High level magical spells and ethics

[pony.colin 156]

Copy and pasted from another post I made. (Main questions are down below).

 

"I find it hilarious that Starlight Glimmer is still being used as a pony example of someone who acts like they've never understood how to socialize and understand basic ethics, and it keeps hitting my snarky bone (writers stop doing that).

 

Its comical on how she keeps thinking that there isn't any sort of ethical wrong-doing for casting high advanced magical spells on your friends and forcing them to do things against their will.  Like you have to take into consideration about her awfully skint backstory and believe at face-value that ever since she felt abandoned by Sunburst, she drove herself into her cause to try and force a cult into existence about forced equal cutie-marks and even after believing and accepting Twilight's extension of Friendship for a second chance, that she still hasn't learned the basics of social magical ethics at all while being tutored by Twilight!

 

 

Starlight Glimmer: "What do you mean it's ethically wrong to cast possession spells on my friends to try and pass a report? I've never learned about this rule before in my entire life. Are you serious Twilight that this is something that most magically gifted unicorns are taught early on in their schooling? Really?"

 

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While I can make snark and laugh at this, I'm actually kind of wondering, why are there a bunch of highly advanced magical spells that are being taught to highly gifted magical unicorns?

 

Remember at the beginning of the episode 'Everything little thing she does' - Starlight was able to demonstrate many highly advance magical spells that enabled her to teleport, move quickly, attack and defend.  It begs the question, why was Twilight teaching her some of this? I kept viewing all of these spells as highly useful for a combative situation. Like literally the purpose of attack beams and shields is mainly for a combative situation.

 

This begs several questions. 

 

1. Are these spells freely available? Available to find for any unicorn? (cause remember Starlight in her 2 parter season 5 premiere knew some offensive and defensive magic. How did she find out about these spells? Did she find books and was self-taught or were they taught to her at some sort of magical school?). 

 

2. Why isn't there some sort of group made up of unicorns set up for state defense? (similar to how the wonderbolts serve an old secondary function for occasional state defense).  Or is that supposed to be the Equestrian guard? (I honestly have no faith in that guard at times. But if some of those spells that Starlight Glimmer demonstrated are available to them, then I seriously expected them to be much better at their job). (Acknowledged, Tirek still would've won against them, but at least they would've been better equipped in other situations). 

 

3. If these spells are not serving a military purpose, then why are they being taught in the first place?  Like possession spells.  Remember when Twilight caused the whole of Ponyville to be possessed with the 'want it need it spell' and Celestia had to fix it up? Or even just this recent episode with Starlight fusing three spells to make obedient servants out of the mane cast.  Does no one teach ethical usage at Celestia's school ? 

 

 

The last point actually delves a little close to a more difficult subject seen in the superhero genre of recent late.

In most situations, the situation caused by possession spells can probably be fixed later, which allows them to remedy the consequences caused by the original problem. However, I've noticed how close this has been dancing towards the problems of collateral damage.  I remember reading a webcomic called Strong Female Protagonist that had this laid out so well about understanding the underbelly of collateral damage in the superhero genre (not to give away spoilers for anyone reading that). But also you can see it easily in the film Captain America Civil War.

 

Thoughts on it all?

 

(sorry maybe this is a bit of a poor OP cause questions 1 and 2 go in slightly different directions than 3, but they're related to each other) 

 

 

And Marinette Dupain-Cheng gets a freaking save due to having the power to "fix anything" The envy of all superheroes.

 

[luftschloss 831]

I imagine the spells are not freely available. After all, Twilight was a student of Princess Celestia and is now a princess in her own right. If anybody was to have access to spells such as "Want it, Need it," it would be her. In case of an emergency they might need (the spells) to be kept alive by somebody. 

 

There probably should be a Unicorn guard, but I think the spells are probably difficult enough to access that there wouldn't be enough work for them.

[cider float 2,538]

There is absolutely no one policing most of Equestria, makes me wonder what in the world Celestia is doing. Does all she do is raise the sun and moon? Shouldn't she have written out some kind of regulations and education on morality based on spells taught to children in the magic academy? Shouldn't some spells be considered forbidden spells that if detected in use without permission an elite squadron would pop out and arrest the users?

[KatonRyu 1,033]

Personally, I think it has less to do with the availability of such spells and more with ponies' ability to use them. Most unicorns have a very specific talent and are thus capable of using a very select range of spells. I'm fairly sure Rarity, for instance, wouldn't be able to use the spells Twilight and Starlight have even with a spell book (and I'm not counting the cursed book that gave her power, I mean plain old uncursed spell books).

 

As for why Twilight is teaching these spells to Starlight, I think she's just really happy to know a pony who is pretty much on her level when it comes to magical skill. Twilight is a magical prodigy so most other ponies she will have met would fall far short of her ability. (And Sunset doesn't seem to exist in main show canon) Eventually, Starlight would fall behind as well simply because Twilight is magic, but until that time she's the only one aside from the princesses who can keep up with her and who shares her interests in learning. Twilight's scholarly and nerdy side simply made her overlook the potential dangers of such spells. Aside from this, Starlight has probably used less than legal means to acquire spell books in the past, not to mention being very capable of modifying existing magic. For all I know her cutie mark means her talent is to alter existing spells and magic.

 

Lastly, there probably is some kind of unicorn magic guard, but Twilight is a princess. The ponies in Equestria generally don't seem to want to second guess the princesses' decisions, so they would trust in Twilight's judgment in the same way it was probably Celestia who taught Twilight the 'want-it-need-it' spell in the first place, or at the very least gave her access to the spell book containing it. I think that any unicorn practicing such magic in full view who isn't somehow tied to one of the princesses would be at the very least told to stop it. (How effective the unicorn guard would be in such cases, I don't know. I really have no clue how many ponies in Equestria are capable of these spells)

Edited September 28, 2016 by KatonRyu

[cmarston1 5,959]

Seeing as how Starlight still hasn't learned that mind controlling others into your bidding is unethical, and judging by how her actions had a lot smaller consequences than they should have, I am not sure that she has learned that lesson yet.