A. The Pony POV series is now on my reading blacklist because of that post, Sereg. It sounds ridiculously overblown.

B. My point is, if they had that level of power I think we'd have seen a bit more of a struggle, or rather a bit more evidence of a struggle. We don't know all of Celestia and Luna's powers, but we do know that automatic magic cancellation isn't one of them, so there would by simple logic be spells cast by both parties that didn't connect. Depending on the power level, those spells either rearrange the topography or rearrange the continental plates.

B2. You'll note that Nightmare Moon, who by all accounts is also more powerful than Celestia, resorted to trickery and illusions to fool six college-age mares instead of, for instance, teleporting them to a Lagrange Point. Her plan involved genocide on a global level anyway; why didn't she just fling-and-forget?

C. Power is neither a requisite to be nor a measure of a god or goddess. The fact that Celestia and Luna are goddesses doesn't mean anything about their power; it means that they're divine, and that's all it means.

edited 28th Nov '12 4:26:23 AM by RedSavant

http://derpiboo.ru/166168 Warning, serious 4th Wall Breach detected.

Sigh. More power level discussions? This isn't Dragon Ball Z, people. Sometimes Magic is just Magic.

Well, at least it isn't Touhou, lol, where all the girls in Gensokyo are cheatyfacing hard

It actually doesn't come up that often. It's about how the ponies deal with having been discorded.

A: Lesson Zero.

B: Self-targetting spells.

C: I really don't see why such a struggle is necessary. If one side is clearly more powerful, it's going to win easily.

Nightmare Moon was clearly holding back. She demonstrated that she could have killed them anytime she wanted. Apparently some of Luna's ponyality was still fighting behind the scenes.

Now this I actually agree with.

Though I don't think that they are goddeses anyway. Though they are close to it.

@Pan: Magic, yes. But how much magic? In fantasy it's standard for wizards to be at different power levels to each other.

edited 28th Nov '12 4:48:45 AM by Sereg

It's less the amount of power you can throw around and more what you can do with that power and how much control you possess over it that is more important.

@Ace:True.

I'm just saying that Harry Potter wizrds would canonically lose a fight with a muggle every time. And then on the other end of the scale you have guys like Dr. Strange who are so ridicuolusly broken it's insane, but both use magic.

Regardless, that's silly and I can't take any fic that sees Celestia's death as causing the retroactive destruction of every star in the universe seriously at all. I just can't.

A. That was a counterspell to a spell that was already being executed; my point is that they wouldn't be able to cancel Sombra's spells the instant they left his horn, at least not without effort.

B. I don't see the relevance.

C. 'Easily' is a relative term. You suggested that Sombra was more powerful that Celestia, and that only with Luna involved could she defeat him; Sombra knew they were coming, and there's no way he went without a fight. Even a one-sided fight leaves marks of a struggle when the less-powerful side can 'pulverize the planet with a thought'.

Or the alicorns aren't that powerful. There's a point where you stop holding back, and that point is when your opponents are actually starting to be a threat.

What's your definition of goddess, then? Also, why aren't they by your definition?

Applejack is annoyed.

I think 'godhood' really depends on the context and/or the setting, a Deity can either be simply a being worshiped or revered by a certain collective of people, an anthropomorphic personification, or simple a incredibly powerful entity. Personally I think Celestia may be leaning more to the anthropomorphic personification side: She exists to perform a role, though she's not necessarily worshiped.

@Sereg: Potter universe wizards have terrible survival senses and are far less savvy than same-world muggles because of their over-dependance on their declining magics. Discworld (Current) Wizards are powerful in terms of knowledge and prepared spells, and have the powerful magitech supercomputer HEX to help with the finicky maths behind their spells. Strange is powerful because the brand of magic he wields is close to the world-building forces of creation.

Also even Deities have power tiers, from Small Gods to lesser Kami and Greater Kami, to Local Gods and then to Pantheon-class, and all pale to Creator-class.

