Why does Twilight idolize Celestia so much?

[Hazy Skies 1,010]

After see the latest episode (The premiere), i had a thought after Twilight was talking about
being he being a teacher to Starlight and how Celestia was her.. It got me thinking..
 
Why does Twilight idolize Celestia so much?
 
We all know how obsessed Twilight is with Celestia and how nervous she is about gaining her approval in things.. But one of the things we're not really told is WHY Twilight is this way, and what started this kind of behavior.. We know that Twilight is her student and all, but why so obsessed or concerned about her?
 
Did Celestia do something really nice for Twilight in the past?
Does Twilight owe Celestia some kind of life dept?

When did this kind of behavior of Twilight start?

Why is it just Twilight that is affected with this obsession?
 
So many questions left unanswered..
What's your take on it all?

Edited April 1, 2016 by AURAequine

[Concerned Bystander 2,903]

She studied under her for years and looks up to her as a mentor.  Add to this her obsession with academic success and quantifying everything and it's only natural that she should seek constant validation from her teacher.

 

For another example of the same behaviour, look at JD's idolisation of Dr Cox in 'Scrubs'.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Concerned Bystander

[Luminance 2,186]

I believe that it's actually Celestia who's idolizing Twilight! She saw Twilight from afar in the entrance exam stunned by her magical abilities and Twilight also helped brought back Princess Luna with her friends using the elements. Furthermore, saved her brother's wedding, reformed Discord, help save an entire empire, defeated Tirek, and reform a equalist pony ought to seek destruction of all of Equestrian life.

 

I too would be amazed at Twilight. Celestia even knows it even by giving her the role of Princess and wings! Basically the teacher has became the student.

[weesh 690]

Your question is framed from the "what did celestia do to be so honored?" angle, but a more pointed question would be: "why does Twilight create so much distance with that honor when Celestia is trying so hard to be personal and intimate!?"

 

All the honor and distance is twilight created.  
Celestia has done so many things to deepen their relationship, and Twilight works so hard to build up that wall.  She is SHOCKED when Celestia isn't mad at her.  She puts her up on a pedestal and freaks everyone out about not disappointing her...completely unnecessarily!  twilight panics when Celestia tries to break the ice with jokes!  

 

Its really very sad to me.  I feel that celestia is worthy of honor, but she also deserves to have real friendships too!  Peeps who will treat her like an equal, would be willing to disagree, etc.

 

 

I believe that it's actually Celestia who's idolizing Twilight!

 

That is true, and Twilight is completely blind to it.  I think if she realized that Celestia's regard for twilight was as high as her own for Celestia, their relationship could be closer.

Edited April 1, 2016 by weesh

[#1 Flutterfan 174]

Confucious said something along the lines of "The master, when with those in the village he grew up in, speaks with ease. The master, to those with similar rank, speaks casually. But the master, to those of higher rank, spoke with honor and nervousness."

 

Honestly--it's no different than how you would talk to your boss. You should respect your boss, you should be able to be casual. But you should always be nervous--still. You shouldn't drop that guard.

 

Now, what would happen if Twilight treated Celestia like she does ANY other pony?

 

Nothing would change, but would Twilight view Celestia the same way if she did this? I don't think so.

 

What would happen if you met Laura Faust in real life? Would you talk to her like you do your friends--or would you be so nervous that you forgot how to talk to anypony properly? That you don't want to say the wrong thing so you don't make a mistake and lose ALL that hard work that you invested.

[Justin_Case001 4,907]

Some very good answers already.  But I kind of want to steer the conversation in a slightly different direction, just for a moment, if I may.  The premiere got me thinking about something as well.  We have these ambiguous lines by the sisters that seem to imply that they were not born alicorns, but as I already covered ad nauseum elsewhere, did not actually confirm or deny anything.  They might well be natural born alicorns, and I believe they are.  But the point I want to make now is this: doesn't it seem strange that Twilight never asked Celestia anything about her past?  Given their relationship, and Twilight's adoration of Tia, you'd think at some point she would have inquired about the sisters' origin.  I realize that Twilight read the same Journal of the Sisters that we did, but that thing doesn't answer much.  It answers the question of how they became princesses of Equestria.  We still know nothing of their origin.  Don't you think, being the curious little dickens that she is, Twi would have asked, "Hey, where do you two actually come from?  Were you born alicorns, or did you transform like me?  Who were your parents?  Were they alicorns too?  Were there other alicorns besides you two?"  But Twilight never asks anything.  It seems very strange a little unsettling to me.  There's some omissions of information in this show that get more sinister the more you think about it.  Like, maybe if somepony asks the sisters where they came from, that pony mysteriously "disappears" without a trace, and is never heard of again.  Maybe there's something deep and sinister going on underneath pony society.  (#TheWickerMare)  But seriously, being rulers of Equestria, it seems like the sisters' origin would be common knowledge, really.  The unfortunate answer is just the ol' "kid's show" thing.  It's a good show, but given their target audience, they don't worry too much about this kind of lore, because they know the children won't ask or care.  I don't want them to gear the show towards us or anything, but I'd really love it if they just put a bit more care into lore, backstory, continuity, and the like.  The lack of these things is sometimes rather disturbing to me.

