Cadance is the most powerful Princess

[Philweasel 139]

Cadance, a nice but pretty inconsequential pretty pink pony princess. Certainly the least powerful and least important of all the Princesses, right?

Wrong. Behind that pleasant demeanor is a well of unmatched power, far beyond any of her peers. I will now begin to list the reasons why Princess Cadance is the most powerful of all the Princesses.

Remember Sombra? Going by the comics, he has defeated every single one of the Princesses in combat. But not Cadance. No, instead Cadance is the only pony to ever defeat Sombra one on one, using the Crystal Heart to outright vaporise him. She is also the only character to ever outright destroy her opponent, no redemption rainbows for Cadance!

Even before that, she kept up a barrier over the entire Crystal Empire for days, without sleeping or eating. It was in this state that she did all that above!

Remember Chrysalis? She’s defeated Celestia twice, and taken over the whole of Equestria in but a few short days. Well Cadance and Shining Armor are responsible for the single most powerful magical attack in the show, where they created a blast that not only distinguished between friend and foe, it covered an entire city and launched both Chrysalis and her entire army over the horizon at high speed. Nothing Tirek and super-powered Twilight did comes anywhere close (and I theorise that Cadance provided most of Twilight’s power there).

Should I even mention that she was stealing two parters from Twilight long before that scrub Starlight Glimmer?

Discord might think he’s high and mighty, but one sneeze from the Tatzlwurm and he was out for the count. A pretty dangerous creature huh? Well Cadance fought it head on, and came out without a scratch!

Everyone talks about Celestia and Twilight’s fancy magic, but have you noticed Cadance is also a mage? She hides it well, but note that she’s also a fan of Star Swirl the Bearded. And in “The Crystaling” who is it that Twilight consults over the spell to restore the Crystal Heart? Not Celestia, not Starlight, its Cadance! Twilight even shows her the spell she’s made to make sure she hasn’t made any mistakes, and Cadance instantly reads it over and states that it seems ok. Proof that she’s perfectly capable of keeping up with a master mage like Twilight!

She spawned the dark goddess of unbridled destruction Flurry Heart, the first ever alicorn born of mare, and an infant packing more power than most adult unicorns. Even with Flurry’s powers sealed, Twilight Sparkle herself proved unable to fully contain this infant’s rampage in “A Flurry of Emotions”. Clearly she takes after her mother.

It took years of study under Celestia for Twilight to be worthy of becoming an alicorn. Celestia turned Cadance into one five minutes after they first met. Celestia knows talent when she sees it.

The books also reveal that Cadance knows the name of every pony in the Crystal Empire. Twilight is forced to admit that she doesn’t know the name of every pony in ponyville, which is less than half the size!

She married Shining Armor, who is clearly the most attractive Stallion on the show.

So in summary... Cadance is OP, pls nerf.

[Thrond 3,263]

More reasons why Cadance is best princess and deserves more screentime. What a badass. 

[ManaMinori 4,145]

yeah, she- in spite of appearring as a mary sue in the show- is actually quite the powerfouse. Gotta give credit where its due

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

Wow, this post made me consider my opinions about Cadance  OMG that awesome, why didnt i realize it? 

[RulesofRarity 493]

Cadence gets points from me due to all the points you mentioned and due to the fact she solves problems instead of creating them unlike Luna and Celestia. 

[Guest]

I'd point out Sombra and Chrysalis were vulnerable to her type of magic, and little else. Each princess has a specific strength that covers the others' weaknesses. Love is Cadence's, and love were those two's weaknesses.

[Ganondorf8 11,369]

It's a shame that she doesn't get to appear as often as some of the other secondary characters do and this is especially true in the comics. Maybe this is a sign that the writers might want to consider using Cadance more often provided they are able to come up with a scenario that suits her well.

[Luminance 2,186]

Cadence's power is very potent. I think she's underutilized in the show and she needs more screentime to show her immense power. 

[Meeps 298]

15 hours ago, Philweasel said:

She married Shining Armor, who is clearly the most attractive Stallion on the show.

So in summary... Cadance is OP, pls nerf.

That ending had me, lol.

All good points to consider. I always liked Cadence's character, and enjoy it when she gets screen time. She seems to be one of the wiser and more mature princesses.

[Drunkfrank 1,125]

Cadance is certainly a badass

But...nah not really the most powerful

She only defeated Chrysalis because Shining Armor and herself represent love magic, Sombra is just weak to love magic, in his far weaker smoke state Cadance could only keep him at bay where as Celestia and Luna could defeat him in his more powerful physical form.

The Tatzlwurm was pushed back by Celestia and Luna, and Discord seemed like he was going to kill the thing, and then it sneezed and left, Cadance just had a spell prepared.

Cadance turned into an alicorn because Celestia knew she would lead the Crystal Empire someday (probably) but Twilight is on the tree of Harmony, Celestia had to be sure that she would become the best she could possibly be before ascending.

Cadance does need to do more cool shit though.

[Goat-kun 2,528]

Any alicorn on the battlefield deserves consideration. However, Cadence is more of a priest type. Her special abilities are good against things that interact with fee-fees, but when it comes to brute force she's as good as any other if not worse. I mean, Celestia never considered her as a viable candidate for sun/moon shifting. And she was captured and held hostage by changelings in severely unprotected caves (any human adventurer would be able to stealth walk out of there). And she couldn't face Sombra directly. He had to be hit with a supercharged Crystal Heart blast.

[Philweasel 139]

Heh, I'm amazed it took someone this long to argue with me. Honestly, the original post was indeed full of false association and some outright baloney, thought I wasn't entirely joking. I do, seriously and truly, believe Cadance has the most raw power of all the Princesses. She commands true love, in a show like My Little Pony. True love can do pretty much anything.

It's not however a particularly reliable power, nor one that is suited to regular displays of awesome destructive feats. I do note that the blast that took out Chrysalis was Shining Armor's, empowered by Cadance. This is probably where her greatest talents lie, again Sombra's destruction was the result of her empowering and weaponizing the emotions of the crystal ponies. I doubt she would be able to do much on her own, just like Twilight is rarely able to accomplish much without her friends.

...oh, and yes, Twilight is likely a more powerful combatant than Cadance. There's a little bit of supposition in here, but I feel that in addition to not studying magic to anywhere near the same degree as Twilight, Cadance is also a pegasi brought up by earth ponies. Her concept of magic is likely a lot more subtle and utilitarian than your average "Phenomenal cosmic power!" unicorn, the type of magic seen in the Crystaling was likely far more her field than say... traveling through time or turning things into teacups.

I'm also pretty certain that prior to Canterlot Wedding, Cadance had absolutely no idea how to fight, nor had much experience in adventuring in general. It's clear that the experience hardened her however, since she seems much more in command and much more willing to take charge in a crisis in future appearances. Given her skill set, it's likely Shining Armor has been teaching her some things.

I too wish we could see her do more cool stuff like this, I really do.

...and then I realize she likely has more screen time than Luna and Celestia combined, and remember that she was a major part of three two part episodes. Girl isn't doing too bad.

Edited July 30, 2017 by Philweasel

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,730]

The fact that she was able to hold up a shield over the entire Crystal Empire on her own against Sombra's powerful magic for as long as she did, I always thought she was quite powerful, but she just doesn't get enough time to shine. That needs to happen in the show at least once. A threat can invade the Crystal Empire which puts her people in danger, including her daughter and boom, her badassery comes out full force. Would be sweet.