The MLP Arena

Pony Talk => Pony Corral => Topic started by: Lady Frostbite on August 31, 2019, 09:51:14 AM

Title: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Lady Frostbite on August 31, 2019, 09:51:14 AM

This is a talking point in Summer Sun Setback, but I didn't want to derail the thread.

So, Princesses in Equestria. The show started out with the idea that there would only be one Queen, Celestia, with no parents to outrank her (according to Faust), and Hasbro asked that it was changed to Princess. I'm not sure where Luna - who might have been named Selena if legal didn't get in the way of it - fit into that, but it's kinda obvious that Celestia is pretty much the major ruler. No wonder Luna feels shafted and did so again when she came back from the moon. Not helping is the fact that she is still smaller than Celestia, even when restored to proper power.

So far, we have Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, the Royal Pony Sisters, rulers of all Equestia, with the special talents of raising the sun and moon and having dominion, figuratively, over day and night respectively (Celestia rules when Luna sleeps and vice-versa). I THINK it was Faust who confirmed directly that Celestia and Luna were born alicorns (or pegacorns, whichever you prefer).
Then came Prince Blueblood at the Grand Galloping Gala, said to be a 'nephew' of Celestia, and is a unicorn. He was pretty much forgotten for huge portions of FiM storytelling after the Season 1 finale. There is also a similar-looking foal appearing in a French comic, which we can surmise is simply an error.

Then Season 2 came, and Princess Cadance is introduced as Shining Armour's fiancé, who is also Twilight's foalsitter. She is shown as an alicorn fairly young, pretty much as a teenager, though how or why she was an alicorn wasn't explained at the them, simply written off as a 'niece of Celestia. Her appearance caused a lot of contention in the fandom, as suddenly the Royal Sisters weren't unique, and Faust revealed she wasn't intended to be an alicorn (though I THINK she was intended to simply be a pegasus?).
It's later revealed in a children's book, Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell, that Cadance ascended to Princessdom from being a pegasus, but this wasn't known at the time.

Then Twilicorn happened, and ascension to Princessdom became possible. Again, there was a large amount of lashback from fans, but this petered out over the seasons. Twilight ascended from a unicorn, and Cadance from a pegasus, but so far no Earth ponies have ever ascended.

Flurry Heart was born an alicorn, with oversized wings and a notably different appearance from other babies. Celestia and Luna seemed surprised to see her, noting that alicorns haven't been born before, throwing the question of Celestia and Luna's race up for debate. Were they born, as originally stated, or ascended? Or was it simply the first time one had been born since themselves? Or within Equestia as a Princessdom?

But it's not just ALicorns who have a title. Two unicorn rulers have existed; King Somba, who ruled with dark magic and force, and Princess Amore, the ruler before Cadance and Sombra. The latter was only shown in IDW comics and hasn't made an in-show appearance, and is mentioned in the Crystal Heart book. Neither were alicorns, and both ruled their lands outside the Royal Pony Sisters.

And of course, other creatures can have titles. The one worth bringing up is Queen Chrysalis, who is outright called a pegacorn in the script, having both insectoid wings and a magic-wielding horn.

[Side note; three antagonist rulers have higher titles, King/Queen. Interesting]

So, that leaves us with:

Princesses:
Alicorns 'ready made' or born: Celestia, Luna, Flurry Heart
Alicorns from pegasus: Cadance
Alicorns from unicorns: Twilight
Alicorns from earth: None
Non-Alicorn Princesses: Amour (Unicorn), Skystar (seapony/hippogryff)
Princes: Blueblood (Unicorn), Shining Armor (Unicorn)
Kings: Sombra (Unicorn), Storm King (Satyr creature, magic wielder via artifacts)
Queens: Chrysalis (changing, alicorn), Novo (seapony/hippogryff)
Unknown: Rain Shine (kirin, arguably earth)

[I'll add more when reminded of various characters]

It just seems impossible for an Earth pony to be granted Princessdom. I think it was a mistake to tie being an alicorn to the title inherently, or make being a Princess outside Celestia and Luna possible. If you wanted to go for marketing/because making characters a Princess is fun for kids, keep to their original races; keep Celestia and Luna alicorns - since I'm reminded of the Friendship is Witchcraft line about 'the two biggest horses' ruling, which is funny and accurate to how kids would decide their toys hierarchy - and simply make Princesses of different races. Twilight a Unicorn, Cadance a Pegasus, etc.

