absolute kino
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I’m not denying that the Mane Six utterly obliterated him, but you’re glossing over how she didn’t solo murder him past a beam clash where she started audibly straining before her friends combined strength with her.
She also deflects his blasts by herself before that, eventually doing so as easily as Discord was once her confidence is back more.
It’s perhaps worth noting Tirek couldn’t have been defeated with the Elements as the backstory went, because Star Swirl was still around when he lost the first time, and the Tree of Harmony came around after he went to Limbo.
Pillars had the proto-elements.
Arguably the second generation elements depending on how you the prehistory since it’s plausible Age of Chaos came first, but either way.
Like, Starswirl is pretty explicit at several junctions that they were using something that was basically equivalent to the modern elements and they even have a 6 elements combo system and everything. They had Harmony backing them. Starswirl takes credit for the element’s power verbally but Celestia and Twilight treat his elements as continuous with the new elements and literally the reason Twilight was given wings is because understanding Harmony (lit. Friendship) better than Starswirl allowed her to do things he couldn’t, and he isn’t actually as powerful in the modern day (as when they used the elements), so we can pretty easily trust Celestia on this one.
Arguably the second generation elements depending on how you the prehistory since it’s plausible Age of Chaos came first, but either way.
Like, Starswirl is pretty explicit at several junctions that they were using something that was basically equivalent to the modern elements and they even have a 6 elements combo system and everything. They had Harmony backing them. Starswirl takes credit for the element’s power verbally but Celestia and Twilight treat his elements as continuous with the new elements and literally the reason Twilight was given wings is because understanding Harmony (lit. Friendship) better than Starswirl allowed her to do things he couldn’t, and he isn’t actually as powerful in the modern day (as when they used the elements), so we can pretty easily trust Celestia on this one.
…Shouldn’t it? By all means, I’m not denying it’s still really impressive in the grand scheme of things to be anywhere near Twilight’s level of power, even at her lowest point in of raw strength. It simply means that she isn’t that infallible in the grand scheme of things, unboosted, alone.
What?
Chrysalis, at her lowest point, wasn’t “anywhere near” Twilight. She literally made Twilight - she was stronger than Twilight (sans Harmony). Just because she’s bad at beamclashes doesn’t mean that she’s not powerful in other ways. You’re also assuming that she’d instantly lose forever if she lost the beamclash, but like, alicorns especially get shot all the time and shrug it off. Magical creatures like Tirek and the Everfree Forest monsters, which Chrysalis is likened to pretty often, get hit by stuff a lot.
Chrysalis, at her lowest point, wasn’t “anywhere near” Twilight. She literally made Twilight - she was stronger than Twilight (sans Harmony). Just because she’s bad at beamclashes doesn’t mean that she’s not powerful in other ways. You’re also assuming that she’d instantly lose forever if she lost the beamclash, but like, alicorns especially get shot all the time and shrug it off. Magical creatures like Tirek and the Everfree Forest monsters, which Chrysalis is likened to pretty often, get hit by stuff a lot.
Like all of the Chrysalis downplaying you’re doing is referring to times where she didn’t win instantly or looked like she was losing. The one and only time she’s actually unable to fight back against somepony without Harmony/Love being at play is when Grogar!Discord ragdolls her at her weakest point. Ultra Chrysalis is struggling to beamclash Spike, that doesn’t mean Spike is more powerful than Celestia.
Chrysalis did create someone better than herself, one way or the other.
This doesn’t hold up because Twilog wouldn’t be able to create Twilog. To be clear, I never said that Chrysalis is infallible. I’m just saying that just because she’s worse at being a unicorn than a unicorn, doesn’t mean she’s going to lose in a fight. In particular since the thing that she is good at (being a changeling (queen?)) she’s sufficiently good at to literally make an alicorn of Twilight’s power.
Rarity is a pretty powerful unicorn relative to the general populace and obviously vastly better at unicorn magic than Maud, but I’d still bet on Maud in a fight.
She was taking her actual fight with Starlight seriously in S9, no?
No? She goes there to humiliate Starlight, gets frustrated that Starlight fights smart, and then instantly no-looks her. Like sure, Chrysalis gets serious after the avalanche - and then Glimmer is defeated literally inside the second. The context of the fight is literally just Starlight stalling for time while the other ponies evacuate because there’s nothing any of them can do about Ultra Chrysalis.
The only fights less serious than the start of this in the entire series are Discord abusing somepony.
or telekinesis isn’t necessarily always an instawin, for whatever reason, in magic fights.
