Although, to be fair the “princess of friendship” was a title that supposedly didn’t exist before it was bestowed upon her by her mentor. But it gave her no genuine authority over other ponies, aside from being judge, jury, and executioner to Equestria’s criminals. Wherein she was allowed to give nonhomocidal criminals 10 consecutive life sentences, with no possibility of parole, in an inhumane prison that allowed no movement or social interaction (the moon, statue paralyzation, and tartarus). And nopony questioned her right to do so.
Personally I’d very much like to overthrow the Equestrian Theocracy and replace the current government with a democracy that allows everyone to have a voice and think for themselves. It would certainly cut back on the cruel and unusual punishment we give our criminals, even if said criminals are immortal they have rights too, and depriving their minds of any sort of stimulation, will cause them to slowly lose their minds.
That shoulda been Kim Jong Glimmer, while Twilight rules South Equestria.
If I had the choice between King David of ancient Israel, suitably educated on modern conditions, and duly-elected President Trump (never mind Hilary or Bernie or whoever), I don’t think it would be a very difficult choice. Likewise King Arthur of pre-medieval England, depending on what legends you consider authoritative, could be pretty solid. The problem is that then you have to deal with the son or grandson (or great-grandson) not doing so hot, or alternatively a succession crisis. (See King Rehoboam, Mordred, etc.) If there’s no real chance of an inept, selfish, lazy, or tyrannical successor, then getting a single good ruler and keeping them is an incredibly good deal. It would be less than a century before their powerbase and skillset are so solid that they no longer have any reason to waste time or attention on anything but ruling well and enjoying themselves, and if they’re responsible, they won’t let the latter take away from the former. (See Cakelestia.) And it shouldn’t be ignored that their idea of ruling well will necessarily involve taking lasting responsibility for the welfare of the nation, so they have every reason to make genuinely good decisions: any bad decisions they make will keep coming back to bite them for centuries to come, or until they fix them. (See Nightmare Moon.)
For that matter, even revolutionary America would almost certainly have been willing to elect Washington President-For-Life had he been anything less than strongly opposed, and all the more so if he was immortal.
When you combine many-times-proven heroism and selflessness, conspicuous virtue, immortality, and a great deal of personal power, the case for making an alicorn like Twilight a princess is pretty much irresistible.
True. Royal Sisters (and Celestia in particular) more or less crafted the ‘current’ pony society personally. And it turned out damn well better than… alternatives
Well said.
Giving one person too much power typically doesn’t end well.
But you do recognize the negative repercussions of having 4 goddesses manage everything, they’re the first and last line of defense because the military is useless, they can dish out absurd and inhumane punishments with no court system of any sort, and everyone’s so overly dependent upon the government that there are no precautions in the event that they ever become oppressive, we just have to cross our fingers and hope that someone of equal godlike power is able to keep them in check. We wouldn’t stand it if people exercised this amount of power all by themselves, we have branches in our government to keep anyone from having too much power, but not in equestria, one or two two ponies of this equine nation is the chief executive, can’t be voted out of office or impeached, and no matter how unfair their rule becomes, our only hope is that another godlike being is capable of keeping them in check. We wouldn’t stand it if anyone exercised this amount of power at one time; when the American people seceded from traditional monarchy, our founding fathers took precautions to keep the newly established government in check but in charge, noone should ever have supreme authority over an entire country and all its assets, it’s up the citizens to change their overbearing government or drown in their own complacency.