She’s not a monster, she’s just ahead of the curve.

@Incursor  
Isn’t it great when you need to do home work and extensive study to get that extra 20% of a stories plot?  
Looks at the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts games  
Or in some cases… over half of it?

@belmontzar  
“The Stormy Road to Canterlot” is the only work to cover the battle. It doesn’t explain how an army defeat-able by a 13 ragtags without the Pearl was so formidable they had no choice but to retreat. There may be explanations but the movies failure to provide them is why Novo’s being criticized. It may be unfair criticism against Novo as it’s unrelated to her character, but it still has enough validity to persist this long and hurting her portrayal.
 
If fans have to do the narratives job of justifying the characters actions, it’s not a good/well-portrayed character. The Novo praised and defended in the image is a good and valid character, but it’s only the headcanon character, no more right/wrong than the headcanons bashing her, as opposed to the movie character that is being debated.
 
It also revealed Tempest tried to steal the Pearl by feigning niceness, leading to the invasion, which would give Novo perfect justification to not trust Twilight and co. But Novo never explains that detail even when justifying herself, nor explain her husbands fate if connected, which might have dissuaded Twilight from her attempted theft. A minor, forgivable mistake, but it being so overlooked in the movie is still a strike against.
 
There’s a big not so different element between Twilight and Novo, both took pragmatic but unpopular actions believing it was necessary to save their people/nation. But it’s Twilight alone being faulted and receiving consequences for it while the movie failed to, adequately if at all, show the mitigating thing that would have justified Novo’s lack of such that is getting the Queen hate.

@Incursor  
Possibly, but at the same time there are alot of factors that can also be taken into account. But first off did the comics show the Hippogryphs fight the StormKings forces? I am only going by the movie here so im thinking of stuff that might have ready been brought up. You know… like all those Air Ships with cannons and pirates/soldiers.

@belmontzar  
Given the enemy was fought and defeated so easily without casualties or risking the Pearl, it shows her decision to flee was a mistake that hurt allies and hurt her people by making them to hide in squaller for nothing and she could have better protected her people and their way of life by fighting.
 
I still agree her decision to flee was justifiable and forgivable, but the context (like what happened to her husband) that would make it such wasn’t adequately shown in the movie, leaving her actions open to this debate.

Novu reminds me of the last ruler of Shu. Looked at by hundreds as a cowerd for not fighting, and putting her people first. What is the proper way to treat a ruler? Do you go by the battles they won, laws the created, or speeches made? Or do you go by the struggle, the need to do all you can to keep your people safe.  
Other nations may get angry, when you refuse to give aid… but are you not just as justified?  
The purpose of a leader, of any sort of Ruler is to lead, direct, represent, and protect your people… and she did that.

@belmontzar  
That was the point. Twilight did screw up and got karmic consequences, remorse, and atonement.
 
The problem is that there were unintentional strikes against Novo I’ve discussed before. While Novo’s faults were lesser and more justifiable, that she got off without remorse and atonement, and was still treated as an ideal figure despite said faults, is why fans are so hard on her, even if what’s alleged above is too far.
 
 
it’s still worse than what the narrative tried to portray as an ideal figure.

Wasn’t the entire point of that sequence TWILIGHT f***ing up. I never thought the Queen was in the wrong at all. In fact if Twilight had trusted her friends… and did not decide to randomly try to steal this massively important relic… the Queen probably would have agreed to help out.  
The entire sequence was about TWILIGHT messing up because of the crazy pressure being put on her. Sure it is, to a degree, understandable… but at the same time… yeah.  
Twilight ‘Clouded’ it.

Facts

@Background Pony #E9CC  
Agreed Novo’s situation is never sufficiently explained to judge her. That’s the heart of the issue.
 
Those who like her seem to be those willing to make assumptions or rationals beyond what’s presented to justify her while those who dislike like her do so for the lack of such justifications in the movie.

I couldn’t judge her either way. Even if the comics alluded to a precursor of events to what occurred. Storm King brigade marches in, tries to take the pearl, wrecks havoc. Novo makes a last ditch to protect her subjects and runs. It is called a siege. Through out history, there have been many sieges and the defending party always high tails it to a place which they can defend, in this case, under the sea where they hid. Who knows of the relationship Novo had with Celestia, were they besties, did they have a defense pact, just a trade partnership or were they just mutually involved with another? So Novo’s obligation to warn anyone, how are we to know, perhaps Novo was a bigger ally to the griffons than the ponies and warned them first, maybe the storm king was keeping watch outside just to see if anyone would try to escape or surface to be an envoy for seeking help and perhaps they were intercepted before they could? There isn’t any telling.
 
