I must say, this is a very interesting back story, since it doesn’t villify Celestia, yet, when thinking on how close Twilight is with her friends, you can easily understand why Sunset was lashing out. Then, a spur of the moment decision later, and she began to fall down the wrong path. After running away from her problems, rather than confronting them, she could easily form the wrong conclusion about friendship. Then, she came back and saw Twilight where she could have been, a princess standing proud with her friends, and so she stole the crown she felt should have been hers, and set the entire plot of the movie in motion.

You know, I appreciate you making this comic, cos it’s really made me think about the nature of “dark” or “evil” magic. I use quotations cos really, the idea of something, that is a thing, not a result, being inherently evil is kinda weird. Take cutting someone with a knife. Obviously bad. Why? Because it causes pain, injury and possibly death, which are bad results for the person they are happening to, and you have no right to enforce them upon someone. However, it is the results that makes it bad. So when a surgeon cuts into someone to operate on them, despite it still being someone cutting someone else with a knife, it is not bad.
 
So what is happening here? Well apparently there was a major threat to Equestria and they had a choice of ways to stop it, one which involved major risk of life to the combatants (Sunset Shimmer and her friends), and another which apparently did not, but did involve Sunset using an artefact which was known to be one of “dark” magic. Now, what’s apparently wrong with with that is if you use it, even for a good reason, you will end up choosing to use it to do bad stuff, i.e. you become “evil”. Now firstly, as this comic shows, you know what else can very easily make you evil? Having all your friends die, especially when there was another way of achieving what they died achieving. So if Celestia did not want Sunset to use the alicorn amulet because it might turn Sunset evil, well she became evil anyway, so that didn’t work!
 
So the first option had that disadvantage in common with the second but ALSO the downside of, well, Sunset’s friends ending up dead. Also how quickly does dark magic corrupt? Because unless it corrupts absolutely immediately upon use, unless it is THAT complete instantaneous (which would kinda like being someone being addicted to nicotine after just one cigarette, I don’t know, does that happen?), then all they have to do once they have defeated whatever the threat was would be for Sunset, knowing that keeping the amulet would make her evil, but with her not actually yet being evil, would do what a good person would do in that situation, which is give up the thing that will make them evil. So she simply gives the amulet to Celestia for safe keeping.
 
Should there arise other serious threats to Equestria in the future maybe Sunset would need to use it again, but it would depend on the threat, and how likely THIS particular use of her using it, taking into account the number of other times she has used it, will turn her evil. It would have to be decided on a case a case basis. Of course, what Princess Celestia and the ponies of Equestria should be doing is looking out for these threats before they happen, and be trying to prevent them from becoming such big threats in the first place. Another thing is that once whatever this threat was is defeated they should make a major effort in re-finding the Elements of Harmony. Should they manage to find them again, a lot of major threats seem to be defeatable by them, so there might not be a need to use the amulet again anyway.
 
In conclusion, if you have a choice between two options, where one of them involves something DEFINITELY bad (such as a major risk of people getting killed) and the other involves something where the only downside is it might (or even if it is will, if they keep doing it and keep the object they need to do it) turn the person who does it evil, then the correct choice, in my opinion, is to choose the second option. To do otherwise (again in my opinion) is not just stupid and wrong in a “correct and incorrect” sense, but wrong in a moral sense as well.
 
I’m not having a go at the comic; indeed I like how it has made me think about the nature of “dark” magic in fiction, and how kinda screwed up it is.

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk  
…Life is a gift you are undeserving of…

@441TheSecond I wanted to destroy something beautiful I’d never have. Burn the Zebrican rain forests. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on supertankers and uncap offshore oil wells. I wanted to kill all the fish I couldn’t afford to eat, and smother the French beaches I’d never see. I wanted the whole world to hit bottom. Pounding into that pony, I really wanted to put an arrow between the eyes of every endangered serpent that wouldn’t screw to save its species, every gryphon or pegasus giving up higher aspirations and choosing to live on the ground.

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk  
Seriously, the fuck is up with your dislike for her?

@441TheSecond  
I’d rather rub my balls in her face. While she’s immobilised, tied together with her own student. >;3

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk  
Yes, I get it, you hate Celestia, no need to keep rubbing your balls in my face.

