Also Luna spent most of the time until the wedding dinner party repelling the last few Changeling stragglers personally.

I would have really liked to see Luna swooping down and take on a horde of changelings all by herself so the mane cast can get to the Elements faster.

Well, my is that Luna's battle took her outside of Canterlot proper.

We don't really have any reference to judge how powerful the changelings are. We only really see them in battle all of one time, so it isn't exactly a good point to extrapolate from.

I tend to assume that whatever isn't shown did not happen.

And they can be defeated by tripping over their opponent.

Changelings are more suited to subterfuge, infiltration, and black ops more than direct conflict.

Pony!Solid Snake has mixed-blood heritage with minor Changeling ancestry, and inherited his father's legendary fondness for hiding under boxes.

edited 2nd Nov '12 9:37:58 AM by AceOfScarabs

Last post before I head off to my class.

One of the common fan explanations regarding absence of Luna is that she was sleeping.

I find this a little hard to accept; the wedding was going to be held at morning, right? I am sure she would have wanted to, or at least felt obliged to attend it as well. In that case, she must have been awake during that time.

Well, that's my reasoning anyway.

Ooh.

edited 2nd Nov '12 9:39:53 AM by dRoy

Changelings are best suited for taking on ponies who are not main characters.

Luna fell asleep because Vriska made her.

@Mio -

Okay, really going now.

@Mio: Changelings are weak to plot armor :V

edited 2nd Nov '12 9:49:34 AM by AceOfScarabs

No, Luna was beating up Changelings in disguise during the chaos.

Good plan. If a character is absent, assume she's a superhero.

That must be why everyone thought MMDW would be Luna or Trixie. Yes I know not everyone seriously thought that.

Regarding elite changelings, we do see a few changelings wearing armor, signifying at least some sort of rank. As for Luna, an interesting detail is that during her initial cameo in the episode, she enters Canterlot from outside the shield, indicating that she spends her days elsewhere, returning to guard the night.

edited 2nd Nov '12 10:08:24 AM by PerpetualLurker

Speaking of Changelings...

Luna was missing because she was worried about scaring all the ponies. Luna's social skills are not very developed yet, and at such a crowded, important, and emotional setting as a wedding...

Cadence probably thought Luna would be able to handle it, but "Cadence" would have liked nothing better than one less Alicorn to resist. Luna may have had some anxiety before the wedding (about all the ponies, and about the threat recently made against Canterlot), and with "Cadence" to prey on that anxiety...

"You don't want to crash my wedding, do you? Not in front of thousands of ponies. Thousands of unpredictable, partying spectators to pity you if you do something wrong. Besides, with Celestia at the wedding, who will guard Canterlot? Trust me, Luna, it's best for all of us, especially you, if you guard Canterlot instead of attending the wedding. I'm sure Celestia will understand".

Luna was missing because she was worried about scaring all the ponies.

More than the Changelings were? I think that "scared shitless" boat had already sailed.

My personal take is that they princesses didn't want to have all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, so Celestia and Luna decided to take watch in shifts. I mean, they have to sleep at some point, and it has the bonus of keeping at least one princess available at all times in case one gets taken out somehow. I mean, yeah, Luna didn't show up until after the fact, but let's face it, the whole issue got resolved pretty quickly after Chrysalis revealed herself. I don't think more than a few hours passed between Chrysalis casting off the disguise, and Cadance and SA blasting her. Given that Luna probably isn't in Canterlot at all, and it's doubtful that anypony managed to get out of the city, it isn't that surprising that she didn't show up.

Also, keep in mind that both Luna and Celestia are totally unaware of the fact that 1. Cadance is a fake, and 2. SA is being mindcontrolled. They probably assumed something like "hey, both Celestia and Luna don't need to be around because we have another alicorn princess as well as one of the army's best unicorns around for backup". Celestia and Luna might not have ever thought that they'd need to fight one on one, assuming that "one princess + Cadance + Shining Armor" would be enough firepower to handle most threats. Heck, that makes Chrysalis' plan even better; not only does she fly under the radar but she neutralizes two rather large threats to any invasion.

edited 2nd Nov '12 10:32:57 AM by JapaneseTeeth

I just accept that Luna was asleep.

So do I, I'm just pointing out the reason that she's too far away for the invasion to wake her up. Either that or she's just a really heavy sleeper.

Eh, it just seems like they didn't want to show both Princesses getting the beat-down for time and just left Luna out of it, and also hung a lampshade on it.

Yeah, there is only so much you can do in forty minutes, and they were already pushing it.

Well, that would be the Doylist interpretation, of course. I just like trying to find in-universe explanations for things.