Frankly though, if I were to be trapped under the water because of a mad adversary that threatened my kingdom I would be seeking help, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours type situation. However, Twilight wasn’t in the best of situations herself with her own kingdom lost, the risk of another failure was too high and that would of meant that no one would of ever been able to return to the surface.

I wonder how many people read each line of text in this image as one sentence except where there are punctuations.

Such hate is a definite unfair exaggeration, but the only ones I’ve seen claiming such are her defenders accusing others of saying it.
 
Her actions were justifiable, but the problem is they made Novo come off as more morally neutral when she was supposed to be presented as morally good as:  
1). The Storm Kinks army was so easily defeated by a small ragtag group there’s seemingly no morally good excuse for them hiding as opposed to fighting back.  
2). The first thing Celestia thought once they were attacked was Novo (over other allies) made it seem Novo was under some obligation to help Equestria.  
3). Her tragedies that would justify the above were not satisfactorily implied nor does she bring them up when justifying her actions (if they showed the Storm King’s death there’s no excuse for not even hinting at Novo’s husbands).  
4). She never took any risks, sacrifices, or inconveniences to do good that would make her happy ending feel deserved (she came close to helping before Twi screwed it up, but the above meant she didn’t have the justification for driving Twi to that point with her prior actions).
 
The alleged hate against her is unfair but it’s also unfair to say it’s baseless. Maybe they’re not hating Novo but just how she’s portrayed in the movie which failed to adequately convey her mitigating factors for her actions?

@Background Pony #FB72  
Well her stance would’ve been much more understandable and sympathetic if that’d actually been confirmed.

@Joshua  
I too see her as a very broken individual, who very likely lost her husband during the Storm King’s attack.

I see her neither as a monster or a coward. I saw her as an extremely defensive ruler who’s all but lost the will to trust anyone after the Storm King’s attack.

Yeesh, the way people are just being so nasty towards her makes me real upset. I wrote a Journal entry defending her, though given the lot here, they’ll just brush it off and continue attacking her.

This is first I’ve heard of her being an irredeemable monster, so this image is good for spreading that opinion I guess.

@Background Pony #5FE8  
Yes she is, only a coward would hide under the ocean knowing there is a deangerous threat attacking another nation and do nothing.

She wasn’t a monster, just a coward.

I think my issue is that there really doesn’t seem to be a downside to Seaquestria whatsoever. In fact half the citizens opt to stay even after the Storm King is defeated.
 
If her best interest lies only with the Hippogriffs (not a stretch, we’d never heard of Hippogriffs before the movie), and with her citizens 100% safe, there’s nothing pressuring her to help anyone else. (other than courtesy I guess) She is one of Equestria’s leaders, she should help the other leaders, and as some of you have pointed out, at least warn them? That seems like a big oversight, but the movie is full of so many plot oversights anyway. It didn’t even occur to me until reading your guys’s comments that this Queen we’ve never heard of before should’ve warned us about a threat we’ve never heard of before.
 
In short, while she is a jerk for not warning any other kingdoms, and hiding away like a coward, without pressure to want to leave her perfect little Seaquestria bubble, I can’t be too hard on Novo. Complacency is a nasty thing.

If she had tried to warn Equestria, since we’re assuming she and Celestia know each other, then I wouldn’t be too upset about not getting her subjects to join the fight.

Actually she’s irrelevant. A one shot character created for the movie. If she doesn’t get love, so what? It’s not a universal right. And if she gets hate, again, so what. People are inherently assholes who will complain even if you gave them money and free food.

The problem is that it’s not that she’s a monster. It’s that she cowardly hid away when she knew of the Storm King and the threat he posed. She didn’t bother trying to warn Equestria of the Storm King. Equestria was invaded and they cried for help, she arrogantly turned them away. Skystar was the only one who wanted to help, but instead of thanking her daughter, she decided to punish her. She didn’t do anything to help. She instead cowardly hides underwater while the rest of the world suffers.

@SteelBlade17  
She isn’t