Has Celestia been nerfed in power since the beginning?

[Azureth 686]

Perhaps it is just me but it seems as if in the beginning Celestia was at least touted to be god-like in power yet throughout the show she has been beaten and over powered quite a bit, and has been shown her power isn't the greatest. Seeing Celestia get owned by Chrysallis was really something and was shocking to me at the time. 

[Number62 1,247]

I don't think she was ever confirmed to be something of a god considering the first Hearth's Warming Eve episode stated that a team of unicorns raised the sun and moon before Celestia and Luna showed up, i.e. their most notable tasks were done without them, though the alicorns are at least a little more powerful than the average unicorn. I've had multiple posts on this topic, and right now I'm too lazy to reiterate or to add more, but I can try to give a short answer to the question.

 

No, I don't think she's been nerfed. If anything, she's been screwed over too often for the sake of story which has made some of the stories she's been shown in unconvincing at best and stupidly contrived at worst.

 

Maybe I'll give a more detailed answer at some point, but here's some of the posts I've made relating to this, which might already have my thoughts on this exact topic.

 

She is screwed over by a power far greater than her own: that of a storyteller. Give these scenarios to another set of storytellers, and those will look different no matter how similar they sound. In the hands of a competent storyteller, Celestia will be as competent as her storyteller, i.e. she will be given an important and genuinely helpful role even if she isn't the main character. No "too old" or some similar and random bullshit excuse will be implied.

(The above is slightly edited for grammatical purposes)

 

Even if she has gotten weaker over time, she still has plenty of raw magic (and knowledge due to her lifespan), so she wouldn't/shouldn't just sit on the sidelines and let everypony else solve some big problem. She'd still try to figure out a way to help, or make some other contribution to the solution. What was given in "The Crystalling" was far too little (so much so that it might as well have been nothing), especially considering how long her uselessness has lasted.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Number107

[Justin_Case001 4,855]

Am I the only one who reads the patch notes?

 

From Hasbro's website:

 

MLP:FIM Build 16.1.20

 

• Nerfed Celestia's telekinesis
• Nerfed Celestia's laser beam
• Buffed Rainbow's speed
• Buffed Starlight's telekinesis
• Nerfed Celestia's intelligence
• Fixed random crash when Twilight enters her throne room
• Fixed various glitches

 

None of that is true, of course.  Seriously, I agree with Number107.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I did a detailed post in that exact threat that he quoted himself from.  It was a similar post, discussing how, after a certain point, Celestia's various failures can't really be defended seriously, within the contextual lore of the universe, and simply become poor writing choices, as they've shoved her aside and bypassed her time after time.

 

(But now she's making some much needed appearances in S6!    It's something, at least.)

[FlutteringDweamz 2,086]

Come to think of it, yes, SHE DOES seem less powerful now.

 

I do wonder if there was a pony 'god' before her, seeing as she had to earn being a alicorn, just like twi xD I mean, how else would equestria come to be...

 

You know, this post could lead to a pretty deep convo, i bet o.o

[pony.colin 156]

In my honest opinion, I've never actually perceived Celestia as being 'god-like' in power so I never felt that there was a nerfing. I felt part of her original strength still stemmed from her having control of the elements of harmony (with Luna) and that's why they were able to defeat previous major villains before.

 

However, I do think she's been terribly inconsistently written over these past seasons where even I think she couldn't have been this bad at some decisions.  She seems to have fallen victim  to 'because Celestia needs to act a little incompetent for the plot to move forward' syndrome on a number of previous occasions.  She can't be that bad at some decisions I swear. But I never felt her magic level was that high, but that she was able to get by with help from the elements of harmony and through friendships and diplomatic actions. 

[Once In A Blue Moon 894]

I do recall reading somewhere that Lauren Faust had originally intended for Twilight to be Celestia's successor, so it would be interesting to consider that she is getting older and weaker, and will eventually die. Maybe a bit grim for a children's show, but I do recall a series of books that did this quite well (a series about a master-apprentice ghost / monster hunting team, where as the books progress and the apprentice gets more powerful the master grows less powerful.)

 

Theories aside, she seems less powerful, but as has been said I suspect that is partly due to bad writing and partly due to being somewhat de-mystified. Certainly since Twilight became an alicorn, and yet remained as fallible and imperfect as ever, Celestia (who addresses her as an equal as well... well, sort of) seems much less like a god and more like a benevolent, cake-eating monarch.

[CaptainDoubloon 856]

I've become a bit disapointed in Celestia since the episode with smooze when some of the ooze blocked her from using magic with her horn.

[Concerned Bystander 2,901]

I don't think that we have seen Celestia being reduced in Power.  For the run of the cartoon she has never been portrayed as especially powerful, in the very first episode she was 'disappeared' by Nightmare Moon, and we seen her bested a number of times since then.  Her greatest moments were far in the distant past when she was a bearer of the Elements of Harmony, they lent her to power to banish Nightmare Moon, and it was their power that allowed Celestia and Luna to entomb Discord in stone.

 

She certainly is powerful as ponies go, but it seems that she has never had the godlike level of power that some people seem to mistakenly attribute to her.

Edited May 3, 2016 by Concerned Bystander

[That Guy with the CMB 5,869]

It seems she's only beaten for the sake of the story, but then she's powerful again when the story demands it. They might need to work on this aspect a little...oh, well. Not like it concerns anypony else - the most she's done in forever to stop a threat was battle the frozen sky invasion thing with Luna, or the "Frozen North".

[CheeryFox 23,811]

Naw. She's been very lazy. And she can be. Thanks, Twilight Sparkle. 

[snowflame 189]

She was never stated to have a god-like power, people just made asumptions based on raising the sun and being thousands of years old. There is nothing impressing she did early in the show and never saw her as a godess.

[Luna 831 465]

I think the show is just showing her grow more old. That is why luna will help more often.