Wesker-Wolf's Defense: Princess Celestia

[NOTE] If there is an issue or subject concerning Princess Celestia that you think I should address, please feel free to point it out to me. I will be more than happy to look into the matter if I have not already. Points added will be given Blue Bullets.

A recent "conversation" has brought to my knowledge a group dedicated to "protecting" the character, Princess Celestia, who is from the show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. If you know me, you know that I LOVE the character of Princess Celestia and that I've been a spazztastic little defender of hers ever since I became a fan of the show (My friends, Jandrus13 and Dusty-san know VERY well how I've been about that). I don't remember if I've ever written Journals about how I feel about her, but I know I've ranted and lectured people a bunch in the past about my feelings toward Princess Celestia and putting up logic and a good defense in her behalf for her actions in the show.

Now, it's important to note that I wrote this journal in response to another journal I saw posted within the same group above mentioned that is devoted to protecting Celestia. I felt it could've been expressed and presented better, so I took the liberty of writing my own version. Although, I merely used the same questions addressed about Princess Celestia, but the answers are purely my own. The Red Bullets indicate the questions I took from the other Journal that was featured in the group.

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Why did Celestia banish Luna to the moon?

This looks like a controversial act or feat for many people considering the fact that Princess Luna is Princess Celestia's younger sister. The first and foremost important fact to realize is that Celestia didn't just banish Luna to the moon, she banished Night Mare Moon to the moon. The opening sequence described in detail that Luna allowed jealously and anger to get the best of her and that she wanted to create an endless night so Equestria would be forced to appreciate her more. Celestia didn't outright attack her or anything like that, but tried to reason with Luna, but Luna was so far over the edge that she was transformed into a "wicked mare of darkness". Even after that, the opening explains that Celestia reluctantly was forced to use the Elements of Harmony to stop her sister from causing death and destruction. This screenshot I took of a comment given to Lauren Faust should further reinforce my statements: imageshack.us/f/403/inyofacetr…

If you don't even want to take the creator of MLP:FiM's word for it, then so be it. Luna was turned evil and had Celestia not acted, all of Equestria would've been destroyed for a selfish desire.

Why did Celestia turn Discord into stone?

Well... This should be self-explanatory for you all. Discord ruled in tyranny and chaos. BOTH Celestia and Luna took Discord out with the Elements of Harmony even before Luna became the corrupt Night Mare Moon. If someone has a love for Discord, then to single out Celestia would be quite unfair as Luna was also the other half of the "Discord in Stone" equation.

4/May/2012
On top of this, it is to my understanding that some people like Discord so much, they feel it was STILL irrational that Celestia (and Luna) sealed a living being in stone. According to the show, Discord is the Spirit of Chaos. He's a magical entity that can do such crazy things like turning his head into a balloon and morph his physical shape in any fashion. I doubt that a normal prison could've held such a powerful entity. Being sealed in stone, apart from a lack of mobility, Discord seemed to quite simply be in a stasis, similar to Han Solo being frozen in Carbonite. When he busted out, he was just as destructive and conniving as ever.

Why does Celestia "troll" everyone in the show?

I still have never seen any physical nor circumstantial evidence in the show that would lean toward Celestia being a "troll". In my opinion, the usage of "memes" is the cause of this belief, since memes are spread over the internet at different times, they circulate for awhile and fans in general take them for fact depending on the context. I feel that one who doesn't understand Celestia's actions would look at them as "trolling", which again, is beyond me how anyone comes to that conclusion considering that the definition of a "Troll" is:

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%2…

As far as I see it, the word "troll" is overused and WAY out of context half the time. If the one joke Celestia played in the whole show is considered "trolling", then every human being that has ever lived could be considered a troll.

Are the lessons about friendship that important?

Considering the show is intended to teach an important moral at the end of almost every episode, I'd say yes. For the sake of the actual story within the show, I'd say it is an important assignment for Twilight to learn how to maintain her friendships with her friends and to possibly grow into an ideal leader someday. In the opening episodes to the 2nd season, "The Return of Harmony" parts 1 and 2, the one thing that saved Twilight from giving up and letting Discord take over Equestria was the Friendship Reports Celestia sent back to her to remind Twilight what she was fighting for. Without the friendship that Twilight maintains with the other 5 main characters, the Elements of Harmony are kaput and useless.

How do you explain Celestia trolling the Cakes in "A Bird In the Hoof"?

