Celestia is a terrible ruler

But here it is. I will first begin by addressing my opponent’s arguments, then defending my own. == Con’s Case == 1) No Pony every rebels It is true that no pony ever rebels (well, accept Luna, but that was 1,000 years ago, so that’s a pretty good streak), and this does show that the ponies love Celestia very much. However, we cannot mistake being well liked with being effective. There are many times when a good leader must do what is necessary, even if it is not well liked. We can see from our own history that prior to WW2, America was fiercely divided on entering the war or even providing support [1], but now with hindsight, we can see how important it was (we can argue to the degree of its importance with ending the war quicker and halting the control of Stalin, but that is for another debate). The other points are direct contentions against my points, so I will address them with the defense of my arguments. == Pro’s Case == 1) Sovereignty (this goes with my opponent’s #2) My opponent makes two key points here. First, that Celestia had defeated those villains previously (except for Queen Chrysalis), however, all of those victories were over 1,000 years ago and most (if not all, they do not explain how she and her sister defeated Tirek) required her to have the Elements of Harmony (which she is no longer connected to, as explained in S2E1). The second point my opponent makes is that it doesn’t matter “who” saves the day as the measure of a leader is not measured by their army. However, this is not entirely true. The primary purpose of a leader is to protect and guide what they are “leading” (in most cases for government and business, “guide” means “grow”) but protecting is a key part of that. Of course, we can excuse the failure to protect if the said leader does not have the resources to do what is needed. For example, the Sioux leaders ultimately failed to protect their tribes, however it was not due to a lack of leadership skills, but to an overwhelming lack of resources to accomplish their goals. We must look at if Celestia had the tools needed to protect Equstria. The next thing we need to look at is if SHE is the one using the tools correctly to protect Equstria, or if she is using them incorrectly and others are saving her bacon. We can see in S2E25 and S2E26 that Celestia has no real defenses planned other than Shining Armor’s barrier. Despite apparent guards all around the city, not a single guard comes running to her aid, nor attempts to defend the city during the attack (maybe they are rebelling in a form of passive rebellion). When we see the loss of power five times in just a few years, we can’t help but realize that the issue is with the common denominator, Celestia. We will go further into the main example with Tirek. 2) Tirek I would first like to address the comparison to Obama being betrayed. This is an interesting comparison, however it is lacking a number of key details. A far more linear comparison would be if rather than killing Bin Laden, we captured him and attempted to reform him under Obama’s direction. Then, in turn, gave him a bunch of our national secrets and asked him to go catch other major terrorists, but sent him alone. Then if he turned and went back to his terrorizing ways and used our secrets against us to destroy America. It would be completely naive to say such a thing was “unpredictable. ” My opponent makes quite an exaggeration by equating Tirek’s “slyness” to that of Discord. Tirek showed almost no slyness at all. When he was caught, he merely offered Discord to rule alongside with him and “turn the world upside down. ” There was nothing particularly clever about what Tirek did, only the utter lack of shock that it worked of Discord. My opponent states that “Celestia practically put a test to Discord. ” This would be the most shocking display of poor leadership. She is intentionally putting the safety of the entire nation (or even world) onto someone’s shoulders as a “test. ” What does this mean to every pony under her watch? It means, that their lives are meaningless to her and can be gambled away with tests for others My opponent continues saying that even if Tirek was defeated, Discord could still take over Equestria. This is theoretically true (though the consolidated Alicorn power is stronger than Discord, so we would ultimately be defeated), however, he could have taken over Equestria at any time in season 4, since the only thing that can stop him is the Elements of Harmony (which is why Celestia did not do anything in S2E1 and S2E2 to fight Discord) and they were given back to the Tree of Harmony in S4E2. Discord brings this up himself (almost as soon as they are gone, as if he planned it that way) but he chooses his friendship with Fluttershy as a better option. There is no reason to believe that with Tirek out of the picture, that Fluttershy could not convince him to turn back to “good” (well, “neutral” at least). My opponent offers up one last piece of counter, saying that “between Celestia and Tirek- it would not be easy to defeat Tirek, since he had absorbed so much power…even Twilight struggled to not get her power obtained by Tirek. ” This is missing on several key points. Twilight was successfully able to avoid having her power absorbed (until she willingly traded for her friends) and she went toe to toe with Tirek (I’d say, she was even a little ahead, given that he was digging himself out of the rubble after the last attack). The key difference is two things. First, Celestia has unimaginable more combat experience (my opponent does not refute this) and so she would do better than Twilight did. And second (and most importantly), when Tirek attacked Celestia, it was before he absorbed Discord (remember, Discord is the single most powerful being in Equestria [2]), so he was far less powerful when he attempted to confront Celestia. Those two factors make it highly unlikely that our Ponies would lose. Tirek would have just been walking into his own defeat. Lastly, my opponent makes no comment that Celestia’s plan makes no sense. Her only goal is to hide the Alicorn power so Tirek doesn’t get it (even though there is a giant mural on the wall in the very room she is standing in saying “Hey, look at the new forth Alicorn! ” and she knows that Discord has betrayed them and that he is aware of everything about Twilight). But her plan has no end game. It only focuses on keeping the power from Tirek, but let’s say that somehow it works. Twilight successfully hides from Tirek for the rest of her life and he never gets the Alicorn power. How is that a good plan? Equestria is still conquered and ruled by Tirek and all ponies are under his rule. Great plan, Celestia. You have to wonder if she cares at all about any of her subjects at all. With this, the resolution is affirmed that Celestia has [1] . http://www.npr.org... [2] . http://mlp.wikia.com...Please note that any episode references (S_E_ means Season_ Episode_, I should have stated that last round) can be found online by Googling "MLP S_E_" and they are all on Netflix.