I've been thinking about this for awhile, what exactly did nightmare moon do to cause Luna to have so much guilt? Now let's just think about this. In the season four premiere, we are shown that celestia stops her sister gone bad pretty quickly, like, in less than Ten (10) minutes here, so, really, there isn't much time for Nightmare moon to cause much mayhem, much less be able to do anything that would realistically cause the founding of nightmare night. So season one premiere she comes back, eternal night for maybe two days. So really, how much stress did she cause, keeping in mind what Discord did alone, as well as with Tirek, how many lives they messed with. Think about it, and please reply.

4655058 Well, first of all, to what extent I want to allow the rushed, pointless battle in the S4 premiere to define Nightmare Moon as a character is pretty shallow. They wanted to have an excuse to show Nighty and that's fine, but I'm not prepared to accept that what we saw is the full extent of her reign of terror. She fell into legend amongst the ponies, to the point where they built statues of her and told stories of her to scare children. Obviously she had some sort of large impact on Equestria.

Secondly, Celestia. Luna basically forced her sister to make a choice nopony should ever have to make, and then live a thousand years dealing with the regret of that choice. So, how much stress did Luna cause as Nightmare Moon for Celestia? Well, a thousand years worth of it.

Finally, it doesn't matter what Luna DID as Nightmare Moon, what matters more is what she COULD'VE done if the Mane 6 or Celestia wouldn't have been able to stop her. She had all the cards for awhile and was pretty close to bringing about eternal night. I imagine it'd be pretty harsh to know that you were inches away from willingly killing thousands of innocent lives, regardless of whether you succeeded or not.

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I have started to have an theory that there was a Nightmare Moon impersonator when Luna was banished to the moon.

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what exactly did nightmare moon do to cause Luna to have so much guilt?

Oh I don't know, maybe the whole 'I tried to destroy all life on the planet' thing?

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In the comic of nightmare moon she destroyed the entinesies that protect dreams and took there magic. This is why she now guards dreams as Luna when in refanceses of the past Luna it never said she guarded dreams so maybe nightmare moon even imprisoned was tormenting ponies in their dreams all that time. Also the magic back lash of the fight helped create everfree and did a lot of damage to the castle so it stands to reason that some ponies where hurt or even killed.

4655144 If you're using shitty comics as your cannon, none of that was Luna. It was moon demons from the moon.

4655594 no fiend ship is magic showed nightmare moon made those daemons from the dream guardians.

4655611 Even then it was still a moon demon from the moon who transformed them.

4655119 Or did she? It is quite possible that she knew how to prevent the death through eternal night using magic, I dunno, making it so that the moonlight does the same thing like sunlight?

4655058 It's interesting you should bring this up now since I was just thinking about the exact same thing like yesterday or the day before. In the most recent episode, we see Luna absolutely distraught with guilt over "the suffering she caused". This is not the same as "intent to cause suffering".

Actual suffering. Sorry, I agree - I don't see it. Nightmare Moon was one of the swiftest enemies ever defeated. Mere minutes. And truly, nobody suffered in the Season 1 premiere either. Unless you count a few pranks like what happened to Stephen Magnet and the Manticore as suffering.

Far and away the one who suffered the most was Luna with her banishment. And Celestia with the grief of having to banish her sister. Everyone else probably didn't even notice.

However, if we stray from canon and go into things like Past Sins, we can see Nyx actually causing perpetual night for weeks, which has severe environmental effects, freezing crops and causing widespread suffering.

Granted, I still think the sentiment Luna showed is very moving. She clearly has a deep love of others, which is admirable. The turn around from being very selfish to very selfless is probably the most profound character transformation in the show. I suppose to match this, one could adopt a sort of alternate headcanon where Luna was not defeated immediately. Something more like what we find in The Immortal Game.

4656002 no Luna transformed the dremlings in to the demons, that transformed rarity.

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Or did she? It is quite possible that she knew how to prevent the death through eternal night using magic, I dunno, making it so that the moonlight does the same thing like sunlight?

Even if she did know, would she care? 'Oh, you didn't like the night before? WELL NOW YOU CAN DIE UNDER IT!'

4656122 It's a possible headcanon, as is that she just wants to be adored is. Not every villain has to go the extra-mile, y'know?
4656061 This is about Nightmare Moon, not Nightmarity, right? And you seem not to talk about NMM at all, and try to prove it using a whole different victim of parasites.

4656409 I'm saying they was nonperasite but something created by nightmare her self.

4658606 I just reread the argument, and now i know what you were trying to say. Nightmare Moon was Luna, but Nightmarity wasn't Rarity, right?

Fiendship is magic is a weird name tho.

4658968 it was the comics telling how the villains became villains.