@Darth Sonic  
I’d say “unabashedly evil” is an exaggeration, but I do agree that there is no such thing as a blameless society.
 
@Revenant Wings  
That’s actually my point. Tirek greatly benefited from sucking up magic, but it was still hugely immoral for him to do so by force. It’s the same for Chrysalis.
 
@PonyPon  
This is how that part went:  

Notice that although yes, Chrysalis does use the word “food” once, the term that is more consistently applied to the whole situation is “power.” Consuming love gives the changelings more power. Chrysalis also says a lot about control.

And then there’s the latter part of her song.

All of this leads me to believe that the word “food” was applied here in a colloquial sense. What they are primarily after is the power and authority to take what they like from the ponies of Equestria unopposed. None of this dialogue conveys a picture of the changelings as a race whose survival is currently under threat of starvation.

@PonyPon  
It is for me but apparently not to others since they say there is no proof that they die without it.
 
I personally think the changelings need it to survive and would die without it and they usually just sneak around disguised and feed without being noticed and the invasion was Chrysalis getting bold and deciding the changelings should be in charge of their prey and feed whenever they like but obviously she underestimated her opponent and lost.
 
I also think she wasn’t always evil but became that way because she and her brood were shunned by the ponies and she became hateful towards them over time.
 
But again this is all speculation on my part and can’t prove any of it so it’s just my headcanon until the show outright says what really happened.
 
I don’t like the IDW comics and I don’t accept them as canon (even though they clearly aren’t) so don’t anyone bother trying to use them as evidence for the show.

@Pagan  
Wouldn’t the references to it as a food source in their one episode of relevance be enough confirmation?

I’ve been thinking, @Millennial Dan said we don’t know for sure if the changelings require love to survive but that’s a double edged sword since there is no way of knowing if they do or not so to say she’s a selfish heartless monster has no proof nor is there proof that she is just trying to keep her subjects alive so to argue about this is futile because there simply isn’t enough evidence for either side of the debate so there can be no right or wrong until we receive hard evidence that proves one way or the other, so how about we not go back and forth anymore since this can only be a battle of opinions.

@Background Pony #E2DF  
In a sense, yes. It is worthy to note that Chrysalis is basically a G-rated succubus while Tirek more or less siphoned out a pony’s life force since he often took away the cutie mark as well.

@Revenant Wings  
But Shining Armor was mostly unharmed after snapped out of her spell, wouldnt that mean that if she really wanted to her and her changelings could feed off ponies love without harming them, and that she was simply starting war with the intent of taking over Equestria.

@Millennial Dan  

 
It’s not shown what she was like before, but it’s implied the same happened for Chrysalis. See this line:
 
Chrysalis: Ah! Shining Armor’s love for you is even stronger than I thought! Consuming it has made me even more powerful than Celestia!

@Millennial Dan  
>Anti-American jargon.
 
U wut m8? All European and European related powers were evil fuckwits during the 19th Century, even Canada. This is not anti-Americanism or anything, but a simple acknowledgement of fact. And I called them less evil. I get accused of jingoism for that.

@Darth Sonic  
Your anti-American jargon aside, it has never actually been shown that the changelings need to attack and feed off of ponies to survive. We know they do this kind of stuff, but we were never told that they need to do so in order to live. That is merely an assumption that Chrysalis/changeling fans like to make, in order to provide some kind of excuse for their behavior. Tirek was a magic-sucker too, and he was demonstrably given physical vitality for doing so. Does that mean he is automatically afforded the presumption that this is the only way for him to survive, or that he was in any way justified? Of course not.

@Darth Sonic  
In short at least she had a reason.

@Millennial Dan  
I’ve pointed it out once, and I’ll point it out again: in the show, she was the only villian with even a vaguely unselfish goal. I’m not saying she’s some victimized woobie. I’m pointing out the objective fact that every other villian did what they did just for evulz and/or power.
 
She’s like 1800s America as compared to the Colonial Empires: unabashedly evil, but still processing of some virtue when compared to everyone else.

Andy I want you to do me a favor and have a nice tall glass of shut the fuck up.

@Millennial Dan Yea rly, we save that kind of consideration for the ponies people that require it!  

