They don't have a time limit, though? They weren't used in the last thousand years after Luna's banishment because Celestia couldn't use them to their fullest effect.

They were plenty usable for Discord.

Discord happened before Nightmare Moon, though.

And happened again after it.

I'm not sure I necessarily agree with the notion that Celestia is a poor crisis/wartime leader. Yeah, we all joke that her go-to-strategy is 'let Twilight deal with it', but like, proper allocation of resources is a solid 87% of leadership.

Like, imagine you're the President of the United States With Voltron (Good ol' USWV, greatest country on Neo Space-Earth), and the United Soviet Go Golion Republics are trying to throw their weight around. Are you going to ask Voltron to deal with it, or are you going to go down there and personally fistfight the giant robot?

I find this "I would prefer a strong leader who can deal with outside threats over freedom and chaos" to be troubling. In general, "strong leaders" are more often the types who successfuly cow their populace into submission using the fear of outside threats more than anything.

That is a good point.

It should be noted, though, that this discussion also assumed the absence of Twilight in that time travel story. I think that part may have been lost somewhere, though, and the specific situation was overgeneralized.

Probably the biggest challenge of leadership is how to deal with a crisis without becoming a crisis yourself. Perhaps that is the real reason Celestia always seems hesitant to throw her weight around in a crisis. Her fears of becoming Daybreaker certainly seem to support that idea. Celestia is afraid that if she uses her powers too much, she will become a monster, and a tyrant.

Edited by Redmess on Feb 26th 2020 at 3:52:18 PM

Different villains won in different versions of the future in the Cutie Remark, which kinda implies that the other villains were somehow handled in certain timelines.

Like, Celestia evidently beat NMM in the future where she's fighting Sombra.

But she didn't beat her in the Nightmare Moon timeline, which seems a bit inconsistent. Was she able to beat her or not? Both options are equally supported by the episode. Which is to say, we don't get much of any evidence either way.

Well that's to get across the butterfly effect. Like, Celestia was able to handle NMM in the reality where Rainbow Dash was magically prevented from finishing the race. And she lost to NMM in the reality where a massive unicorn battle in the clouds distracted Rainbow from finishing the race.

Edited by GNinja on Feb 27th 2020 at 12:34:54 PM

Post of the Day #2802

Posted by darkabomination on 23rd Sep 2015 09:15:10 AM - Post #129706 in the new thread

If it's among children, that's less questionable.

Children and adults? Hell no, certainly, but it also depends on the type of shipping.

Edit: Oh, what a coinkydink. I'm doing a Pokemon: Emerald Nuzlocke next month.

Edited by fredhot16 on Feb 27th 2020 at 8:07:13 AM

Here, let me quote those bits for people that don't watch the video.

Context: The central point of the video is that Celestia is incapable of protecting her kingdom from hostile threats. To demonstrate this, Lily compares Nightmare Moon's stable dominion in "The Cutie Re-Mark" to the last four years under Celestia. Without Twilight there to help her, Nightmare Moon has successfully defended her kingdom from Discord, Chrysalis, and Tirek, something that we see in this same episode that Celestia is totally incapable of doing.

So. Yeah. That's Lily's perspective. Constantly being attacked by forces of pure horror that your leadership cannot protect you from < Subservience to a Dictator < Living in a secure and stable democracy like Canada.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 27th 2020 at 8:56:16 AM

Yeah, that was I saying, too. Lily is pointing out that freedom isn't worth much when living under constant threat.

Freedom, like I said before, is not a natural given. A society has to put in a lot of work to provide meaningful levels of freedom while still ensuring safety from internal and external threats. This is basically why modern societies will always need an army and a police force. If the government is unable to provide those two, then society will quickly collapse or be overrun by other, less scrupulous governments.

There is a reason why people were content to live under tyranny before the police and organized standing armies were invented (and yes, these concepts had to be invented at some point). Feudal lords could be oppressive, yes, and you didn't have a lot of freedom, but at least these lords enforced the laws of the land, and protected their serfs from banditry and other feudal lords. This is true to such an extent that freedom could be considered a punishment. Someone could be outlawed, that is, placed outside lawful protection. This meant that anyone could kill them if they wanted to without official repercussions. It was freedom, but it meant a life of constant mortal peril. And that's not even going into the blood feuds that passed for "justice".

It is hard to imagine now, but the rise of absolute kings was a good thing back then. It meant reigning in all those feuding nobles, stopping the endless petty internal wars over territory and titles, and concentrating all power in just one tyrant, the king. And that sure was a lot better than living under a multitude of petty tyrants who could do pretty much whatever they wanted with your life. And with absolute monarchies came standing armies, a stronger police force, and a modern justice system that did away with such things as blood feuds and outlawry.

