- Return to Friendship is Magic, part 2
For reference: script 1 / script 2
Pony identity crisis[]
This episode is about the Elements of Harmony. I personally found it very disturbing. It'd be easier to convey this to any fans of DC comics who have read the 'Identity Crisis' arc that deals with brain editing. My stance is against doing it. The question is: who is Night Mare Moon? Who is Luna? Is she a Doctor Light? Or is she a Batman?
People write about her as if the elements of harmony were "making her herself again" or something like that. But were they? We actually don't know this. The TV show doesn't actually show us the actual events happening. All we see is a fairy tale book, and the (supposed) memories of Celestia and Luna, which we are expected to trust to be the truth.
Even though this is being posted on the speculation forum, I try to do as little speculation as possible. My default observation based on the facts is that Celestia and the Mane 6 have done a very disturbing thing.
Celestia banished someone to solitary confinement for a millenium. That's a huge thing. TBH I'm actually surprised at just how much sanity Luna retained after that. Clinical observations of prisoners in those conditions shows how people can break down.
The 6 Harmony Ponies (or whatever you want to call the mane 6, wielders of the elements) changed NMM. This much is clear, she changed shape, and her personality changed. Was it really the old Luna? Or is what we see a new Luna that has been shaped to be "harmonious"? It'd be one thing if they simply banished NMM to protect the kingdom, that's equivalent to sending a criminal back to jail. But they edited her.
- (they did that the first time. and it didnt work.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.33.20 (talk • contribs) 00:48, February 26, 2012
Some try to excuse this by bringing up the "evil spirit" theory. But that really is speculation, there's nothing to indicate that on the show. The closest thing to evidence I've heard is some claim that Lauren Faust mentioned on DA that Luna was possessed or something. This seems absurd, because you'd think if that had happened, someone in the show (like Celestia or Luna) would have mentioned it.
If someone can find me a talk of actual spiritual possession that's fine. Here's what I found:
- fyre-flye Nov 16, 2011:
- "Luna was no longer present, jealousy buried her inside NMM. The possibility of drawing Luna's goodness out from NMM's form was not possible for 1,000 years (she stayed NMM while in the moon)
- "Celestia did what she could to orchestrate the events the led to breaking the spell jealousy had put on her."
- "I know this leads to many more questions (why 1,000 to break the spell, why didn't Celestia do more, why Twilight and the gang, etc.) but that's as far as I ever got with it."
So there is no actual external evil. The source of the "spell" as it's referred to, is the emotion of jealousy. This matches up with the narration that opens ep 1:
- "the younger sister became resentful."
- "the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness"
Faust is also speaking of NMM as if it were a separate mind and consciousness. If that were the case: why do we only have 1 article? If it's 2 people, there should be 2 articles.
- (Not two people IMO. Luna is a Incredibly Magical pony; it is possible that her magic was fueled by her jealousy to turn her into NMM, and changed her into a monster so she could get a One-up on her sister.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.33.20 (talk • contribs) 00:48, February 26, 2012
Since we have only 1 article, we should accept: NMM is Luna, and the jealousy is part of who she is. Celestia didn't like that, so she locked her away until she could figure out how to brain-edit her. She couldn't figure out how to do it herself, so she had her disciple Twilight gather 5 other ponies and do the brain-editing themselves.
Some may point to the evil behavior of NMM when she returns in Mare in the Moon as evidence that she deserved to be jailed. I don't like this because I don't think so, I think anyone would become bitter and jaded after that even if they were the most saintly Fluttershy-ish goddess in the world.
Does anyone remember in Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Angel dies at the end of S2 and when he's back in S3 they say he's experienced a century in hell? He was reduced to an utterly beastial state and wasn't even able to talk. This was a huge aspect of tragedy that drew tears from Buffy. Him coming back and remembering her was a breakthrough. Luna experienced 10x that amount of time. I'd probably have a bit of an evil cackle too.
Faust also mentions:
- "NMM did not just intend to make eternal night, but to usher in an era of evil."
IMO that'd be irrelevant: eternal night is damaging enough, all the plants would die and the animals would starve, it'd be the same issue as the dragon they asked to move away. But there's the dichotomy for you: the ponies simply ASKED the dragon to sleep somewhere else. Well, Fluttershy sorta got mad and told him. But ultimately: he just wanted to find a place to sleep for a while, and he just relocated to somewhere on the earth where he could do that comfortably.
