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My thoughts on Children of the Night

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Published: Aug 6, 2013

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This is my thoughts on the PMV song Children of the Night. First of let me just that the video is just plain awesome, the song is hauntingly beautiful and the animation is spot on. I’m not sure if it was intentional but the singer to me at least sounded like princess Luna. She had a very talented singing voice and kept me in the mood through out the whole song. It felt very Tim Burton like which is fitting considering who it is. What sparks interesting with this song is the opening narration to explain just what is happening to these children. To sum up a already short story some time after Princess Celestia & Luna defeated Discord, Luna offered a suggestion to create a place where ponies can go and play, especially at night for her own sake. However Celestia said no and Luna deiced to go head and do it anyway in secret. I also give complements to the writing of this short story, for me in a lot of cases when the story tends to focus on Luna they tend (intentionally or not) villainize Tia. However this not the case with CotN as Tia did have reason for saying no. This because they JUST got done defeating Discord and is still recovering from the chaos and felt that by making this colony it would shatter the already fragmented kingdom.

Now this does raze a theory & a question on something, the creators of the song hadn’t planed for anything deep or made into continuity but this didn’t stop fans from trying to incorporate it into canon. If I were to suggest the none canon idea, it would be that Nightmare Moon never happened and it was only when Discord got free was the first time Twilight learned about the magic of friendship. The question that gets asked is a rather simple one when other say the song can work in canon. “If Luna had the Children of the Night, ponies who love being nocturnal and loving her night, why did she still become Nightmare Moon?” This question is a valid point as the whole reason why she did was because she felt alone & nopony appreciated the night like they did the day.

So I’m going to try my best to answer the question with some of my own theories, I don’t expect it to be perfect I just hope to come up with a good answer. To do so allow me to explain a bit on what I think about Princess Luna & Nightmare Moon, This may come off like tangent so fast forward if you want to skip a head. To me the NMM moment was tragedy involved with everyone including Celestia. And believe it or not Celestia is just as much of a victim in this as Luna was. Unless you think Tia was nothing but a heartless snot that only cares about herself which completely untrue. Celestia made terrible mistake in not listening to her little sister’s problems, and her ignorance cost her dearly for it. And wasn’t until during that thousand years did she realize how much she missed her sister & probably how much Luna was right that ponies don’t care about the night like they should, because they probably don’t care that Luna is gone. And the only memories of her are the tales of NMM, which paints her a monster to scare foals.

The reason she might have made this mistake is my guess of youthful arrogance and ignorance. Tia made the mistake of thinking that Luna just doesn’t get that ponies sleep during the night, that’s how it’s always have been. She doesn’t have the time to listen to Luna’s silly ideas she’s got a kingdom to fix. In many ways you could also say that she forgotten the magic of friendship because she let her duty to their kingdom overwhelm her she forgot her duty as a sister. She didn’t realize until it was too late that for Luna this wasn’t about what’s normal this about a pony who feels like she doesn’t matter to anyone.

Luna also obviously made the mistake of her lack understanding her role in the world but also let her anger & bitterness cloud her judgment believing that Tia didn’t care about her just like everyone else. She may of also just failed to try and tell her properly because it kept going into the “The Sun is better than the moon” debate. But again the question is asked, “If the Children of the night were made to fit that role, why did she become NMM anyway?” The answer very simple, if you look at the video everyone that wasn’t Luna was a foal or a filly, they are all children, children who don’t have families like orphans or street urchins. She was adopting them as a family to sort of replace the one she had with Tia, a family who see her as a loving mother & living happily underneath the moon. That’s all Luna really wanted. However they still are just children, they don’t know why they should like the night, they’re probably just happy to have fun no matter what time it is. However with maybe the exception of her bat pony guards Luna can’t recruit adult ponies because their mental clock is too programmed for sleeping at night. They might resist the idea of doing so because it makes more sense and don’t see the reason why they should work at night. Even IF she had few adults there is also the one possibility, which is the very fear that hurt Luna.

The very fear is that they aren’t really enjoying the night. Luna wants followers and ponies who genuinely love the night the same way her sister does. She wants ponies to truly love her work as much if not more than Celestia’s. But there in lies the problem, she felt she doesn’t have anyone. The children don’t understand or even care and the adults might only think they are doing to it to make Luna happy. This thought is not only why she became Nightmare Moon but also why ponies made the mistake of letting it happen. Luna felt that they were only having fun in her Garden of Shadows because she told them to do it. She wanted someone of their own will to say “Hey you know what? Thank you for all that you do, I love looking at the stars and that beautiful moon.” And when ponies didn’t comfort her or try to help Luna when she felt angry with her sister because they didn’t want to anger THE PRINCESS. The Children of the Night at first didn’t act like a real family & help Luna because they let their fear of being royalty get them into trouble. This however was their mistake as with Tia not understanding her plight and ponies fearing her title. Princess Luna was back at square one again, alone and unloved. And eventually she gave into her anger and became Nightmare Moon.

