[Note: This chapter is based on the events of MLP's recent 200th episode, and was written less than two days after the episode premiered.]
It's been less than a month since the unexpected return (and near domination) of King Sombra upon the Crystal Empire, as well as Ponyville and Canterlot. Even though the treacherous foe had been vanquished once more, and Equestria was still safe and sound, Twilight Sparkle was happy to see that the Royal Sisters were already looking into increasing the security measures around their castle. And since the pony assigned to strengthening their defenses was one of Equestria's most skilled unicorns in protection magic -- Prince Consort and Head of the Royal Guard, Shining Armor -- it seemed only fitting to have the Princess of Magic herself test his security measures with the aid of her friends.
Spike and the six Elements seemed more than eager to test their skills against Twilight's brother, but one of them appeared to be less worried about Shining's capabilities than she should have. Is Twilight able to change Rainbow Dash's opinion about the stallion they saved on multiple occasions? Or is there more to Shining Armor's abilities and skills that haven't been seen by them just yet?
You're one to talk, Shiny...
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The only two problems I really hard with his strategies/defences was 1. Not having any anti changeling defences for the second invasion 2. while I get that Tirek was basically a juggernaut once he had enough magic, he hid behind a "magic shield" against a "magic eating enemy".
While both made interesting points...I gotta side with Rainbow on this. Twilight seems to have forgotten the SECOND Changeling invasion, which happened totally offscreen as well. It's difficult to judge people by anything more than their failures when we almost never see them do anything BUT fail. The girls even drew attention to the fact that the Princesses are kind of useless during the season premier, and any excuse that they'd always lost on purpose can get a little hard to believe given how often it's happened.
Nice!
9581850
This is true, to an extent, but its cause its a kid's show. Expecting it to live up to some actual consistency is just unrealistic. Also, importantly, by that margin basically everyone's mucked up tons of times. Luna and Celestia have failed just as often, if not more, than Shining Armor, and even the Mane 6; other than Twilight all of them fell to Discord's tricks initially and needed to be saved, none of them but Twilight were of help in the second encounter against Starlight Glimmer, all of them were taken out in the 2nd Changeling Invasion just as easily as Shining Armor and co. and they needed the help of the Pillars to deal with Stygian and the Student 6 to save them from Cozy Glow's schemes in the end.
Its a cartoon, a lovely cartoon, for young girls and the success of characters and their power completely changes as the plot needs to just make a point. Again if you're going to judge someone by failures on the show then you kinda gotta concede that basically everyone fails colossally consistently, Twilight least of all as the primary protagonist, but as Cozy Glow, the 2nd Changeling Invasion shows even she has on occassion simply completely failed to handle a threat and required rescuing.
9581880
Yeah, but at least members of the main cast actually SUCCEED. Shining and the Princesses...never really do.
9581903
Oh but that isn't really true. Shining and Cadance successfully defeated Chrysalis and all the Changelings at the end of S2. At the beginning of S3 Shining succeeds in holding off Sombra long enough for the Mane Six to safely make it into Cadance's shield AND at the end of that arc also plays a crucial role in Cadance defeating Sombra by throwing her to catch Spike and the Crystal Heart. That's 2-3 successes, depending on how you count, which I think is more than anything we've seen Luna or Celestia ever do even.
Again this is a children's show, one shouldn't expect anyone but the Mane 6 to really matter very often since they are the protagonists. Even then, as I said, the Mane 6 as a unit fail a lot, often enough Twilight alone has had to carry them all.
I don't quite get it: why would Shining send a "Thank you" note and immediately show that he was listening in?
Also, yeah, I would've really liked to see a bit more of Twilight and Shining trying to outsmart each other in the actual episode, instead of Twi just coming up with one shitty plan and then immediately giving up after Shining predicted it, and then going with this failed plan at the end regardless.
9581945
Too true
Well, this was fun. Okay, one, Shining Armor needs more love. Two, it was fun seeing Twilight and Shining Armor have a nice, relatively normal sibling moment on the show. It gave the guy some much needed character.