- (The difference is the dragon didnt MEAN to do it, while NMM is actively trying to spite the ponies and celestia.)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.33.20 (talk • contribs) 00:48, February 26, 2012
Celestia would be right to stop Luna from ushering in eternal night, stopping that would save lives. But I think her response was wrong. If Celestia's capable of taking over the Moon job, she should be capable of teaching Luna how to take over the sun god. She could've just switched shifts with her. Luna was jealous because people weren't appreciating the night, and wanted people to appreciate what she was doing.
- (so, BASICALLY, luna gets in a big huff because she cant play with anyone while theyre all sleeping.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.33.20 (talk • contribs) 00:48, February 26, 2012
This begs a question: is it possible there might have been nocturnal animals blending in with the dark whom Luna was simply not aware of? I think if Celestia had introduced Luna to a pony like Fluttershy back then, Luna could've found company and people to appreciate the night. Celestia has Twilight as a student, so couldn't she have found a student for Luna?
- (couldnt luna find herself a student? seeing as she IS princess of the night...)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.33.20 (talk • contribs) 00:48, February 26, 2012
Getting back to the DC comparison, to me, here is how I see the Mane 6. Twilight is put in the position of Zatannah, she is the one who orchestrates the mind wipe. Luna is clearly in the role of Bruce Wayne: she sees corruption and assumes a stronger alter-ego of darkness (Batman) and gets overpowered and mind-wiped. Everyone looks the other way.
One thing to look into though: what evidence is shown to people in the show of what actually happened back then? Celestia was the only surviving pony from the time, so odds are she could've been the one who wrote the fairy tale books that described what events happened. So she could have rewritten them to paint herself as the good person who regretted having to seal her evil sister away.
What would Luna's take on it be? We don't know, because we never asked her, and we can't now. The real Luna is gone. The Elements of Harmony destroyed (or at least buried) her, and replaced her with what I call "Harmonious Luna". Does Harmoluna remember what really happened? We don't know. Perhaps the Elements wipe out any "elements of discord" in a person's mind if it could lead to conflict.
- (Whys that a Bad thing? wouldnt you rather have all your ugly bits wiped out and replaced?)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.33.20 (talk • contribs) 00:48, February 26, 2012
- No, I would not. I would rather remain me. Ugly bits can be overridden by good bits. Furthermore, I don't accept that she was entirely ugly. I think she was overwhelmed with hate for Celestia and judged the ponies by association. I would have stopped her from destroying Ponyville, but I would have tried to be nice to her so she could choose to change on her own. +y@talk 06:02, March 12, 2012 (UTC)
Luna was an adult, just like Celestia. The Elements changed her from the Mare she's supposed to be back into a Filly. As an adult she stood against Celestia for whatever reason and was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment as a result. The attack from the EoH caused her to regress into a foal state and lose whatever thoughts she had against her sister. Was this the right thing to do?
- (How do we know Celestia has not aged? it was a thousand years ago and we have no idea if she ages slowly, or simply reaches maturity and then stops ageing. For all we know both princesses couldve been Fillys when the Luna Heresy takes place.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.33.20 (talk • contribs) 00:48, February 26, 2012
Even though Fluttershy got a mean look in her eyes while getting mad at the dragon, she still talked to him. She convinced him to choose to leave. Perhaps it was with coercion of force (IMO she has some kinda hypnosis thing going), but he still chose to leave via conversation. This is not something I saw given a shot in this episode.
You have to ask yourself, who benefits? Celestia who has a sister who loves her again, that's a big benefit to her. A sister who supports her rule. A sister who can't overthrow her after the stars aided her escape.
I am not convinced that NMM actually did initially vow to usher in eternal night. We have no evidence of this. We have in ep 1:
- "the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. She vowed that she would shroud the land in eternal night."
Then in ep 2:
- "Now you will never see your princess, or your sun! The night will last forever!"
The proposal here is: what if Celestia lied? Applejack wields the Element of Honesty yet she has lied, so even if Celestia wielded them all herself in the past, we have no guarantees of her honesty.
