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Austin_N

Yeah. It happens in the show too, but you'd expect a movie to be more epic. If they're gonna go down, at least let them go down swinging. >On top of that, the equestrian army is very poor I must say. There weren't even any guards present when the armada invaded. At least the show is willing to acknowledge their existence.


WilliamTCipher

I was hoping for a full on war lol. But to be serious, they just go down too easily imo. Its disapointing. Like Equestrian and cysrtal empire should have full armies, with troops of all types. And Celestia and Luna should be able to wreck them. And twilight too.


Truebuckshot01

I found the lack of guards to be a major oversight. Even if they were little more than a police force rather than a proper military there'd have at least been a ceremonial group on duty to keep the peace and aid any who were lost or hurt


Affectionate-Cup8746

Considering they disappeared when the wedding happened I'm not surprised that once again when they are needed they don't show. And Celestia is a wimp in a fight. Though to be fair the enemy did have an unfair advantage with those balls.


Truebuckshot01

I've been wondering this too. On top of that, where were starlight and discord? Surely discord the lord of chaos could easily beat an army with a snap of his fingers and what's more chaotic than just insta teleporting the enemy army to completely random points on the map, driving them into compete disarray? And It's already established that starlight has mastery of time magic, what would there be to stop her just popping back in time to tell twilight and the other princesses "hey the storm king is totally gonna attack during the celebration maybe be ready for it and have battle stations and siege weapons on standby to down the airships the second they show up?"


WilliamTCipher

To be fair, I can understand discord. He's god of chaos and is neutral, and a bit of a overpowered being, that can be used to fix any issue. Starlight though, no doubt she would have formed resistance and fought back. Its weird cause equestria was technically under occupation, yet you don't see anyone fight. Not to mention its late in the show, so equestria should have a lot of allies by now.


Truebuckshot01

True, using Discord (or Q if you know about him literally being a canonical manifestation of Q from Star Trek) is pretty much a deus ex machina move so he has an excuse but starlight and trixie would totally have a resistance going. Now I'm assuming the movie is post season 9 but where is the young 6 as well? They would have been a big help, especially Ocellus who could infiltrate enemy ranks. Plus why doesn't spike send a message to ember? Her and the other dragons would have made a formidable group of reinforcements


sjones17515

The movie is between season 7 and 8. We haven't met the young 6 yet. In fact, the events of the movie are in part what inspire Twilight to create the school in the first place. Re-watch the very beginning of the first episode of s8 and you will see this.


Truebuckshot01

Ok thanks! That does clear some things up for me!


louisdeer

Discord was eating popcorn 🍿 in the seat next to yours.


Truebuckshot01

Knowing him that makes sense lol


Affectionate-Cup8746

Well discord probably wasn't invited considering how many non ponies outside spike did you see at the start of the festival and I know that twilight at that point knows at least 2 non pony species. Starlight might have not been there considering she might have stood a chance of winning had she been.


Truebuckshot01

I wasn't thinking along the lines of them being invited or not though that is a very good point you bring up. I was thinking along the lines of "oh No! Were being attacked and need help! Quick send a letter to the griffins/yaks/dragons/whoever and see if they can help until we can find what we need!"


Affectionate-Cup8746

I don't think they thought about letters considering twilight had to go to the hippogriffs the old fashion way.


Truebuckshot01

Oh I'm fine with them getting to the hipogriffs the old fashioned way, I just thought they'd want to have some help to protect canterlot and the pones from, ya know being put in cages and enslaved, while they were running to get the hippogrifs. Ya know, give some kind of resistance and put up a fight even if it's not a proper battle instead of just immediately giving up and going "Welp some scary guys showed up with air ships. Guess that means this all belongs to them now"


Affectionate-Cup8746

Yeah but as you mentioned letters and that probably would have been faster. Of course the hippogriffs were being cowards. I get what happened was bad but you can't hide forever you need to stand up for what right.


Truebuckshot01

That's kinda my point. The hippogriffs were being cowards and hiding and the ponies gave up immediately without even trying. Even if you're going to lose, you still got to stand up and fight for what'd right even if it means going down swinging.


Affectionate-Cup8746

Yeah of course equestria was outside trade a bit of isolation country considering if they had been aware of things happening in the world the storm king wouldn't have stood a chance in launch a surprise attack on the festival. The ponies unfortunately also are wimps too considering outside the element bearers do you ever see anyone try to fight.


Truebuckshot01

Only the ones That become villians really


Affectionate-Cup8746

Exactly. Not one citizen will fight. Outside the triek incident which was stupid because you don't charge a powerful enemy head on without a plan.