@PonyPon I kind of want to see that. Especially since there’s a 90% chance the attacker could be Luna or Discord.  
In the public baths. >:}
 
@M1J  
Eh, depends on the era/genre too I reckon. My guess is the genre Celestia is in hampers her since having her being seen beating some serious ass might make little girls think gasp you can be a princess AND kick ass AND be a beloved national leader. Hasbro seems under the presumption you can only pick two.  
Which probably means Twilight is set up to fail hilariously bad this season.  
 
Need more princesses like this!^
 
@441TheSecond  
NLR UBER ALLES!  

 
 
@441TheSecond  
You forgot to mention she flies about as well as Scootaloo too!  
Oh! There’s an idea for her first ‘lesson’ to teach Celestia. The Twilight Sparkle Magic & Flying School is now open for business, and they already have their first two students!

@FanOfMostEverything  
Yeah, it’s pretty shitty.
 
Though the Worf Effect doesn’t work very well because we never saw Celestia showing any sort of combat efficiency, so instead of making the villain look more intimidating, it’s starting to make Celestia look less competent.

@441TheSecond  
Celestia has been saddled as FiM’s Worf. No pun intended.

@441TheSecond  
I agree; I guess the purer it is the more satisfying it is to corrupt. I think that’s a shenanigan World of Warcraft pulled off quite a bit. “Now that everyone is best friends… some of them will be corrupted by ancient gods.” “That guy betrayed you for no reason? Ancient corrupt gods” “Did you have a bad dream? Ancient corrupt gods.” “Dropped your ice cream? Ancient. Corrupt. Gods.”

@PonyPon  
…With exception of when Celestia is evil. Then she’s unstoppable until Luna/Twilight/OC de jour kicks her ass.

@441TheSecond  
Sorry, I guess all those fics and pics of Warlestia and Annihilestia tends to overshadow those things.

@PonyPon  
What are you talking about? Celestia being absolutely laughable in combat is one of the most common fanons out there. Fuck, considering that she needed help from the population in her own Micro, and that embarrassing defeat in ACW, that might as well be canon.

@FanOfMostEverything  
Well at least I got one thing right :b, thanks!

@M1J  
Once again, it all comes to personal preference, I am just tired of seeing Celestia always being evil or the bottom bitch, and want to see her actually being effective and heroic for a change.

@M1J  
Hey, don’t be discouraged, the ‘Celestia is important but could lose to a damp sponge’ theory isn’t nearly prevalent enough.
 
People could stand a little gray in their alignments.

@441TheSecond  
I have a theory that Celestia was never meant to necessarily be a combat specialist. The king may be the most important chess piece, but that doesn’t necessarily make it the most combat-effective.
 
I understand. Black and white good and evil works, and maybe having ambiguous viable moral alignments just don’t mix with MLP. Still, I wanted to experiment with it, and maybe that blew up in my face.
 
I know. That’s why I have to resort to other places for feedback like this. Thank you.

@FamusJamus  
Thanks, that really helped me out.

Considering the Elements had been lost for the time period being described here..

Needless to say, I do not like this.  
It’s another work that portrays Celestia as completely helpless and useless, who is incapable of doing anything without having to sacrifice the lives of innocents, and doesn’t even feel emotional turmoil about it. I also dislike that it’s another attempt at woobifying a villain, it feels cheap and tacked on, as if it justifies all the horrible things they do.
 
Also, grow some skin, this ain’t DeviantArt where people praise any fipper baby scribble you make.

@FanOfMostEverything  
Got it.

@nicktoonhero  
Sunset and five of her friends bore the Elements of Harmony. Some catastrophic entity forced Celestia to sacrifice the others, but Sunset contends that it would’ve have been necessary had she been permitted to use the Alicorn Amulet. Sunset, unable to forgive her mentor for throwing away the lives of her friends, leaves Equestria.

@FanOfMostEverything  
I know, but even when you don’t consider it canon, I have a hard time following what exactly happened here.

@nicktoonhero  
In the context of canon, it doesn’t. However, note the “alternate scenario” tag.
 
I do like this idea. It gives Sunset a more sympathetic angle, and I always like a villain who feels s/he’s doing the right thing.