The Journal of the Two Sisters came out today · 4:13am Jun 11th, 2014
I haven't gotten my copy yet (UPS says it's still in transit). Just thought I'd cover a couple of things I've seen spoiled:
- Celestia and Luna are not immortal. They just age very, very slowly. Also, there were other Alicorns, and they were naturally born as such.
- Zebras apparently hail from the other side of the Everfree Forest.
- The sun and moon are batteries for the princesses. When the unicorns controlled them, at least a couple got drained of their magic completely every time they were raised and lowered.
- The two ruled Equestria before Discord arrived; they had to take the kingdom back.
So the book has done what four seasons could not - it has invalidated the MLA series.
But on the plus side, Luna and Princess Platinum didn't get along, so I got something right.
Well ... and just like that a HUGE chunk of the worldbuilding for "The Dusk Guard" just got completely crushed.
Too late now. If it ends up needing an AU tag, I'll give it one, but I'm carrying on as normal. I've built too much into it to tear it up or change it now.
Besides, (and unsurprisingly), I like TDG's version of things better.
2197570
To be fair, the post is mostly half-joking. None of this has come up in the show yet, so it could be considered expanded universe canon at the moment. Now, if the show makes reference to any of this, then there's no going back.
Well, that's what the AU tag is for.
2197575
Excellent point. I know that the Harmony Guide was canon, but I haven't heard on this one yet. Here's hoping it's comic-level EU.
...
...
...
...
... *deep breath*
...
Eh, my own story got invalidated the moment Twilight grew wings. Though I have played with the idea of a villain cutting them off, but I decided that was too dark, even for a jab at the ant-twilicorn crowd.
I have only heard that alicorns age slower. As far as we know they stop aging all together at some point. So I'm still assuming alicorns are immortal.
Oh great, now we're gonna have folks go "In the expended universe..." like the Star Wars fandom
. See what your insuficient world building has wrought, tv show?! SEE??
To be honest, 'canon' in the MLP universe means as much as 'continuity' in the Spider-man/Superman comics. It only matters unless you don't want it to matter, in which case it doesn't.
What is this book you speak of?
2197694
The Journal of the Two Sisters. It's supposed to be a book form of the diary Twilight found back in "Castle Mane-ia."
let's be honest here. the instant any of us puts a single word down on any fanfiction, it's going to be essentially AU. There's no avoiding that fact. you can try to fit it in as closely to canon as possible as your information at the time allows, but later something's going to come along and tip that apple cart anyway.
i write the story in my head and that's that.
Thanks for posting this! It's nice to get some new info on the princesses pre-show. It stinks that it invalidates MLA as being completely canon compliant though. Still, it hasn't been confirmed in the show yet so as far as I'm concerned, its canonicity is up to our own discretion.
Kind of wish I could buy it too but that'd require money. Or access to money.
At least now we finally have a source against the god-emperor luna/celestia.
2197606
I was thinking of that too. Only Twilight was the one to do it to make a point to villain.
The only part of that makes sense is Discord coming to cause chaos.Everything sounds un"godly" stupid.
Is that seriously true? They're not immortal?
Well it would also validate the reason of why Celestia thought it was necessary to make Twilight into an Alicorn, and why Cadence needs to exists as an alicorn too.
Good point.
I already knew that the days were numbered on the canonicity of my headcanon, but in one fell swoop it is crushed. As the other's say that is why we have an AU tag
YES!! Headcanon confirmed!
*blink* Soooo . . . either the Everfree Forest is bigger than I thought (given its depiction on most maps), Equestria is smaller than I thought, or somewhere there's a portal on the other side of the Everfree that connects Equestria to the Zebra homeland/dimension (a la the breezies). That, or they live in an invisible high-tech utopia like Wakanda.
So Celestia is a solar-powered alicorn princess. Hmm . . . just makes the Celestia-Superman comparisons in my head all the more relevant.
Though this new piece of information does raise some questions about the banishment of Luna/Nightmare Moon. After all, if you're going to seal away your mortal enemy in order to stop her from taking over the world, wouldn't the last place you'd want to send her be the source of all of her power? Drawing the comic book parallel again, that'd be like hurling Superman into the Sun or Hal Jordon/Green Lantern into the Main Power Battery on Oa--all you're going to do is supercharge them until they're ready to come back and bring the pain.