Of course, absolute monarchy brought it's own problems, which eventually gave rise to modern democracies. This is all a bit simplified, but that is the general progression of post-Roman rulership in Europe (don't ask what it was like in between the Romans and the feudal lords... it involves a lot of Vikings, for one).

And modern democracy is not without it's flaws, either. Just look at the situation in America, and many other places where democracies have collapsed into dictatorships. Perhaps some day a new way of governing will arise that we can't quite imagine right now, and it will be even better. And then people will look at our democracies much the same way we look at absolute kings, no doubt.

Counter-point: "The Cutie Re-Mark" Luna wouldn't have have much trouble with Discord and Tirek because they wouldn't really be problems.

Discord wouldn't be free from the statue because the Elements of Harmony wouldn't have switched owners and Tirek wouldn't be an unstoppable threat without Discord's help.

Edited by fredhot16 on Feb 27th 2020 at 8:34:45 AM

The thought that absolute monarchies bring peace and prosperity and make lands "free of crime" is quite jarring to me, considering that all absolute monarchies have at least some sort of a corruption, some people can get off scot free for their crimes (depending on their connection to the ruler) and ruler does need allies and these allies are not always "honorable type".

Here the wiki of her own fanfic, that Lily herself created (which featured overpowered fascist dictator, who is the most effective force around). Lily is also pretty much the only one who edit everything there.

Edited by VeryVileVillian on Feb 27th 2020 at 7:49:08 PM

I know it is, but you have to remember that the situation before these kings came to be was much worse, with rampant lawlessness, viking raids, and constant wars. Given those conditions, a powerful king is a relief. And these absolute monarchs did indeed bring much peace and prosperity, which in turn freed the population from the immediate depredations of starvation, disease, and war, and only then they became more concerned about their freedoms.

Before absolute kingdoms arose, most people were simply too busy surviving to care about their rights much.

The history of England during the Viking age is a great lesson in the need for powerful kings in the face of utter chaos. It was only when a powerful king stepped up and fought back that the relentless Viking onslaught was stopped and reversed.

Iraq is once again very instructive here. Without going too much into the dirty details, one of the main reasons modern democracy has trouble taking hold is because the region is too unstable and unsafe. People there have no security, the infrastructure keeps getting blown up on all sides, life is miserable. At that point, you don't care about your rights; you just want the wars to stop so you can stop surviving and start building your life. And if that takes a dictator, so be it. Once their lives start getting better, they'll start demanding more rights and power soon enough.

This is also why American interventionalism is doomed to failure. You just can't force democracy onto a society by going to war with them. If anything, that just makes it that much harder for that society to become more democratic.

Edited by Redmess on Feb 27th 2020 at 6:12:01 PM

And the barbarian hordes were only capable of breaking apart the empire because the Imperial system decayed from within.

History is a cycle like that, from what I understand. You have strong people in charge. They unite people and secure a lot of power. Then the general populace inevitably want more freedoms. This disrupts national cohesion, and they're destroyed by a less civilized, but more united outside force. Things are chaotic until a strong singular force unites things again, which in turn collapses as people turn against their nation's restrictive dogma.

Edited by GNinja on Feb 27th 2020 at 5:19:09 PM

Lack of freedom and rights aren't the only downsides of monarchies, as i said in previous post. And act as it is does make it sound like Absolute Monarchies > Democracy.

Are we seriously going into “she supports dictatorships because she wrote this fanfic”?

That’s reaching as it is.

Edited by fredhot16 on Feb 27th 2020 at 9:31:42 AM

No one here is saying that absolute monarchy is better than democracy, including Lily. You are the only one here who is insisting on that interpretation.

I feel like we kinda going in there by assuming that monarchies provide better protection and better at "keeping lands crime free". I assume this because how you bring up that lack of freedom and rights were ONLY downsides in monarchies.

Edited by VeryVileVillian on Feb 27th 2020 at 8:58:40 PM

They provide better protection and security compared to what came before them, which was definitely NOT democracy.

Have you trouble reading, or are you deliberately twisting my words?

I don’t agree with her on this but to take “I, personally, would rather be under a safe dictatorship then a unsafe democracy if those are the only two choices” as “she supports dictatorships over democracies” seems a tad of a misconception.

Edited by fredhot16 on Feb 27th 2020 at 10:21:47 AM

I'm not twisting anything, if you want you want to go that road, but bits like this structured in a way that make it seems like what i was saying about "only downsides in monarchies are lack of freedom and rights, everything else is super perfect". Specifically accent on freedom, like it was the only thing that could be the only problem of monarchies that would exist.

Edited by VeryVileVillian on Feb 27th 2020 at 9:34:02 PM