I'm rambling. What are your thoughts?

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Leave a Whisper on August 31, 2019, 11:13:42 AM

And don't forget Skylar, Gold Lily and Sterling.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Zapper on August 31, 2019, 11:33:14 AM

FiM had speciest undertones from season one. Zecora and the buffalos were othered.
Earth ponies were mostly shown as working class, mostly farmers, builders and crafters and the show pretended they were equal to the other races of pony.
It was said they were physically stronger and nobody else would be able to grow food but them because they "knew the earth" or whatever.

But then in-show Earthlings were not shown to be as important as unicorns or even pegasi. Pegasi control the weather and without rain or mild temperatures no crops would grow. So pegasi have some power over Earthlings but they help them because they want to eat.
Now unicorns have been shown to be crazy powerful. So much so some of them can manipulate even time and reality.

So that made it pretty obvious who's got to be powerful royalty.

I guess out-of-show a horn and wings are just a better gimmick. It makes a colorful fantasy horse even more fantasy and we can't forget that this show was used to sell toys. But in-show there was no excuse not to show an Earth princess. I guess they simply didn't care to question their own canon enough.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: tailrustedtealeaf on August 31, 2019, 12:12:36 PM

Reminds me of this old image.
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There's a reason we saw so few earth pony ocs and saw mostly Pegasi and unicorns when the show started getting popular.  :P It would've been great to see some episodes focusing on earth pony magic, and I've read a few good stories/theories on it (one was like, drawing power from the Earth to live longer?), but show confirmation would be great. I know Faust said something about growing and strength on Da or something but I'd love more show confirmed stuff.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Dragonflitter on August 31, 2019, 12:17:28 PM

Quote from: Lady Frostbite on August 31, 2019, 09:51:14 AM

[Side note; three antagonist rulers have higher titles, King/Queen. Interesting]

This goes back to the old "Disney slash fairy tale" trope. Princesses are good and wholesome (Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora), while queens and kings are evil (Snow White's mother, Maleficent, etc.). I believe I remember that was the specific reason Faust gave for why the studio changed her idea of Celestia being a queen to being a princess.

Quote from: Lady Frostbite on August 31, 2019, 09:51:14 AM

It just seems impossible for an Earth pony to be granted Princessdom.

I don't know where you're getting that from? So far we've only seen Twilight ascend from unicorn to alicorn, and that's a very specific instance. (Namely, she has main character status.) We never even saw Cadance ascend, although a lot of the stuff in the books did turn out to be canon in line with the show (like Scootaloo's aunts). But it's entirely possible the show could do something to contradict it, if that was ever a storyline they chose to do.

Becoming an alicorn is a very rare and often unheard of occurrence in this world. Just because we haven't seen an earth ponies ascend doesn't mean it's impossible. We see a lot of unicorn characters congregate in Canterlot, so it's not that surprising some of them end up in some sort of ruling role. (I anticipate that we will be seeing a lot more earth ponies in prominent roles in G5, since the main character will supposedly be one.)

Not counting the already established Celestia and Luna, you can't see just two instances of ponies becoming rulers and say "Well there's no earth ponies so they just can't become princesses." It just doesn't happen enough for us to draw any conclusions.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Leave a Whisper on August 31, 2019, 01:46:26 PM

On the flipside of that you have  G1 and G2 princesses who are mostly  earth ponies, and very few pegasus and unicorns, so in a way, I guess it kinda evens out.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Al-1701 on August 31, 2019, 02:04:59 PM

Earth and pegasus ponies seem to be two sides of the same food producing coin.  The earth ponies grow the crops with the pegasi ensuring the weather is conducive for the crops growing.  The two could be seen as the relationship between agriculture and industry.  Agriculture needs industry to supply the materials and equipment to run their farms and industry obviously needs agriculture to supply food.

