Since Cadence's magic is based on love and emotions, is it possible that she could hone magic to read/control other ponies' emotions a la Mantis in Guardians of the Galaxy?

Depending on your idea of what an empath is. She doesn’t seem to sense others emotions or she could have found Thorax with ease.

Can she manipulate emotions that is confirmed in the flash back we see her use her magic on two ponies that were arguing.

Now can she cause emotions like love if it not there we don’t know.

7100091
I think she could be considered an empath if her powers are emotion based. For example, the love she had for Shinning Armor repelled the changelings and kept Sombra at bay.

7100091
I think she is, but within a limited spectrum. That is, she can sense love, especially the romantic sort, and possibly related things liek hatred, but probably can't pick up unrelated feeling like happiness or sadness.

7100138
She's the pony equivalent of Star Sapphire.

7100091
In cannon? Unclear. She's shown once effecting a couple's emotions with magic, but it's unclear how much influence she actually has, and it's never really indicated that she can sense them.

In my headcanon, though, absolutely. Not on the controlling side really, but giving her the ability to feel the emotions of others makes for an interesting story element, and puts her more in line with the Princesses having a special ability tied to their talent, without a creepy brainwashing vibe (that vibe presumably being the reason why she's only ever shown to magic up love in that one flashback, despite it supposedly being her "thing").

7100091
In my headcanon she totally can manipulate emotions. Induse, change, turn one thing into another, even drain them to massively empower her magic or turn her victim into soulless husk if she feels like that. She can read them too, figuring out who feels what and why.

7100091

Could be, depends on the world.

7100228
I second this headcanon.

7100228
That seems a bit overpowered, especially given her underwhlming in-show performance.

My head canon is she can sense emotions but has to want to and focus it. It also limited in range, why she couldn’t feel Thorax. This limits her range and it can increase over time and practice. So after say a thousand years she could home in on emotional disturbances across Equestria, but for now it just a few yards.

She can’t force emotions that aren’t there. So no making ponies fall in love nor cause them to stop loving. She can strengthen or weaken what is already being felt.

"Look, honey. I had to. You know it."

"Yeah," grunted Shining Armor, still looking out the window.

"He was holding the entire empire hostage. He was threatening our ponies. I didn't have any choice."

"I know, dear." Shining Armor finally looked back at the bed, where the Griffon emperor was curled up around Princess Cadence, who was politely fending him off at hoof's length. "It's just... we have an army." He gave a brief unhappy snort. "It was my turn, anyway."

"You can have the next one, Shiny." Cadence patted the edge of the covers. "Now, come to bed."

7100246
In my headcanon she is really that dangerous. But... she met Chrysalis earlier in her life, got her ass kicked and so in Canterlot Wedding she decided that antagonising someone who can level Canterlot is not the best idea and surrendered, waiting for the opportunity to strike. In Crystal Empire she chased Sombra out of town and kept magical shield up for several days. Tirek is worst possible opponent for her. And I ignore anything past season 5 anyway.

7100091
Please don't bring the "Empath vs. Narcissist" mythology & conspiracies to this forum please.

7100091

The way I understand it, being the princess of love would probably just give her a talent/instinct for matchmaking and guiding other ponies into romantic relationships, possibly with a dedicated personal spell with that effect. (Which I believe she already has in canon? Can't recall at the moment.)

Straight up empathic powers strikes me as stretching it a bit. More to the point I don't think a pony's talent grants them special powers. She would need a spell to allow her to sense the emotions of other ponies and in this setting, spells are very specific and are implied to be the result of dedicated research and theoretical understanding. They're not something that just "happens."

At the most I might see Cadence having a personal spell that allows her to tell if another pony is in love, but I doubt she'd be able to get a read on their emotions in a more general sense. That just seems to lie outside of her domain, so to speak.

7100091 I'll just post this here.

7100680

Straight up empathic powers strikes me as stretching it a bit.

The very essence of "she has power over love thus it must stretch over other emotions and abilities that deal with them," that is attributed to Cadance (and similarly for Changelings) always struck me weird. The argument is basically the same as saying that because a human can modulate vibrations that travel through the air for communication and use sound waves then that must mean that they are able to use sonic waves like Zebra from Toriko or something, you know, make sonic booms and what not.

Both are as valid, and that tells you something about how well-standing that argument is.

7100948
Well I'm not saying she can do other emotions - just love and perhaps it's closest neighbours. Humans can both speak and hear, after all.