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And when it comes to politics within Equestria and teaching Celestia is a perfectly good leader. The fact that Equestria survived a thousand years with her in charge also indicates there is some measure of truth to her being more capable of handling threats than her onscreen works would imply (and as was basically lampshaded in the premiere). But that’s been argued about incessantly.
Edited
Generally it helps to have good leaders and good citizens. You’re missing something if you have only one or the other.
It doesn’t look better than a decaying slum with streets choked with rubble, buildings in a constant state of collapse, no community worth speaking of and populated by solipsistic jackasses who literally won’t lift a finger to save another’s life if they’re not getting paid for it?
Well, there’s your problem. You’re going into this having already decided what you want your conclusion to be and are trying to fit logic and the evidence to support a preselected goal. That’s not really a good way to do things, generally speaking.
Celestia is a symbol as much as anything else, her charisma and what she represents (namely the three pony tribes) all being strong influences that help keep Equestria united. Moreover, there’s her stance of letting those best suited to particular tasks handle things. Pretty obviously she rarely interferes with the leaders of respective towns and cities unless they come to her with a issue she has authority on or as a third party mediator.
But as important as Celestia is, its the ponies themselves and what they do that has allowed Equestria to flourish. Namely pooling their many physical, magical and mental talents to gain unrivaled power over how their land works and use that power to benefit everyone. Equestria recovers easily in part because ponies are able to pretty easily make rain, grow food, etc. pretty much whenever they need it.
Lol
But why is it because of Celestia that Equestria manages to recover? The conversation here is about Equestria being a bad place to live AND about her job ruling the nation.
There are monsters in Equestria. The Storm King is just another one.
And now it’s ‘blame the victim’ applied cartoon interpretation: it’s not the cartoon that doesn’t do something, I just want to dislike it. Please… The problem here isn’t that I don’t want to see that Celestia is a good ruler. The problem is that the cartoon simply doesn’t say that. It doesn’t say that she’s a bad one, either; but that doesn’t make her a good one. You people are coming from a conclusion, that she is, and refuse to see that the cartoon often shows the opposite, because it ignores that she should have an effect. What I mean is, the only line of defense the cartoon has bothered to show was the main characters. There is nothing other than them that has a chance of helping when things go wrong.
You honestly think that monsters only attack Equestria? The hippogriffs were driven from their homes by the Storm King, the yaks have their own tales of evil creatures they have faced and defeated, etc. Though on another note the two changeling attacks happened specifically because Equestria is such a great place to live, full of more love than anywhere else Chrysalis has seen.
You also seem to be ignoring how quickly the problems you mention get solved, how little impact, especially long term, any of it has on the average citizen, etc.
Those ponies in Leap of Faith were sick or injured and looking for a quick fix, and that can happen regardless of poverty or lack of it (plus its been long established that typical healing magic is rather limited in Equestria).
And Griffonstone had become a dump of its own making, if Gilda is any indication then the average griffon wanted to leave it if they were able to. [/bq]
About the griffon, I was talking about specific events. Some villains seem to prefer messing with Equestria, while some episodes that should mention how other nations are dealing with the situation, but doesn’t. I’m sorry. I was in a good mood and was trying to say funny things. I’ll try to be more clear.
And, no. I don’t believe monsters only attack Equestria. It would be ridiculous to say that when I was arguing that monsters attacked outside of Ponyville, and out of the Mane Six’s range to help.
Problems get solved fast because the cartoon isn’t interested in developing. Not to mention that saying this ignores that ‘the problem’ with the Storm King, for example, certainly has been developing for a long time. Only from the perspective of the Mane Six it got solved fast, ans still the movie was unclear about how long things took to develop through it. Finally, if a monster wrecks your house, you won’t get a new one, with new possessions that where destroyed, and so forth. The cartoon ignores to show these details.
Is there a quote for that in Leap of Faith?
Finally, I don’t care if Griffonstone is a dump because of itself. As far as I care, Equestria still doesn’t look much better.
your current filter.
your current filter.
your current filter.If anything, Equestria seems better able to bounce back from invasions or monster attacks than other nations – the griffons took the one monster attack and their whole nation collapsed.
@moonlightaveger
That wasn’t my point. I wasn’t saying anything about the transfer of or duties inherent in rulership. My point was simply and exclusively that the episode needed to explain why the other people capable of saving the nation weren’t doing that. Discord has the power to do so; Starswirl has the power to do so; Luna and Celestia have the power to do so. Thus, the story needed to explain why the individuals capable of beating Sombra weren’t doing so. That’s it.