This goes back to my defense about Celestia not even fitting the definition of "troll" in the first place, considering it's internet meaning. What Celestia did in that episode was perfectly harmless and lighthearted. You'd assume that Mr. and Mrs. Cake would lighten up a bit about having royalty in their shop should they witness that she's not someone to be feared and in turn has a fun nature, no? I'd say her actions were harmlessly breaking the ice for those around her. Some individuals enjoy being treated like a movie star and being pampered every single second, but Celestia breaks the mold in showing that she just wants to be treated like normal when around friends. I'd say that's awful kind of her.

Why would Celestia not tell Fluttershy about Philomena being a Phoenix?

This is another act people have labelled as "trolling". How so, I'll never understand. I guess it's the general belief that Celestia for some reason intentionally did not tell Fluttershy that her pet bird was a self-resurrecting phoenix and would be dying soon.

That's understandable for someone with little consideration to others, but given Celestia's non-trolling nature, that actually makes the concept rather farfetched. Twilight introduced Fluttershy to Celestia, so it's safe to say that this demonstrates that the two haven't really had any time just to talk before. All Celestia knew about Fluttershy was what was written via Twilight's letters and friendship reports at the time, so she at the least knew who Fluttershy was and that she was good with animals. Other than a few words of conversation, Celestia had to leave on official business, accidentally leaving her pet phoenix behind and Fluttershy snagged her before anyone was the wiser.

I'm not pointing any fingers, but it definitely doesn't look like it's Celestia's fault for all that happened. She even had her guards out looking for her pet bird that Fluttershy took without permission. I highly doubt my neighbors would appreciate it if I snuck into their backyard and took their dog while they were out grocery shopping because I thought the dog was sick when it was actually just pregnant or something. It's not necessarily the neighbors responsibility to tell me everything about the dog if they were under the impression that I was an "animal expert". They could probably assume I could tell the dog was pregnant and that nature would soon takes it's course, much like how Celestia was probably under the impression that Fluttershy's vast knowledge of animals might have also extended to phoenixes.

Didn't Celestia know Twilight had 5 friends when she sent only 2 tickets in "The Ticket Master"?

Now this is an old issue I've addressed quite a bit in the past. Many people seem to WANT to believe the worst case scenario with this one, when in retrospect, there are far more logical answers apart from "Celestia wanted Twilight and her friends to fight over the tickets for her amusement". That's a bit silly to believe, especially when you realize there's no way Celestia would know if they even fought or not from Canterlot when Twilight and her friends were in Ponyville.

There are a couple good reasons I figure when dealing with this answer. One of the most logical was that the invitations were sent specifically to Twilight and Spike, since they are Celestia's private student and assistant. Considering the hype surrounding the "Grand Galloping Gala", I doubt ponies received tickets all willy nilly, especially looking at the high class society that attend.

Another good reason to mull on is that Celestia may have even been unsure whether Twilight's friends wanted to go or not. This was only the 3rd episode of the entire series and Celestia had just met the other 5 characters for a small time in the prior episode. When Twilight decided not to go to the Gala if all her friends couldn't go, there was NO hesitation on Celestia's end when she learned that all of Twilight's friends wanted to go and an additional 5 tickets were sent out. Hardly "trolling" if you ask me. She even added, "All you had to do was ask" in her letter back to Twilight. "Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you..."

How come Celestia didn't do anything when she saw Rarity falling to her death in the "Sonic Rainboom" episode?

Let me answer this question with a question: Why didn't anyone ELSE jump to Rarity's rescue other than the Wonderbolts? This was Cloudsdale we're talking about. EVERY pony could fly except Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie. People seriously seem to expect Celestia to act like a superhero because she has powerful magic. That's debatable, but for the sake of character and plot development, it was imperative that Rainbow Dash was the one to save Rarity. Had she not, Rainbow Dash wouldn't have won the "Best Young Flyers" competition, she would've never received recognition from the Wonderbolts, she would have never performed her "Sonic Rainboom" and she would've never gotten her confidence back.

Whether Celestia had the physical capability to save a falling pony or not (where an elite team of flyers could not), we can't say, but we all know it wasn't up to her to act the part of the hero. You could just as easily claim that Twilight should've saved Rarity with a levitation spell or the other competitors should've also dove in.

Why didn't Celestia stop Discord when he escaped from his stone prison?