Ah-h-h, that actually clears up one of the plot holes created by the flashback scenes from "Princess Twilight Sparkle." Given that the alicorn sisters ruled Equestria before Discord, it now makes sense why they'd have and be wearing their royal regalia when obtaining the Elements of Harmony and later confronted Discord.
For people who don't have the book but want to know what information it contains, here are a few other interesting points:
When they first became Princesses, Celestia and Luna did not actually manage the daily affairs of Equestria. Commander Hurricane, Chancellor Puddinghead, and King Bullion continued to rule their respective tribes. The Sisters acted to resolve disputes between the tribes, improve relations with foreign nations, and defend Equestria from supernatural threats. Presumably they became more involved in running the country later.
The first ruler of the Crystal Empire was a Crystal Unicorn named Amore. She is the one who discovered how to use the magic of the Crystal Heart. This happened around the same time that Equestria was founded.
Celestia and Luna were young (by alicorn standards) and inexperienced when Equestria was founded. However, by the standards of normal ponies, they were well into adulthood. Luna mentions being considerably older than Princess Platinum.
Commander Hurricane was a stallion. The other 5 founders of Equestria were mares.
Commander Hurricane was considered the fastest pegasus flyer in Equestria and Celestia loved to race against him (apparently she was a bit of a speed demon in her youth).
Princess Platinum designed Equestria's flag (the one that shows Celestia and Luna circling around the sun and moon.)
Princess Platinum's father was named King Bullion. He was the king of the unicorns at the time of the Sisters' coronation.
Chancellor Puddinghead was much smarter and more competent than she generally appeared. Ponies seem to have misjudged her because of her goofy personality.
Clover the Clever was very difficult to prank. Chancellor Puddinghead was impossible.
Starswirl the Bearded could travel in time and change his age with magic (this explains how he seems to have been present for pretty much every significant even in ancient equestrian history). He also traveled far enough forward in time to know about Twilight Sparkle's eventual ascension to Alicornhood. But he was always careful not to change history, or give Celestia and Luna any information about the future that they shouldn't have.
Starswirl handed over control of the sun and moon to Celestia and Luna because the stress of moving them day after day was harmful to normal unicorns. Only alicorns can move them safely (regular unicorns risk being permanently drained of their magic if they try).
Ah! But you forget: unless otherwise stated, it isn't official canon!
2197647
Bah, I already did that with the comics.
2199018 That's at least some really well crafted details there. They don't fit the stuff we've been making up but it fits well with the show itself. I like the detail on the unicorns risking being drained of magic by the sun and moon.
Meh...
Honestly, I still don't really see why this should even be a big concern to anyone any more. First of all, aging so slowly that Celestia looks exactly the same toady as she did when she banished Luna 1,000 years ago is still so functionally close to immortal as to be indistinguishable for most practical purposes. It would still infer a lifespan a hundred times or more longer than normal ponies (assuming ponies live roughly as long as humans).
More to the point, Magic Dual already introduced the concept of magic that can manipulate a pony's age, and from what I've herd this book only further asserts its functionality, by having Starswirl use such magic (along with time travel) to greatly extend his own life and influence. So really, who should care how, or even, if Luna and Celestia age when they can just magically be whatever age they want?
That's actually a contradiction with pre-existing information, and as such could be used to cast doubt on the canonicity of the whole book.
According to the official map of Equestria the Everfree is located roughly in the center of Equestria. There can't be any mysterious zebra homeland beyond the Everfree, because the forest is bordered on all sides by Equestria. So either the map or the journal is in error, and as the map has actually appeared in an episode of S4, with cruder but still matching versions having appeared as early as S2, I'd give the map precedence.
2200104
The book doesn't even say that they aren't immortal anyway. It talks about how alicorns age at a different rate than normal ponies to explain why Celestia and Luna don't have their cutie marks despite being adults (they get them the first time they move the sun and moon). It never mentions anything about a maximum lifespan for them.
And this book even reintroduces magic being used to alter a ponies age (first mention since Magic Duel). Starswirl uses it to keep himself much younger than he really is.
i4.photobucket.com/albums/y102/Ironack/FOEMV5.jpg
sooo they're from appleloosa?.....
what huh?.....
but didn't they say discord tortured ponies before they arrived?.....