- (when did applejack lie? evidence please.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.33.20 (talk • contribs) 00:48, February 26, 2012
If the goddess worshipped in a kingdom lied and said you tried to plunged the world into eternal night, if everyone in the kingdom worshipped and trusted her, and you were unstable and felt you had nobody... might you just go along with it? Like "fine, you're all saying I'm the villain, so I'll become her"? Perhaps Luna felt Equestria had been corrupted and should be cleansed if they supported a corrupt ruler.
- (so that makes what she did right all of a sudden? because if you see something bad in society? you BURN it with FIRE?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.33.20 (talk • contribs) 00:48, February 26, 2012
- Of course not, I don't think anyone is alleging that her genuine attempt to make eternal night in eps 1 and 2 (by her own words, at least, although she might have been lying to scare people and traumatize them and not actually planning to make night eternal) was moral, just that it's understandable. It's forgiveable since she's probably been driven insane at that point by her captivity (you try being imprisoned in a moon for a millenium, worse solitary confinement ever) and it's hard to blame her for being wrecked by it. What is arguable rather was whether or not there was anything immoral about her shirking the duty of moon-lowering. Celestia is clearly capable of doing that job and did end up doing it after banishing her sister, so Luna may just have been going on strike so that she could take over the celebrated sun-job and be the adored sister for a while too. talk2ty 22:22, May 21, 2014 (UTC)
We should also look at who Luna (I'll say this since we treat NMM too distinctly) was threatening. The legend claims "the land". But we can't trust the legend too well. Luna herself says "you" (Twilight) only. When she says 'the night will last forever', we don't know how wide a scope she was talking about.
- (maybe, erm, i dunno, FOREVER?!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.33.20 (talk • contribs) 00:48, February 26, 2012
- I meant the scope of whom/where she was bringing darkness to, not the chronological scope. Even in episode 1, she says "Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last. From this moment forth, the night will last forever! ". So she was threatening presumably the ponies in attendance at the festival. That doesn't necessarily mean EVERY pony (there may be ponies not in attendance, like really small babies, in spite of the CMC being in there, which is a mistake) but rather, those there to worship Celestia. If you recall, the whole thing is a celebration of Celestia banishing her sister. If you came across a throng of people celebrating your millenium-long torture, you'd probably assume them to be evil too, and want them to experience the same amount of suffering. +y@talk 06:02, March 12, 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps she would simply cause an eclipse and plunge Equestria, or perhaps only Ponyville. Or perhaps only the Mane 6.
Or perhaps... she only meant to target Celestia and her protege Twilight? Those were the two who knew the most about what was going on (Twilight knew possibly even more than Discord, since he was in stone by the time the sisters fell out). Knowing what her sister did, and knowing what Twilight intended to do to her mind, I wouldn't see NMM stealing the sun from those 2 unicorns as uncalled for.
- (sorry, but what?? wheres your evidence for that? how on earth NMM know what was happening in equestria while she was trapped on the moon? in luna eclipsed we see she is not used to modern pony ways, meaning she had no IDEA who twilight was.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.33.20 (talk • contribs) 00:48, February 26, 2012
- Twilight knew who she was, NMM became aware that Twilight was special at the end of Ep1 because Twilight named her. Twilight was also trying to gather the Elements of Harmony and leading the warriors against her in episode 2. So by the time of the final confrontation, it would be clear through observing her that she is Luna's enemy. She may not have specifically known Twilight to be an apprentice, but she's clearly one of Celestia's zealots. I do not imply or require that Luna was aware of events in Equestria while bound (although clearly she knows, when freed, how much time she was jailed for). +y@talk 06:02, March 12, 2012 (UTC)
So yeah, there's my rant, maybe I'll talk about this in the chatroom if I get it out of my system. Am interested in people's opinions. I'll pre-empt: yeah I know I have too much time on my hands and am probably Aspergic. DWI. +y@talk 10:27, February 23, 2012 (UTC)
- edited this with my arguments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.33.20 (talk • contribs) 00:48, February 26, 2012
Mm. Reading over the speculation, a few relevant tropes come to mind.
Reply[]
First off, Luna's looking so much younger than Celestia could be explained by the old fantasy trope that time only passes for the current body. Thus, Luna didn't age while she was inside NMM, and NMM was already a full-grown alicorn/pegasus-unicorn pony.