This is where simple realization comes in. When Celestia and Luna defeated Discord over 1000 years ago, they utilized the Elements of Harmony. When Celestia had to stand up to Night Mare Moon and banish her, she had to use the Elements of Harmony. See the pattern here? Celestia isn't necessarily all powerful. She's still mortal and flawed. She even explains to Twilight that her and Luna are no longer tied to the Elements of Harmony and therefore, couldn't use them to defeat Discord again. Celestia did what she was able to and the rest was up to Twilight and her friends. I'd say Celestia came through rather well when her act of sending back Twilight's friendship reports ended up restoring Twilight to her original self, as I explained earlier. That in turn ended up allowing Twilight to know how to restore her friends and ultimately be able to harness the Elements of Harmony once again.

Celestia still gave Spike a stomach ache for sending all those letters and reports back to Twilight

This is really scrapping the bottom of the barrel, in my opinion. It's like saying Celestia shouldn't have caused Spike his moment of stomach pain in favor of allowing Discord to take over Equestria. When an emergency arises, you don't necessarily hesitate because you think your plan to save the world will cause a magical dragon a tummy ache. I highly doubt she got enjoyment out of it all the way back in Canterlot.

Queen Chrysalis beat Celestia, proving that she's useless

This one kinda peeves me a little bit and it's also the most recent issue surrounding Celestia. Where people see "useless", I see dedicated and loving. Queen Chrysalis fooled everyone into believing that she was Princess Cadance. Where the Changeling Queen couldn't deceive, she either mind controlled or imprisoned in an underground cavern. When the Queen's disguise was overthrown, who was the first character to stand up to her? Twilight? Princess Cadance?

Unfortunately, they let the Queen's intimidation get the better of them. The character who rose to the tyrannical Queen's sinister plot and cruelty was none other than Princess Celestia herself. If anyone saw the scene, we know that Queen Chrysalis was able to overpower Celestia and defeat her with stronger magic, thus causing some fans to claim Celestia was "useless". Yet, if anyone observed Queen Chrysalis during the duel, she was immensely unsure of herself and nervous. She believed she was going to lose to Celestia, when to both of their great surprise, the Changeling Queen won, claiming that the power she received from feeding off of Shining Armor's love has given her the upper hand (Err, upper hoof?).

In the end, it was Princess Cadance and Shining Armor's love that defeated the evil Queen, allowing those two quite an epic and emotional spotlight. So how is it that Celestia is "useless" in comparison to say... Twilight's 5 friends who did nothing the whole episode except prepare for the wedding? Twilight herself did a lot of great, including discovering and freeing the real Princess Cadance and exploiting the Changeling Queen, but even she ultimately had to back down where Celestia demonstrated her concern and love for her people.

If Celestia is so smart, how come she didn't see through the Changeling Queen's disguise? 6/May/2012

In all due respect to what had occurred in the two episodes of the Season 2 finale, everyone except Twilight had no reason to think suspiciously of the fake Princess Cadance. None of them spent as much time around her as Twilight did and as far as we know, none of them have a history with Cadance either, even though it is speculated that Cadance might be Celestia's niece.

Remember as well those moments when Celestia was on one of the castle terraces keeping watch over Canterlot with a telescope? It's safe to assume she wasn't exactly around everypony to give reason to doubt the identity of Princess Cadance. The only time Celestia was with the fake princess was during the actual rehearsal for the wedding.

Celestia didn't apologize to Twilight for not believing her about the fake Princess Cadance 2/May/2012

When the true identity of the fake Cadance was revealed to be the Changeling Queen, she acknowledged that Twilight was the only one who rightfully suspected her evil intentions. Almost immediately, Applejack apologizes on everyone's behalf for not believing Twilight, to which Twilight responds, "It's not your fault. She fooled everypony." Keep in mind at this moment that poor Celestia was trapped in the chrysalis on the ceiling.

In lieu of what Twilight said, we know she held nothing against the others not taking her word for it when it came to her suspicions. Although it might have been nice for Celestia to personally say "I'm sorry" to Twilight, it would've been out of place considering she was trapped in that goop and only had a moment to speak with Twilight after the wedding preparation montage. Even so, Celestia expressed deep care and admiration for Twilight's actions and deeds in bringing back the real Princess Cadance. Too many apologies from everyone apart from who the story was focused on would've drawn away from the moment of Twilght, Cadance and Shining Armor's victory.

Besides, not even Twilight's brother, Shining Armor, said "sorry" after he told Twilight to not show her face to his wedding, yet no one says anything about that.

