@tyciol
If you had payed attention to season 4 episode 1 part 2 you will clearly see that Celestia did try to talk it out with Luna but nightmare moin had full controll, so don’t start trying to fit your headcannon into official cannon because you know fine you made it up in your head.
@Jarkes
Very good points. When you put it that way, Shining Armor’s absence is pretty huge.
Considering as well one of the ongoing story threads of season 4 is about Twilight trying to adjust to being royalty, and he’s captain of the royal guard…
Regarding the comments here: I’m more annoyed about the lack of appearances from Shining Armor. Appeared in all of two episodes during the season, during which he got much the same treatment Celestia did (barely did anything, and got worfed in the finale). They easily could’ve done more with him and Spike in Equestria Games, and he wasn’t even MENTIONED in “Three’s a Crowd.” You’d think that, as excited Twilight would have been to see Cadance, she would’ve at least been a LITTLE disappointed that Shining Armor couldn’t come visit as well. I get that he probably just needed to stay back at the Empire, but there’s not even a throwaway line to establish why he couldn’t come when it would’ve taken all of 5 seconds. And he’s not present in part 1 of “Twilight’s Kingdom” at all, when you’d think he would have also tried to comfort Twilight over her insecurities.
Celestia doesn’t deserve a focus until they properly deal with the immorality of her bullying Luna and hogging the spotlight, jailing her for an insanely (quite literally) long amount of time, and tricking Mane6 into mind-wiping her rather than talking it out.
it wasn’t all a random mishmash of her typical goodness and being good, but I get the feeling you caught such an impression not from the entire episode of ACW, but rather more from the memories Twilight had of Cadence. There’s lots of missed opportunities like that also in Three’s a crow, but this one could have easily been about Cadence, similar to how Luna Eclipsed was a Luna episode. That episode, even though not one of my favorite, did in fact solidify a character.
@441TheSecond
cont. at best, the episode just hinted towards a personality, only in a few parts, but never went anywhere with it. That’s not solidifying a character, that’s called not making use of a character due to keeping her image, I guess?. I honestly have no idea, either it was that, or it was the purpose of the story in showing she wasn’t bothered by Discord, which again, a personality does not give her, at least not anymore than ACW and Crystal Empire did.
Like you said here all she was in the episode was the same bundle of good qualities with no real purpose, or anything to give away some form of personality. She didn’t have a chance to let her personality just flow on its own that episode.
@441TheSecond
That’s what I like about Shining Armor and Princess Cadence, they started as tie-ins for Hasbro to make more toy profits but they became something much more which resulted in one of the best two-parters in the show and two of my favorite ponies.
@toxicitzi
I dunno, I found that Three’s a Crowd finally solidified a personality for Cadence, for the first time, I could see her as an actual character rather than an amorphous blob of random good qualities made to make little girls buy toys.
Now, it’s not a character I care or am particularly attached to, but still, a character none the less. I can appreciate the effort, at the very least.
@Red-Supernova
to be honest, not a whole lot was done with Cadence in Three’s a crowd, it was mostly a wasted opportunity on which a completely different idea was dumped, kind of like Bats! was with the whole conflict being completely ignored, just to set the stage for the abominable Fluttershy.
@toxicitzi
I’m fine with Luna getting more screentime but Celestia and Cadence are the ones who deserve it even more. This is why Three’s A Crowd is my favorite non-season opening/closing episode of Season 4.
While I love the opening and closing episodes of each season, I hate how her purpose is slowly turning into “plot device only” As we’ve seen in the comics, Celestia is capable of much more.
@Jerkface
more of Luna and Cadence? I’m pretty sure they got more than enough screentime this season (Three’s a crowd, For whom the Sweetie Belle toils, Equestria Games) to justify having Celestia at least be used in One episode.
it’s always the adventure episodes that feature her and every single time, she’s only used in there as the expository device for the new villain / story.