2197575 oh is that so? well that's good to know , but the book's page says it's official , soooo like is it official? does fim have only 1 canon source? is everything fim related it's own 'official' canon? does the show reign supreme or do these books and comics and movies have something to say about it? i herd from you before that those things were said from the creators to be a separate canon , but when i told this to some others they said those things were canon?....
2198171 oh yeah that's an excellent point about the banishment now with this idea of the celestial bodies being power sources for the princesses , like wtf......
2199018
>getting this information from party b's journal
>party b's journal is stating that party a doesn't give them the information that we just obtained from party b's journal
something's no adding up there.....
aaaand soooo if he was magic enough to break anything like twilight was even before she became alicorn theeeen why did he die? or did he even?.....
2200104 yes exactly , even more reason why just throwing in the idea of changing something's "age" without actually understanding what "age" is is just functionally stupid and continues to break anything that could be considered not only canon but moral as well , the simple way of putting it is if you are able to 'reverse aging' but don't then you're letting everything die through inaction , suddenly the holy princesses because the worst genocidal proponents in the fim universe.....
i see those are good points as well , with that i shall safely cast this book away as some horribly bad attempt of fan servicing then since the map clearly proves it wrong......
2200580
I don't see any reason to go that far with the interpretation.
In Magic Duel it was already established that the spell is extremely difficult and that only the most proficiently experienced unicorns can even cast it in the first place. Furthermore During the second duel Snips and Snails were both de-aged, but we never see them restored, and yet they are back to normal in all subsequent episodes. As such, it's not hard to infer that spell is only temporary in duration, after which the subject snaps back to their original age.
This would mean that in order to actually use the spell to live forever it would have to be regularly refreshed. We don't have to morally condemn the princesses for simply not having enough magic to keep an ENTIRE nation eternally young. Heck, even if they did have the raw power, they probably wouldn't have enough time to travel all across the land keeping it constantly refreshed.
2200697 problem takes care of itself since we're talking about alicorns here , they have rule braking just about everything , according to the book them being the only beings magically strong enough to move the celestial bodies without having threat of it draining them completely and permanently , their magic is so op terik needed to drain all of equestria's magic before he could go after the alicorn magic , to reverse engineer that into say the alicorn magic is equivalent to however many other pony's magic , and having that much to work with would make things like casting a bunch of age spells a no biggie.....
also given what the book is saying about starswirl im not so sure about the idea of it being a temporary thing , maybe there can be kinds that are temp and not , but i find it hard to believe starswirl would be able to last long casting an age spell on himself every couple hours , useless of course we are to bump him up to the stupidly op alicorn status as well , but again the book disproves that saying it was proving to be to difficult a task for him to move the celestial bodies which the alicorns can do just fine.....
and lastly no im not saying we should "morally condemn the princesses for simply not having enough magic to keep an ENTIRE nation eternally young" , what i pointed out was that by inaction they have allowed the deaths of living things around them to happen for a very long time , don't have to hate them for the living things they can't reach to heal , but i sure as hell am going to hate them for not healing the things within their reach......
2200760
See that's the thing of it though. I'm not sure the show truly backs up that alicorns are stupidly OP. Outside of moving the sun and moon, neither Celestia nor Luna have ever been seen performing any great feet of magical prowess, and well... that happens to be an activity matching with their magic butt tattoos. As we learned all the way back in Boast Busters, a unicorn's (and presumably by extension an alicorn's as well) magic is always most proficient when applied to their cutie mark talent.
I mean seriously, Celestia got her flank kicked by an overgrown bug. So how strong can she actually be?
2200793
Just wait until we get people asking why they didn't just make everypony into Alicorns.
2200812
To which my answer will be the same as it always has been -- they don't have the power to do that in the first place. Celestia might have guided Twilight on the path to becoming an alicorn, but in the end it was still Twilight herself who through her own actions and initiatives achieved a transcendent state as demonstrated by the light that transforms her coming out from inside of her. Which is of course further backed up by one of the better secondary media tie-ins wherein we learn that Cadance managed to do it all on her own without any outside intervention whatsoever.
Personally, it's what would make me quite disappointed if the show ever actually followed suit with the journal in claiming Luna and Celestia were born alicorns as part of some long lost race. Ever since Twilight achieved her ascension, I've been enamored by the idea that alicorns aren't some god-like precursors, but rather that they represent the panicle of pony "evolution". A state that any theory at least, anypony can achieve through mastery of one of the fundamental magics, be it friendship/harmony, love, dreams, or whatever Celestia should represent.