That being said, do all the guards in Canterlot have bad ADHD or something? 
I mean, it should take more than a party to distract them, just saying. Eh, kid's show. 🤷
This is like reading YET ANOTHER 'Rainbow Dash become character bashing mouth piece' (when she isn't being used by fan writing to sculpt the 'Rainbow Dash has never done anything wrong in any of her appearances narrative'), and said narrative slamming head first without a helmet, and it is incredibly satisfying!
If this was any other story, there would be NO counter argument or retort to ANYTHING Rainbow Dash said!
At the same time, Rainbow Dash's arguments aren't mindless.
AND he also saved the Equestria Games from that giant ice-ball,
Those ponies were idiots for thinking only unicorns could cheat and didn't bother to seal Earth or Pegasus magic while they were at it.
""“OOH!~” Fluttershy didn’t want to interrupt her friend, but she couldn’t help looking giddy as she asked, “Rainbow, you said ‘Incapacitated’ in the correct form! Have you been using that ‘Word of the Day’ calender I got you for your birthday?!”
“Uhhhh… Well, kinda,” Dash admitted sheepishly while her focus was thrown off. “To be fair, it’s been really helpful with helping me write my novel, even tho--... W-Wait, that’s not important here!”""
That is actually funny!
"". You knew that the answer would upset me, but you also respected me enough to choose not to sugarcoat it. So because of that, I’ll give you credit for being honest with me, and also explaining your points as clearly as possible.”""
Again, very different from how this would usually go, usually one character brow beats the others into submission.
I wish people would stop downgrading Chrysalis' accomplishment with the 'they only one because the other guys were so dumb' excuse. Shining Armor gave a perfectly rational sounding explanation for all of Twilight's accusations. And Chrysalis' acting as a wounded gazelle worked perfectly and believably. (It sure as Hell FOOLED ME! And I am not a fictional character to the best of my knowledge.) And Twilight OUTRIGHT SAID 'she fooled everyone' making clear she held no grudges and knew she'd screwed up too. And Twilight's friends IMHO weren't being idiots, for starters they left so they wouldn't say something they would regret.
“And, ummm… yeah, I may have been using that ‘Word of the Day’ calendar a lot more than I thought I would’ve.”
Nice boomerang!
Nice to show the Storm Empire was an ALL OUT INVASION, not 'let's take the capital and call it a day.'
So... Shining Armor bugged Twilight's throne room? OY! That's playing dirty!
The only way that could be funnier is if a changeling with a microphone was used to bug the room!
Okay. I get the joke and everything. But tactically, SA was exposing he bugged the room by sending a thanks to Twilight after she defended him.
Nice story. Fav and thumbs up.
Also, Twilight out smarting him with his bugs was a cherry on top showing that the author isn't making SA out to be a flawless character whose mistakes aren't his own.
It's funny isn't it?
All the other characters in the series "fail" for no real reason other than so the Mane 6 can shine but people bash the other characters for failing. Even though the Mane 6 can't ever seem to beat any villains without some sort of super powerful ancient relic or deus ex machina friendship power.
A bit ranty. Reminds me of RealityCheck, which you can take as a compliment or an insult. Well structured though, and the ending takes the edge off it quite well.
Shining lacks in the one place it really counts, results
>“Would you mind explaining why you’re questioning my brother’s skills in protective magic?”
Rainbow Dash laughed out loud. "I'm not. He's amazing at defensive magic. The very best. He should absolutely be a central part of the defensive plan of wherever he's living. He just shouldn't be the one making the plan."
Twilight's eyes had no more room to narrow without closing them altogether, but if there had been such room, she would have taken it all up.
