Backstory: The Princesses, but Mostly Luna · 3:05am Oct 20th, 2019
The show has ended; the finale aired about a week ago. As with many of my blogs in this series, I won't claim to have planned the release of this blog based on that as I'm not that clever, but it does fit well for the final blog in this series. While not the same as planning, I did have some apprehension about writing on the backstories of Princesses Luna and Celestia before the series end, considering how likely we were to get at least one potentially game-changing episode about them in Season 9. We got The Last Crusade which renders at least a significant portion of my previous blog on the CMCs less than fully accurate.
For those who haven't seen the end of the show, a few spoilers below.
Few characters in the series can claim to be as important to the setting as the Princess sisters. Even Twilight Sparkle, the main character of the series and despite her immense popularity, hasn't inspired fans to produce the kind of nearly reverent works of art that these two have. Luna, in particular, has her own cult-like following. I've spent a great deal of focus on this series laying out elements of a backstory and comparing how detailed or not various characters' backstories are. In the CMC blog, I went in-depth in the process of forming a backstory utilizing characters that are living out those same backstories in the present. The other side of coin is how a backstory informs us of how a character got to be where she is in the "now" and when it came to Starlight Glimmer, the argument generally was that her backstory didn't satisfy fans in accepting how she got to the "now" we saw in the Cutie Re-Mark. Many characters have little to no background, but the "now" of the character doesn't demand as much explanation.
We were introduced to Equestria and the series as a whole because of the conflict between Luna and Celestia. Luna being banished for a thousand years by her sister drew many fans in. Celestia having to rule alone for a thousand years, the regret she faced, and various elements of her rule form the backbone of the setting. Many of the villains in the series were partially dealt with in the past by these two sisters. Holidays like Nightmare Night and the Summer Sun Celebration are based on these two and represent an impact on nearly every pony's life and culture. We see in Swarm of the Century and Luna Eclipsed how ponies recognize the Princesses on sight and defer to them. Even in a silly slice of life depiction like in Between Dark and Dawn, regular ponies react to them with a sense of shock and awe, and you can just imagine Strawberry Ice will be telling her grandchildren about the day Princess Celestia fell asleep and used her head as a pillow.
I don't think anyone truly questions how important Luna and Celestia are to the setting. But put a few things into perspective: Luna was a villain. Perhaps the most dangerous villain in the entire series. She planned to lock Equestria in eternal night. This would be a global death sentence. Lauren Faust confirmed that, while not explicitly stated in the show, everything would die if Nightmare Moon had succeeded. That's a pretty important thing to worry about. What could drive a beloved and important ruler of the land to want to destroy everything? If fans demand an explanation for how Starlight came to lead a cult-like village of cutie mark-eschewing ponies under her vision of "true friendship through equality" then certainly it seems fair to demand an explanation for how Luna became Nightmare Moon and saught to end all life on the planet.
The simple answer given to us in Friendship is Magic Pt I is that she was jealous. Their subjects adored Celestia more than they adored Luna. This hardly seems like a satisfying answer. Let's examine it more closely.
The comics cooked up something called "the nightmare forces" and suggest Luna was infested by what amounts to a parasite that drove her insane or took over her mind. Canon has indicated no such thing happened but if we attempt to accept this, then all we do is remove agency from Luna. Further, we have to question what these parasites are, why they would enable destruction of all life, and we still have to wonder why Luna became susceptible to them and what blame she faces for permitting their infection. In that same comic, these parasites still exist to modern-day to infect Rarity, and we have to wonder why such an existential threat had not been eradicated. If Luna was not to blame, then her banishment for a thousand years is both unjust and inappropriate. There is no satisfying conclusion to be drawn from this route.
In Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, Luna feels guilty over her actions and decisions and takes action to keep herself from repeating those mistakes. We see in A Royal Problem that the two sisters still bicker and don't respect the contributions each does for Equestria. We saw in Sparkle's Seven that Luna retains the capacity to betray Equestria, even if only in a training exercise meant to test Canterlot's new security measures. The conditions that saw Luna descend into madness a thousand years ago seem to still exist today. A blast of rainbow-friendship-laser to the face snapped her out of it in the pilot, but how long that will last is unclear.