Not to detract from those who do prefer the alternative, but now that the concept of ascension exist I just find that Celestia and Luna are so much grander if they had to earn it rather than being born into power.
2200864
Okay, just like with the "OMG, the Diary says they aren't immortal!" thing, this book never actually says that they were born as alicorns. It's an assumption people are making because the Diary refers to some memories of when they were children (seem to be about the same age as the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but since alicorns age slower they could be much older) and they are alicorns in those.
The circumstances of their birth and how they became alicorns are never referred to by the diary. At all.
2201476
Maybe not, but that all sounds like some pretty strong inference.
2201530
Not that strong. Based on her backstory in Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart spell, Cadence became an alicorn at a younger age than that. If she can do it, so can Celestia and Luna.
2201543
I thought Cadance was more of a teenager.
Regardless, it all still makes Twilight look like a rather late bloomer, such as things were, if everypony else is becoming alicorns so much younger than she did.
2200793 neither Celestia nor Luna have ever been seen performing any great feet of magical prowess? how bout...
celestia telleporting from canterlot to ponyvile
luna's ability to not only read minds but project her own influence over them when they are in a rem sleep state , which having control over the moon bares no relevance to....
and cadance did a huge barrier thing like shining armor did but i don't know how it stacks up to his if it's more impressive or not.....
plenty , considering the overgrown bug was just a relay for the power that was coming from the thing in love with the princess of love which im sure would mean there was some kind of connection to that power source (which in reality should have been reversed to actually make sense but i'll just have to go with it here) , so we have a bug (in the figurative sense) tapping in to the special talent power of 1 princess and converting it through themselves into the lazer blast that took down another princess , though she was holding her own for a couple seconds there so celestia must be worlds more magically powerful than the rest of the ponies to be able to last any duration of time vs the magic level of the special talent magic with magic that was not the special talent of her own.....
2200812 huh?.....
2200864 i think you're making a lot of assumptions about a very vague and ambiguous scene there.......
2201961
You mean Lesson Zero? We never actually see Celestia teleport. The screen simply pans up to reveal her already present. More to the point, when she leaves, it's by flying away, not teleporting.
Besides, Twilight teleports all the time, usually without any apparent effort, and that was before ascending as an alicorn.
When has Luna exerted any overt control? What I saw was her acting as a guide and helping the dreaming ponies to find their own way. Otherwise, she not doing anything other than astral projection, which tends to be a pretty low tier trick in most magical settings, especially when it only involves dreams.
Also, the association of the moon and dreams is a pretty common staple of most mythologies, for rather obvious reasons of them both being associated with the night.
Shields are Shining Armor's thing, not Cadance's. Back in Canterlot Wedding, it was even stated that putting up a shield around an entire city was something only he could do, implying that perhaps not even Celestia could do it. Moreover, at the end of the episode Cadance doesn't use her own magic to drive off the Changelings, but rather to empower Shining armor so that he can overcome his weekend state and use his shield spell again.
As for the events in the Crystal Empire. Shining specifically says that what Cadance is doing is spreading "love and light", no mention of a shield is ever made and in fact Shining is seems to express an uncertainty in his statements that suggest he doesn't understand how that's actually working to keep Sombra at bay. However, as we see a similar affect is produced when the Crystal Heat is plugged back into the palace. Presumably what Cadance was doing, wasn't conjuring a shield, but rather acting as a sort of battery to power the city's built in defense wards. Wards normally are pwowr by the love channeled through the crystal heart, making Cadance uniquely suited to act as a substitute, being the princess of love.
But it wasn't the reverse. Chrysalis had been feeding not on an alicorn princes, but upon her mere unicorn lover. Trying to spin that as somehow indirectly feeding on Cadance, is just grasping at straws. Especially as Cadance herself didn't seem particularly drained, seeing as she was the one who then empowers Shining so the Changeling can be defeated.
