Blog 16: The Good the Blog and the Ugly · 12:38am Dec 12th, 2015
So I've been Out Sick the last few days, and my sudden abundance of free time has given me plenty of time to sit down and do a proper profile. But then I scrapped it because it was too wordy and came up with this one. Plus Luna isn't the easiest nut to crack, between the cannon of the show and the many fan depictions that have inevitably colored my understanding of her psychology. I did promise Luna, right? Well you're getting Luna anyway. Enjoy.
“Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together and created harmony for all the land. To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn; the younger brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies. But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night. One fateful day, the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness: Nightmare Moon.”
-S1E1 intro
Luna is a tragic story. That's why so many people prefer her over Celestia, whom no one can easily relate to, as she has had, like, no screen time. Anyway, as I was saying Dark Horse is a sad story. She only wanted to be loved, So she went Full On Crazy Ass Tyrant Bitch and got locked away on the moon. Perhaps an over reaction. Speculation aside, this is an obvious case of Envy. A pretty severe case of Envy at that. Attempting something that would ultimately end in the Apocalypse and Mass Genocide in order to win love. Not the clearest reasoning I've ever heard, But I'm not about to stand up to her. Envy, called Sadness in a few circles, is the jealousy of someone else's good fortune, and the desire for whatever the fortune in question is. For Luna, she Envied the love her sister received for her contribution to nature continuing existence, and wished her own actions could be looked on in the same light. There's no real mystery here, Nightmare Moon was practically the show's embodiment of Envy.
Luna, Like a few others I've done so far, Doesn't fit easily into any other the Virtues. It's easy to find the Flaw in someone, but to find the virtue in them? That's much harder. So I'm going to place her in whichever Virtue she most closely Resembles, over embodies. And to get right down to it, it's Chastity. Chastity, called Honesty, is my Fall back option for when I can't Think of a good Virtue. They're all virgins, in my opinion, so it's kind of a cop out. However, I did choose this for a reason. Luna never really got over her Envy, she's just manifesting it differently now, in the form of guilt. Up until “Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep” that is. Guilt, and a handful of other negative self-image problems are common symptoms of Envy, believe it or not. One admittedly minor part of Chasity is the ability to refrain from being influenced by hostility, temptation or corruption, and a hallmark of this is self-discipline. Now Luna takes self-discipline and turns it into this kinda masochistic thing, but the thought is there. And in the absence of literally all else, it's the thought that counts.
As a final note I'd just like to point out something I find interesting. The First Sin of man was Envy. Cain was Envious of Abel and so he killed him. In MLP the First sin we are made aware of is an example of a great Envy, Luna's Jealousy of Celestia cause her to try something apocalyptic. It doesn't mean anything, but it is a neat parallel. And no, I don't count the Apple nonsense as the first sin, There was a third party involved in that.
I'm not a spiritual person, I am an atheist, But I find that by analyzing spiritual philosophies we can find a way of treating others and ourselves to aspire to. Just a thought.
Well that's the end of this total train wreck. Seriously, Audient Void, you bring out my most chaotic thought processes. Next Time: I'm feelin' Rainbow Dash, but honestly this segment is completely redundant. I'll do who knows whenever, and will continue to do so until such time as I find someone has a vested interest in the things I'm saying in these. Well, not “saying” so much as chewing up and spitting out. Whatever.
TTFN
Dust
