About Celestia in ToL *Not an April Fools blog* · 9:13pm Apr 1st, 2015
So a conversation about Celestia popped up ToL recently, and I decided to make a blog on Celestia talking about her.
Mostly I see Celestia along the lines of under her wings. I use this page for the practical problems of immortality. List number one and two don't apply to Celestia and Luna. Number three, might have a magical work around, but only to a degree.
But eventually a biological organism has only so much space in the brain before it gets clogged up with useless stuff, and time speeds up (that's a fact (Well subjective passage of time)). Living long enough you see the same thing over and over again, those events seem to blur and merge. And in the http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_ponies sub-sections. You see tons of "Has X's body design", or "X's mane". And that's less than one generation. One thousand years is 40 Generations. How many possible combinations until you see the same pony over and over again?
Then you have further problems. How many times can you get close to somepony, watching them die, and any children or lovers waste away while you're unaging? How many times can you watch age, dementia, alzheimers, or the thousands of ways death claims a life before it becomes to painful?
So yes, she works in a job where she's talking to many ponys / diplomats. 365,000 days of monotony, with very rare deviations of schedual, with conversations / entities / events that end up blurring together. With a few points in time, any deviation that stand out in memory. Then even if she magically cleans her memories (like a pensieve / memory crystal to hold excess memories), and keeps her subjective passage of time to mortal slowness. You still have so many repeating things that it still blurs together, and the heart ache makes actually connecting impossible / insanely hard.
That and talking to others isn't being social. You can be surrounded by others and still be lonely, after all with no other immortals, her sister / balance / rock banished. She has noone who understands her problems, noone to truly connect with, and worse her subjects show her with fear and awe. Thus preventing pure connections.
That's not to say that she's malignant, or sociopathic. She truly loves her subjects, but she's been around for such a long time, utterly alone, with many, many, many heart breaks. That saying, I'm mortal, and I think she should no better on how to deal with children and mortals. Isn't something one can do. After all, immortals as shown have utterly different problems that mere mortals will never have to deal with at that level. So disconnection / ignorance on her part is a given.
As for her children students. She only takes in prodigies, wich is something that happens very rarely per decade. And take a look at her last two students.
Sunset Shimmer, went down the same path as Luna. But Celestia was unable to see it happening under her nose as she got tunnel vision for her plans of cleansing Luna. And the only pony we see who ended up turning into a Demon.
Then Twlight Sparkle. Thought friendships were useless, frivolous things, unworthy of her time until after S1 E2. Went into neurotic, anxeity driven fits of madness where she thought any failings of hers would result in horrible things to her. Which caused her to Mind Rape an entire village; Ensorcel a rapidly breeding pest, that destroyed most of a town; Tried to stop time; and once thought the pony who raised her for almost a decade would banish her, then imprison her in the place she was banished to (Over a mistake).
Now if that's what happened to ponies under her care (by the way I don't see that as something inheretly Celestia's fault, nor done out of cruelty). Saying that she should have treated Spike better, is something that was doomed for her to mess up. I dont think she's being cruel, or her acting with intentional maliciousness. Just with her sister around the corner, and prementioned problems of immortals. She overlooked several important things under her nose that she should've noticed.
But hey, with Luna around, she might have fixed up what she could, and have a pony there to point out when she's acting foolishly. I just thought I'd give some insight into Celestia In this fic. And what I'm using as sources of pre-Luna Celestia.
Hmm... I tend to take the show's approach to the immortality of the princesses and not dwell on the obvious "doomed" scenarios that living forever would entail. "Time Speeds Up Until You're Insane" I would say has a flaw in the fact that the life expectancy is infinite which throws off the math. Assuming that mental degradation does not occur due to the magic of immortality, I wouldn't think insanity would be an issue as perceptions for an immortal being would adapt. I could see her slipping up every so often asking for an attendant who has been dead for a century, but overall the brain is an organ that we still don't fully understand.
Being trapped though depends on how much power you think Celestia has. Since the show doesn't address it, her staying on whatever planet Equestria is on until the sun explodes or, if she can maintain the sun, one of the universe deaths occur, it really depends if the author wants to go down one of those dark paths to explore. I don't see why she can't simply teleport out of a bad situation if she is truly immortal or fly to a different planet. Even if she can get "stuck" in some manner, its in a story I usually don't find very interesting as it's pretty much Alicorn-abuse to write a fiction in which a princess finds herself going insane from loneliness.
All in all, I find immortality an interesting concept to think about and a good tool to be used to add a flaw the reader can relate or empathize with in some manner. Under Her Wings pulls off aspects of loneliness very well without burdening the reader with the nihilistic implications of immortality.
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Oh being trapped is never a problem for thse who can phase through matter or teleport.
But take 360,000 days of memories after Luna +/- an equal amount of days with Luna. And seeing the same song and dance as a ruler year after year. With a limited body type continuously popping up, and limited number of colors (about 1 - 100 million perceptible by the physical eye, but even then in the show we rarely see that number of color deviation. As much as we see X with X's mane colors). And with the number of ponies we see that look like X as a different tribe. And in only one generation. The chance of seeing a pony that looks like one they've already seen goes up substansially.
As for memories, and mind speeding up. As I've covered in the second half of the blog. There are so many events that can happen before they blur together. Much less, when you're life is dictated by scheduals that repeat the same series of events ad infinitum with small regularities. Which has been proven to make time go faster (since it's a much repeated routine).
Add in the sorrow and grief that she had for loosing the only other non-villian immortal, and nopony who could truly connect with her (or very few. Since as we've seen on the show, most ponies, unless she is part of some government event / competition / celebration freak the heck out and have high stress levels on par with Ponyville confronted with a bunny stampede in the show.), and you have a high chance of memories bluring together other than the rare acts of novelty / change to the routine (wich are an immortals greatest treasures). And a rather sad, but easily understood disconnect with the modern pony / her citizens.
Now excess memories, can be stored in memory crystals (I think that's a thing), or something like a pensieve (from Harry Potter). But the mind, scientifically, doesn't store things in nice neat files. It's more like a bee hive of internet links. With memories randomly linking together in terms of connections that the brain thinks makes sense. To recal events, places and things. And sometimes those links break, become unused long enough to become obsolete, or become replaced. Since the mind is a really ineffective (albeit powerful) data processor.
So yes, there are work arounds for memory going bad, or time speeding up with magic. But those repetitive, limited pony variations, repitition to routine over 40 generations, and her populace's awe / fear of her (as even evident by her own student), makes for a rather high rate of loneliness and general detachment. With a side of tunnel vission when her sister's return is right around the corner.
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Yes. Playing the good parts of immortality can be fun. And sure there are tons of times where immortality (in the right hooves / actions) can be good. But taking into account, no Luna (the only one who could understand her problems / trials, being an immortal herself and a major part of Tia's life), her having to do day and night court+ Raising and lower the sun and moon + her citizens actions towards her + countless hours of monotony. Doesn't = fun sides of immortality.
With Luna back sure. Even pre-NMM, or timelines where there was no fall event (for Tia and / or Luna), definitely. But take away one or the other. Then the down sides become more pronounced, and is a logical use for some of Tia's actions.