Theorycraft - Reconciling Luna's Design · 1:46am Sep 6th, 2015
This is to address how inconsistently Luna's appearance has been in the comics, particularly with regards to use of her de-powered form as seen in Season 1. For those who don't read the comics, here's a quick rundown:
Luna appears in her de-powered form in the main series #5 through #8, the Nightmare Rarity arc. In issue #8, she's visibly seen transforming into her larger form after spending the previous parts of the arc in the de-powered form. Fiendship is Magic #1 depicts her in her smaller form in a flashback to her and Celestia flying to the Crystal Empire, but the Season 3 premiere shows her in her larger form when they seal King Sombra.
Frankly it bugs me how the comic writers have screwed this up. I know they often aren't told what the show will be doing ahead of time, but how hard is it to watch an episode for reference on how a character looks? Issue #5 of the comic came out in 2013, while Luna Eclipsed came out in 2011; I doubt the leadtime with the comics is so great they didn't know her design had changed. And the Fiendship guy obviously had reference material for Sombra's look, did he not see the episode where Luna is obviously in her larger form? Lauren Faust's on-the-fly explanation for Luna's smaller form being a result of her initially low powers after her restoration could have worked if the comics didn't screw it all up.
So, let's brainstorm some ways this could potentially work, presuming you care about the comics at all. What could justify Luna's formchanging? Here's a few things I came up with.
- It's related to the phases of the moon; as the moon grows smaller and then larger again, Luna's powers weaken and she temporarily shifts form.
- It's connected to her emotional state; when she is in emotional turmoil or some such, she loses power. This doesn't fully gel with Luna Eclipsed and Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, but perhaps she wasn't in enough turmoil then to trigger it.
- It's voluntary, and Luna shifts between the two forms for whatever reason you want to make up. Perhaps the smaller form is her "normal" form, and she she dons the larger form in public to look more like Celestia and thus Equestria's image of a monarch; or perhaps her smaller form is the transformation because it conserves power and, I dunno, lets her pass through doors easier.
Do any of you have theories? I'd love to hear them.
Dramatic license is all I got. Trying to jel the cartoon and the comics together is like merging Protestants and Catholics. Better left alone.