The fact that Luna walks in her little ponies' dreams, talks to them and helps them handle the fears and anxieties they face that bring them nightmares leads me to believe that it isn't possible that Luna was ignored completely a millennia ago. Friendship is Magic Pt I indicated that Luna was isolated and lonely. That literally zero ponies interacted with her and that is what caused her descent. The fact that ponies sleep at night instead of admiring her moon and stars was mentioned in the opening story. I could see total isolation being a powerful motive that could lead to Nightmare Moon but I don't think that is the situation Luna was in. She has a personal, intimate connection with many of her subjects. Many fans have imagined cults dedicated to her, an entire tribe of ponies (batponies) dedicated to her, and so on. It seems nearly impossible that fans of Luna didn't exist at all. A petty "your fandom is bigger than mine" complaint doesn't feel as compelling a vehicle for the level of madness Nightmare Moon represents. Her story relies on something as powerful as total isolation but never supports the idea that this was the setting.
I'm not seeing any sort of backstory that justifies Nightmare Moon.
Family, Cutie Marks, Elements, Events
I could go on at length about how neither Princess has a detailed backstory, but a summary feels like enough. The show hasn't given us much.
We know nothing about their parents or childhood. They call each other sister, but even that is questionable. We know nothing about alicorns from their origin era. We don't know if they were born as alicorns like Flurry Heart or became alicorns like Twilight and Cadance.
We know that Celestia's cutie mark was earned participating in the ritual to raise the sun which, previously, drained 5 unicorns a day of their magic and her superpower is that she can raise the sun solo and not be drained by it (Horse Play). We don't know the details of the event. We know nothing about Luna's cutie mark story.
We know that they each wielded three of the Elements when they defeated Discord, and we know that Celestia wielded all six to banish her sister.
We know that Starswirl the Bearded was their tutor, and we know about several major events they participated in prior to Nightmare Moon's banishment including Tirek, Discord, and Sombra's attempts to attack Equestria. We know that Celestia, in the thousand years of solo rule, implemented the EUP which was Equestria's standing army and the precursor to today's Royal Guard and Wonderbolts (and presumably other branches and may include Bon Bon's covert monster-hunting/spying organization).
We have no real details on any of these things, beyond a bullet point list of historical facts. The show forces us to piece together a backstory for the Princesses by obsessively collecting scraps of lore, mostly during the expositions introducing various villains. At no point do we get a handy, "here is my backstory" scene or episode like we got for Starlight Glimmer or the M6. We barely get to see them on screen interacting with each other or others.
Unlike Sunset Shimmer, Luna's past is treated as important and relevant but like Sunset Shimmer, we know little to nothing about her. We know next to nothing about the sequence of events which led to her defining moment. Later events in canon feel like retcons against what little was established in the beginning. She has, in spite of these writing flaws, continued to be an important figure in Equestria and has several episodes dedicated to her and her story. Yet missing is the level of outrage from fans for her poor writing. Missing are the "totally fair criticisms" of Luna's inadequate backstory. Luna is held to an entirely different standard than Starlight Glimmer is held to. Unlike Luna, Starlight Glimmer has had more of her past revealed to us to flesh out that backstory.
And now the series is over. None of the holes will be filled by canon.
After serving on the throne for a few years, Luna will be enjoying retirement alongside her sister in Silver Shores. Maybe the comics will give us some more answers. Probably not. Fanfic writers will likely put their own spin on her character. I know I still plan to at some point. Will she continue to dreamwalk and help ponies? I hope so. Will others learn this magic and help her? I hope so for that as well as it seems that dreamwalking leaves Luna exhausted. Many fans are unhappy with this outcome for their beloved Princess of the Night. Yet Luna remains a popular character. Fans are unhappy with components of her character and prefer to write their own versions. Her anemic backstory isn't touted as proof of her being a terrible character. Instead, they fill in the blanks with their elaborate headcanon.
As I said, this is the last entry into this series. One could carefully examine any number of characters, great or small, from the series or various fanfics. I encourage you to do so for any that hits your fancy. If any of the methods or tools I've described seem useful, awesome. If you come up with some of your own, feel free to tell me about them.
Hopefully, this blog series has had many useful components to it but the underlying driving message is about Starlight Glimmer and how great of a character she actually is. She is the best character in the entire series and I can say that with confidence now that canon has finished introducing new material. Any fault she has is present in many other characters and to greater magnitudes. Her story is the best-told story in the series, better even than Twilight Sparkle's story. We saw MLP reach its best in S6 and S7, in large part due to following Starlight's story.