The unicorns are really the odd ones out, especially since Celestia and Luna took over their moving the sun and moon.  Yet, they dominate the capital and do have magic that just seems to be more reality warping as time goes by.  I guess you could say they represent the service sector which provides non-material support.

The thing about the "Queens are evil" being a Disney thing is there have been a grand total of two evil queens in the Disney canon, none in almost 70 years, one of them is more insane than evil, and both are from their respective source material.  Elsa was going to be evil in Frozen, but they thought better of it to the benefit of the movie.

As for the princesses in FiM.  It's all marketing, and Hasbro and the staff have never cared about making the lore of this show cohesive.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: MJNSEIFER on August 31, 2019, 04:37:35 PM

Regarding Blueblood; the silly thing about him is that he was not meant to be a prince, or Princess Celestia's nephew.  He was meant to have some other title (like a duke or something) and he was meant to be a more distant relation to Princess Celestia.

I have my own headcanons about how royalty and alicorns work, and if it's okay I'll post it.  It is purely headcanon/fanon, though and the show already contradicts it.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: SpacePinto on August 31, 2019, 06:52:58 PM

Why would even Hasbro assume that My Little Pony shouldn't have queens because queens are evil? G1 had Queen Rosedust and Queen Majesty, plus six princesses taking turns being a queen.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Goanna on August 31, 2019, 07:33:52 PM

Hmm, now I'm trying to think if there were any Earth pony rulers shown in the comics or in flashbacks... I know there have been leaders, like the "Chancellor Puddinghead".
There is Prince Hisan (a pegasus), from the past (the one Somnambula saved).

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Leave a Whisper on August 31, 2019, 08:29:16 PM

Quote from: SpacePinto on August 31, 2019, 06:52:58 PM

Why would even Hasbro assume that My Little Pony shouldn't have queens because queens are evil? G1 had Queen Rosedust and Queen Majesty, plus six princesses taking turns being a queen.

Because Hasbro is in a very strange place right now

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: WingsOfMasquerade on August 31, 2019, 09:41:04 PM

I also remember reading somewhere fairly official like an interview or a Hasbro magazine something about the whole "Princess is good queen is evil so force you to change it". You mentioned the whole 'snow white' thing too, that's also accurate to the article, we probably read the same creator interview or whatever it was, where traditionally Queens are bad in those. (Princess gets all the fun, magical title, and none of the queen responsibility, too) Maybe it's in that big hardcover / coffee table FIM book?

It was an actual thing that happened when the decision was made, it's probably something dumb too like the whole Pinklestia 'scandal' because "only PINK toys are fun, WHITE toys are no good" so they just turned Celestia pink. That's why Cadence was pink AND a princess because children only want pink princesses, and, after the outcry from the fans that "She didn't look like the show" they no longer had their precious pinklestia pink princess so along comes Cadence with wings and a horn so she could be special enough too.

The odd bit to me was that one episode that had Goodie Gryphon or something where she was good at literally everything and nice too, but she couldn't get a cutie mark because she wasn't a pony = no cutie-magic, but somehow Zecora has a mark and Zebras aren't ponies. So then why don't Donkeys get a mark?

But also what's up with the "celestia body" ponies, where unicorns like Sassy Saddles almost have her body, but aren't an Alicorn?
They're way taller and don't look like anybody else. There's more than one of this type too, not just Sassy.
I forget what ep Sassy is in...

