In some continuities, one of Lex Luthor's complaints about the man of steel (the guy with the cape, not the movie) is that Superman does too much for mankind, and in doing so stifle's mankind's advancement. Whether Luthor actually believes this, or believes he believes this, is more doubtful, but I think sometimes Supes himself wonders about that. The Elseworlds story "Superman: Red Son" had it happening, big time.

There's another continuity with it's own solar-ish superpowered being, one who is sometimes accused of sitting back and letting others -- OK, Twilight -- do the hard work for her. The real reason, of course, if that the show is about Twilight and her friends, not about Celestia. She's important to the show, but nowhere near the focus.

But in the oh-so entertaining world of fanwankery, this could be a reason for Celestia to let her little ponies do some of the heavy lifting -- so they can grow in doing so.

Is this in anyone's headcanon, or anywhere near headcanon? Tonsilcanon? Leftbigtoecanon?

Tonsilcanon? Leftbigtoecanon?

Well, obviously, one person/pony/character can't do everything...

1293631 I believe the most accuarate description of what Superman and Celestia's jobs are is in this old Man of Steel trailer:

1293631, Interesting point. The very crux of thinking is that you cannot please all the people all the time. Do too much and others will not learn. Do too little and you are a hindrance to society.
...
My head hurts.

Basically it all boils down to something Raiden once said in the first mortal kombat movie (At least I think it was Raiden, it was a god being, but it was something that was always has been in my mind)

"Gods should not interfer too much in the fates of man."

Also, see the first Superman film for an even better quote, "They will abuse your power, even for things that they can do on their own"

Celestia shouldn't be there for every mistake, monster, accident, bomb, attack, that comes into exsitance in Equestria. Then how are the ponies going to learn to do things for themselves, how is Twilight and the others going to be good guardians if the answer is "Celestia will save us!" This is why I love the episodes of Powerpuff Girls and SPD. In Powerpuff Girls, there is an episode where the people of Townsville become jerks and want the girls to do 'EVERYTHING' for them. It gets to the point where the girls decide to take a break and make them work for themselves for once. Another one is in a certain eppie of SPD where the Shadow Ranger, who is very powerful compared to his students, is expected by the others to always come in to save their butts. They think of him as the one who can do everything, thus they don't need to put forth the effort to protect the people or care about the battle, they just need the Shadow ranger to come in and save their butts. Again, he opts out of the fight, reminding them that he won't come in unless its a REAL emergancy.

Again, what kind of growth is the world going to have if the answer is always, "Celestia". They would become complacient and weak for when there is a threat that Celestia can't stop. Remember, gods in mythology can and always have been a force to be beaten. In Troy, some gods got beaten, heck the Norse gods themselves are just very tough to kill immortals. So Celestia can't do everything, just the big problems.

It would be like a teacher never letting their students to their own work when it comes to the big problems. The teacher needs to let them do it themselves.

1293723

The gods got beaten in Troy? By whom? I only remember Achilles and the Trojans getting beaten.

Nooo...the Norse Gods are legit Gods. Someone obviously hasn't done too much searching into their feats and is buying into the wankery of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

1293734

Really? I thought in the Norse mythology that they could be killed with a lot of effort and strength.

Also, what I was referring to, was something I think I read in a book about how one of the gods got hit in one of the battles during the war. I just can't remember wich one.

This, this is exactly what I think about Celestia.

In my headcanon, there was a time when she actually started trying to do almost everything for her subjects, it ended up badly. They became so dependent on her that, when she became overwhelmed and started failing, all her ponies still kept believing she was right and most blindly followed her in the wrong path.

I do believe Celestia is wise enough to know when to let her subjects (in most cases Twilight and co.) solve a problem by themselves, and when to take the matter into her hooves. I mean she did help with Discord by sending the friendship reports, and tried to stop Chrysalis (yes she failed, but there are far too many explanations why that happened besides: she is useless).

1293646
In order of less and less headcanon.

I deserve points of some sort for leaving out livercanon, but that'd be somewhere in the middle.

1293770

I think it was Aphrodite rescuing Paris from a lost dule? But then being hit by a spear or some such and dropping Paris.

Now of course i cant find it anywhere when i remember reading about it x.x

i don't think this is quite the case. i believe celestia is already doing as much as she can. people are constantly under the impression that celestia has infinite power and that she's not doing a lot. she's a pony like everyone else and she has limits and does her best in a society.