I would say Sombra had the power of a Greater Kami, and Chrysalis was artificially powered up to Local God because of all the love she was hopped up on. Celestia and Luna are technically Pantheon-class, Cadance is young and currently a lower-tier Local God, while Lauren's God-Empress avatar is Creator-class.

fixed. Technically Kami are equal to spirits and less-powerful Gods.

edited 28th Nov '12 5:16:24 AM by AceOfScarabs

@Pan: I wouldn't really go that far. A lot of the reasons I like Celestia relate to the fact that she is a person behind the crown, and she wants to be seen as something more than her role. She's definitely very closely tied to the sun, and similar in presentation sometimes (kind and benevolent, but with a harsh side as well), but I don't know if I'd go so far as personification.

@Ace: Lesser kami include things like the spirits of individual trees, so I'm not sure why you'd class Sombra there.

edited 28th Nov '12 5:15:25 AM by RedSavant

In fact, I'd say the Princesses are weaker than even Astal, who broke the ocean protecting his beloved.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/astal/astal.htm

edited 28th Nov '12 5:17:23 AM by AceOfScarabs

@Anyone who's read the comic: How long is it? Bout a standard single-issue comic length? IF so, I imagine I'll probably just wait until the first few issues are collected, as tends to be how those things go. IF it's a bit longer I might be more willing to go out and grab one.

iTunes says it's 33-pages.

Well, that's stated once in the entire extremely long series. Basicaly there, Celestia isn't just the goddess of the sun, she is the very concept of suns. The same is true of all alicorns and draconequii.

Why not? Celestia easily dispelled Twilight's spell. Who's to say she couldn't dispell Sonbra's the instant his horn started glowing? The more powerful someone is the less effort thy require in fights.

So they don't miss and rearange some continents. Assuming they were going for brute force which they clearly weren't anyway.

I suggested that he's more powerful than Celestia (which I confess I'm not even sure of), not that the difference was so big that she needed Luna to stand a chance.

Says who? For all we know, it was an ambush!

Um. No. I don't care if you can annihilate the universe. If I can kill you first, it's irrelevant.

You still aren't taking motives into account here. We know she held back. We can see it from her different strategies and the powers she'd already demonstrated.

Long and complicated. But the easiest answer to your question is that I don't believe that anypony in-Universe thinks she's a goddess. That's way more than I need for me to decide that they aren't.

EDIT:

This is basically what I think. Though not quite at the level of power f some anthropomorphic personifications. The sun is older than her, she will die and the sun will be just fine until it's taken up by her successor.

edited 28th Nov '12 5:27:56 AM by Sereg

@Red Savant: Oh, of course she's far more then just a Cosmic Light Switch. I'm just speculating that her original purpose might be that of a Sun-Deity or something similar. It's very... I'm not sure if I have an exact comparison, but perhaps Death from Discworld would be a good one. He's the GRIM REAPER... And he likes kittens, and thinks life is amusing.

@Red: because whatever the Princesses did to him wasn't fatal or enough to depower him completely, and he got strong enough to force Cadance to shield the Crystal Kingdom with her love.

Mm, standard length then. Unless it's not riddled with advertisments every other page, in which case it'd be rather longer... Ah well. Either way, I'll wait for the first collection to come out.

@Kegi: Personally I hope IDW releases something like the manga-style tankobon volumes they did for Transformers: Infiltration.

@Ace: Isn't that essentially what most trade paperbacks are (except with more color and usually fewer pages)?

@Mio: Well yeah. I'm waiting for those volumes :V

I. Slept. Nothing.

So, a power levels discussion. I'd comment, but I don't think I can add anything that hasn't been said already.

@Ace: I think they are already set for pre-order on Amazon. I'm personally going to wait to see and hear more about the comic before I order it.

Human!Twi :D

Celestia cosplay

@Mio: No credit card :V I'm waiting for the shipment to land in G&B Comics.

edited 28th Nov '12 5:38:48 AM by AceOfScarabs