2202015 when she leaves in that episode she flys out the window before teleporting.....
twilight only teleports to within visible range and a couple meters , but in the season final episode she was teleporting all over the country.....
simply having luna make it so other peoples thoughts change because she wills it is exerting overt control.....
problem with such poor mythological associations is their relative implications , saying that about the moon and luna makes as much sense as celestia being able to control the thoughts of other things during the day because she controls the sun which brings day which is when people have thoughts , it's a whole bunch of non-sequesters.....
cadance empowered shining? i thought they just both did a love boom thing because the episode needed to end.....
ah i see.....
why would cadance need to be drained for that theory to be valid though?
and as far as i remember cadance was very drained in that episode , she was so weak she couldn't even bust out of the crystal wall that pre alicorn twilight broke , then needing twi's help again to get out of the green goo chrysalis trapper her in again , soooo that would seem to correlate to my theory of cadance's and shining's magic power being connected through their love or something stupid like that and thusly chrysalis having access to love alicorn princess magic through shining.....
it had been for me now.....
2202116
Conjecture, we still never see her teleport, nor is their any particular reason for her to fly away before teleporting.
There was that one time in Ticket Master when she teleported from a random ally to the library. Or the time in Dragon Quest she teleported from a random forest all the way back to Ponyville.
Pardon? Luna never "changes" anyone's thought. In both examples we have available she merely speaks with Scoots and Sweetie. She advises them, but they are still the ones that must make the conscious choice to follow that advice.
...or it just means alicorns aren't OP in the first place. That like any other pony their magical affinity is defined by their cutie mark, in which case, "love" isn't particularly useful for blasting down walls and such.
2202285 conjecture? what? no dude we see her friggen teleport , look at the episode again.....
yeah i figured there were probably going to be some exceptions to her standard teleporting limitations throughout the series......
ok you seem to be misinterpreting a conversation between 2 conscious creatures and a creatures thoughts during rem sleep stating , dreams only exist for one's self , so when luna make it so peoples thoughts change because she wills it she is exerting overt control.....
and interesting proposition , i was just about to agree with it's possibility till i remember i certain episode that a certain insertauthorhere hates completely where cadance along side twilight was doing just find using magical blasts to fight against a giant worm thing when she wasn't so clearly in a weakened state like she was at the canterlot wedding , so yeah there goes that proposition.....
2202745
Alright, I'll give you that she teleported away, been a while since I fully sat down to watch the episode all the way through with rapt attention. Regardless we still don't technically see where she arrives, so we don't know that she actually teleported all the way to Canterlot, though I will admit that's a week excuse. That said, there is also actually is a direct line of sight between Ponyville and Canterlot.
More to the point and to reiterate, we've still seen Twilight teleport far more often and generally with little to no difficulty. It's clearly something ordinary unicrons are capable of, so not an indication that they are any more OP than Twilight. Likewise, I've never denied that Luna and Celestia aren't well practiced in the magical arts, as I would expect anyone who's had over 1000 years of experience. Still, I hold that the magical prowess is the result of their age/experience, not something they have simply by virtue of being alicorns. Notably seeing as Twilight never seemed to get any stronger after ascending, though admittedly she was already pretty powerful to begin with. Point being I see alicorns as being like Captain America, they have the peak ability of the most accomplished ponies, ordinary ponies can still match them (outside of only alicorns can combine the magic of all three tribes).
That might be how dreams work in our SCIENCE based reality, but Equestria is a magical fantasy world. In such settings dreamscapes are often portrayed as an almost separate world unto themselves, a place that can be traveled to on a metaphysical level. As such Luna entering a Ponies dreams doesn't need to have anything to do with brainwave, neurochemical balances, or other such.
Granted, but we also don't see those beems doing any meaningful damage. They could have just been focused concussive telekinesis, which is a generic ability all unicorns seem capable of to some extent. Or she might have instead been trying to pacify the creature by projecting raw unfiltered love into it. The scene is rather open to interpretation.
Either way, it wasn't any more an exceptional display of magic than what we saw Twilight capable of back when she was just a unicorn.
2202877 noooo that is the point though , normal unicorns can't make a teleport that grand , not even twilight , only celestia could and only twilight could after she became an alicorn as well.....
that may often be so in other fantasy settings , but i see no indication that's the case with this particular fantasy setting also , so until some evidence is otherwise presented i'll be sticking with my analysis.......
it was enough to push that giant creature back , i think would also be enough to break some crystal walls , also twi was doing the same thing with her and having the same effect.......
i don't think it's that open to interpretation , we've already seen plenty of demonstrations of the unicorn's magical blast attack from the series thus far.....
what were you expecting them to just boom head shot the creature because they could? that doesn't seem very plausible to me.....
also , if we really wanna talk about op alicorn shit , ahem season 4 final , case closed.......
