Why are kings and queens of Equestria evil?

[DR Leper Lupinstein 410]

okay, so Queen Chrystalis and King Sombra are evil. However, Princesses Luna and Celestia are good ponies. would you say that when rulers ascend to the throne of King/Queen that power corrupts and they become evil. i mean, imagine Celestia with some of her dark magic (as demonstrated in the Crystal Empire episode) becoming Queen Celestia and then transforming into her evil version.

Edited April 17, 2013 by punxundead

[Zerobot 179]

Celestia was originally going to be a Queen, but Hasbro bumped her down to Princess status because Queens are generally viewed as evil in the public eye, and Princesses sell better. I guess the theme has just continued on with every King and Queen being villains, while the good'ns are crowned as Princes and Princesses, regardless of actual positions of power.

 

/is the boring answer. The headcanonical answer I'd give is that it's not that becoming King/Queen begets corruption, but the other way around. In the show, it would appear that villains who find themselves fairly high on the political ladder would rather themselves be called Queen/King. Celestia, wanting to differentiate her land from the evils the world had to offer, decided the highest position would be Princess.

 

Celestia, being all omniscient and such, will someday make the greatest villain. I mean, she's pretty much molded Twilight into who she is today, and Celestia knows EVERYTHING. Sadly this is one of those "doubt it will ever happen, and if it did happen it wouldn't be good enough" things. I mean, it's a bit too late (and became too late after episode 2) for her to just reveal this was a masterful evil plan all along; Celestia is inherently good. She brought together the elements of harmony, and it would take a very craftily written work to explain why/how this was all a part of her evil scheme. I'm not much for writing fan fictions so I can't come up with a very good reason WHY she would be a villain, I just know that as the greatest player for team good, she'd make an even better one for team evil.

 

EDIT: ...We saw how much corruption Sombra could cause with just the tip of his horn on physical landscape...just a thought.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Zerobot

[Love*Potion 575]

Interesting thought, but I'm pretty sure they received the title King and Queen by their rise to power. If you think about it, most people are only able to become truly evil with power. If you aren't powerful/strong enough to control/scare people, than what can you do?

 

Examples:

 

Hitler rose to power in Germany and became dictator

Stalin in Russia

Mussolini in Italy

Scar (rose to power) in The Lion King

Darth Vader (lord of the sith) in Star Wars

 

It's hard to control people if you don't have the police force or the power to back you up 

[duidamasterXD 9,626]

This thread appears to be discussing MLP:FiM in some way, shape or form. Thus, it has been sentenced to Show Discussion.

 

This is an automatically generated message, by the way.

[Sir.Flutter Hooves 2,953]

I personally believe it's something to do with Hasbro.

 

You see, Celestia was meant to be a Queen but Hasbro said little girls like princesses better, and people think Queens are evil. So, to make little girls (the key demographic for the show) not like queens and completely redoing a toy which will cost them money (Princess-Queen Clestia and Luna), they make the queens and kings evil.

 

/)

[MyLittlePonyTales 273]

Well, actually, it was stated by Lauren Faust that Princess Celestia was original supposed to be a queen. But then Hasbro was like, 'Disney had made princesses good and queens bad'. So basically, that's why the princess are good and kings and queens are bad. It's because of Disney.

[Fhaolan 4,468]

There's lots of different answers to this one. The official one is that Hasbro specifically asked to have Celestia and Luna to be princesses.

 

However, you can do a lot in-show with that as well.

 

For example, Celestia and Luna also rule as part of a diarchy, a pair of monarchs. The title Princess may be used to differentiate between them and singular rulers.

 

In Real Life, the titles Prince and Princess predate King and Queen. Prince is technically an older title. There are still a couple of countries in Real Life who are ruled by Princes who do not owe fealty to any King or Queen. So Celestia, being functionally immortal may be attempting to connect with an even older structure that existed prior to Kings and Queens.

 

Also, it may be to differentiate them from the previous three rulers of the different pony tribes. According to Hearth's Warming Eve, there was a Chancelor of the Earth Ponies, a King of the Unicorns, and a Commander of the Pegasi. It's possible those titles still exist somewhere (Prince Blueblood being the heir to a elderly and infirm King of the Unicorns, perhaps?), so to keep from getting confused with them, they took the title Princess?

 

And now, because Celestia and Luna have been 'Princesses' for over a thousand years, the title has migrated away from being a monarch and instead has connected to their physical representation. So any other alicorn is now called 'Princess', with no regard to their actual authority.