Others are free to disagree with this opinion. I don't think other opinions can be as well-supported as I've supported mine but that is by no means a requirement in order to hold any opinion. Hopefully, I've convinced some people to my side. Hopefully I've pointed out some of the unfair practices expressed by those others and that pointing these out convinces them or folks potentially swayed by them to come to my side instead.
Welcome to the Endgame regardless.
Character Plugs
As I mentioned in passing, it feels like some of the material produced by the fandom in regards to Luna approaches reverence. Here are a few examples of things that come to my mind when I say that.
The first of finished videos animated by Duo Cartoonist, and my favorite of theirs. The Moon Rises, Midnight Frenzy, and Run Away also deal with Luna and/or Celestia, and form the bulk of their products.
SFS is another fandom favorite animation studio, and this is my favorite of their works. While not as heavily biased towards the Princesses as Duo, I feel like The Fall of the Crystal Empire has a certain level of quality above their more frivolous works like Luna's Cutie Mark or even Snowdrop, their work that first drew my attention to them.
In other pony's blogs, I mentioned some of the most iconic songs in the fandom from canon (Smile, Art of the Dress, and Winter Wrap Up). I feel like many fans consider this one in their midst. That it isn't canon seems almost a mistake. While the depiction of the sisters' battle in this animation isn't far off from what we saw in S4, there is a significant shift in blame from Luna towards Celestia in this vid.
Entirely different in tone than the other three plugs, this one actually sits on my usual MLP playlist. I think it's far more listenable and is probably my personal favorite of the four.
While I consider it riddled with flaws, Past Sins is undeniably one of the classics of our fanfic community, and this story propelled Pen Stroke to be the most followed user on the site with over nine-thousand followers. Technically not about Luna or Celestia directly, the black alicorn OC main character of the story is "technically" Nightmare Moon. If nothing else the story is incredibly appropriate in the context of backstory importance.
Yet another large story with its own share of flaws. While not a fandom classic, it was a reasonably important read for me and my own tastes. It doesn't feature Luna herself but her existence and recent banishment are centrally important components of the story. It also has an interesting depiction of Celestia that more or less informs my headcanon for her.
Next Up
Like the cartoon, there is no next up. I'll write other blogs, but this series is complete. 
There are a lot of holes for the fandom to fill in MLP:FIM. (The hole that got my attention was the one left by the movie, but that one has proven very challenging to fill) I'm not sure just what to say about Luna. I've always liked her, I guess at least partly because she was so cute, and because of the obvious effort she put into trying to fit in during "Luna Eclipsed". As to why she did what she did, it's hard to say. One can encounter some pretty nasty stuff in dreams. And maybe her contact with her subjects had been so limited that too many of them thought of her as nothing more than a dream. Only the fanfics can tell us now.
I think that the problem with the show is that it grew to be so much more than Lauren Faust originally intended, but it wasn't always well thought out. One can think of it as a warship that is hit by a torpedo and loses it's rudder. It can still be steered by using the engines, but it's not going to function as well as it should. I don't think that the story was planned out as well as it could have been, maybe because the producers were afraid of too much complexity, or that there wasn't a clear idea of just how long they even wanted the series to run. That in my opinion is why the final season seemed so rushed. There was a lot to cram in. (but, I'm not much of a fan of how the series ended, so I'm probably more than a bit biased)
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Maybe not your intention, but I think you bring a great point to light. There are a lot of "holes" in the canon, sure. But in order to identify those holes, we need to know the material around them. I spent a lot of time in this blog series on backstories as a reaction to the complaints levied against Starlight's "unsatisfying" backstory. The backstory is one element of a character story. There are a lot of character stories told in FiM and now all of those stories are marked as done and we can fully examine them each now.
During the hiatus between S5 and S6, where most of the anti-Starlight controversy frothed over into insanity, one of my biggest takes from the finale was a sense of "wait and see what they do with it." I was rewarded with S6 and S7. No Second Prances, All Bottled Up, and A Royal Problem, in particular, were excellent additions to Starlight's overall character post-redemption. Shadow Play was a wonderful capstone to her story arc.