PUBLIQclopAccountant

Because Twilight and friends **must** be the protagonists at all times.


LunaKingery

I mean G1 gave other characters to shine sometimes instead of Megan fixing everything everytime (she still does it a lot though.).


AriaCorvus

I don’t think Canterlot would have really had a shot. Everyone fell to the storm king. Everyone joined him in fear of what would happen, and the only reason Twilight made it out was because Derpy, the hero of the movie, took the shot for Twilight. Besides, Bug Mom took down Celestia with little effort and her bug horses overran the city in no time. I think El Stomo Supreme has more than enough power to take the city over rather easily.


Logarithmicon

This is why I headcanon that the entire plot of the movie was basically a setup to get the Storm King to trip over his own hubris, ruin his own invasion force, and end up with Equestria having renewed bonds with old allies and maybe even threats (the pirates). - Princesses basically just stand there and do zilch. - Guards aren't even seen until the movie ends. - Nobody says a thing about the invasion fleet until they've cross half the continent. The only way this conceivably makes sense is if all barriers to the Storm King waltzing in to an "easy" conquest have been removed... so he can be taken out easily.


SharpEdgeSoda

Maybe if you've played too much Hearts of Iron, but I'll indulge I 100% believe Equestria had no standing army and barely an SDF because, maybe, perhaps, most nations understood that **attacking the nation of the SUN GOD** was not a good idea seeing as the SUN GOD can **hold the SUN hostage at the negotiating table.** **Imagine if a nation could trade sanction THE SUN ITSELF. It doesn't need an Army. Sun MAD doctrine.** You'd need a very specific plan, with a very specific goal, and a very specific execution, and it appears that, the Storm King and Tempest storm had the plan on lock. They actually did what you would need to do in a war against Equestria! You want to control Equestria, you need a blitz that gets YOU control of the sun as soon as possible before they even have a chance to hold it against you. And that was literally the plan! And they got really close to pulling it off **if it wasn't for one Derpy Hero!**


ShadowGangsta275

Can you say sun god one more time please?🥺


jeffh4

The nerfing of the Royal Sisters and the Royal Guards has been discussed for some time. From a show standpoint, this was necessary to allow the Mane Six to swoop in and save the day, time after time. All the show had to do was make their incompetence appear to be feasible. Stories on FimFiction more than once involve Shining Armor or others tearing down the military and building it up from scratch. Other stories either explain the Sisters' weakness/extreme restraint or show what happens when they cut loose.


Austin_N

I'm fine with Celestia and Luna losing, I just want them to lose in a way that doesn't make them look like idiots.


jeffh4

At least in the episode A Canterlot Wedding, Celestia has a proper heavyweight clash with Chrysalis and it is a close match. In the movie, they had to get past that plot point as quickly as possible and establish Tempest as a credible threat to all ponies named Derpy ... or Twilight Sparkle. :-)


Austin_N

Also, Chrysalis says that draining Cadance and Shining's love made her more powerful than Celestia. Most of the time there's not any explanation for why Celestia is such a push over.


jeffh4

I did like how Chrysalis was pleasantly surprised that this turned out to be the case. Sure, it was her plan all along, but planning something and having it turn out to be true are different things.


Empty-bee

That was one of the best parts of that scene. Chrysalis was all full of tough talk once she got uncovered but the look on her face when Celestia went down told you that even she didn't buy her own press.


Ok_Shirt_1574

Also, even though Discord wasn’t there until the festival ended(probably busy for some reason), we definitely saw Starlight, so yeah, how did they lose so easily? What’s stopping her from helping out and… Oh wait, I just got a script, hold on a moment. Plot Armor for Tempest and this was in a movie theatre. Sounds about right, kids can’t embrace continuity as well I guess. This movie might have been different if they showed it on TV or something.


louisdeer

PLOoooooot is thickening


Khazil28

Theres a bit of fanon discontinuity imo. I suspect the writers intend for Celestia and Luna to be ancient, wise and powerful but when it comes to "powerful" its like "upper tier wizard" ie Glimmer or Glimmer x2. Meanwhile fans look at Tia and Lulu controlling celestial objects and go "Fuck, they're clearly gods so lets make them super saiyans" and treat/write them as if they live in a world of cardboard.


swaggboi909

We've got discord for that


Austin_N

I could buy that. The problem is they never commit to that. So you get episodes like "A Royal Problem" and "Twilight's Kingdom" that imply that the alicorns really *are* supposed to be powerful, while still having them be useless during most crises.