2202907
Who says ordinary unicorns can't teleport that well? Other than Twilight we haven't even seen any other Twilight with an affinity for teleportation. I'd imagine that unicorn with the right cutie mark could be just as good if not better than Celestia.
Also, and to repeat, Twilight has been seen teleporting both effortlessly and over long distances. Granted, not at the same time, but she still young. Give her the same 1000+ years to practice as Celestia, and I'm sure she'd be just as good if not better.
That was an example of the power of FOUR alicorns all combined. Of course it was impressive. Even as a unicorn Twilight could lift star bears and reverse gravity itself, multiply that by four and what we saw in the final seems about in scale. As such, I fail to see how that really proves much of anything.
2202977 yeah probably , but i don't see there being any ponies who's special talent is teleporting.....
hmmm probably as well....
i don't think timesing (<wait why isn't that a word?) normal twi horn blast by 4 quite measures up to what we got in the season final......
also the part where said 4 alicorn magic was par to all of eqesutrian magic + discord's chaos magic......
2203305
Which actually calls into question the show's sense of scale, since back in Return of Harmony Celestia specifically stated that Discord was more powerful than both herself and Luna combined, which was why only the Elements of Harmony could stop him. Surely if that were true then Discord + Everypony in Equestria would be greater than all four alicorns combined. More likely we should probably assume that Tirek can only use a fraction of the powers that he steels.
More to the point, I think that presuming alicorns are super OP reflects rather badly on Celestia. It calls into question her tendency to sit on her ass while sending others to solve the problems of the kingdom instead of using her supposedly immense and god-like power to actually do anything herself. Where as conversely it's okay for Celestia to behave as such if her power is, while still that of a millennias old nigh-immortal, not so disparate as to be beyond the capacities of exceptionally talented mortals. In that latter case it's far more understandable that she's of more use to Equestria as a leader rather than a warrior.
2203363 based off my speculation about season 2 final i would have to disagree and continue with the line of thought of no loss of power and alicorns are still super op , which would mean that yes 1 alicorn's magic capacity would equal that to all of the other equestria's resident's magic capacity....
of it does , i already brought that into the discussion about the how stupid it was for the writers to include spells that 'changes one's age'.....
though your examples don't hold up if my speculation is correct , as far as "sending others to solve the problems of the kingdom" , there's nmm which celestia needed proper wielders of teoh to fix luna , then discord which you just pointed out she said her and luna would be useless against again because they don't have any of teoh power anymore , then came chrysalis where celestia tried to stop her but according to my speculation was bested by a full channeling of another alicorn's power against her , then sombra which she made clear that this was an actual test for twilight or something , besides which they already had an alicorn on the scene , oh and guess who ultimately defeated the evil thing by the end of that episode?.....
and lastly there's season 4's final , in which celestia didn't want to risk tirek getting close to them to be able to take their alicorn magic , so the plot thought to hide it in someone tirek wouldn't know about but also would be able to vessel that much magic , and twi's special talent is magic , and presto everything makes sense to a certain extent.....
2204068
It was Spike! Also the Empire was nearly lost for a second time because of Celestia's so called "test", which cause d Twilight do the one thing she should never ever do, try going it alone. Had Spike not insisted on coming with her, and, Twilight would have been trapped by the door of fear, and even after that Twilight ultimately disregarded her mentor's explicit instruction by telling Spike to take the Crystal Heart or Sombra would have still won.
What's worse is that as we saw Luna doubt the rational of this so called "test" well, and was trying to talk her sister out of such foolishness.
Seriously...!?!? You think that ONE alicorn has more power than millions of ponies combined. Even in my wildest dreams I never imagined Celestia as more powerful then a few hundred, and more likely only a few dozen ponies. MILLIONS...!?!? That's just an absolutely insane amount of power and it makes the accomplishments of mere mortals seem almost inconsequential by comparison. Not to mention that if they really had that kind of power, they should be out saving the world like Superman, not sitting on a throne all day playing government.
...
Besides, while there are indeed reasonable excuses for Celestia's inaction in the various two-parters, what about lesser crisis? Like the dragon back in season one, or the giant block of ice that nearly crushed everyone at the Equestrian games. All immediate threats that should have been effortlessly easy for alicorns to resolve if they possessed even a measurable fraction of the kind of power you suggest.