@Background Pony #0E64  
>her actions could be considered noble
 
Nope. Not at all.

are we really going to go back to doing this? ugh…
 
let’s just sum this up as follows: her actions could be considered noble, but her methods were less so. feeding is mentioned, but so was the plan of conquering and the fact that twilight had sniffed out something was wrong about chrysalis!cadence before she revealed herself which chrysalis later confirmed. discord was also an asshole which sets a bar that even the worst jerk can be reformed so long as the writers have decreed it so, but in this particular case a combination of show events and comic writers - all of which have to go through the hasbro execs and be approved - decided not to take it that route and made it where pretty much every single one considered her a threat. to add to that, the changling in s5’s “slice of life” episode brings up only new questions as to the moral side of the changelings as a whole and whether or not the crowd acts under chrysalis’ orders, whether or not they were starving or simply wanted power, and the extent to which a hive mind might exist, hardly any of which have been given any clues in that particular episode leaning one way or the other.
 
unless chrysalis herself is brought back, we’re not going to know for sure, but as yet that doesn’t seem to happen, so as yet all we have as to chrysalis’ actual mentality is what the show and the writers of it give us. if you want further information, go ask the show writers whose job it is to plan and create these things to see how they would bring her back and what side the show is supposed to see her on.

@DSF66  
Show Chrysalis set up a trick to try and get Twilight to at least soundly injure Cadance, sang a song about how she has no room in her heart for anyone and unleashed an army of parasites on a city while singing another song about how she’s dreamed about crushing a rival species underneath her hoof.
 
That doesn’t scream “ambiguous” to me.

@Background Pony #0E64  
She doesn’t necessarily think what she’s doing is right; it’d be enough for someone like her just to know that she’s doing what she wants.

@Background Pony #A16C  
given multiple context cues, probably not. what i’m saying is that she’s probably doing what she thinks is right or what she thinks is owed to her, but it’s not in line with whatever morals someone is supposed to have.

@Background Pony #0E64  
I don’t think there’s any strong evidence Chrysalis giving thought to any moral compass whatsoever.

@Red-Supernova  
do explain.
 
personally, she seems to be working off more of a “blue and orange morality” - that is, she has one, but not the one the show would even consider “heroic”.

What the flying fuck, Andy?! Chrysalis is much more fitting to be shown as a sympathetic villain than Discord is!

@DSF66  
This is exactly what I mean, reaching for insults at a completely unrelated topic to try to insult me,when it has nothing to do with anything anyone was saying. You complain about headcannon and then out of no where just come up with the grand idea of “LOL Ill call him handicapped” Ive talked to you far long enough to figure out you literally dont know how to hold a subject long enough to prove your point, and just grab for unrelated crap you pull out your ass to sound smart. Lol good luck fighting battles that way genius.

Great googly moogly, this is still going on?
 
@DSF66  
You do realize that this is a kid’s show, right? It’s pretty well-written for a kid’s show, but it’s still a kid’s show. As such, “conquer a population I don’t give a rat’s ass about to gain food and power for myself and my subjects” is not only sufficient motive for a villain, it’s actually a more realistic and complex motive than most kid’s show villains. “Secure a food supply for my people because otherwise they’ll starve”, on the other hand, only works as a motive for someone who ends up compromising with the show’s protagonists; otherwise, we end up with a mere “survival of the fittest” moral (at best) which doesn’t fit in with a kid’s show.
 
If you want to headcanon that Chrysalis infiltrated and invaded Equestria as a last-ditch effort to save her subjects, go ahead; just don’t expect people to accept such a bleak scenario as canon in a show about magical technicolor talking equines.

@DrSklee  
In all honesty after this discussion as well as looking through your faves and uploads I start to suspect you are somewhat handicapped which kinda makes me feel bad about laughing at you earlier. I think the best thing I can do in this case is to apologize since I couldn’t know about that aspect, cease the discussion with ya and just let you be.

@DrSklee  
Oh wow.  
Well I sure enjoy this Monday morning quite a bit thanks to you. XD
 
Now please be a dear and quote me exactly where I mentioned Derpy? Anywhere besides this post? Keep in mind that I am a nice person and always capitalize names of characters and people. :3