Rainbow Dash moved into the first example. "Look. Changeling invasion number one gets a free pass because he got mind wedgied. No issue there, could happen to anypony. But let's look at the appearance of Crystal Empire and Sombra. He goes, and brings how many guards? Was it two, or zero? I forget. He had to give us a briefing on the run because he didn't keep a set of fast couriers on hand to get messages to us in advance. If we'd all hit the deck running and knowing what was going on, and you'd charged up a shield or simply supported his, could he have avoided the harm he took from Sombra? Maybe. And if he'd managed that, then he and Cadence could have kept the shield up much longer. We could have restored the heart at leisure instead of having to have a four-way-heroic effort. Once again, he was part of that. He's super skilled at the execution level, even things outside his specialty, like the two hoofed alicorn chucking maneuver. But not at the planning level. Heck, he didn't even bring a pony guard with him as lookout or to handle the briefing. He gave himself three things to do at once. He's good. He's really good. But he made himself weaker, when he didn't need to, and it made things much closer and much more painful."
Twilight said, "He didn't bring the guards with him because Sombra was too powerful for any pony of ordinary power."
"Sure. And that's why you bring a bunch of ordinary ponies with you to handle the things that need to be done that only require ordinary levels of power, like scouting, carrying messages, and crowd control. All things that he or we had to do when we really had more important things to be focusing on, and ordinary ponies could definitely have taken care of."
"Scouting? He'd pick off scouts and couriers."
"Okay, for scouts, I was thinking of just some pony looking over his shoulder while he was out there picking us up. And having ponies posted around the border of the empire keeping an eye out for changes. Remember how there was nopony there?"
"That wouldn't have helped."
"Only given what actually happened. You would expect it to help, knowing what he did in advance. And for couriers, Sombra never - even at his full power more recently - showed any ability to knock down a pegasus flying well above cloud level. So take the time to go way up before you leave the empire, and there you go."
"It's funny, weren't you just talking about things that we didn't know in advance..."
"If you never deploy scouts or couriers because the enemy might have extraordinary abilities you've never seen evidence for, that are outside their known capabilities, you never deploy scouts and couriers except when you hardly need them. Sure, it'd be a risk, but what you're putting at risk is a trained soldier who trained for this, signed up for this. And if we're judging by outcomes, again, it would have been fine."
"How high should they go? You're still imagining doing the thing that would have worked, rather than what you'd do."
"I'd follow the standard guard guidelines for sending messages over ground-based magical threats. Incidentally, they would have worked."
"Actually, how do you know that?"
"Fair point, maybe it wouldn't. Still the right thing to try. Second scenario: Tirek. Discord was screwing everything up so there was no real way to win, but they could have made it much less easy for him. Like, everypony run away from him and use long-ranged non-magical attacks, instead of having the wonderbolts attempt to kick him. Off chance, maybe I could have Sonic Rainboomed him a straight punch before he got his magic sucking going, but I wouldn't want to count on it. Anything slower wouldn't have a chance. And that probably wouldn't have stopped him anyway. Of course it wouldn't have worked because they had Discord, but at least it would have made sense."
"He didn't order the Wonderbolts to attack in melee."
"Good! I feel better about him as a leader!"
"All right then."
"But not enough. You'd think that after the first changeling invasion, he'd devise a system that would prevent the second one. Like, rotating challenge-responses, something. And he even had a changeling to ask questions of and experiment with - in a friendly way, of course - things like, any spells to get goop off. Any ways to interrupt a disguise or at least detect it."
"First, you'd think that his doing the first of those would be something we would notice, and you didn't say anything when you didn't notice anything."
"It wasn't my job at the time. I wasn't thinking about it."
"Second, he did find a spell to detect disguised changelings, but either it only worked on Thorax, or Chrysalis changed the next batch of drones so it didn't work, or they changed techniques. It's hard to find a general detection criterion based on one instance."
"Okay! I feel better again. If they thought they had a defense and it failed, that's respectable. But then, remember Cranky and Matilda's wedding? We ran ourselves ragged trying to get that bugbear, and…"
Applejack coughed. "What are you talking about? You slept through the whole thing."
"I was right there with you! I saved you from its stinger, like, twice. And there he was, sitting in the wedding doing nothing."