So now the question is asked what became of the CotN after Nightmare Moon? Well I think the open narration of the song gives it away that they are still around. I would imagine that after Nightmare Moon came to be, they sealed of the Garden of Shadows (the place where ponies go to enjoy the night) to prevent her from corrupting other ponies and making a dark army. And through out the generations of that 1,000 years they kept her legacy alive. I would bet they invented or help Tia invent the prophecy of Nightmare Moon’s return and the Holiday of Nightmare Night. Which would make sense, as that night would be perfect for the new Nocturnal Ponies to mingle with the “Solar Children”. They probably choose to focus on NMM because she is a looming threat and it would have been far much easier to keep the story a villain a live rather that a tragic loss of a Princess. And if I may stretch idea a bit further I wouldn’t be too surprise if they also happen to be “The Stars that would aid her escape” not to help NMM but in hope that someone will find the means to rescue Luna.

It’s also clear at this time (unless otherwise stated) Luna is happy and normal again. She feels regret about what she had done and now she has what she always wanted. And this happiness didn’t happen right away, I would guess that it didn’t start happening until Twilight helped her on Nightmare Night. Canterlot being totally different from Ponyville, and being a thousand years later, Luna didn’t understand why ponies were scared of her. That’s mostly because Celestia as time went on made things more casual & Canterlot ‘doesn’t do casual.’ When Twilight helped Luna become less intimidating during non-important events & let her mane down, Luna might even learned to have ponies accept her as a pony and not as THE PRINCESS, something she would no doubt later apply when she was reacquainted with her lost family. If she had learned to do before hand maybe then the ponies wouldn’t have feared her as much and let things like NMM happen. You can even see that up until Twilight helped her ponies stilled called her Nightmare Moon and later you can see she was even doing the traditional offer to the NMM statue which cast a shadow on her, symbolizing that she felt would never escape NMM as it ruined her life even worse. Before ponies just ignored her night, now they saw it as time of fear. But as Pipsqueak taught her with fear comes bravery and excitement.

So one last set of questions: What exactly IS the Garden of Shadows? Is it a new Lunar Kingdom? Was it intended to be a new separate kingdom? Would Luna make it one? Would Celestia allow it? Well to me I think really it’s what was suggested the CotN living in the Garden of Shadows are really just a family to Princess Luna. Not a kingdom but rather a summer home were she could go and relax and enjoy having ponies love her night. I would imagine that it did become an official town dedicated to her. This isn’t too big of a twist to have some towns more focused on one idea over others. Canterlot is all about high class & magic, if you notice there are a lot of unicorns roaming Canterlot and Spike said that they always use magic for Winter Wrap Up. While Ponyville is more mixed up and was started with Earth Ponies it’s no surprise that they clean up winter ‘the old fashion way’ without magic. I also happen to get the feel that maybe Ponyville enjoys other holidays than others cause they’re closer to nature to see it all. So it might not be a surprise for Canterlot to not give a care about Nightmare Night. Heck there was this one tumblr about Carrot Top and her rivalry with Applejack the old “fruits vs. vegetables.” And when she was telling how she jumped on a buffalo in the Appleloosa fight, she suggested the idea to Breaburn of what if a rival solely wanted to drive him out business for the sake of competition to which he found that idea being silly, saying because of his home (you know in the middle of a dessert) they need their apples to live and if they needed to they would more than welcome the help carrots if only to buy time for the apples to grow back. So there are towns that also have ways of growing things & supplying food. So it wouldn’t be too far fetched of an idea to say that Canterlot is a place that enjoys the Sun, Ponyville loves and appreciates both the sun & the moon, and the ponies of Shadow Gardens encourages the love of the night.

I wanted to share my thoughts on the Children of the night music video and the ideas that it sparks with the mini story in it. If you haven't seen it yet you should! it's really good! I apologize for any spelling, grammar, or formatting. Tell me what you think.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW5n3k…

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Into-My-Eyes

Aug 12, 2013

I agree with this guy Naturesrose and my i add well you do my 5 page essi due at the end of the year lol.