Canon Luna and My Luna · 8:00pm Jan 8th, 2016
She's brave, caring and loyal; she feels tremendous guilt over her betrayal of Celestia over a thousand years ago and is driven to atone for it. Her motto might be "face your fears" -- that's how she aids Ponies in dreams. In social matters, her approach could be described as "binary" -- she will either mope shyly in the background or plunge forward with exaggerated heartiness, practically commanding others to join her in activities, with very little middle ground. This can be very disconcerting when she deals with someone truly shy -- observe her interactions with Big Mac in Zen and the Art of Gazebo Repair.
She does not seem to be very comfortable with large-scale high-society events, and probably finds them even more boring than does Celestia. We've never seen her at a Grand Galloping Gala, though she did attend Cadance's wedding reception and routinely appears at major State events to back up her Sister (and in the SWSV, to discuss defense-related issues). She much prefers jolly parties where she gets to be silly and happy without worrying too much about the impression she makes.
She is highly intelligent, with all the skills one would expect of an immortal general and scholar-mage; she is very perceptive in general (though sometimes has a blind spot where her own feelings and situation are concerned). She can be devastatingly-sarcastic when annoyed; when happy her sense of humor is merry and sometimes even bawdy. Despite her social awkwardness, she is extremely charismatic, especially toward certain kinds of Ponies, particularly foals, soldiers, artists and scholars. She is highly-loyal to her friends, and will go far out of her way to aid them in need. This can be, and has been used, against her. She hates betrayal.
She likes to fight, especially for exercise or in a good cause: she's in general highly-competitive (the genesis of the "Gamer Luna" concept). She is quite able to kill in serious battle, though she prefers to subdue and attempt to befriend all but truly vile foes. She comes from a darker and more desperate time in Equestria, and can sometimes shock modern Equestrians with her casual acceptance of necessary violence. She is very protective toward ordinary Ponies, and one of her routine activities is hunting down monsters and serious criminals, the better to protect such Ponies against them.
Her deepest loyalty is to her sister Celestia, who as a fellow immortal Alicorn of roughly equivalent age is perhaps the only being who truly understands her. They are inclined to quarrel from time to time over petty matters (shown in "Slice of Life") but deeply love each other. It is important to understand that Luna was insane when she became Nightmare Moon -- one of her greatest fears is that the Nightmare may one day overtake her again. She feels great guilt and shame for the damage she did by her fall into darkness.
She likes Twilight Sparkle very much, for a number of reasons including Twilight's key role in freeing her from the Nightmare, and the fact that the historically-minded Twilight is one of the few modern Equestrians who even halfway-understands her. She also very much respects Twilight's intelligence, honor and courage. She's been known to say that Twilight reminds her of a younger version of Celestia, which is incredibly high praise coming from Luna. She almost certainly in canon does not romantically love Twilight, despite the Reincarnation Romance I run as her major relationship arc in the Shadow Wars Story Verse, but there is clearly a strong friendship building between them. In the Siege of the Crystal Empire comics arc she declares that she'd "follow Twilight anywhere" and feels comfortable making what seems to be one of her bawdy jokes to her (we don't get to hear what she says).
She likes Applejack as well, for Applejack's courage, honor, prowess and overall sweetness: you may notice that she addresses her as "Fair Apple" in "Luna Eclipsed." She befriends AJ's brother Big Mac in "Zen and the Art of Gazebo Repair" -- she comes on a bit strong and scares him, but he winds up enjoying his time at the fair with her, and she even gives him a kiss. As with the other Cutie Mark Crusaders, she is also friendly to Apple Bloom, and helps her out in "Bloom and Gloom." It is safe to say that she has a favorable opinion of the Sweet Apple Acre Siblings.
She sees to like the other members of the Mane Six in general. Spike is one of her friends -- they relax by playing board games together in Reflections at one point, and though they quarrel over the correct approach to solving the mystery in Fillydelphia in Friends Forever # 14, are swiftly reconciled. She gets along with the others well, though Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie somewhat mystify her, having approaches very different than either her own or her Sister's to life.
There's evidence that she's recently started to be reconciled with Discord. In the SWSV, Discord was actually her best friend when they were growing up, but she took Discord's original betrayal and Face-Heel Turn, over twenty-five centuries ago, especially badly.
I discuss her (and her Sister's) likely philosophy regarding love and sex in "Sex and the Single Alicorn." To summarize, I view her as a strong romantic, bawdy but not wanton, who is very sexually-experienced simply due to having lived fifteen hundred years as an incarnate adult, and having the problem that she eventually loses everypony she loves, simply because he's not immortal like her. She's capable both of impulsiveness and of extreme patience in courtship (and she usually takes the lead in such matters), because she's passionate -- but immortal. She likes sex, but likes love even more.
We get to see Luna courting Twilight in several of my stories. She's extremely patient with Twilight, the more so because neither Luna nor Twilight is naturally lesbian. Their eventual marriage is a victory of love over sexual orientation, and certainly would not have happened had they not been Moondreamer and Dusk in previous lives together.
In the Shadow Wars Story Verse Luna is the "High Lady of War" for Equestria, which means "warlord" or "marshal." Her duty is the defense of the Realm, a duty she resumes upon regaining her sanity after her liberation from the Nightmare. She is well aware of the importance of military technology, and one of her primary goals is to modernize the Equestrian military to meet the coming threat of the Shadows. We see some of this in All The Way Back.
And that's my Luna.
You know you made an excellent observation on Luna. I agree with every point you made and as someone who has his own theories and perception of the benign ruler of the night I have to say yours comes quite close to my own definition of who Luna is. The mott "face your fears" i have explored in one of my fanfictions as well. In fact it was the axis, so to speak, of the entire story where she aided a unicorn prince haunted by shadowy forces that fed on his fears and inhibitions.
Furthermore her role as a princess contrasts Celestia perfedctly as she does have a certain direct approach in resolving issues. Another instance I wrote was when she was forced to solve a quarrel between two apple farmers. In that situation I described Luna's actions as very direct and blunt "this is what you will do it and that is final".
I am sorry if I sound like I am self promoting, but I just wanted to see how well does my interpretation of Luna fit against yours. In a lot of aspects Luna is also very caring as evident by her interactions with the CMC in the show, which is why I have grown quite fond of her as a character.
Now as far as the romantic stuff goes, I have to say that she would be somewhat of a romantic as evident by the celestial body she rules over. Next to sunsets on the beach, stroll under the moonlight would have to rate pretty high up there for the romantic setting (but that's just me).
in the end I respect and adore her character since she is an outcast who has managed to succesfully adapt to this new world and even managed to keep her fun loving attitude and defeat he rinner demon. I often theorised that her elements would be laughter (because she is even more of a playful alicorn than Tia), honesty (since she does say what is on her mind and spares no time being brutally honest with anypony as evident in The return of the crystal empire) and loyalty (since she is often times very loyal to her friends. I believe that this was the element she broke and that this event could have led to the birth of Nightmare Moon.)
as always your blog was most interesting and quite well done. Keep up the good work
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That aside, an excellent analysis of Luna, both canonical and fanonical.