I'm claiming as my own because I came up with the conclusions myself.

My theory is that Celestia, and by extension Luna, aren't as powerful as they've been built up to be, and that they've been using trickery to make it seem that way. I'm not saying that they're weak either, we do know that they raise the sun and moon, but maybe that is where all their magic is focused. Unicorns like Twilight and Trixie are sort of jacks-of-all-trades, their magic is focused on magic itself rather than one aspect of what magic can do, for example Twilight can cast a gem-finding spell but she isn't as good or a natural at it like Rarity. And I think the same applies to Celestia, her magic is focused on raising and lowering the sun, not offensive magic, and that is why she has been defeated by the big bad villains up until now; she is powerful, she just doesn't have the ability to fight.

Now, some of you may be questioning the 1000 years of peace under Celestia's rule and why she is seen as all powerful if I'm saying she isn't, for that I have two answers, the elements of harmony and bluffing. The elements of harmony are quite obvious, if a large enough threat came along Celestia would just need to use them, but since they were stored away in the castle of the two sisters it either means that Celestia hadn't needed to use them since moving to Canterlot or she had a vision of some sort telling her that she needed to send them back there for Nightmare Moon's return. As for the bluffing, it is a common tactic from history and even present day for someone to lie about how much power they have in order to dissuade anyone from attacking them, and since Celestia raises the sun it's perfectly reasonable to believe that for those 1000 years of peace any force that apposed Celestia were just too afraid of getting beaten to actually take her on.

The reason Celestia is getting beaten so often at this point in time is because the evil she dealt with 1000 years ago is returning and she no longer has the elements of harmony to boost her own power to deal with them.

[cider float 2,539]

Celestia pretending to hold a higher power over others is a common theory that's been circulating around the bronies for a while

[ManaMinori 4,146]

Fun fact: unicorns (acording to Hearths warming eve, and te Journal of te Twi Sisters w we re raising the sun and moon long before sunbutt and Luna were even born

So they're not even that powerful.

[Number62 1,264]

I don't think Twilight even had much fighting experience before meeting Tirek, and she was able to do just fine. She was having little control over her newly gained powers and was also able to use them effectively right when she met Tirek. Or maybe Tirek doesn't know how to fight, either.

 

To answer the question, the princesses (or at least the alicorn sisters) except Twilight aren't that powerful because they never/rarely solve major problems.

 

Whatever the case, it's too bad the showrunners have wasted powerful spellcasters not named Twilight.

[Flamestreak1990 1,202]

Let's not forget Celestia & Luna have in past defeated King Sombra, A more powerful version of Discord, Tirek and likely more real powerful villains that have yet to be revealed. So its likely a case of Celestia & Luna, To a bigger extent Celestia losing their power over all of those years than never actually having it to start with.

Edited January 23, 2016 by Fl@mstre@k1990