 

 

She studied under her for years and looks up to her as a mentor.

And that's a really complete answer to the OP's question.  There really isn't anything more to it than that.  But I've always wished for more Celestia development.  Let me rephrase that.  I wish for any Celestia development, period.  Moreover, I'd love some development of the relationship between the two of them, Tia and Twi.  I almost feel like it's a little late, in a way.  I would have loved to have seen more emotions and more relationship throughout the course of the show.  I always wanted Tia to be a more central part of the show than she ended up being.  If that had been the case, maybe we would have seen much more real, firsthoof, emotional reasons why Twi idolizes her.  Here's an idea, perhaps Celestia could have arranged to share a meal one on one with a different student each week, until she's sat down and really talked with all of them at some point, much the way Captain Archer would invite a crew member to the captain's mess each week until he'd visited with all of them at least once.  I always liked that idea.  I wanted some scenes like that in the show.  Y'know, Tia and Twi having tea or something, and having a real conversation.  Not a necessary conversation because Equestria's in jeopardy again.  No, just a real conversation to get to know each other better.  #TeaWithTwi&Tia.

 

 

Your question is framed from the "what did celestia do to be so honored?" angle, but a more pointed question would be: "why does Twilight create so much distance with that honor when Celestia is trying so hard to be personal and intimate!?"

 

All the honor and distance is twilight created.  
Celestia has done so many things to deepen their relationship, and Twilight works so hard to build up that wall.  She is SHOCKED when Celestia isn't mad at her.  She puts her up on a pedestal and freaks everyone out about not disappointing her...completely unnecessarily!  twilight panics when Celestia tries to break the ice with jokes!  

 

Its really very sad to me.  I feel that celestia is worthy of honor, but she also deserves to have real friendships too!

Holy crap, that's right!  I never thought of it from that point of view.  Right there, right there is the perfect opportunity for Tia development.  You could have a spotlight where we learn that Tia is actually pretty lonely.  She has her sister, true, but she wants some real friends, too.  She tries to get closer to ponies, but they all treat her like Zeus on Olympus, and not like a real pony with feelings.  She wants the kinds of friendships Twilight has.  She's tried to be more intimate with Twilight, but Twilight has always kept this wall between them, because she values Tia's approval so much.  Twi only sees Tia as goddess-like figure, someone to be revered and possibly even feared, but Tia wishes Twi would see her as an equal and true friend.  Maybe Tia wishes she could join the six for a slumber party!  It's a funny image, when you think about it.  So strange and unbecoming a pony of such prestige, but does that mean that she isn't entitled to such friendships?  Just an idea.  There's so many places you could go with ideas like this.

 

#TiaSpotlightNowOrMyHeadASplode

[Moonlight 7,288]

@

 

Hello there!

 

As this thread has to do with discussion over characters in the show, I have moved it to Show Discussion

[ElectronicGamerBrony 18]

Well to Twilight Sparkle, Celestia is both her teacher and someone of royal importance, and when Celestia started giving her tasks such as reporting back about friendship and helping save the world, Twilight most likely didn't know how to normally approach all these new events. Her life suddenly became something like a big test, and she didn't want to fail her friends or her teacher, however she probably thought that her friends would accept her mistakes more than Celestia would. Heck she worried about Fluttershy being throwed in jail over Philomena, but did that actually happen? Nope it sure didn't, she overreacted to failure towards Celestia, even if it wasn't her own doing.

 

Everypony else, including Twilight's friends knows that Celestia is important, but they don't worry about her and what she does and such unless they have a real significant reason to. Twilight worries about what can happen and what Celestia could do, and makes it seem like if things doesn't turn out the way she believes it should be, then Celestia's reaction would be severe no matter what in the end. Twilight just didn't know how to handle it all, I'm sure none of her lessons or books would even come close to preparing her for what was in store for her, she had to rely on who she is and what she knew to get through it all. I wouldn't be surprised if Twilight studied and read about Celestia to try and figure her out like she does for questions she comes across that are difficult to answer on their own.

