Why Do We Hate Celestia? · 6:17am Jul 5th, 2015
Princess Celestia. The Big Good of MLP:FIM. The heroes love her, the villains hate her, and she made Equestria almost a utopia for a thousand years, and hasn't really done anything bad.
And yet it seems as though the vast majority of the fandom hates her guts. You Bronies claim that you love her, but in reality you want her dead. But why? What is it about Celestia that draws so much hate? In canon she has never been so much as hinted being a villain, and has stayed good for the past five years. So why does the fandom just LOVE portraying her as some evil dictator that makes the Greek gods look like saints?
The answer is simple: We don't know her.
Let's talk about Optimus Prime from the G1 cartoon for a second. In the first two years of Transformers alone we learned a lot about Optimus Prime. We learned his backstory, we got to know his personality, his strengths, his flaws. Optimus put himself in danger countless times so that others would not have to, saving the day in almost every episode. He could always be counted on to do the right thing, he inspired the other heroes, and he inspired us. We trusted and cared about Optimus Prime after knowing him for only two years.
In contrast, what do we know about Celestia after five years? Well, we know her backstory, but only through exposition. Granted we got a few glimpses in the season 4 opener, but it's not like it was a whole episode's worth. We kind of know her personality; wise, motherly, wears a mask of dignity to hide her fun side for the sake of public appearances. Not really much to go on. Her strengths and weaknesses are never elaborated on or explained. How often does Celestia put herself in danger before her little ponies? Er, there was that one time she got beat up by a bug hopped up on love juice. How often does she actually save the day? Never. And she never appears enough that we don't know how strong her code of ethics are.
It does NOT help her case that she's a politician, a Queen Princess, and has control over her planet's sun. It's just natural for our minds to connect those concepts with the word "corrupt".
The bottom line is that Princess Celestia gets a lot of hate because we don't know her enough to trust her, and she's just not an impressive character. That is why many (myself included) are so quick to cast Celestia as a villain. Because we just don't care for her.
I hate no one, but you have a very good point. How can you trust someone you barely know?
3208377 It also doesn't help that, according to postmodern cynicism, anything saccharine or overly nice cannot possibly be sincere. Surely it's rotten to the core!
3208840 Umm
yeah im going to have to agree with you on this she most often portrayed in a negative light as a sociopath or a kind tyrant. Celestia really needs more kind images of her like in Lullaby for a Princess.
May I point something out? Yeah... MLP:FIM fans generally like Celestia, because she represents an important part of the over-all concept of the show. The ones that hate her? Just for a moment allow yourself to consider that they might hate just about everything MLP stands for (Honesty, Generosity, Loyalty, Laughter, Kindness, Friendship), and get their jollies by emptying their bowels on the entire concept of Equestria.
Brace yourself. This might be shocking. A large percentage of the people posting to MLP sites like this one are not fans of MLP:FIM.