Back to your point, on Luna. There are holes. The phase of her life leading to her banishment is still a complete mystery and left entirely in the hands of fanfic writers to try and answer. We got to see a neat little glimpse of her integration conflicts in Luna Eclipsed. We saw another neat component of it in A Royal Problem. Her story ends with a vague retirement to Silver Shores, with an indication that she'll favor "rest" and other simple, unexciting things based on Between Dark and Dawn. If we want to look at her story overall, it's not particularly satisfying or interesting.
I think that in addition to holes, there is a character story to examine and what is there isn't a particularly good story. Not just because of the holes (which can be filled as you mentioned) but because the material itself is a mess. A rudderless warship. Luna/Nightmare Moon was a poorly-conceived origin. It was massively important culturally to the setting and thus very interesting to fans. Nothing was done with it though. Luna's story is very front-loaded, and it tapers off into nothing. It lacks a sense of growth. It lacks a sense of building/rising tension. It lacks a sense of "climax." Luna's story is falling off a cliff and hitting the bottom at the end.
Contrast Luna's story to Starlight Glimmer's. As I've noted in my blogs, her origins/backstory is more complete and relatable. We're presented with an intriguing initial conflict that, while much lower stakes than Nightmare Moon, has certainly made a huge impact on the fandom (The Cutie Map and the Cutie Re-Mark). We're then given Starlight's recovery/therapy under the Princess of Friendship. We get a sense of progress and growth and reach a satisfying climax where she takes on the famous Starswirl the Bearded and changes his mind (Shadow Play). Her story tapers off through S8 and S9, and her becoming headmare of Twilight's school is her epilogue.
I'd argue that between the two characters, Starlight has a far better character story. Luna's character could be far better handled in fanfic than it was in canon, but so too could Starlight's story be improved. Both have holes to explore. The difference, I feel, is that in order to make a better version of Luna, you'd have to discard elements from canon, whereas a Starlight Glimmer improvement would simply build on what we already have.
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I do agree with you on the problem of plot holes. The difficulty of adapting the canon to fit what you know logically should be there, but isn't has made one of my fanfics very hard to work with. And there is so much about Luna that needs work, I think that one of Starlight's biggest problems is that we have seen how she operates. We have seen her steal cutie marks, travel through time, cast mind control spells, and flip around the princesses cutie marks. Some of those actions feel like an assault on our heroines, and indeed many times they were. (and I admit, I still haven't seen 'A Royal Problem' all the way through because of that concern, even when you know her intentions are good. ) Starlight is a very powerful pony, and there is always the fear of what she is capable of. Indeed, some of the fanfics here have explored that very issue, and some of it has been kinda nasty. That said though personally, having watched her develop as a character, I think she's delightful, even in 'Every Little Thing She Does...". And her relationships, with Maude, and Sunburst, and especially Trixie are priceless. Over the course of the series, she grows and learns, and by the time season 9 rolls around, the thought that she may one day go back to the dark side seems truly absurd.
Contrast this with Luna. We never see the back story. We never even know how she got her crown in the first place. We never see what leads up to that moment in the castle when she loses control, and we never see what she does after that. And no one really ponders the idea of eternal night, and the devastation that would cause. We see a threatening looking creature when she first appears, but she quickly becomes a small and frail looking little pony. We see just a bit of her anger in 'Luna Eclipsed', but it is quickly replaced by the sad and frustrated princess with the big blue eyes. One has to wonder just how much damage she did before her banishment, and how many lives were lost. There was probably a good reason that Luna created the Tantabus to torment her own dreams. That's a harsh punishment to inflict on yourself.
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And the same fear one has for Starlight and her power is also there for Luna. We saw in Sparkle's Seven that she's essentially pointing out that one of the flaws in Canterlot's new defenses is that if she's in a pouty mood, she will betray Equestria and aide Equestria's enemies. Her assisting Spike in stealing the crown represented her betraying Canterlot because of a squabble with Celestia.
Would she betray Equestria for real against a real set of enemies? We don't know. But she certainly doesn't try hard to inspire confidence in us that she's loyal to her little ponies. We don't know that she would be loyal and that in and of itself is a problem.
As for Starlight, yes she has done some bad things. The fact that she thought they were good things to do is a relatable mindset. Everyone thinks their ideas are either good or justified. When ideas are justified, it's easy to get used to justifying them again, and thinking they're fully good. Being shown that one's ideas are bad often meets heavy resistance because of those carefully laid and built-upon justifications. That Twilight was able to tear through that and reach Starlight is far more impressive than any rainbow laserbeam. That Starlight was humble enough to accept that she had been wrong and to face consequences is inspiring.
