Royal Problems (And a few other things)

While this weekend's (US) episode was quite good, there were hints of the problems inherent with Equestria's Enlightened Despotism. In the process of writing this, I've partially talked myself around: This episode portrays a far healthier system than Princess Spike, though there are still a few problems. Analysis follows

During Luna's day (and I note she had to do that without having had any sleep), we saw segments of Equestrian society that have become incapable of functioning without a Princess's direct involvement. The only plus is they seem willing to accept any princess.

First, we had the succession of appearances. This is mostly a bright spot: these are largely ceremonial duties, not ones with any real power, and if they're doing that, someone else must be handling affairs of state. This leaves the Princesses to only have to deal with the big threats. So far so good. Then comes Luna's smile wavering, and that suddenly throwing off the entire fundraiser, with Luna too busy to actually help. So perhaps the Princess's words are not literally law, but so many ponies apparently take it as such that the difference is somewhat academic. So one Princess goes 24 hours without sleep and suddenly an elementary school doesn't have its field trip. Admittedly, it's a small endeavor with correspondingly few points of failure, but with a purely ceremonial duty it's somewhat disturbing.

Next is the Timberwolves situation. The problem here is that there's no reason one of the strongest beings in Equestria actually had to deal with this situation, nor is it clear that that was preferable. As shown, a simple, factual denial was not accepted. Here, however, the intention had been for Celestia to deal with it, and her natural talent with diplomacy would have helped. Still, it's a weird issue to not be delegated to someone who had actually been to the woods in question, and it shows that many ponies are enamored of the Princesses to the point of dependence, even if they don't actually believe them.

Next is the town hall meeting. Again, there is some excuse here in that the intent was for Celestia to handle it, and she might have been able to wrap it up inside of an hour. Still, there was no reason it needed a Princess's involvement at all, and that that was felt necessary is again a bit of a bad sign.

Viewed through the lens of "Princess Spike," where ponies were willing to ignore common sense on the supposed word of a princess, these incidents look like part of the same trend. However, if we ignore that rather mediocre for many and outright infuriating for me episode, we see a much healthier system. While the Princesses (outside of the anachronistic Crystal Empire) do hold a certain amount of real power, what we might call Reserve Powers following the UK model, this episode demonstrates that the majority of their duties are either ceremonial or specially tailored to their talents. It does leave in place the problem that some claim for the UK Monarchy, and that Terry Pratchet commentged on for monarchies in general, which is compounded in the case of nearly ageless monarchs. That is, that people and ponies can become enamored of the idea of monarchy to the point that they don't think. The only case of this we really see in this episode, however, is the fund-raiser, and frankly any celebrity could cause similar problems.

This brings me to a question. Was switching their cutie marks really necessary? Luna's seems to correspond to dream magic, so without that I suppose Celestia couldn't have done that bit, but Celestia's magic was not at all related to what Luna had to do during the day. We know Celestia can raise sun or moon, as she did for years, but it is suggested here that with Luna's magic, the moon was easier to raise than it would otherwise have been (consider the difficulty Twilight had raising the sun in Twilight's Kingdom). This also ties into the theory that the moon in their universe is smaller and/or closer, and thus when properaly 'attuned', easier to move.

Next is Luna's dream-walking. It seems that Celestia didn't do this while Luna was banished, and indeed could not. That suggests this went undone for a thousand years. So is it even really necessary? With a few possible exceptions, Ponies don't really need the help: they worked through their own nightmares for a thousand years. Now, someone as powerful as Starlight might cause some problems, but there aren't that many of that level of power around. Also, it's kind of an invasion of privacy. The comics suggest that Luna also deals with nocturnal monsters on occasion, but we don't see that here.

Side-note: Starlight's cutie mark magic seems to be about cutie marks themselves, much like the CMC. This is interesting and one wonders if this will be followed up on. Also, why was she surprised when they switched marks back? She had said it only lasted 24 hours.

Other notes: Celestia is really bad at dream-walking. Dealing with just one and a half dreams took all night.

I noted as soon as Celestia walked by Luna with the dignitaries early on that she didn't really seem to be enjoying herself. My thought throughout was "the citizens are really annoying."

This brings me to the primary lingering problem, and I have to say that it's mostly Celestia's fault. While she has clearly learned over the centuries to delegate, she has also exhuded such an air of perfection that ponies thing she can do anything, as Twilight handily demonstrated. Also, it was fun seeing panicky Twilight again.
Anyway, when new princesses showed up, ponies seem to have naturally made the association. But this impression seems to promote dependency and stunt their intellectual-emotional growth. Celestia manages to keep this from growing too out of control, but if Starlight's impression of Starbreaker is to be believed, Celestia really gets sick of it all sometimes. Anyway, this also creates a sense of dependency as they assume the princesses know what they are doing and that they can always fall back on them. Comforting, I suppose, but when it's not true, it's a bit of a problem.
This episode suggests a way out of this that Celestia may not have even considered. Twilight is perfectly willing to show herself as a flawed individual, and Luna often can't be arsed to pretend to be perfect, and so gradually ponies get the idea that the Princesses are ponies too and not perfect demi-gods that they can never relate to. Not sure if Cadence fits this mold, but Shining Armor is a giant dweeb, and as Prince-Consort he seems to inspire almost the same level of devotion.

Three points, then, that I wish they would have realized, and feel that they could have been nodded at with a ltitle adjustment. First, Celestia came so close to realizing that it's not good for her to pretend to be perfect all the time, but only settled on not being so around Luna. Luna kind of only just realized that, and we see here some of how she became Nightmare Moon in the first place. The perfect big sister that everyone adored, while poor little sister gets ignored. So second, that's STILL a problem, if less so than in the past.

Third, while neither might be willing to acknowledge this yet, especially not Celestia, I was hoping for a different resolution to the Nightmare Moon and Starbreaker problem. Admittedly, they were Starlight's versions of them, not the Sisters, so there is some reason for this not to be the case, but I'd still like to see it. That is, that, say, Luna hugs Nightmare Moon, acknowledging the feelings that led her to that point and working through them, rather than suppressing them. She did learn in "Magic Sheep" not to punish herself to the extent that it hurt others. You might say not at all, but that might be going too far. Alternately, to forgive herself, but given that she still carries out her 'duties' in conditions not hugely different from 1000 years ago, I'm not sure she has. That is another sort of punishment.
Perhaps they should talk to Discord, who has been working towards this since Twilight's Kingdom, and learned a bit about dealing with his emotions in a healthy way in "Make New Friends" and to some extent "To Where and Back Again". Plus, I'm a bit of a Celestcord shipper. :P On a side-note, we saw a dream with Discord in it. Was that his dream or someone else's, I wonder?

And was there a Queen Derpy dream? I couldn't quite make out who that was.

Anyway, not a terrible episode overall. As for the points I took issue with, fanfic time!