"Ah have no idea what you're talking about. We attended the wedding. Except for you, who totally slept through it. Plus, I don't even know what a bugbear is."
Rainbow Dash blinked. "Ummm. What was the music like?"
"Octavia on the cello, and Bellows Blower on the organ, it was nice? And not particularly relevant?"
"No giant rolling sound system?" She looked around at a bunch of shaking heads. "I guess maybe I dreamed that one. Withdrawn."
9582391
Having just read a story where Shining Armor uninviting Twilight from his wedding is presented as unforgiveable but Twilight trying to strangle him to death is perfectly okay, yes. So much yes.
Though I didn't like how Twilight kept tearing into Rainbow when the latter begged to drop it, that was mean.
All in all, Rainbow's argument holds little water. The people devising a spaceship aren't the ones flying it. Nobody in their right mind expects an architect to defend a castle they helped built by themselves. That's just silly.
9581850
Everyone failed during the Second Invasion. That was a major problem with the episode, that it was constructed around every single powerful character (excepting Starlight and Discord) being taken out at the same time, without anyone noticing, in a ridiculously short amount of time. Apparently by enemies they beat up by the dozens not that long ago. It was a bit stupid, to be honest.
9583435
9581945
Is there any reason for us to show any respect for the Guard, who have an even worse failure rate?
You misspelled "strengthening" in your title page blurb.
9583658
That would mean something if everything, up until Season 6, wasn't intentionally made to suck so that the Mane 6 could look better and succeed as the heroes.
9583809
They weren't even PRESENT during the Storm Incursion.
9583658
Again you're really expecting a children's cartoon to actually bother with making a group of random, unknown, characters in the background matter? Look; I totally respect and enjoy when people CHOOSE in their own fiction to make the story more serious, the setting more realistic or actually give it some consistency but...if you're going to be judging the show by it you're always going to be disappointed.
It'd be liking asking why in Power Rangers the military doesn't do anything, or why in the Mario series why Bowser bothers with the Koopalings when they have only ever failed in every engagement.
At the end of the day the problem really is, point blank, this is a kid's show about the Mane 6 (mostly Twilight) having to save the day. If random Guards were presented as competent enough to impede the plans of the arc villains then that would conflict with any sort of easy, narrative and story telling. The show NEEDS that a villain can rock up and in minutes conquer Equestria because the story usually only has 40 minutes total at most to tell the story of a villain, the Mane 6, side characters and impart a simplistic moral.
At the end of the day I don't think its a matter of 'do the Royal Guard deserve respect' as much as it is a matter of you're holding My Little Pony to a WAY higher level of story telling than it itself is trying to be.
My Personal headcannon? The Guard do fine dealing with the constant mundane and small crimes, conflicts and scuffles, but the story focuses on the Mane 6 and so we typically only focus on those threats which cannot be concievably dealt with by anything short of the frequent deus ex machina they and Twilight in particular reveal.
I get people find the 'Celestia/Luna/The Royal Guard are useless' jokes funny, but I think that's just a mark of a large fandom which aren't actually the target demographic and, thus, I think its rather disingenious to try to apply such thinking to the show itself.
At least no one found out about Spike's secret meetings with the CMC.
9583432
Rainbow's argument here isn't any better than the one in the story. Celestia rushed Shining and Cadance up north as soon as the Crystal Empire reappeared. They didn't have any time to make plans or set up proper defenses.They shot from the hip.
Shining and Cadance -- and later, the Mane Six -- did everything in their power to distract the crystal ponies from what was happening just beyond the border of their empire because they knew what would happen: MASS PANIC. The crystal ponies were terrified of Sombra. The mere mention of his name was enough to reduce them to a quivering pile of pony.
Rainbow's also forgetting that everyplace in Equestria isn't as... diverse... as Ponyville or Canterlot. There aren't any unicorns or earth ponies hanging around Cloudsdale, and there was a distinct lack of horns and wings in Appleoosa prior to the Mane Six's arrival. By my count, there were two ponies with horns and one with wings in the Crystal Empire when Sombra began his assault, and the winged one was kinda busy holding off icy death from the entire empire pretty much by herself.