1293631
You do make an interesting point, but have you thought of this?

Would it just be too easy to use Celestia to solve every problem?

I know Superman fairly well, but I would hazard a guess that if Celestia is on his level in terms of power and abilities, then she shouldn't ever need the Elements to aid her.

I think Marvel's Sentry and Infinity Gauntlet fits here better for this reason: Sentry is the strongest being in Marvel's universe. He has the power of a thousand exploding suns, can do anything and is just generally overpowered. However, the Infinity Gauntlet defeats him in the ranks of sheer power (plus its six gems, hur dur). For the writers of Marvel, they often have a hard time writing stories because of Sentry's very presence. Why doesn't he intervene at any problem too big for normal heroes? He's so powerful, even the Galactic Guardians fear him, so where is he when Earth is in trouble?

If Celestia is remotely like Superman or Sentry, then why doesn't she solve every problem? Why not just use her magic to subdue Discord as easily as the Elements did?

If she is that powerful, why have the Elements at all?

It derails from the idea that friendship is the true source of power in the ponies' world. If Celestia solved everything, then what kind of story would we have?

NMM
: Celestia casts a spell, purging her sister of the Nightmare and there is no need for the 1000 year banishment or series opener.

Discord: she puts him back into stone with stronger enchantments.

Chrysalis: She wins the duel and rips her apart molecule by molecule.

Sombra: Celestia blows at his form, making the dark clouds drift away and leaving a small black slug she easily crushes with one hoof.

I find the problem not with Celestia making mane 6 do all dirty work, but Celestia lack of any assistance or competence.

Even if Celestia want other ponies to learn how to solve problem without her assistance, she should focus more on nobles and guards, not only on mane 6, because it looks more like ( ponies no longer look to Celestia to solve all their problems, they look towards to Twilight and her friends to solve all the problems ).

Also, if Celestia let mane 6 do all the work, she herself will become soft and unprepared, for example, mane 6 defeated Nightmare Moon and Discord, opponents what are far more powerful ( and mane 6 had to get to elements, they not got it right away ), opponent was stronger, but they won.

Celestia faced Chrysalis who had small love buff making her little stronger and lost after 15 seconds ( even mane 6 who were defeated, took 100 changelings with them ), what I try to say is that Celestia trying to make mane 6 stronger and better ponies by giving them all challenge with little guidance, she herself become weaker and less prepared to protect her subjects.

I am more in favour of Celestia assisting a little in solving problems to make sure that her kingdom will not fall if Twilight and her friends fail, and she should not just make mane 6 do all the work, but share the responsibility more fairly, if she won't give the guards anything to do, they will still be useless as they proved in changeling invasion. ( Celestia and Luna should not solve problem but assist in solving it, and they should make all ponies protect Equestria together, not make mane 6 do all the work, because if mane 6 fail, Equestria is doomed ).

1294394
Consider the following:
1. Its a cartoon
2. Its a cartoon for children
3. Its not dragonballs where they take entire episodes to build up fights with gratuitious dialogue
4. Celestia defeating chrysallis would be incredibly anticlimatic and make her a deus ex machina. (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_device)
5.the fight was a plotline; and plotlines do not define character

Personally, i see celestia in this situation as a victim of nessecity. There was no way around it, she needed to be defeated or else the spisode would need to be changed.

1294391

Would it just be too easy to use Celestia to solve every problem?

That's another good real-world reason, well, depending on Celestia's power level. It's hard to tell from the show where that lies, of course.

1294533

I am not angry for Celestia to be defeated, she was just defeated in pathetic way.

Mane 6 had to lose, but they fought like a bosses, and took out 100 changelings until they went down.

Celestia had one laser fight where she lose and accomplish nothing, not even weaken her opponent ( laser duel should always be in the end of the fight, not fight itself ), if mane 6 could have 5 minutes epic fight, Celestia deserve at least 1 minute.

Also, it would be better if Luna would come and distract Chrysalis in the end so that Cadance could charge the love shield rather than have Chrysalis to go stupid and lose because of her arrogance, as every single villain lose the same way, and it gets repetitive.

1295577 exactly, it was not her fault, its the animators.

1295803
By the way, you said that Celestia defeating Chrysalis would make her deus ex machina.

So here is a question, to mane 6 using elements to beat Nightmare Moon and Discord in the end ( while villains just sit there and do nothing ), alongside with Cadance and Shining Armor sending entire army of changelings away with blast of love does not make them deus ex machina ?