We also have the Word Of God (or at least Word Of Faust) that Luna was actually inside Nightmare Moon; that, in effect, NMM took over, submerging Luna, as though a multiple-personality split managed to overpower the central personality.
Going strictly by the information presented, plus a little tropish guesswork, Luna basically tried to turn herself into the "big sister". But because she was angry at Celestia when she did this, the resulting "mature self" literally hated everything about Celestia, rather than Luna's dislike of playing "second banana" to the ruler of the day. In effect, Luna had locked herself up inside NMM, then NMM stole the key.
This would present Celestia with a real problem. By definition, she'd never used the Elements on her sister before; it's reasonable to assume she had no idea what would happen if she tried to "peel" Luna out of NMM. (Heck, she probably would've been worried about reshaping Luna to match expectations; who ever has a complete picture of their siblings?) So she removed the problem for a thousand years, allowing new Bearers to come along who wouldn't know anything about Nightmare Moon's original nature.
That's a scary thought, though it explains why Celestia wasn't visible past NMM's return. Think about it: The only way to use the Elements full-strength against NMM is not to know there's a Luna trapped inside, so that you focus the power exclusively on NMM. But Celestia, in this concept, has no real idea what will happen. Sure, she hopes Luna will be all right, unlocked from the transformation and back to normal... but if she's wrong, Luna could be mindwiped, turned to stone, or even dead! You can just imagine Celestia praying she's not about to deal with her Faithful Student killing her only sister...
It should be kept in mind, by the way, that (again by Faust) NMM wasn't just going to make the night last forever. She was basically a magically-created inverse of Princess Celestia. This would have been darkness in more than just the literal sense...
Heh... and one other thing comes to mind. This actually explains why Nightmare Moon didn't take more aggressive action against the Mane Six. She's a grown-up as imagined by a child. Since Luna wanted adoration, she didn't do any significant damage; she just enforced her will by "spanking" the guards who attacked her with lightning. 137.118.253.101 13:36, September 20, 2012 (UTC)
- Word of Faust is not automatically canon, and Lauren's statement is ambiguous. Luna could be "in" NMM because she IS (or was) NMM. Who is to say that the pony now called Luna is actually the true Luna and not the robot-Luna constructed by the abuse of the EoH?
- We have no indication NMM hated everything about Celestia (I assume you mean hating day and never wanting to see it) prior to her imprisonment since that cackling psychopath portrayal could merely be monarch-ordered propaganda. There's not necessarily any 'separate' Luna within NMM to peel out. talk2ty 22:22, May 21, 2014 (UTC)
Sister surprise[]
- Princess Celestia: It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this. Time to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together, little sister.
- Everypony: Sister?
I'm confused at why everyone is surprised by Luna being Celestia's sister...Twilight at least should be aware of this since in ep 1 she is reading the same thing that the narrator was which mentions "two regal sisters". Are we to assume that Twilight began reading only when she and the Narrator were saying "for both sun and moon" and that she skipped past the initially narrated part? Or perhaps that part was damaged or lost and Twilight did not read the part about the sisters?
Twilight says in ep 2 though:
- the last known location of the five elements was in the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters
Even if she had not read the narrated part of the legend in ep 1, wouldn't Twilight know that Celestia was one of the "royal pony sisters"? Or could she have thought the castle might have belonged to some other unspecified pony royalty like Princess Cadance? I guess it's not clear how many "pony princesses" there are, but seeing as how the castle was within Celestia's domain, one would think Twi would have been aware that Celestia was one of the sisters the castle was named over, and thus had a sister, even if she only had read the 2nd half of the legend. talk2ty 22:31, May 21, 2014 (UTC)
Similarity to Chicken Little[]
From http://allthedisneymovies.blogspot.ca/2013/04/2005-chicken-little.html (changed all-caps to bold)
- at the end, after the aliens return her, her brain has been scrambled, and she’s now super girly. The aliens offer to put her right, but Runt Of The Litter says she’s better like this, and kisses her, and everyone’s fine with it? Because you know what’s just great? Brainwashing women to conform to gender roles. Arrrrrrrgh.
Isn't what was done to Night Mare Moon basically the same kind of disturbing thing done to Foxy Loxy? talk2ty 11:25, February 23, 2015 (UTC)