Heck, even the changelings had to deal with monster attacks on their hive.
Per the movie, the entirety of Abyssinia and a number of other countries beyond Equestria were under the control of the Storm King’s army for years, possibly more, after either wars or immediate surrender. Whereas you’re pretty darn safe anywhere in Equestria not called Ponyville or Canterlot (And that’s for a few weeks, tops!).
Also a big part of Griffonstone’s episode centers the effects of a monster attack. From which the griffons never recovered, apparently.
I can see that you won’t be swayed on the positive effects of Celestia’s leadership, but you’re pushing a little too hard in the opposite direction to be taken completely seriously.
Edited
You honestly think that monsters only attack Equestria? The hippogriffs were driven from their homes by the Storm King, the yaks have their own tales of evil creatures they have faced and defeated, etc. Though on another note the two changeling attacks happened specifically because Equestria is such a great place to live, full of more love than anywhere else Chrysalis has seen.
You also seem to be ignoring how quickly the problems you mention get solved, how little impact, especially long term, any of it has on the average citizen, etc.
Those ponies in Leap of Faith were sick or injured and looking for a quick fix, and that can happen regardless of poverty or lack of it (plus its been long established that typical healing magic is rather limited in Equestria).
And Griffonstone had become a dump of its own making, if Gilda is any indication then the average griffon wanted to leave it if they were able to.
Edited
The only difference between that episode and all the other times Twilight saved Equestria, was that talk about Twilight having to deal with thing on her own TAKING CELESTIA’S PLACE with her friends. So, what else is the episode trying to say? It never, EVER, went into Twilight having to rule the nation. What is their ‘job description’ then?
I’m fine disagreeing there. But, why exactly do you think that “While Equestria’s external defense is flimsy at best, I’m talking about the nation as a whole. I’m talking about infrastructure and access to consumer goods equal to that of the wealthiest real world countries despite lower overall technology, a place were the virtues of Harmony are the rule, not the exception and most citizens look out for each other (this wasn’t always the case going back to the Three Tribes), and little to no signs of poverty (versus Griffonstone, for example, or whatever nation-state Kludgetown is part of).”? when we basically follow the stories of a handful of ponies that are gifted in several ways that turn them into special characters.
Because that second sentence is one tall order to fill. Specially when you mention less sophisticated technology, and things like computers and telecommunications are an essential part of infrastructure. But that is not really important. What caught my attention was that you mentioned ‘little to no signs of poverty’.
When did the cartoon make an episode about the struggles of that random pony who lives in the back end of nowhere and cleans the streets? Or that random pony that works in the random, low-tech factory in that big town and works to that very rich other pony who doesn’t even know how many employees he has?
Because I don’t think that the ponies that went to Flim and Flam on ‘Leap of Faith’ were exactly swimming in money or harmony. And I also don’t think that you compare poverty like that. You either are, or you aren’t poor, because the point is if you have, or not, access to services and products. And even in your examples, to my memory, we didn’t really see that people were suffering. Kludgetown isn’t even a fair example because it was in an state of exception, and still didn’t apply. If I remember correctly.
I don’t know if you missed my point about the griffon, but what I meant is that stuff like that only seemed to happen in Equestria, and other nations are spared. I would rather live in peace among the griffons, than risking changeling invasions, random monsters, and the like.
Anyway, the point of all that is to talk about Celestia and how much of a good ruler she is. How does what you said translate to Celestia being a good ruler? Because I’ve been convinced that Equestria would mimic the US and, considering that, I would find it easier to assume that things like infrastructure are more out of her control than most of her fans would appreciate, and things like the mess that is Equestria’s defense would be hers to answer for. And that is considering that Equestria even is the way you say it is.
Just because they were planning to retire from active rulership, but hadn’t yet, does not mean that they would immediately stop caring about a megalomaniacal tyrant trying to conquer the country anymore than, say, Starswirl or Discord wouldn’t try to do something about a major threat, as they both did, despite not occupying any place in Equestria’s official chain of command.
This isn’t about whether Luna and Celestia would be fulfilling official government functions at the time when Sombra marched into Canterlot. If a tyrant walks into the city they live in and starts magically enslaving everyone, it’s wholly in-character of them to want to try to do something to stop him. This isn’t about them having “save Equestria” in their job description – the main six don’t, either. They help because they can and they want to.