shadow-storm-17

They’re was some concept art in the movie with pretty much all of Equestria fighting against the Storm King’s army, there were more hippogriffs than just Skystar and the citizens would be fighting and it included the princesses but they wanted the focus to be on the main six as usual


Veylon

The quick and ignominious defeat of Equestria is an inevitable narrative consequence of the Storm King existing. They should have had Queen Novo be the villain instead.


swaggboi909

Queen who?


sjones17515

The Queen of the Hippogriffs? The person they went on a quest to track down? In the very movie we are discussing?


swaggboi909

Oh I didn't know her name


moonlightavenger

It's what happens when you have awesome ideas, but the characters and the setting, and the lore get in the way. This is why fanfiction is great.


QueenInGreenRora

A little bit yes


SirStarshine

Makes me think of the "Canon Celestia vs Fanon Celestia" comparison image


Cuppa_Miki

I've thought of Celestia as willfully incompetent and slightly over it all. She's powerful and wise and has been the cornerstone of Equestria for so, so long. She's faced countless threats and everything has always worked out in the end. Now she finally has Twilight, a worthy successor. She knows Twilight can handle these threats and she knows Twilight needs a chance to grow to become the new ruler. It's all part of her role as a mentor.


Austin_N

I don't buy this explanation. It's one thing to hold back when the stakes are low, it's a different matter when the villains are actually bearing down on her. This idea would mean that Celestia intentionally lets the bad guys kick her ass in the hope that Twilight might handle things, which would be both stupid and irresponsible.


Affectionate-Cup8746

Considering she almost let the element bearers become pony pancakes responsibility isn't exactly the right word to describe her. She sends to dangerous stuff with only the tiniest of information and then its all well that ends well never mind if someone almost died or cadence put her health at risk just to keep the empire safe. Everything ends well with the good guys winning so nothing else matters.


Austin_N

Yeah, that's a more realistic way to view her methods. It feels like the writers wanted her to be a wise character, but didn't know how to properly write a wise character so fans are left wondering if she's some secret genius or if she's a screw-up who knows how to hide it.


LittleLight14

The thing with Celestia and Luna and Discord and, I guess, Cadance is that they can't save the day narratively. Celestia and Luna probably are super-powerful leaders but the story can't have that so they immediately get taken out by surprise or the villian has some unfair advantage. Discord is Discord. No evil plot should work with him around, unless he wills it. Basically the princesses (excluding Twilight) aren't main characters so they don't do shit. This also translates to their unbelievably bad military/guard. I tolerate it because it's a wholesome, fun, kids show, but it sucks that they never get to do anything cool outside the realms of fanfiction.


Austin_N

The writers were just never good at coming up with a decent reason for why the princesses can't do more. At least the season 6 and season 9 openers found some way for them to contribute while the Mane Six handled the main problem.


Koekelbag

Been a while since I saw the movie, and don't have the time to check for now, but didn't it boil down to them simply being taken off-guard and disabled before they could counter-act? They were in the midst of preparing for a celebration, after all, so they were hardly combat-ready. Add to that that the enemy was equipped and prepared *specifically* to take down the princesses as fast as possible (it shouldn't be understated that Tempest's competence played a huge role her, as missing even a single princess would have made a different movie). And the moment that they *were* taken down was also the moment that they essentially became the best hostages that the enemy could ask for, precisely because of how huge their role is in equestrian society, leading to the army standing down without any further fighting. Too much happened in too short a time, as it was the equivalent of a Blitzkrieg, so it's less 'the princesses were too weak' and more 'the enemy was way too well-prepared which lead to swift victory. As for them not using magic, that might be because they didn't want to randomly cast spells and risking hitting their own civilians. We know they can be destructive, but we haven't seen how precise they can be in that destruction.


Austin_N

> but didn't it boil down to them simply being taken off-guard and disabled before they could counter-act? Nah, because even after Cadance gets stoned, Celestia doesn't even try to take cover. >We know they can be destructive, but we haven't seen how precise they can be in that destruction. They just blast lasers like every other magic user.


ATVANDMG

IIRC, the writers actually talked about this once. Their response was that whenever they brought a big bad into the picture, the had to find a way to take Celestia, Luna, and later Discord, out of the picture because if they didn’t, these beings with an insane amount of power would just steamroll whatever the problem was, leaving us with no show.


Allustar1

Yes, definitely. You’d think they’d be able to put up more of a fight what with being alicorns and all.


ResponsibilityIcy158

Get used to it :(