A thought about Princess duties.

[Stainless Steel Fox]

Here's a question to set the griffon among the parasprites.

Was Princess Celestia's assumption of control over the night as illegal as Nightmare Moon's attempt to interfere in the running of the day.

Normally this wouldn't be a question, as the short answer is 'who else could do the job?'.The answer, the unicorns of Equestria. We are told in Hearth's Warming Eve that beofere the alicorns took over the job, the unicorns raised the sun and moon in concert. Surely, upon her sister becoming incapable of doing the job, Princess Celestia should have ceeded the control of the night back to the unicorns.

At most, she should have been allowed a degree of oversight until it became clear that they were doing the job right. Even if the unicorns had forgotten how, Princess Celestia should only have had control of the moon for a single generation while the next generation relearned the skill.

This could be a possible argument for those Unicorn Supremacists I mooted as villians.

I'm no fan of Trollestia, Molestia, or Celestia the Tyrant who keeps her sister locked up in a dungeon, but this is an interesting question.

[Davroth]

I see Alicorns (or however you want to call them) as an amalgamation of all three pony species. That makes them the perfect leaders for Equestria, since they indeed represent all of them at once.

I see the raising of the sun and moon more as a representative function, personally. I mean, everyone can cut the rope at the opening ceremony of a new shopping centre, but if it's someone famous, it give the whole thing more weight.

[Rosewind]

We don't have a lot of information to go off of, so I'm afraid the complexity of the issue you're presenting is only up for speculation.

What I will suggest is Celestia seems to be a fair, kind, and wise ruler, and everypony seems to agree with her leadership and decisions. As Davroth suggested, she represents all three types of ponies, so it seems fair to me that she took on the task of raising the sun and moon together during the Nightmare Moon crisis instead of passing the task off to the unicorns (which probably would upset the balance of power).

[patchcore]

What I will suggest is Celestia seems to be a fair, kind, and wise ruler, and everypony seems to agree with her leadership and decisions. As Davroth suggested, she represents all three types of ponies, so it seems fair to me that she took on the task of raising the sun and moon together during the Nightmare Moon crisis instead of passing the task off to the unicorns (which probably would upset the balance of power).

I agree. A task like raising the sun or moon shouldn't be just put into the hooves of some unicorns. Celestia's far more qualified to do the job, so even if she did train unicorns, the job might not be done as well or efficiently. Not to mention she could be easily overthrown now that it's just her alone and some citizen ponies have her main power...

[RarityDash]

I don't see what's wrong with having Celestia control everything. She deserves it for being so awesome.

[Stainless Steel Fox]

Oops, I kind of failed to explain myself. Yes, Princess Celestia should have stayed as is controlling the sun. It was only the moon powers she should have devolved to the unicorns. As for being unbalanced, the pegasi and earth ponies still have their old tasks, it's only the unicorns who were dispossessed of their function. This would actually gotowards bringing things back into balance.

[weesh]

It does not strain the imagination to suspect that the Unicorns were offered, and that they turned it down in the name of inter-pony unity. They had not had that task in a long time, and perhaps they had long filled the void with other duties and responsibilities. If a few generations had gone by, it would make sense that they were not feeling slighted.

[Rosewind]

It does not strain the imagination to suspect that the Unicorns were offered, and that they turned it down in the name of inter-pony unity. They had not had that task in a long time, and perhaps they had long filled the void with other duties and responsibilities. If a few generations had gone by, it would make sense that they were not feeling slighted.

I agree with this theory!

[TEFAfar]

It does not strain the imagination to suspect that the Unicorns were offered, and that they turned it down in the name of inter-pony unity. They had not had that task in a long time, and perhaps they had long filled the void with other duties and responsibilities. If a few generations had gone by, it would make sense that they were not feeling slighted.

I also suspect that before Celestia and Luna took control of the Sun and Moon, the ponies probably had a class-based society with unicorns as the ruler mages, pegasi as the military and Earth ponies as the farmer peasants. Probably led to some dissatisfaction, fights, rebellions etc. - fanfic fuel

Also, long live the New Lunar Republic!

[Ginger Mint]

hi hi

It could also be that raising the moon would have been seen as a burden, one that other ponies were happy to let Celestia carry. I mean, she was the one who banished Luna in the first place, so why not make her take on the extra work load?