Updated thoughts on A Canterlot Wedding.
I've been thinking about the whole love-sucking thing and other people's headcanons and my disagreements with them, and I realized a few things many years ago—and a few things now, a bit over 11 years later (the episodes were screened on April 14, 2012, and aired on television in the U.S. on April 21, 2012.)
So, there are some key conceits to this two-parter but I've glossed over the biggest:
These episodes are, at their core, an advertisement for a Princess Cadance toy.
Every single thing we see in the episodes stems from that.
In Part 1, we see flashbacks of Princess Cadance, who—it must be stressed—is a princess. This character is royalty, and she's royalty in Equestria in the MLP universe.
In this instance, she has a signature spell that can—at this time at least—only be cast by her. It is clearly something she developed, likely as some aspect of her duties as a princess. It is something that is unique to her specifically, because it is also marketing for a toy.
In order for the episodes to succeed as an advertisement for a toy, she must use this spell in the episode.
We'll call this Chekhov's Spell. It is shown in a flashback, and talked about with great fanfare, which means the spell is going to be used in the climax of the episode in order to save the day. Why? Because these episodes are an advertisement for a Cadance toy.
Unfortunately, spoilers:
Cadance is behaving very differently from her usual behavior—almost the opposite of her usual behavior, come to think of it—and it is eventually revealed that she has been replaced by a shapeshifter called a changeling. The imposter is narratively, thematically, functionally, and archetypically an "evil twin" whose behavior is the opposite of the original (compare the impostor's behavior throughout Part 1 to the montage at the end of Part 2 featuring the real Cadance), and this is important.
Now, Equestrian Magic as seen in Season 1 has three main components:
Emotion: the fuel source for the spell. Friendship is literally magic.
Concentration: the magic-user shapes the spell to accomplish a specific task or goal.
Physical effort: the magic-user casts the spell. The larger or more powerful the spell, the more of a physical toll it takes.
In season 1, Twilight Sparkle casts a spell that allows her to lift a very distant, very large, and very heavy structure that was initially filled with water and was later filled with milk—and in doing so, she plants her feet, grits her teeth, scrunches her eyes, and visibly struggles. She then also lifts an enormous heavy animal AND the water tower, and transports them into the Everfree and into a cave that the animal emerged from in the first place.
Casting takes a physical toll on the caster, and that toll might be nothing or it might be significant depending on the circumstances of the spell. Twilight herself explicitly states that magic takes concentration and effort twice in Season 1.
Here's Twilight collapsing after she finishes:
This is going to come up later in this essay.
So, Cadance's signature spell (presumably using her love as fuel) takes magic out of her, converts it into love energy, and puts that love into a pony as an act of giving (altering the pony's mood and thought process, which is Totally Not Creepy At All™.)
Reminder that this is a toy commercial for a Princess Cadance toy.
Within that boundary, our changeling imposter—the evil twin who behaves opposite to the original—is revealed to fundamentally function by doing the opposite of Cadance's spell.
The changeling queen takes love out of a pony, converts it into magic, and puts it into herself! Cadance specifies that the changelings "gain power" by doing this, suggesting that they either need to fuel their magic with stolen emotion, or that they wish to increase the power of their magic with stolen emotion.
The thing that makes Cadance marketable unique is the opposite of her evil twin's entire schtick! Queen Chrysalis is the figurative and literal opposite of Cadance's whole deal—not just her behavior but her signature spell! The evil changeling's behavior is the opposite of how the real Cadance would behave; the evil changeling's love-sucking is a thematic and literal reversal of the thing that Princess Cadance does!
The corollary then is that Princess Cadance's signature spell is the thematic and literal reversal of Queen Chrysalis' love-sucking.
Cadance's signature spell is Chekhov's Spell—and is what is used to market the Cadance toy. This means that Cadance's love-installation spell is going to save the day... by installing love in someone.
Someone who Chrysalis has drained to the point where only installing love can save them.
We see ponies under Chrysalis' mind control spell in Part 2:
Contrast with Shining Armor:
Shining Armor isn't merely in a trance because of Chrysalis using a mind control spell on him; Shining Armor has been drained dry. He's empty. No love, no passion, just apathy to the point where he can be controlled easily.
(I'm sure there's a metaphor in here somewhere, something something Neverending Story maybe?)
(Well, I was close.)
(Shut up, Gmork!)
Although maybe a better take might be Elie Wiesel's famous quote:
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”
As a side note, Shining Armor does get mind-controlled but briefly:
Then Cadance saves the day by reinstalling love into Shiny.
Same visual effect and everything.
Shining Armor awakens from his trance, with an emphasis on "awakens"; he is groggy and confused. A villainous monologue ensues and Shiny stands tall, glares, glowers, bares his teeth, and is clearly ready to kick Queen Chrysalis' butt.
Cadance encourages Shiny to use his signature spell, and the guy with the cutie mark of a shield with a magic symbol on it attempts to cast a magic shield.
What happens next is more easily understood if you've ever worked a job doing manual labor. I mentioned earlier that magic requires emotion (in this case love) as fuel; concentration to shape the spell; and physical effort to cast it.
Twilight collapsed after lifting and transporting a water tower and a very large bear.
Shiny is trying to create a magic shield the size of a city with only the small amount of love that Cadance installed in him to wake him up—and he can't: he doesn't have enough fuel.
The logical thing to do when you realize you can't do something is to stop.
The problem is that Shiny, like many people, is an illogical creature and so he does what many, many people do when they find they can't do something: he tries harder.
And harder. And harder.
Remember that magic requires physical effort to cast. What happens when you actually continue trying to do something physical that you can't physically do?
Your heart rate increases.
Your pulse rate increases (because of your heart rate.)
