The biggest problem I have with this is that you can't tell how many ponies were drained off-screen. If Tirek drained 2k ponies, an alicorn is now as powerful as 1k ponies. Also, I would assume that Tirek betrayed Discord not because he gained the power of a few more ponies, but because he thought he had stopped the danger that the elements of harmony represented to his plan. Twillight alone can't do as much as all 6 of them combined.
Season 5 and 7 provide extra data points to consider. Season 5's finally has a single unicorn match Twilight in magical combat, indicating her personal power is not much greater then a non-alicorn can achieve. In season 7, that same unicorn is able to switch the magic and cutie marks of two other princesses, a feat which implied either her power was greater then their own or that moving their power is an easy feat. I further note, in season 3, Celestia was able to cast a spell that protected the Elements from Discord's magic. I suspect her normal difficulties were not because his magic is greater then hers, but rather that it is different at a fundamental level then that which Ponies use, making it hard to counter. Finally, Twilight and Tirek were close enough in power to fight each other, but there is a difference in skill and intent to consider. Twilight was inefficient in her use of magic, and was not inclined to minimizing damage to Tirek. Tirek needed Twilight beaten down but alive to drain, so was likely limiting how hard he hit her; enough to break bones, but not to risk an instant kill. I suggest the answer to the question of how powerful the Alicorn Princesses are is the same as for the question of How Strong is Superman: exactly as much or as little as the writers want/need them to be.
Actually, your assumption is that Starlight is somehow average, which is definitely not the case. It shows that Starlight has the magical potential to match an average alicorn. Also, Starlight's magical strength goes up exponentially with anger or stress.
And we all know how pissed off Starlight was. Also they were fighting in the sky, so Twilight was probably holding back as to not accidently knock her out and send her falling.
Strlight doesn't even need to use magic to stand on clouds, if this is not overpowered i don't know what is! She's not more powerful than Celestia or Luna, but definitely more powerful than Twilight or Cadence (And Flurry Heart at her actual age) She can be stopped, but not really with magic, as magic is what she's the best at!
Brilliant! Also I must clarify that Starlight is a prodigy in terms of magic but not an overpowered monster. Elder Alicorns are more Powerfull than the most skilled Unicorn but not at the insane godlike level that the fandom generaly asume. They are not Gods!
Perhaps I should clarify further. There have been many instances during the show where the Alicorns have each shown high levels of personal power when doing so resolved key plot points. There have also been many instances where the same Alicorns have proven incapable of solving various problems using their magic. Yes, I used Starlight as an example of a Unicorn that could match or exceed their abilities, but that was only one example. Trying to put a number on any of the abilities in the show only works if the writers all agree with said numbers. The only semi-official numbers ever given was that Celestia and Luna can raise and lower the sun and moon with ease, and without them it takes a hundred Unicorns working together to raise and lower the moon with great effort. If we exclude any "boosting" from their "special talents", this would imply each of the Royal Sisters are at least 100 times more powerful then the average Unicorn. Since Celestia was able to raise and lower the moon on her own for one thousand years when her "talent" is for raising the sun, then her personal power must be over 100 times that of a regular pony... .... And the first time Celestia got into a one on one fight on screen she lost. Whenever the plot required her to be sidelined, she proved useless. She is only as powerful; as the story allows, and how powerful that is changes from story to story. The same is true of the other Alicorns as well; twice Twilight was able to immobilize every Pony in a wide area, yet she was unable to stop a single (admittedly powerful) Unicorn when said Unicorn was threatening to destroy history. Cadence was able to shield the Crystal Empire for days, but was captured by a changeling off screen. The list goes on and on.... Let's not try to put numbers on what the Alicorns can do. Rather, let's enjoy watching what they choose top do instead.
Given the fact the normal unicorn Starlight was able to fight Twilight to a standstill, I’m pretty sure magic has its own set of rules, and cannot be so easily measured.
I agree and don't forget Starswirl. Both them have incredible amount of magic as a unicorn so yeah like you said magic isn't so easily measured. Or it's just the fact that they know a lot of spells along the way making them as powerful or equal to an alicorn, whereas an alicorn is given that amount of magic but has to get used to that amount first before unleashing it's full potential.