The worst is the movie, in my opinion.
I just think Hasbro.......wasn't thinking about anything, really. At the start, where like Faust was around, probably, where there was more consistency in character and etc. but I stopped giving it thought/fandom-style theorizing once it was clear they kinda just didn't care and were throwing everything at the wall.
The movie broke the entire show.
Ok so the sun only rises because some nobody in Podunk sticksville boonies-town raises the sun, and no creature ever wonders why the moon has an evil horse face on it. And no creature ever wonders about that 'really long night that happened X-while ago', and nobody sought to find out. The movie made the princesses out to be paupers/nobodies and treated them as punching bags who are so weak. All the maps previously had also had Equestria as a continent, not just some walled-off rinky-dink valley of babies.
The show kind of made out the whole planet to be populated by animal-types, (yacks, griffins, zebra/s?, donkey, buffalo) but then the movie was like 'no theres cats and birds and trolls but they are "human" (human hands, human posture, human acting with clothing on) and view ponies as their slaves', and the mane 6 are ok with slavery because they all just go home after hearing about ponies=slaves for others/bought and sold, and proceed to do nothing about it. And no pirate air ship or high tech magic thing ever ever flew over Equestria and nobody from outside ever visited in in a billion years because reasons.*

*The movie was cut to ribbons.
There could have been an actual explanation to this stuff, but it is on the cutting room floor with Stratos Skyranger.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: SpacePinto on September 01, 2019, 04:39:21 AM

Quote from: Leave a Whisper on August 31, 2019, 08:29:16 PM

Quote from: SpacePinto on August 31, 2019, 06:52:58 PM

Why would even Hasbro assume that My Little Pony shouldn't have queens because queens are evil? G1 had Queen Rosedust and Queen Majesty, plus six princesses taking turns being a queen.

Because Hasbro is in a very strange place right now

But didn't G4 star almost a decade ago?

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Taffeta on September 01, 2019, 04:41:20 AM

As someone who isn't really into FIM I'm actually finding this discussion interesting because of all the possible permutations. I mean, the inconsistencies sounds like different writers putting in bits to the canon rather than a plan of action, but the earth pony aspect is curious...

In G1 in the UK earth ponies often had magic (as well as it being possible for them to be princesses). The most magical pony in G1 according to the pony lore of the UK was Magic Star, an Earth Pony. She's also describes as being elegant as a princess.

Spoiler

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Baby Lucky is also extensively depicted with happy-go-lucky magic, which is significantly strong enough to bring ponies to life from a drawing (in the case of the newborn twins) among other stellar acts.

So it's not that there was never a precedent for magic in G1 for earth ponies. But it seems to be entirely outside the US interpretation of MLP. Again, talking about G1, there's a more real world feel to ponyland in the US stories. You have the New York guy stealing hair, and you also have Glory in the spoken word tape feeling isolated because she's a unicorn and getting swept away to a more magical world but losing her horn...this other world is much more like the comic world in the UK.

I wonder if a similar problem exists in G4 with different perceptions of magic levels informing decisions about species. THe fact Cadence was a pegasus who ascended already seems a bit unusual, as in the older US pony stuff, you don't see pegasus ponies with powers either (I'm talking MLP & Friends animation).

Again, in the UK, pegasus ponies could have magic. And, weirdly, pegasus ponies (rather than unicorns) seemed to be more in context with wish granting. Rainbow Magic (Ringlet) granted wishes, and Princess Pearl (a pegasus princess!) cried wishing pearls when she was happy.

The UK aspect should be irrelevant except that Majesty's UK persona has such an impact for some reason in the brony fandom. No idea if it had one on the creation of Celestia or if that was all later and coincidental, but it's worth considering. In which case, an earth pony ascending to have ultimate power should be possible, even if it never happened.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Al-1701 on September 01, 2019, 06:27:09 AM

In "The Magic Coins", Magic Star keeps a "good luck collection" which was apparently a bunch of magical charms.  She also seemed to have a sense about a place's magic as she said she could feel the Haunted Garden having bad luck.

But, yeah, magic was almost exclusively the realm of the unicorns or wielders of magical items like the Princesses.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Carrehz on September 01, 2019, 06:56:00 AM

I wonder if the princess/queen thing was less "queens are eeeevil!!" and more "Disney usually has princesses = Disney Princess stuff sells like hotcakes = princesses sell better than queens!"?

Granted the kings/queens in FiM are all (I think) evil... but then they don't usually make toys of the villains, so maybe Hasbro don't care what their titles are...?