Your blood pressure rises.
Your body temperature rises.
You perspire.
There are other symptoms I am missing, but the end result is you begin to develop a medical condition called "exhaustion" which is not merely "being tired." Keep trying hard enough for long enough and by the time you finally stop trying, you are drenched in perspiration, your heart is pounding in your chest, your breathing has changed, you can hear a rushing sound in your ears, everything hurts, and when you stop, you immediately go limp. (Hi, I have personally done this; don't do this!)
At this point it is prudent for someone to help you into a chair in a cool room and administer first aid because you are at risk of heart attack, stroke, heat exhaustion, and all this other stuff that can kill you. This is not "being tired", this is dangerous.
Shining Armor tries to cast, and tries, and strains, and strains, to no effect... and then he finally stops and goes limp, drenched in perspiration from the effort, displaying clearly identifiable symptoms of exhaustion.
We have learned throughout Season 1 that unicorn magic takes concentration and effort. Shiny is not some exception to this rule!
Shiny's exhaustion was caused by his failed attempt to cast a spell the size of a city without any fuel.
At this point Cadance leverages her signature spell—the reverse of the changeling's feeding technique—and essentially uses herself as an external battery to give Shiny the fuel he needs to cast a spell the size of a city which somehow only expels the invading army while leaving the residents and guests unharmed.
So, why is any of this confusing to the layperson?
Well, the layperson isn't trained to recognize and treat exhaustion; misidentifies the symptoms as side effects of fever instead of side effects of exertion; and assumes that Shining Armor is near the point of collapse because Chrysalis fed on him—despite his ready-to-kick-Chrysalis'-butt behavior and stance immediately preceding a bunch of physical exertion.
This is then compounded by Katie Cook's (and by extension, Andy Price's) assumption—based on this symptom misidentification—that changeling love-sucking is functionally identical to the modus operandi of The Wraith from "Stargate: Atlantis": quasi-insectile aliens with doubled voices who suck the life out of their victims, resulting in rapid aging and death.
So, we get a comic book with illustrations of changeling victims withering and dying as seen in a science fiction TV show from the 2000s which has nothing to do with emotion-sucking vampires in a cartoon and everything to do with lifeforce-sucking vampires in a live-action sci-fi show. This then reinforces readers' existing misapprehensions with regard to changeling love-sucking.
Anyway, this rant is a delayed response to a bunch of blogs a decade ago ignoring the subtext and thematic and narrative elements and arbitrarily deciding that changeling love-sucking is lethal based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Shining Armor's symptoms and when those symptoms set in.
This then allows those blogs to justify killing changelings because the Canterlot Guard have Chekhov's Spears, and therefore they need to kill someone—and it might as well be the parasitic insectile menace because American movie audiences don't seem to understand that "Starship Troopers" (1997) was a practical joke/experiment on American movie audiences (and the majority of viewers failed the test), but they did like "Aliens" (1986).
And since none of those blog admins have the slightest understanding of the Geneva Conventions (or the UCMJ, or the Hague Conventions, or the body of U.S. Military Law going back at least as far as 1882, or god(s) forbid the Articles of War or the Law of Armed Conflict) we get "Hey, let's have the Canterlot Guard give no quarter and execute enemy prisoners in custody and face no consequences! Also jokes about torture! Because applying/obeying military law selectively instead of uniformly is clearly a great and effective way to maintain good order and discipline; I'm sure nothing can possibly go wrong if we apply the Uniform Code of Military Justice selectively! Obviously Special Forces are 'Special' because they get to ignore all the military laws that absolutely everyone else in the army (including the brass) has to follow! OLC unilaterally said that illegal combatants are not party to Geneva, and then failed to ever define what the phrase 'illegal combatant' means, so it must be true!"
Side vent about Queen Chrysalis' motivations as a megalomaniacal lying sociopathic narcissist and (perhaps more importantly) a despot: the Canterlot Invasion was never actually about food; Chrysalis has inserted herself into the process to keep herself necessary and uses it as a carrot for her soldiers. When she tells the ponies it's about finding food, she is either lying or at least shading the truth.
(Side note, Season 6 later confirms that Chrysalis' own actions were keeping her army starving and desperate; the question is whether those actions were—as I strongly suspect—deliberate in order to point her people at external enemies in order to keep herself necessary and cling to power. You know, like most human despots.)
After they bring the Mane 6 to her, Chrysalis orders a large squad of her soldiers to "Go!" and then qualifies that instruction with "Feed!"—to get them out of the room, only giving away her actual motives during a music number once the soldiers are safely out of earshot.
Seriously, she literally closes the door behind them so they won't hear her gloating.
🎶 "Every pony I'll soon control; every stallion, mare, and foal!" 🎶 has nothing to do with food, but has everything to do with a malignant narcissist and despot who repeatedly demonstrates an obsession with being obeyed, whether it be by Shining Armor (e.g. "Are you disagreeing with me?!") or anyone else. This isn't about food, it was never about food; it's about conquest, but her army doesn't realize it. If it was about food, that would have been explicitly mentioned in the musical number.
Seeing Season 6
and then Season 8
actually confirm that Chrysalis' obsession with ruling is her prime motivation in all things warmed the cockles of my little black heart.
Anyway, enough ranting, at least for now. Getting that off my chest felt good.
EDIT: I have never served—partly due to chronic health issues, partly due to research. But a good friend later enlisted and fought in Afghanistan and went career; he’s the most ethical guy I know, period; and I have asked him questions about U.S. Military Law and the Rules of Engagement, Geneva, etc. It's all public-facing stuff, but it's easier and more reliable for me to ask someone with actual experience instead of looking stuff up on the internet and hoping Wikipedia is accurate.