She stumbles on the way. She makes mistakes. Everyone does. But she certainly has proven her loyalty to Equestria and to use her power for good. She's a far better character and story than Luna's.
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I agree that Luna is the lose cannon in the series that was never lashed back down. In spite of the various attempts, there always seems to be a rivalry between the two sisters that never seems to be entirely resolved. One could even see it in an innocent little story like "Horseplay" when Celestia raises the sun to add that special touch to the play, and all Luna can do is roll her eyes and look annoyed. It appears to be a question of the two sisters having issues, and never quite working all of them out. It's not surprising. Siblings often have problems, some of which are never resolved. (I've seen that in my own family, old grudges die hard) And, having been born, or turned into, alicorns, baring a magical attack that finally does them in, they have an eternity to try and deal with each other. Good luck with that.
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Hate to bother you with an old topic, but I recently read on this site a fanfiction that changed the canon by having Celestia and Luna announcing their retirement and Twilight's promotion, and Twilight refusing it, and instead suggesting that Luna, who apparently was retiring more for Celestia's sake, becoming the sole crown princess. What indeed would THAT have done to season nine?
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Hey, no worries. As long as the reply is interesting like yours I don't mind old topics being brought back up.
So you're asking what an alternate Season 9 would look like. I'm going to assume that it's still the series finale.
Well, it kinda wouldn't fit the series I think. Twilight Sparkle was always the main character. While her friends get their own episodes from time to time, her story is the main story of FiM. So immediately you're taking the attention away from the main character for the last season and instead of closing off her story, you're shifting over to Luna and her situation. I think this would make Season 9 worse and be a bad way to finish off the series.
If the retirement thing was more of a side note of the season and you still focused on Twilight and giving her a happy ending by the end of the season in order to close out the series, that would be preferable. Can you think of a way to do that in a satisfactory way other than letting her be Celestia's (and Luna's) heir?
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I'm not sure. And before I go too far, I have to admit that there are at least fourteen episodes that I still haven't seen yet, and I have barely looked at season nine. I had several issues with the show over the years, and I was not a fan of the whole Twilight as princess idea, as I thought it was purely a commercial decision, though in truth (?) it was probably a hint at how things would eventually end. And I have heard that Lauren Faust intended Twilight to succeed Celestia. But to me, it never seemed like a good idea.
Could the elevation of Luna to crown princess have worked in a Twilight centered story? It's hard to say. I personally would have found it refreshing to see Twilight say no to Celestia just once, especially after the way Celestia dropped that bomb on Twilight and ran for the exit like she did during the ninth season premiere. I wonder looking back on it if Celestia ever really contemplated the idea of Twilight refusing? The implication (at least for those awake enough to get it) from the get go was that Celestia was looking for a successor. But, at least in the case of a hereditary royal, the whole succession idea would be understood from the beginning. But did Twilight have any clue about this plan? Did Celestia really give Twilight a real choice in the matter? I can't help but think that if Twilight had refused, Celestia would have seen it as one hell of a kick in the muzzle personally.
And what about Luna? In truth, what was she retiring from? It is one of the big question marks of the story, probably because we never got a real idea what exactly "banished to the moon" actually meant. Did Nightmare Moon just sit there and stare back at Equis for a thousand years? Was her spirit somehow fused with the moon? And why is she retiring after having been back only a few years? Could it have been a case of after having suffered the trauma of madness, followed by learning of everything she lost over the following thousand years, and the painful transition back to her former status, her heart just wasn't in it anymore. Or was she just following along dutifully behind her sister?
What would happen to Twilight if Luna became crown Princess? I think that she could have become what Celestia was to her, a mentor. I think that it could have worked, and would have been better relationship wise than Celestia/Luna, given that pair's history. It seems to me that there was always a feeling of inferiority on Luna's part regarding her sister, which wouldn't be there with Twilight. And Twilight and her friends could have been the faithful advisors and friends guiding the inexperienced crown princess along, and completing the redemption process that they helped initiate nine years before.