Yeah right… All the monsters are locked in Tartarus and Ponyville is the only place where monsters ever show up. And nothing about this is specific or exaggerated: you can spin something similar to every single time something went wrong, and I’m not even talking about season openers, I’m talking about those random times, like when Trixie simply up and bought a magical amulet and literally conquered a city and no one in charge even knew of it. And that is talking about events the cartoon shows. Or what? Did you think that whatever big bad guy treated the citizenry nicely. Or that getting your town captured and or destroyed is a fun thing to go through? Just because the cartoon doesn’t show obvious things that are above it’s age rating? Please.
It had already done that. The princesses had ‘retired’. That was why sombra didn’t find them in the thrones room. Twilight was freaking out the whole episode about that.
Overly specific scenario is over specific. Monsters are not a normal problem, they were all locked in Tartarus or banished to Everfree many years ago. And most of the takeovers did not affect most ponies, yeah Canterlot got screwed but that’s the price of living in the capital, where all crises last less than twenty four hours so just hiding out and waiting would keep you safe. You exaggerate the scale of these events.
You are Background Pony #167, who lives in Unnamed City #12. You are a farrier and you wake up every morning to work, as all ponies do. That is, when the morning is there, and nothing random happened to the Princesses that govern the day and night. Walking to your job, you see that Random Monster #15 decided Unnamed City #12 is a good vacation spot. Well, you’ve heard of this group of six heroic ponies: one stunt flyer, a farmpony, a baker, a seamstress, a veterinarian and the librarian that has a non-specific anxiety disorder. Sounds weird, but they will save you. Well, they would, if you lived in Ponyville. But you don’t. You realize, as Random Monster #15 attacks, that you will die now because in Equestria, these six ponies keep the peace, but they are far away and don’t even know you exist. But Celestia thanks you for you taxes.
After being bankrupt from paying the medical bills you decided to move to Canterlot! The throne city! Start a new life! Right next to the princesses, likely the safest place in Equestria. Not only that, but there is a royal marriage on the way! Well, Background Pony #167, you are one unlucky pony, because a mysterious and vague threat has been made. But you feel safe since the Princess’ guard is on high alert and the captain of the Royal Guard has a shield spell around town. Unfortunately, the changeling queen didn’t read the script and didn’t know that, so she simply infiltrated the town. God knows how, it’s not important! The important thing is that the captain is a schmuck that doesn’t know his bride and is under the queen’s spell. But it’s alright, the Princess will protect you! No she won’t, she’s another useless schmuck and bites the dust because she’s not supposed to be fighting, she should’ve made sure her capital was protected. Now, changelings are running around, the Royal Guards are getting served a fresh helping of their asses, the Mane Six got captured; and where is Princess Luna? You don’t know, probably getting high on moon dust somewhere with you tax money. The important thing is that you, Background Pony #167, is now changeling fodder! If not for Chrysalis being ungodly stupid, you’d be spending the rest of you short life inside a cocoon, and if you were lucky, they’d stick you near to Celestia so that you could ask her what is her problem.
But everything is okay because Cadance paid extra to the writer and she saved the day. A couple of years later, you are happy you don’t have to take medicines for your PTSD anymore and things are moving forward. You even have a new job in Canterlot: you are now shinning the princesses’ regalia. It’s not fancy, but you gotta pay those bills! Well, look at that! Changelings again! They captured the princesses, somehow, and also the Mane Six, somehow. And you! You’d think that after an invasion the ponies in charge would’ve figured out a way to detect changelings, since they came up with those things to block magic from anypony, during that event, in that stadium, in that city that materialized from thin air and Princess Celestia gave to her niece… For some reason you don’t understand. Not that you’ve seen it. After all, the princesses won’t take you there, right? At least, you got to know the changeling home! From inside a cocoon, but it’s free! Lucky for you, some god of chaos and a bunch of randoms that don’t care about you saved you and everyone else.
Back in Canterlot, you now also clean the Princesses’ toilets because you job of cleaning their regalia can’t pay for your new medication. The good side is that the princess’ bathroom has a nice view of Canterlot’s walls! At least you know that you are safe and that army of zombieponies following that black wizard into town is just a hallucination from your medication. No, they are not and the only alarm system is one single Royal Guard schmuck with a horn that manages not to do his only job. What is that? A farmpony just breached the city’s gate by headbutting it. Maybe it’s just the medication, but you start to wonder when things went so wrong.
But, hey! At least NOW the Mane Six saved you. You can pay for whatever new treatment you need though: the princesses don’t care! Nobody cares! You are a background pony that doesn’t even make it to the cartoon! You can go to bed and cry yourself to sleep and dream about viciously murdering those ponies that don’t care about you. Oh, wait! The Princess of the Night has just arrived and wants to know why are you dreaming these terrible things. Man! The magical land of Equestria!