 

There's many variables to why Twilight would react to Celestia like she does, Twilight being the way she is, and Celestia being as important as she is (her role as a Princess), I guess the real question is would things have been the same if she didn't overreact like she does? Perhaps things wouldn't have turned out much differently, but it's just the way she is, no one makes her act that way on purpose, she just does it on her own.

[Swifty 249]

Your question is framed from the "what did celestia do to be so honored?" angle, but a more pointed question would be: "why does Twilight create so much distance with that honor when Celestia is trying so hard to be personal and intimate!?"

 

All the honor and distance is twilight created.

Celestia has done so many things to deepen their relationship, and Twilight works so hard to build up that wall. She is SHOCKED when Celestia isn't mad at her. She puts her up on a pedestal and freaks everyone out about not disappointing her...completely unnecessarily! twilight panics when Celestia tries to break the ice with jokes!

This may sound lame, but Cadance, Discord and now Starlight Glimmer are more important to the staff. There is no room for Twilight/Celestia interaction.

 

 

There was even a scene in Amending Fences, where Twilight asked Celestia for help. This scene was cut, of course. Pinkie's part was sooo much more important, because not a single pony else can organize parties in Canterlot and Luna Fan M.A.Larson certainly had not any trouble to decide what scene was left to cut from the episode.

[weesh 690]

This may sound lame, but Cadance, Discord and now Starlight Glimmer are more important to the staff. There is no room for Twilight/Celestia interaction.

 

To be fair, I bet Celestia is really hard to write.  Unless you have some sort of conspiracy therory about how she is secretly evil/controlling, etc, then she really doesn't have any interesting flaws to use in a story.  Most of her good characterization is in the comics books.  

 

I'd have prefered that they writer her a bit more "human", that is, fallible.  

 

edit: lol!  EVERYONE'S an alicorn for april fools day!

Edited April 1, 2016 by weesh

[Swifty 249]

To be fair, I bet Celestia is really hard to write. Unless you have some sort of conspiracy therory about how she is secretly evil/controlling, etc, then she really doesn't have any interesting flaws to use in a story. Most of her good characterization is in the comics books.

 

I'd have prefered that they writer her a bit more "human", that is, fallible.

 

edit: lol! EVERYONE'S an alicorn for april fools day!

hmm. I don't buy it, that Celestia is really so hard to write while they can do it with Luna multiple times. And if there is something the writers have no trouble with, then it is to show Celestia to be fallible. They are taking the easy way out imo. Edited April 1, 2016 by Swifty

[Phanact 333]

Stockholm Syndrome, I'm sure.

[Discord 274]

Well, you see...

 

There's this small, almost insignificant patch located on Twilight Sparkle's face, right on the end of her muzzle, that all but DEMANDS to remain covered as much as possible.  Without it being covered-up, then normal ponies could begin to see exactly how obnoxious Book Horse is, and possibly throw her out... which is why she keeps it covered with the most MAGICAL SUBSTANCE IN EQUESTRIA...

 

You can see it quite plainly after she applies it: she enters the Throne Room, goes on and on and on and on and ON, until she finally makes her way back out.  For her troubles, Celestia gives her this 'gift' to hold her temper in place - it appears as a small, dark brown spot on the tip of her muzzle... and it smells somewhat foul, also.

 

So, THAT would be my reasoning - to restock that little bit of BROWN, right on the tip of her NOSE.

[darkshy 68]

I totally agree with the OP. Sometimes, it's annoying how Twilight sucks up to Celestia. Twilight probably loves Celestia more than her parents, brother and possibly even friends.

 

This is one of the reasons I dislike her the most out of all the mane 6.

Edited April 2, 2016 by darkshy

[Number62 1,258]

There was even a scene in Amending Fences, where Twilight asked Celestia for help. This scene was cut, of course. Pinkie's part was sooo much more important, because not a single pony else can organize parties in Canterlot and Luna Fan M.A.Larson certainly had not any trouble to decide what scene was left to cut from the episode.

 

Is this true, or was this an April Fools joke?

Edited April 3, 2016 by Number107

[cmarston1 5,959]

Well with how Celestia was portrayed in season 5, I wonder this too.

[Number62 1,258]

Well with how Celestia was portrayed in season 5, I wonder this too.

More like how Celestia was portrayed in general. An episode featuring her and Twilight would've been obvious. Maybe too obvious since it hasn't happened.

[Swifty 249]

Is this true, or was this an April Fools joke?

The interview for larson is still on EQD, so i think it's real. Though it might be a joke that he feels sorry for the dismissed Twilight/Celestia scene, because so many apparently feel sorry for this and that, but the results for Celestia remain the same. Smells like lies, but that's just me.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Swifty