It is something like a action movie, where super villain invade base of good heroes. Leader of heroes ( something like Celestia ) face him and defeat him. But when villain lie defeated, he say lines "I may lost battle, but I won war, while you was fighting me, my minions took over the base and captured all your subordinates, I won ).

Same would be with Chrysalis, even if Celestia would beat her, Changelings would break the shield and invade, and come to aid their leader, so yea, Celestia wining would not make her deus ex machina as long as her she would just assist mane 6 with her victory instead of solving problem for them.

Same would be if Luna and guards tried to protect mane 6 from changelings so they could get to elements, but than surprice, they can not open the vault to get elements and get captured.

Or if Luna would jump in and distract Chrysalis, giving Twilight time to free Cadance, and Cadance to heal Shining Armor and perform army repealing spell, it would not make Luna deux ex machina, it would just mean that Chrysalis lost because Luna distracted her instead of losing because she was stupid to not believe in power she feed on, ( villain losing because of arrogance is repeating itself everytime in MLP, I would rather have Celestia and Luna assist so that villains would not lose because of their overconfidence ).

1295881
I think you may be confused. A DXM is not bad, its the size that matters.

To make a DXM, a solution to one or many problems needs to be made spontaneously and the main characters should receive little to no growth from it.

Also, you have to be very precise when looking at one, for certain things are, but what leads up to them is not.

Cadence and Shining Armor saving the day? Yes, that was a DXM. Twilight... doing whatever the moral was? Not nessecarily.

The elements of Harmony are prime examples of this. From what twilight read, she thought that as she got to the elements, everything would be saved and the world would live happily ever after, but that didn't happen.
What did, though, was Twiliight and the other M5 had to learn and define their characteristics, growing as characters until they were the elements of harmony.
The same happened in the season 2 opener, they had to grow as characters to reuse the elements.

Gandalf in the Hobbit is often called a DXM because he can solve all of their problems with magic.

Either way, to have any growth for the characters in that situation of the stupid ass Harry Potter duel, Celestia would have to be defeated, or else it would just be the "sorry for doubting you, lets clean all this blood up together."

1296333

Do Celestia would win or lose, it would still not change lesson and characters grown ( after all what Celestia learned, because if I were her, I would learn that there is no point to protect subjects or assist heroes because in the end you will just embarrass yourself, lets just sit on throne and look mighty as others do job for me ).

The only think what everyone learned is that power of love is powerful, but do Celestia would win or lose again Chrysalis, in the end mane 6 would be defeated and Shining Armor and Cadance would need to repel entire invasion themselves. ( Also, learn to trust your instincts is not best lesson when every friend and mentor abandon you when you do ).

1296652
NO, we traded one for another.

if celestia won, it would be: Im sorry we doubted you, twilight. Good thing the Princess saved the day

To

Im sorry we doubted you, Twilight. Shining Armor really loves Cadence, she must REALLY put out!

To be honest, I think Cadance in general is just a really boring character. She practically IS a Deus Ex Machina. she had more personality when the Queen was impersonating her.

1296700
That's your opinion.

I personally like Cadance, because she is alicorn what actually do something, in her short appearance she did more to help mane 6 than Celestia and Luna together in 3 seasons, ( despite being weaker than royal sisters and more afraid to take any action, she still managed to assist ).

Also I like that mane 6 lost for once so we had someone else safe the day, it is the light of hope for me that mane 6 does not have to always to all the dirty work ( I just like when responsibility to fight evil and protect country in the show whenever big villain arise should be fairly split up, I do not like when always those same heroes save the day because everyone around them are useless or to lazy to even help ).

I know that my words will not convince you, but if you watch this, you may understand that Cadance is not so bland as you may think:

1297603.
*yawn*
This isn't a talk about cadance, but regardless, that video made cadance look like snow white than she was before.

1293631

"But in the oh-so entertaining world of fanwankery, this could be a reason for Celestia to let her little ponies do some of the heavy lifting -- so they can grow in doing so."

Yes! If Celestia saves the day all the time, how's Twilight ever going to be able to do it for herself?

Plus it must be remembered: The show is about Twilight and her friends, that's the window we're seeing Equestria through. It's quite possible that Celestia saves the day all the time. We just don't see it, because the show's not about Celestia.