[Nothing&NoOne 695]

I heard somewhere that Celestia is Princess because she and Luna can't both be Queen. (Also because of the "princesses sell better", but let's look at this from the show's point of view for a second. )

 

Luna was banished for 1000 years because she tried to make her night last forever. She transformed into Nightmare Moon because of the bitterness that everyone loved her sister and her day but ignored her and her night.

If it was QUEEN Celestia and Princess Luna, I'm sure there'd be quite a bit of hatred.

[Phoenix237 353]

Cultural media

If you look at moden media you will I'd that most of the times Queens are depicte as evil. There arn't any good queens I can think of out the top of my head, but there are some. However most of the media portrays Queens as evil, hens why Queen Crysalis is a queen and evil

 

Kings are a different thing. They have two traits, good king or bad king. They are portrayed in media as evil king or good kings. You don't see many kings In the middle and is why you have only good or bad.

[Batbrony 15,994]

Honestly, blame Disney for it.  They're the company that started depicting all "bad" royalty (not counting most princesses' fathers) as evil kings and queens, and all "good" royalty as princes and princesses.  The rest of the television and film industry's just adopted the pattern, especially childrens media.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Batbrony

[NavelColt 22,876]

Kings and Queens are evil, Princes and Princesses are good. This is a theme Disney coined decades ago, that popular culture has run with ever since. That's...about as far as it goes, usually.

[Harmony Spark 265]

You guys should check Nostalgia Critic: What's with all the Princess Hate? video. It's so awesome and to answer your question, Hasbro wanted Celestia to be Princess because its more marketable to little girls because of its demographic.

[Circadian 1,273]

In Mass Effect, Commander is a higher rank then Captain. I'd say that Princess is the highest royal title in Equestria. Or better yet, Princess is tantamount to a guardian or sentinel rather than a monarch.

 

 

 

Celestia was originally going to be a Queen, but Hasbro bumped her down to Princess status because Queens are generally viewed as evil in the public eye, and Princesses sell better. I guess the theme has just continued on with every King and Queen being villains, while the good'ns are crowned as Princes and Princesses, regardless of actual positions of power.

 

This is what actually happened however. I like your headcannon btw.

[DR Leper Lupinstein 410]

the disney thing does make sense, because look at the queens in snow white and sleeping beauty... pure malice. so, media wise, that explains the good princess, evil queen thing. i was just under the impression that power gets to their heads and then it's all about establishing absolute order. 

[CycloneRyder 7]

one thing i find odd, tho it isn't outright stated, princess celestia seems to have more power and authority than luna.

even tho luna is now unbanished it dosen't appear that celestia shares power with luna.

 

I assume luna is once again responsible for raising the moon, but does she help rule equestria alongside celestia?

[Scootalove 10,684]

Well the thing is this relates to Disney.

 

Princesses and Princes, and anything good related to that will be purely good while when you have Kings and Queens they start to get corrupted with power and start to abuse it in the wrong ways.

 

Like for example: When a country or nation is under a dictatorship, the dictator starts abusing power and assassinating citizens or anyone that tries to oppose his power and authority. While in a democracy, parliamentary democracy, or monarchy the queen is in charge of the nation and has the power to allow the citizens there the freedom to vote and freedom of speech.

 

Basically, Kings and Queens are evil because they don't allow any liberties and also get corrupted with too much power.

[Stormwind 53]

I think the reason Kings and Queens are evil is because of Hasbro, who wanted princess to rule because they are generally "good" and queens/kings are generally bad within media. But they way i explain it in my headcannon is that its because of pony culture. A princess fills a large or important leadership role and are relatively benevolent, while being a king/queen is like being a dictator in real life.

[Dawn Stripes 301]

I personally believe it's something to do with Hasbro.

 

You see, Celestia was meant to be a Queen but Hasbro said little girls like princesses better, and people think Queens are evil. So, to make little girls (the key demographic for the show) not like queens and completely redoing a toy which will cost them money (Princess-Queen Clestia and Luna), they make the queens and kings evil.

 

/)

 

'Bout it. 

In the mainstream image of American culture, little girls want to grow up to be Princess. True 'nuff, in fact. I've heard enough little girls say just that, but Lucy van Pelt is the only little girl I know of who wanted to grow up to be queen.

 

Pretty hard to find a canon explanation for the phenomenon. For the longest time, I was watching the show, going, "If Celestia's the Princess, who's the queen? Who's really in charge?" Some ponies on here have made good cracks at it, of course.

 

You could go the route of those who liken MLP to a C.S. Lewis-style story, where Celestia was supposed to represent a divine figure--especially with her defeat in 'A Canterlot Wedding', she can't directly be a God figure herself--you can make an odd-kilter case where Celestia is Princess because God is the actual King in the story...possible this was in Lauren Faust's mind in some form, but not very likely. Just a thought.