The use of the gardening tools was approaching parody, I’m totally with you on that, and it definitely weakened the impact of the scene, overall. But like you said, we’ll have to disagree about the overall situation with the forest.
While Equestria’s external defense is flimsy at best, I’m talking about the nation as a whole. I’m talking about infrastructure and access to consumer goods equal to that of the wealthiest real world countries despite lower overall technology, a place were the virtues of Harmony are the rule, not the exception and most citizens look out for each other (this wasn’t always the case going back to the Three Tribes), and little to no signs of poverty (versus Griffonstone, for example, or whatever nation-state Kludgetown is part of).
Speaking of which, if Griffonstone is anything to go by, non-Equestrian griffons might not even be able to afford a newspaper. And if they could, it wouldn’t be but a day before the story would have an update saying “day saved, peace restored.” Often as a result of groups brought together, indirectly, by Celestia.
Edited
Indeed, and when one considers that for the first time in its history Equestria has decent relations with the surrounding species/nations, one can see additional reason for Luna to talk about how harmonious it is. For years now even the worst crises get solved within a few days, with few (if any) lasting negative impacts. Compared to protracted wars and such that’s nothing. Even the random monster attacks are likely down considering how many have been locked up in Tartarus.
Still, if I were Luna I would have worded things a bit less vaguely, but the writers had to squeeze a lot of material into the episodes.
Edited
But it did. When a story relies on only a group of heroes saving the world from danger, it needs to explain why only they are in the position of doing so. Regardless of whether or not the story touches on the Princesses, they still exist in the world. They don’t stop existing there the moment the story doesn’t focus on them, and if they don’t show up to deal with Sombra the episode needs explain why they aren’t doing anything.
The show did something fairly similar to what I think you’re saying in “A Canterlot Wedding”, where it simply didn’t address what Luna was doing because she wasn’t in the story. The result was that it appeared that she simply hung around obliviously and failed to notice anything going on, which looks pretty bad. The show does very much need to address why all the other heavyweights it’s introduced over time – the Princesses, Discord, Starswirl – aren’t stopping Sombra. They can – we know they can – so why don’t they? What are they doing while the villains are trying to take over everything and the heroes are desperately trying to stop them? Were they captured, were they caught up with something else? Those are absolutely questions that need to be answered somehow.
Okay but Equestria is peaceful. Only every few months- about twice a year- is there a major crisis, and they’ve got a task force specifically to contain and solve the problem within twenty four hours. Out of all the major battles we’ve seen, only Tirek ever actually posed a threat beyond the capital and Ponyville, and all crises except his were solved before they got out of hand. Only Chrysalis managed to actually take over in TWABA, and that was a truly perfect plan that no other villain has ever come close to. Equestria is peaceful.
@Frustration in Excelsis
I guess we’ll just disagree on this. Applejack herself said that they have been at it for hours. With gardening tools. This is the opposite of legendary, its downright stupid. It’s like a parody. Not to mention that the scene itself is pointless because the episode didn’t need to lock the princesses on something else because they were already out of it, and it creates this insanity that, somehow, Star Swirl can summon the princesses to deal with plants, but Cadance nor Twilight can call them to help with Sombra before it all become a problem.
And again, the parasprites were more of a problem than those plants. Discord’s vines were more of a problem. And they couldn’t “Applejack: We’ve been at this for hours, but it’s just growin’ back too fast!”.
@noradtwo
The reason I do this is because the cartoon never mentioned or tried to show that Equestria is either flourishing, or a happy nation (outside of Luna’s ramblings in the beginning of the episode that immediately prove her wrong. As far as I know, the thing is on the brink of destruction every time a random bad guy decides they’re bored, and fixing the problem has nothing to do with Celestia. Equestria, without Twilight and her friends couldn’t defend itself even from within (which is one definition of what Celestia ought to be doing). By the nature of the stories the cartoon is always trying to tell, I couldn’t imagine a worse place to live than Equestria because the cartoon lacks the gumption to involve other nations. I can picture a griffon sitting on his kitchen in the morning and opening the newspaper to a photo of Tyrek wrecking Ponyville or Nightmare Moon threatening eternal night and going ‘Effing ponies…’ while drinking his coffee and going on with his day. Joking aside, I much rather see the cartoon letting Celestia show that she actually is doing something for the good of her subjects, like a damn queen ruling her nation, instead of blowing things up that turn pointless and then bowing her head to a xenophobic asshole that Twilight promptly ignored as soon as S08E02 was done.
The difference here is they were doing it without the help of any artifacts or the other princesses. Plus for Twilight it was about embracing the new roll she needs to grow into.