I never mentioned tk in the context of actual fights. Note that Chrysalis does instawin vs. Starlight as soon as she does anything other than shoot beams at her.
Honestly, Cadance’s S2 feat alone was better than Celestia and Luna combined in the show, in ejecting an entire army while discriminating friend and foe, if you’re willing to use combined feats as in the case of Twilight, lol.
… yes, Friendship/Love are the top power in the setting, that’s very explicit (it’s a little unclear if they’re different concepts or both just Harmony). This is the exact same as how Thorax defeats Chrysalis in S6.
Cadence is similar to latter season Twilight (appropriately, IMO) in the sense that she understands the system and expects the power of love to prevail and it does on demand when the conditions are met. That doesn’t change the fact that Cadence/Flurry Heart are matching Sombra in simple unicorn magic muscle.
Cadence is similar to latter season Twilight (appropriately, IMO) in the sense that she understands the system and expects the power of love to prevail and it does on demand when the conditions are met. That doesn’t change the fact that Cadence/Flurry Heart are matching Sombra in simple unicorn magic muscle.
And yet the comics still, in the end, got mentioned in the show more than fanfics generally do, in bringing up the existence of Vorak, no? It’s still more food for thought if you don’t have pretty much… anything else to go off of in a given instance, as I see it.
No. It’s not part of the show so it’s not part of the show. Incidentally the comics contradict the show on many occasions, especially regarding Celestia/Luna/Sombra/Discord/Chrysalis, meaning that for many issues there’s no possible reading where both the comics and the show are canon.
So, in defiance of usual narrative and thematic norms, where is the reason to think there be absolutely zero power boosting from giving into the dark side?
Because there is literally no reason at all to think that there is power boosting.
Things which aren’t in the show aren’t in the show. The “usual narrative and thematic norms” are something that exist entirely in your headcanon. It’s exactly the same as someone referring to the significantly older trope of righteousness allowing you to prevail. The only difference is that there are multiple discreet version of the later actually in the show, whereas the only pony that gives into darkness and explicitly gets a power boost is Stygian who is just borrowing an evil creature’s power.
4th Form Tirek (aka S4 Twilight vs Tirek form), sure, Sombra’s toast, but like… the difference between Sombra and Chrysalis is that Chrysalis was afraid of fighting Celestia one on one, whereas Sombra’s seemingly not afraid of fighting Celestia and Luna… though the two of them together without the Elements did defeat him with combined magic.
That just means that Sombra is a moron, in addition to not being that powerful. Which is pretty much what we see on the screen. A Tirek that’s less powerful than the one in the OP and king Sombra both roll up on a harmonyless Equestria and whereas Sombra loses (S9) or gets instantly stalemated by Celestia with no (Sombra timeline), Tirek sweeps in his timeline and in the main canon the Sisters immediately conclude that they can’t confront him (but Twilight (with boosts) might be able to).
Keep in mind that Sombra acts the same way towards Discord, who is definitively more powerful than Celestia + Luna without harmony (to the point that Discord is the status quo until Harmony changes things). I think you’re reading too much into the fact that Sombra doesn’t it or maybe even realize when he’s outmatched, whereas Chrysalis oscillates wildly in her self-appraisal and really just in general.
I mean, Sombra is seemingly on par to more powerful than S9 Twilight (motivated), who herself could hit Tirek hard enough to knock a tooth out and knock him onto the ground.
What? Twilight just one-shots him as soon as she stops moping. Celestia likewise frames it as her & Luna leaving the castle undefended by not being there and calls Twilight not asking for help a mistake, so everypony other than Sombra seems to be on the same page that Celestia + Luna would have beaten him without much trouble (which actually happens).
In comparison, the fight against Tirek is framed as mostly helpless without the elements even with the input of both Princesses. Tirek gets a cheapshot on Discord and S9 again has additional factors so it’s hard to really get a truly unbiased reading there, but it really comes across like he’s stronger than Discord when he’s not powered down.
Yes, ultimate form is gonna be stronk, but someone who implicitly beat Starlight (though you can argue “mind control”) with more ease than boosted Chrysalis did is probably not gonna have “zero chance” in my eyes
Starlight loses offscreen while not expecting a fight and it’s not like she has definitively lost and won’t recover. She never even does anything to help him, and Glimmer is a pretty easy character to paralyze by bringing up her fears - she does it on her own a lot of the time without any help required. I really think that in a pitched battle without an opening cheapshot she’d probably beat him pretty much every time; again Twilight is basically equally defeated just by him saying that he can beat her/she’s powerless and as soon as she realizes that isn’t true he loses.