9584836
Shooting from the hip so badly that you forget to bring soldiers with you when you're going off to battle is really, really bad. So no, I disagree that my RD's argument is 'just as bad'.
9585434
We'll agree to disagree about Shining's military prowess. I'll leave it at this: By U.S. military standards, Shining wouldn't be great. By Equestrian standards...
9584836 9585434
It's a persuasive argument that we shouldn't dismiss Shining Armor as a warrior or protector when virtually all the enemies he's failed against were severely out of his weight class.
However, the task in question isn't "fight off an attacking Tirek/Chrysalis/Sombra," it's "plan static layered defenses." And Shining Armor should well be judge as a failure here, precisely because he was the Captain of the Guard. It's not just his job to throw up a shield spell or exchange horn blasts with bad guys, what he does in this episode is what he should have started doing immediately after he was first appointed Captain of the Guard, or at the very least as soon as the first Canterlot Invasion happened.
On Shining Armor's watch plenty of bad stuff has happened he can't be blamed for, like Discord getting free. But there are also plenty of incidents he should be judged by, because the reflect a specific failure on his part to design security procedures. Chrysalis invading Canterlot the first time after he was mind-controlled? Not Shining's fault. Chrysalis first kidnapping Cadance, a Royal Princess, while Shining Armor is Captain of the Royal Guard and presumably responsible for her safety? That's a black mark on his record.
Sombra being stronger than him when he's some sort of mega Umbrum spellcaster? Not Shining's Fault. Sunset Shimmer being able to break into Twilight's room in the Crystal Empire's Castle, steal the crown and escape through unguarded portals? Shining's fault.
Chrysalis kidnapping Celestia, Luna and the Mane 6? Not Shining's fault, assuming he is no longer in charge of the security of the rest of Equestria. Chrysalis kidnapping Shining, Cadance and Flurry? Shining's fault.
In the Season 9 Opener, Shining being willing to surrender when his foal was threatened? Not his fault. The total lack of security features we see around his child or the Crystal Heart? Shining's fault.
To put it another way: Even if Shining Armor had personally beaten Chrysalis, Tirek, Sombra and Discord all in single combat, it would not matter, because he's not being asked to fight Equestria's enemies. He's being asked to design good security procedures, which he has done a terrible job at repeatedly in the past.
Sigh.
I can't believe I'm defending Shining Armor so much.
Regarding howard035's points:
The changelings and Queen Chrysalis had years, if not decades or even centuries, of surveillance and intelligence on the ponies while the ponies weren't aware of the changelings' existence. If the ponies' tactics to fight the changelings changed, the changelings' infiltration tactics would've countered. Until Thorax broke ranks with Chrysalis, the ponies were at a severe disadvantage to the changelings. It's a miracle the changelings didn't attempt more takeovers in that period.
No one knew Sunset Shimmer was coming back to Equestria. She could've run away to the human world and stayed there. Celestia admitted she knew nothing about the world on the other side of the mirror or whether Sunset survived the trip. Most houses put their alarms on the outside because they focus on keeping thieves out. Sunset came out of the mirror on the inside, so she already circumvented most security measures. Her whole trip into Equestria took maybe an hour, at best, and she's a skilled enough unicorn to elude guards for that long.
Maybe Shining should've had more security around the Crystal Heart. Maybe he thought the Heart could protect itself like the Tree of Harmony. Perhaps Sombra used his fear factor to scare away the guards around the Heart, took it, then apprehended the royal family by holding Flurry Heart hostage.
I'm not saying Shining Armor is a genius. However, we're judging him by human standards. Equestria doesn't have a standing army -- at least, one's never been shown -- and the primary way to defeat enemies is to love & tolerate them into submission.
9581553
Tirek can only drain magic from living things, so magic barriers are safe from his magic drain, unless he can drain the caster.
9583840
When you say "not part of the target demographic," have you seen some of the stuff adults are "suppose to watch?"