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Al-1701 on September 01, 2019, 09:57:06 AM

This was before Frozen was a smash hit success with a queen and an archduchess.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Zapper on September 01, 2019, 11:06:42 AM

Quote from: WingsOfMasquerade on August 31, 2019, 09:41:04 PM

The movie broke the entire show.
Ok so the sun only rises because some nobody in Podunk sticksville boonies-town raises the sun, and no creature ever wonders why the moon has an evil horse face on it. And no creature ever wonders about that 'really long night that happened X-while ago', and nobody sought to find out. The movie made the princesses out to be paupers/nobodies and treated them as punching bags who are so weak. All the maps previously had also had Equestria as a continent, not just some walled-off rinky-dink valley of babies.
The show kind of made out the whole planet to be populated by animal-types, (yacks, griffins, zebra/s?, donkey, buffalo) but then the movie was like 'no theres cats and birds and trolls but they are "human" (human hands, human posture, human acting with clothing on) and view ponies as their slaves', and the mane 6 are ok with slavery because they all just go home after hearing about ponies=slaves for others/bought and sold, and proceed to do nothing about it. And no pirate air ship or high tech magic thing ever ever flew over Equestria and nobody from outside ever visited in in a billion years because reasons.

First off, I love your write-up XD Especially the part about Luna's portrait on the moon.

I liked the movie but you are correct, the expanded world makes no sense from this perspective.
I guess at the beginning of the show they centered the ponyworld with no intentions of having a G1 style large fantasy world where ponies are just the rulers of their own country and not the entire globe.

Maybe that's why I love that movie with the different species and locations. I like the idea of an open fantasy world with multiple dangers to ponies more than just "ponies rule supreme, they are like naturegods".

Maybe Equestria has a separate sun and moon. Their reality is different from the rest. Like medieval times their world is flat with a sun and moon pasted onto a starry sky ceiling. A kind of magic biodome and when they leave they are hit with the harsh reality nobody really cares for their sun and moon raising because other creatures have the real deal :lol: j/k

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: MJNSEIFER on September 01, 2019, 04:04:47 PM

To be honest, the movie never broke anything for me, because I was aware of the idea of their being other species out there as far back as season 1 - the diamond dogs were more anthropomorphic than other animals in the show, so seeing anthropomorphic animals in the movie didn't seem odd to me, as the show had already made it seem like a thing.  The whole different species thing has been inconsistent anyway, I will admit, but the movie didn't really do anything I hadn't seen the show do before, species wise.

Also, did the show ever confirm that Zecora had a cutie mark, because I always felt it was something else - I don't know what, but I never took it to be a cutie mark.

Also, sorry to ask, but would it be okay for me to place my headcanons on how alicorns and royalty works in this thread, or shall I put it somewhere else?

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: SpacePinto on September 01, 2019, 08:16:31 PM

Quote from: Zapper on September 01, 2019, 11:06:42 AM

Maybe Equestria has a separate sun and moon. Their reality is different from the rest. Like medieval times their world is flat with a sun and moon pasted onto a starry sky ceiling. A kind of magic biodome and when they leave they are hit with the harsh reality nobody really cares for their sun and moon raising because other creatures have the real deal :lol: j/k

And there's a pony Ed Harris watching everything from a secret room inside the moon.

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Zapper on September 02, 2019, 01:01:37 AM

Quote from: SpacePinto on September 01, 2019, 08:16:31 PM

Quote from: Zapper on September 01, 2019, 11:06:42 AM

Maybe Equestria has a separate sun and moon. Their reality is different from the rest. Like medieval times their world is flat with a sun and moon pasted onto a starry sky ceiling. A kind of magic biodome and when they leave they are hit with the harsh reality nobody really cares for their sun and moon raising because other creatures have the real deal :lol: j/k

And there's a pony Ed Harris watching everything from a secret room inside the moon.