For comparison, Starlight is able to do cutie mark magic on Celestia/Luna when they’re not expecting it and they’re not able to undo it. I don’t think “can land a spell on by surprise” translates to “can win a beamclash with”. Something to keep in mind is that Unicorn magic is based almost entirely on how you’re feeling. Sombra spooking everypony with his fear spell is preemptively neutering them but at the same time you can just - get over it. After they shake it off Sombra struggles with or loses to the Cadence family, let alone Twilight or the Sisters who just gib him.
As far as the show’s concerned, Chrysalis never teleports herself or uses shield spells in a combat scenario, despite it seeming to be preferred to a large extent for her to use magic in major fights
Chrysalis isn’t a unicorn, so I assume her magic is just different. Pretty much only ponies and Discord teleport. In comparison, at her lowest point she’s still able to create fully-equipped copies of six ponies including S8 Twilight (who does use a magical shield). The fact that Twilog is beating Chrysalis shouldn’t be seen as an indictment of Chrysalis powerlevel because Mean Twilight is Chrysalis’ spell.
considering the Starlight fight had Chrysalis having more trouble from a tricky opponent she was clearly more powerful than she “should.”
To me this just reads as Chrysalis playing with her food. We know she has telekinesis good enough to do the Twilight/Luna/Discord thing of just instantly grabbing ponies and holding them against a wall, so there’s no reason why e.g. powerless Starlight in the throneroom faced against a Chrysalis who has captured the entire cast (and so is presumably in a mode where she could beamclash Celestia) should be able to dodge her for more than a second other than that Chrysalis isn’t taking it seriously.
If anything, I feel like Chrysalis is actually pretty bad at shooting beams. Pretty much the only time it works out for her is when SA!Chrysalis marginally beats Celestia. What I don’t agree with is the conclusion that she therefore can’t fight at all; she just throws hard when she’s got or thinks she has enough of an upper hand because she wants to shoot beams (and still manages to beat characters like Celestia or Starlight while doing so, as long as she got ahead by draining stuff the smart way beforehand).
(which is why I think it’s important to consider her level of power; ironically I believe she’d possibly do better with her hive attacking en masse than her running on her Ultimate Form; the latter scenario seems like it’s potentially more likely for her to get arrogant and make a mistake like eschewing prep time… which maybe is part of the disconnect here in of how we’re thinking)
This is absolutely true, but I’m not talking about how things ‘would actually go’ unless I’m specifying that I am. How things would actually go is just what happens in the show, since that’s what the character’s psychology leads to actually happening.
Like Chrysalis is capable of beating Discord (with prep) but if you throw her in a room with him unexpectedly and force a fight Discord is probably going to win, since even Chrysalis evaluates herself as weaker than Celestia when she isn’t dictating the of the fight. In a single pitched battle she’s less powerful but over an infinite amount of time Chrysalis would win in the long run since she only has to take it seriously once.
Sombra I don’t think beats Chrysalis under any circumstance for any period of time unless she was literally just depowered with a harmony beam in the previous scene. 100% of his success seems to be from the fear spell and outside of it (comparing e.g. using Telekinesis on the same object) he’s at best as powerful as Cadence.
In of the OP image I tend to think that the transformations would be a disadvantage for the alicorns since Daybreaker and NMM feel like they’d be way more likely to just engage in a direct contest and the ultimate forms of characters that have beaten them in direct contests while in a lower powerup state are presumably going to win that.
Also to be more clear:
regarding comics
It’s generous to even call them fanfiction. My note was only that the author could set something in their continuity; with regards to the show the comics have no relevance. I don’t think there’s any indication that this image is set in the comics.
Edit for ninjas:
@AC97
@AC97
@Background Pony #96E8
If not, then even based on the assumption that Daybreaker was purely a figment of Starlight’s imagination, why would you argue that it’s an irrational fear of Starlight’s to have her think that Celestia would be more powerful as Daybreaker, given Celestia seemed to also believe this to be true, given the lack of counterarguments?
Glimmer didn’t think that.
She dreamt that a NMM-like Celestia would say that. And that’s absolutely the sort of thing that NMM would actually say, and I don’t think that Glimmy even knows what NMM is like other than by secondhand description anyway, so like, you’re really reaching here I feel.
She dreamt that a NMM-like Celestia would say that. And that’s absolutely the sort of thing that NMM would actually say, and I don’t think that Glimmy even knows what NMM is like other than by secondhand description anyway, so like, you’re really reaching here I feel.