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It does sound like a combination of two things that detract from your idea. The less important one is that you have, as you admit, a lack of having watched how it was done in canon. It's hard to critique something fairly if you hadn't seen it. It further seems that you've focused mostly on your head canon of the show rather than the show, and when episodes came that made your headcanon no longer fit, you've clung to your headcanon and rejected canon.
The other big thing is that you're far more interested in Luna's character and telling her story instead of Twilight's. You're trying to morph your Luna-based idea around to still fit in a Twilight-centric story but it just doesn't fit. You're going to have to go back all the way to the beginning and change the entire series to tell this Luna story. It simply won't be the same FiM. This isn't even a "well, it's all the same except the ending." This is a "the entire series needs to be different."
So you really need to figure out which idea it is you really want to pursue. If you want to explore the Luna idea, it's going to involve way more than just altering S9. There's no way around that. To do less is to make the idea worse to the point of being terrible. The other is is to try to only change the "bad" S9. It needs to still be a Twilight story. It has to be a good end for her without derailing off into some other character.
I think either one is fine to talk about, though it's weird to talk about Twilight and season 9 in the comment section of my blog for Luna.
So, you mention the moon and several other bits. I think that we have to accept the fact that NMM was a bad character. This is pretty fundamental to any sort of analysis of her character and any effort to "fix" anything. I don't mean bad as in she was a villain, I mean badly designed and in need of they fixing.
I think that Luna being a dream walker is the single most interesting part of her character. However, that came later. That wasn't part of the original design from Faust. In fact, her being a dream walker outright contradicts the past we learned about in S1E1. It makes zero sense for Luna to be lonely and ignored by ponies to the point of jealous rage. She literally spends every night talking to them and addressing their fears one on one. So we have to make a decision about just what her past was actually like. Because it's a major flaw as it stands. I'd go so far as to say they retconned Luna's past.
Assuming we resolve that problem, we're already changing the first episode of the season. At the very least, we're making that initial conflict more complicated and important. And we're definitely giving way more time to Canterlot and Celestia instead of some random unicorn off in podunk nowhere. And you're probably completely dripping the show's central theme of "Friendship" because you're instead focused on a royal leader of a nation. There's no room in the story for the low-stakes social foibles of FiM.
S2 in canon saw the return of Luna to the screen and touched on her reintegration into society. That's also pretty neat. Your story should probably not bring that up only to resolve it in only one episode, never to matter again. Explore that for awhile.
S3 is when they introduced her dreamwalking. That probably should be happening from the start. It happens twice more with the other two CMC in later seasons. Then a fourth and final time with the Tantabus.
She makes a few bit appearances here and there in a few episodes. But it's not really until S7, in a Starlight Glimmer episode, that we finally get to see what a day is like for either princess as a ruler. We finally get a glimpse into how that whole two rulers thing works and so on. We get a really immersive view on the importance of dreamwalking as we watch Celestia try to do it. Also bumping us up to five episodes exploring the dreamwalking ability.
As to why, in canon, Luna wants to retire: because ruling a country is a lot of work? We get an episode in S9 where the two sisters take a vacation together. Something they've never gotten to do. Luna wants to use the vacation to rest because she's constantly exhausted by her job. Meanwhile Celestia wants to do fun and exciting things because she hasn't gotten to "live" on her own terms for about 1100 years.
You bring up misunderstanding why they'd want to retire when canon directly answers that question if you were to watch. It's not some nefarious ploy as you suspect. It's because Twilight does a better job at defending Equestria than they do and they genuinely think she'd be a better ruler than them. Equestria did well for a thousand years under Celestia's rule. Luna was actively bad for Equestria at times. She did little to nothing to help make it any better when she returned. And the more responsibility given to Twilight, the better Equestria does. Even without being the ruler. Granting her that full authority was an upgrade from "pretty good" to "even better."
So you'd have to figure out, for your story, why your version of Luna is better for Equestria than Celestia. You could take the easy, boring route and turn Celestia into a bad person. Others have done so in their stories. But you still need to show why Luna is actually good for your version of Equestria. And you're going to have to build up a completely original character of your own that you name Luna, because that's very different from the Luna of the show.
If you're trying to remain true to the character in canon, merely fixing a few continuity errors and/or expanding on under-utilized themes instead of a complete redesign, then I don't think she should be ruler of Equestria. You could craft your own story as I've described, but simply putting her alone on the throne is a bad idea and it really doesn't fix any issues you have with the ending of the series.