Was it really necessary for Celestia to assign Twilight's friends the task of delivering Friendship Reports?3/May/2012

When Twilight had basically gone cuckoo for "Cocoa Puffs" in the "Lesson Zero" episode, it ultimately fell upon Celestia's shoulders to stop the commotion and chaos Twilight caused and for Celestia to have a talk with her about it. Celestia learns that Twilight had become so grief-stricken and upset about not being able to turn in a Friendship Report on time, that she resorted to creating her own problem to fix. What occurred next, in my eyes, was one of the kindest things Celestia has said about Twilight in the show. She told her, "You are a wonderful student, Twilight. I don't have to get a letter every week to know that."

After Twilight's friends bust into the conversation to defend her, Celestia does another considerate and kind thing: She tells Twilight and all her friends that they are to report to her when, and only when, they have something to share about the magic of friendship. Thus relieving Twilight of a burden that drove her to the brink of insanity and allowing for Twilight's friends an opportunity to start really looking at what they can learn to better maintain their friendships. After all, each of the main 6 ponies represent an Element of Harmony, too.

If Discord was on display in the royal gardens as a statue, could that mean the other statues were once living beings as well, sealed away by Celestia?4/May/2012

I place emphasis on people blowing out of proportion a single action done by Princess Celestia with this case. People know that she sealed Night Mare Moon in the moon, but then a running gag was surfaced that she seals ANYONE that crosses her in the moon as well. We should all know this is false considering Celestia only did this once and only with the power of the Elements of Harmony. In similar fashion, Celestia (and Luna) only ever sealed away one character in stone using the Elements (to our knowledge) and to assume that every time we see another statue within the proximity of the palace gardens is quite presumptuous given the facts and what we know.

Why was Discord displayed in the garden with other statues? I personally imagine it's to keep an eye on him in a ways. Celestia and Luna were no longer tied to the Elements of Harmony and it possibly was an unknown mystery as to whether or not Discord could escape from his confines. To throw him in a dungeon or banish his statue to the ends of the earth would be pointless, considering that should he escape, he can bend reality to his will and either get out of prison or reach Canterlot in no time.

Plus, he's a statue. What better use than to keep him stored with other statues?

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Thoughts about "Molestia" or Celestia being an "Evil Tyrant", "Dictator" or "Manipulator"

I think the whole "Molestia" concept is immensely tasteless and crude, considering the lack of humor associated with molestation. If people think turning a good character into a child raper and/or molester is funny, I sure hope they don't ever run into people in real life that find that sort of thing arousing that act out on it. The internet may glorify such crass things as rape and sexual assault, but real life greatly proves otherwise how messed up that sort of material is.

Given all the factoids I've explained above as well, I feel the issue about Celestia being a "tyrant", "dictator" or "manipulator" is also incredibly false. She has proven her love and concern for her subjects on numerous occasions, such as when she stood up to Queen Chrysalis. She's demonstrated to be a leader and a teacher, not a babysitter or a dominating presence that does everything for everyone else. She's trying to teach her star pupil, not diminish her ability to adapt and grow by doing everything for her. Also, given that Celestia is a royal figure, one would have to rationalize that she's gonna be quite busy most times attending to her duties and wouldn't have time to necessarily attend to every matter in the kingdom. That's when I point people out to what it means to delegate responsibility.

5/May/2012
Quoted from GraysonPaladin
"She is not a tyrant for she stood up and put her life on the line to stop an invading army, she isn't a troll for she doesn't laugh at the misfortune of others. She isn't useless for she tried, and made Chrysalis work for her victory."

The above statement is a dang good reason to pay attention to as well. It's simple and true and I thank GraysonPaladin for his words on the matter.

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This is basically my feelings on a lot of matters surrounding Princess Celestia. They are by no means everything I can possibly feel or sum up at once, but it suffice me to say that I believe Celestia is wrongfully hated on for the wrong reasons. If she's not your favorite MLP character, no big whup. If you hate her for one of the above reasons, I hope my explanations and defenses help to clear your mind of doubts.

For too long, I've seen Celestia get bashed on when antagonists like Gilda or Trixie get treated like goddesses and even villains are rectified in the fan's eyes like Discord or Chrysallis. Celestia wasn't written nor intended to be evil, so it's seriously my speculation that it's the result of "fanon" as to why she's so negatively viewed.

I saw this character before I saw the fanart and I finished the show before I allowed the fandom to come into my life. I only witnessed a pure, kindhearted leader. I hope this journal has been informative or helpful in anyway for those who have had second thoughts about the character and I thank you all for your time. It ain't often I write out huge "reports" like these.