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>>/12708/
> I find it hilarious that we come at this episode somewhat differently yet still arrived at the same rating.
Much as I can go on and on about things which bother me, the degree to which I talk about them rarely has any relation to how large I think the given issue actually is. In this case in spite of all I've said about it I do still find Twilight's underlying motives to be a relatively minor issue to the episode overall.
>>/12709/
> Out of universe, the show had tohave onscreen conflict and Celestia got worfed (being used to demonstrate how powerful a bad guy is by being incapacitated quickly).
From what we begin knowing in Season One it can seem that way: we know that she sealed away Nightmare Moon and raised and lowered both major heavenly bodies for 1000 years whilst guarding over Equestria as ruler too, but even there we can extrapolate that Celestia seemed at least incapacitated by Nightmare Moon whilst the Mane Six ventured out to find the Elements, and from their finding the Elements it's not unreasonable to also extrapolate that Celestia might also have used them in sealing away Nightmare Moon to begin with. And, when it comes to the opening two-parter of this season, we find both ideas confirmed. Celestia is certainly powerful, but since she had the power of the Elements to deal with both Nightmare Moon (it's safe to assume), and Discord, I wouldn't say that we can even necessarily know for sure that she's more powerful even than say, Luna. She could potentially be weaker than Luna, bizarre as that might be to posit, but at the least I think it's safe to say that right from the start she's not as powerful as when the Mane Six use the Elements. Although, as the show goes on, it seems to transpire that virtually nothing can stand up to the Elements. Regarding the thousand year reign, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that these were in fact perfectly peaceful years. Nightmare Moon, Discord, and seemingly degrees of industrialisation and colonial pushes out into new territories are all occurring simultaneously. I'd argue that if the colonial and technological aspects of pony society that we're starting to see advancing more rapidly point to a boom in population (which seems likely to me), this could explain both Discord and the Changelings a little later on. Larger population means a larger amount of net disharmony, and also more sources upon which to feed.
> IDK, it started to feel absurd to me in Season 7
There I would agree with you, but at least at the moment I'd argue the perception of Celestia's power is perhaps exaggerated based on her image, when compared to what the show actually depicts.
> I just feel like this sense of dependency and everyone speaking with one creepy non-personal AI voice and as someone who feared cellphones back when my father got me one as a teen in 2010ish, I have a similar sense with LLMs
They certainly have their uses, but with writing in particular I find them extremely pointless on a fairly simple basis: you can pretty easily predict exactly what they'll say and how they're going to say it. To deliberately write like an LLM and to simply have an LLM generate some text would be essentially interchangeable, except the LLM might leave out some human error, which frankly I see as to the detriment of the LLM in the competition. To err is to be human, they say, and writing is essentially technological telepathy, the transmitting of one mind's thoughts to another. To invite a computer to the uniquely human exercise of sharing the single truly unique human experiences of thought and communication rolled all into one seems as pointless as it is unfair: for the poor computer, that is, that cannot truly take part either as participant or beneficiary!Ultimately one writes for oneself as much as for another, so I truthfully only express a partial, personal preference for not using an LLM, I have no strong objection. Nor indeed would it be my place to object! Also same with the cellphones, my dad had to force me to get one.