Hello, bronies. Look at the picture. Now back at the caption. Now back at the picture. Now back at the caption. Happily, it isn’t serious, but if you stopped looking out for sarcasm and switched to drama mode, it could sound like it’s serious.
 
Basically, I think a lot of you are arguing with someone who actually agrees with you. It’s hard to see this as anything but a parody, considering the picture used.

@NoodleNugget  
People call everything they could conceivably disagree with “bait”.

holy crap a lot of you took the bait

The OP watching all of us arguing.
 

@Pawny.
 
Honestly? The way the Earth ponies have been defined in several episodes now, I would not put it past them to be able to grow crops in the dark.
 
Here’s a question worth asking. Would the sun being eclipsed prevent the sun’s heat from reaching Equestria?
 
Is the fact that the sun and moon revolve around Equestria (seemingly) mean that the sun is not aparticularly intense medium of heat in the first place?

That’s Duckery.

@AlsoSprachOdin  
It was Summer, and the night only lasted a couple extra hours at most. Of course the cold hadn’t set in yet.
 
And that magic blast knocked her out for a good 30 seconds of screen time. Were you expecting her broken bones to be protruding or whatever in a kids’ cartoon?

@AlsoSprachOdin  
Yes, don’t stop the identity crisis, power grabbing, “There can only be one princess” decreeing, madmare and instead give her everything she wants.
 
Because if history has told us anything, it’s that the way to stop someone from aggressive expansion is appeasement. You should have been alive during the league of nations existence, you’d have been a perfect fit.

@Pawny.  
When Nightmare came back in the first episodes, she extended the night for a good while, and no change in temperature or other effects were ever mentioned or shown. There’s no evidence to support the idea that Equastria would have gone cold, besides what would realistically happen.  
And Equastria doesn’t seem all that realistic.
 
And again, the violence Luna resorted to didn’t really do anything to Celestia.
 
My point is, Celestia could have probably given Luna/Nightmare some time and space, then tried talking with her before sending her to isolation for a millennium.

Considering luna was all “There is no luna, only Nightmare Moon”, then tried to kill celestia, and used some pretty sick looking evil magic to block the sun, not just moving it in front of it, I gotta say banishment was probably the more humane approach.
 
It was purge her of whatever internal evil now had a hold of her, which didn’t seem possible without the magic of friendship(even twilight was able to spark the elements into action slightly during the beginning of season 1. And let’s not forget the failed element warmup of season 2 against discord.)
 
So the elements can still be used even without the magic of friendship, probably if you are powerful enough, but they will never be able to unlock their full power unless friendship and goodness and all that stuff is present.
 
Second option is banishment or imprisonment, basically quarantine until a cure could be found. Not bad, harsh, but at the same time, with the hope of recovery.
 
Third options killing them. We’ve all probably seen that play out. Heck everyone probably saw how failing to kill without imprisonment can come back to bit you in the ass with anakin and obi wan in star wars.
 
So between banishment and death, I think celestia was more then fair. Not let’s all go back to whatever we were doing before we step in duck poop or something.

My sides.

@AlsoSprachOdin
 
Luna made it perfectly clear she was not going to bring down the moon and showed that she was more then willing to resort to violence.
 
Everlasting night is a pretty serious crisis you know? Without the sun plants can’t grow and the temperature will drop wich will harm the plantlife even more.

@Background Pony #A89A  
Actually, it was after seeing this flashback I thought the banishment was uncalled for.

@Background Pony #122F  
Eh, lots of people used to think that way, thankfully that seems to have largely died out.

Well, the whole “You leave me no choice, Luna” didn’t really sound all that legit, when all Luna’d done at that point was - what? - lengthen the night for a few minutes, had a slap-fight with Celestia during those minutes, and gave Celestia one non-injuring zap in the ribs. Did I miss something?

Found a picture of OP
 

@Background Pony Number 17  
There’s still some sleepers out there that survived the purge.

 
I thought the Inquisition finally took care of these “Lunar Republican” cranks.

@PonyPon  
*we’re

@VladimirMacHolzraum  
As good as were gonna get!

@PonyPon  
Not as well as she wanted to, as she found out…

@PonyPon  
Uh, there was still some residual power because Luna was in close proximity?

@VladimirMacHolzraum  
Yet, she could still, somehow, use them.

@Ridley Wolf  
Luna was her only friend, so when she turned evil, Celestia lost the ability to harness the elements’ full power.

@Background Pony #6697  
#MAXIMUM EDGE