They had Big Lebowski ponies so why not Truman Show ponies? XD

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Taffeta on September 02, 2019, 03:04:05 AM

The biggest issue in the movie for me was how Princess! Twilight Sparkle of Friendship and her posse were frankly fine with getting the pirates in trouble and ditching their ship all for their own personal gain, then bailed out and left them to face the music. And then the pirates THANKED THEM for it. Like, really? Seriously? There were ten other ways they could have helped the pirates which would have actually helped the pirates.

I never thought of the anthrocharacters as a problem but I'm also coming from the G1 background of that being pretty normal. But going back on topic, the way that Luna is made out in the first ep vs the few times I saw her in later material kind of undermined her as an entity anyway. From scaring the whole world into potential darkness to not really understanding how to do whatever it is the ponies call Trick or Treat...

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Ponyfan on September 02, 2019, 06:02:02 AM

The biggest issue for me about the movie was how Twilight thought it okay to steal the pearl from the hippogriffs after Queen Novo refused to let her borrow it. I know she thought it was the only way to save Equestria  but even if she managed to steal the pearl without getting caught the consequences for the hippogriffs could have been devastating since they were using the pearl to live as sea ponies.

I have problems with Twilight in the regular episodes too mainly the one where Thorax was introduced. I think the show implies that Twilight was made the Princess of Friendship because she was the best at friendship yet when Thorax is introduced she immediately decides that he is evil just because he's a Changeling. Spike had to stand up for Thorax before Twilight would even give him a chance.

I like Luna and the Nightmare Night episode but I do think that the point of everyone acting afraid of her because it was part of the fun was a little strange.


Ponyfan
 

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: sd_dreamcrystal on September 02, 2019, 06:48:55 AM

Quote from: MJNSEIFER on September 01, 2019, 04:04:47 PM

Also, did the show ever confirm that Zecora had a cutie mark, because I always felt it was something else - I don't know what, but I never took it to be a cutie mark.

I don't think the show officially confirmed it... but then again I stopped watching the show around S5 E13 but officially stopped watching at the end of S5 (I managed to finish the rest of the episodes of S5 but after that no more). I think her symbol is implied to be her symbol as she is basically still a Pony type.

I haven't watched the movie but I'm wondering something... do you think it would be considered that from the start that Celestia and Luna made Equestria kind of it's own protected area from the outside world? I'm not sure how to term it lol

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Carrehz on September 02, 2019, 08:08:58 AM

I've always wondered why Zecora has a symbol when no other non-ponies do. :/ I mean not even the hippogriffs do and they turn into sea ponies, right? Gah. To be honest I've just been chalking Zecora's design up to early installment weirdness (i.e. the writers hadn't completely figured out the ~lore~ yet)... Did they ever actually explain it in the show?

Title: Re: Princesses in MLP: FiM
Post by: Lady Frostbite on September 02, 2019, 09:58:33 AM

I think Zecora was tone-deaf in a lot of ways, and the writers didn't really want to truely open up Zebra culture, since Zecora was quite stereotypical in some ways. I would have liked to have had the zebras fleshed out, but ... yeah, don't blame the writers for not touching that.

(Unless it was addressed in the comics?)

Queen Chrysalis could work in the insect theme of the changlings; the biggest changling was female, a Queen in the classic bee/ant/wasp/hornet sense. I assumed she was the one who laid eggs - if they would allow that in FiM, and she was outright shown next to newly-hatched changings and they all gravitated towards her. She says herself she leads them, and she looks for food for them, rather than having workers bring her food (though I don't doubt the other way happens at times too). If you wanted, you could have it simply work as: Queens lay eggs to make new worker changlings. Eventually, she will lay Queen eggs, and one of the eggs will give birth to a new Queen changling to take over once the present Queen dies/goes to live on Winona's farm. Literally, born to rule, born with the ability to breed that the workers and soldiers do not have. FiM doesn't even have to outright say it, since Chrysalis is so obviously different from her subjects; just show a bigger Changeling with fully developed eyes and a more complex design that's pretty much a 'Princess' to the Queen. Kids will easily connect the dots, and it's pretty much traditional Royalty; born into the position