...
Admittedly there's still the other obvious elephant in the room, that Celestia and Luna can move the freaking sun and moon. Still, there are work around. First of all the fact that Celestia even "moves" the sun in the first place, suggests a geocentric where in said sun orbits the earth rather than the other way around as we would normally expect. This in turn probably means Equestria's sun is much smaller than our own, probably no larger than our moon. Likewise we also know that in Equestria's the moon is only raised at night, and yet Luna's cutie mark still depicts a crescent moon, indicating that it still somehow has phases, but in order to do that when it's always on the opposite side of globe the moon would need to produce its own light, all of which suggests that it is also unlike our own moon.
Regardless, raw power . As I would see it Celestia and Luna don't move them just through brute telekinesis, but rather through a more measured knowledge and finesse. Consider it the difference between trying to PUSH a car -vs- having the keys and thus being able to DRIVE the car. That's kind of how I see most of their magic working they can indeed accomplish tasks that might otherwise require multiple ponies, but they do so not through RAW POWER, but because they have a unique incite into the way the world is put together tat lets them manipulate it on a more subtle level and precise level so as to achieve seemingly greater results.
Like you say, Twilight's talent is MAGIC itself. So of course when she was super charged by three other alicorn it magnified her already exceptional abilities to the epic displays seen in the finale. Had it been Luna, Celestia, or Cadance that was wielding that combined power though it would likely have instead been filtered through their own unique cutie mark affinities.
2204310 hmmm good point....
millions? where did you get that population statistic? we have a full map of equestria right here in this thread , and if we compare relative size to the only place's population we have a rough estimate of which is ponyvile somewhere around the couple hundreds , the capital city could host a couple thousand at best , and if im to be generous and apply that number to all the other cities we can see on the map being eight , we're looking at a grand total of around 20k population for equestrian land , that's not including the crystal empire though since that seems to be separate and i forget if season 4 final showed them or not.....
if i were god pony i would resign myself to meeting the needs of others , not trying to play the sims with real lives....
was celestia involved in the dragonshy episode?....
and so what would celestia have done in that case anyways? send the dragon to the moon? doesn't sound like that would jive with the show's theme at all....
and it was shown in the equestrian games that all the unicorns including the princesses had to have their magic disabled for the games....
right , just like how chrysalis channeling cadance's fine magic and converting it into an energy blast that took out celestia.....
hmmmmm , don't think i see a problem with the last statement either....
2205415
Actually, a fan did a statistical analysis to determine Ponyville's population (even got featured on EQD) and came up with a range of between 3,100 and 4,300.
As for the other known population centers in Equestria; Manehattan looked to be a rather bustling metropolis and potentially comparative to its real world counterpart which has a population of over 1.6 million. Even if wanted to account for Equestria's seemingly lower tech level, Manhattan has had a population of over a million since the 1880s, which would roughly fit since Equestria has a national railway. Furthermore the real Manhattan is in fact only one of five boroughs that make up the fully incorporate New York City with a grand total population of over 8.4 million.
Seriously, cities are BIG places and nations are even BIGGER still. Equestria probably has more than just the few cities highlighted on the official map, since it's been specifically stated that it's purposely simplified and not to scale. Honestly, mere millions would probably be the lowball estimate for the nation's entire population, with tens-of-millions being more likely (possibly even hundreds-of-millions).
And just for the sake of further example...
That's a lower population than my home town (24.7k) and I pretty much live an entirely unimportant nowheresville.
And yet the latter seems to be closer to what Celestia does, especially if she's anywhere near as powerful as you've been suggesting. Even more so if we take into account your ideas on how Luna's dream-walking powers work
She's the one who tasked Twilight to negotiate with the dragon. A quest that nearly got all six of them crushed and eaten.
We never saw any of the princesses getting there magic bound. Even assuming someone would have the gall to suggest they should be, would it really be possible to bind their magic with normal spells if it's anywhere near as powerful as you seem to believe it is?
2205415
2205603
...Okay, guys? I don't want to interrupt this conversation and all, but...it's been almost two days of this back-and-forth. I'm honestly afraid to post my reaction to the rest of the journal (it finally arrived).
Sorry.