All Things My Little Pony

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I thought we needed a place for all fans of the MLP franchise to get together and discuss all things Pony. This can be anything involving the toys, cartoons, and even fan art (as long as they are safe for work and follow the site’s rules). Be warned as spoilers may be around here for all of the cartoons and movies.

I just came up with a theory after seeing the current batch of G5 series episodes that explains Luna’s corruption and transformation into Nightmare Moon and who was actually responsible for it. Spoiler warning in the box along with my theory:

Spoiler: How and why Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon

So Opaline confirmed that she has been around since the beginning of Equestrian history and around the same age as Celestia and Luna. She talks about feeling jealous of them and how they “ignored and looked down” upon her and how everyone held them in high regard. But that seems extremely unlikely as Celestia and Luna have never looked down upon any Pony under normal circumstances. I think it was Starswirl who caused Opaline to become bitter and jealous as he sensed goodness and hope in the hearts of Celestia and Luna and saw how they could easily raise the sun and moon by themselves without any additional help which is why he personally took them in as his students with special training in magic. Starswirl had considered taking in Opaline as a student at first but then he sensed a darkness growing within her heart and knew that it could possibly spread and corrupt the Royal Sisters and so he forbade them from even speaking with her by telling them that Opaline was not at the same level as them. Celestia was able to fully obey her instructor’s command but Luna sensed loneliness in Opaline and secretly tried being her friend. But Opaline was far from redemption by this point as her jealousy consumed her heart and she slowly manipulated Luna’s thoughts about not being as well liked as Celestia and subliminally told Luna that everyone loved Celestia more than her and thus causing her to become extremely jealous of her own sister. Eventually Opaline had manipulated Luna’s thoughts so much that she became Nightmare Moon. I think this is how and why Luna became the villain and when she returns from her imprisonment on the Moon, she has a slight magical glow that is the same exact color as the aura Opaline has whenever she uses magic. When Luna becomes Nightmare Moon in the nightmares that she gave herself, the glow is replaced with a saturated purple color. Opaline also mentions that she had shown the Sisters that she was not to be underestimated and she did succeed partially in corrupting Luna but neither had realized that it was Opaline who had orchestrated the event. Luna had no idea that it was Opaline who had manipulated her heart and mind into becoming fully jealous of Celestia. She seems to be unsure where exactly it had come from or how it had fully consumed her as Luna does mention to Starlight Glimmer that she feels like Celestia has the easier job and a bit jealous of it but it wasn’t strong enough to cause her to become Nightmare Moon again. Celestia had to deal with her own jealousy of Luna’s job and how easy that seemed to be by facing a dream realm created version of herself corrupted by jealousy in Daybreaker and if you look at the aura surrounding her, there is no magenta hue like there was when Luna was consumed by jealousy and had become Nightmare Moon. Opaline worked for eons from the shadows to make her move on taking over Equestria and stealing all of its magic for herself and did it so secretively that no one, not even Tirek, knew of her presence. Tirek was unaware of a fifth alicorn that was just as powerful as the Royal Sisters and this is why he had thought that Cadance was the last one before learning that Twilight was a new Princess. Flurry Heart eventually became the sixth alicorn but all of the Ponies never knew about Opaline still being alive. Celestia and Luna had forgotten about her existence because she hadn’t been seen or heard from for so long that they thought she was gone. Eventually Opaline had gathered all she had needed to take over Equestria and she chose to attack after Twilight had become the Ruler of all of Equestria because she was only one Princess instead of two and the fact that the Elements of Harmony (the physical embodiments) and the Tree of Harmony were destroyed and thus one of the biggest threats to Opaline’s plans were no longer there. What Opaline had not expected was the true strength of friendship and that with all of the Ponies united as one with the Mane Six, Twilight could become even more powerful and create a barrier to keep Equestria safe from Opaline’s influence. Discord naturally would have been aware of Opaline’s existence as he is a being of pure chaos and is all knowing due to his magic being able to warp reality but he thought she was mostly harmless because she kept to herself inside her hideout and never interacted with anyone. Discord also never mentioned her during G4 because Opaline was hiding outside of Equestria in a land that very few Ponies had ever heard of which is why it was so easy for Opaline to spread mistrust among the different types of Ponies with no one ever able to fully identify who had started the rumors that caused the fighting as no one had ever seen her before and couldn’t identify her afterwards. Being a total stranger worked in Opaline’s favor as she was able to pull a surprise attack because no one had known about a sixth alicorn being out there.