Starlight is probably prepared in season 5 Twilight was not prepared for what Starlight was doing and we've seen the Twilight went back in time for hours And in the duel between Twilight and Starlight we see both of them tired. Twilight used more strength then Starlight, and Starlight is a better aim person. So ig Starlight is more skilled in dueling and Twilight has more raw power And possesses more knowledge in magic. So in the end Twilight is more powerful 🤷♀️
Firstly Gears, your logic is flawless. However, I’m going to use a realistic point of view, rather than a mathematical one. So looking back at all of the times we have seen Discord, he has shown tremendous magical prowess, where as he is more powerful than Luna and Celestia, none of the Mane 6 can defeat him on their own, without the Elements of Harmony, and even Starlight in the season 6 finale saying that he could, and I quote, “take on the entire Changeling army by sneezing if he wanted to.” Discord has even claimed that he can bend reality at his will whenever he pleases, and has claimed in Keep Calm and Flutter On, that he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Going back to the season 4 finale though, we clearly see that his chaotic magic is taken away from him by Tirek. Nevertheless, I still think this was only possible because of one reason. Discord was caught off guard. He was betrayed and was baffled at how it felt to be on the receiving end of it. If he would have known about it, and wasn’t surprised at this, I’m sure he could have defeated Tirek, unless one of Tirek’s abilities is that however powerful he gets the more magic he is able to drain. I still believe this is highly unlikely for Discord. When we look at Tirek, he is imposing, and large, but he can only drain magic, and shoot magic energy blasts from his horns, and make stuff levitate. Because he is this large, he must be very durable right? If he was about Discord’s size, but still had the same amount of power then it’s safe to assume that Twilight would have mopped the floor with him, but the writers had to have a large, powerful, imposing, and deadly villain this time. Discord could probably go to Tirek’s height if he wanted to. Discord is the most powerful being in Equestria if you think about it. His magic makes no sense, he is unpredictable, and very clever. The only thing holding him back is himself. Because, he doesn’t take anything seriously. If he did, he’d already rule Equestria right now.
Thank you!!!! I was thinking the EXACT same thing: Discord, is a god. In their world, he is GOD. There is no going above what he is. All the ponies and alicorns should be very grateful that he doesn't really want to rule Equestria anymore, because he friggin would and no one would be able to stop him without the elements. And the ONLY thing that was his downfall before, was his own arrogance. His ego is so huge that he just gave his opponents the oppertunities to do him in, because he was so confident that they couldn't find any way to do it, aka, underestimating your enemy, which is something no one should ever do. He could teleport on a dime, bend all of reality at his will, it's a damn good thing that he is a jokester and a trickster, because if he had a serious personality and was determined to rule? There would literally be no stopping him, what so ever. Cuz he can make ANYTHING happen. You show up to his door? You just got turned inside out and now your guts on the outside. Think you can escape? BAM thrown into another world and dropped into a pit of wolves or something. There would be NO stopping him what so EVER if he didn't have such a big ego and was more serious. It's a good thing this guy is funny, because the ponies would be screwed if he wasn't.
Holy heck, your nephew was easily able to teach me something teachers never could! Congrats Gears! As for Discord, his magic is chaos at its purest form. It’s not that it is omnipotent, rather that it what he needs it to be at that moment. For example, if he was trapped in a cage with, say, Twilight, he would promptly walk through the bars and grab something comical, before returning to his cage with no problem. This is because it’s a comedic route, and the non-logical “cartoon-logic” that comes with a being of chaos. However, if Discord was trapped in a cage with Fluttershy, he very well couldn’t do the “leave and return” trick because his thoughts would be on saving his friend, rather than just doing what feels right. (I know he can teleport but that’s not where I’m getting) I call his powers “cartoon logic” because they’re much the same to older cartoons. A few examples that fit him quite well would be: Roger Rabbit Beetlejuice (the cartoon in particular) In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, you see the very same trick used as I just explained, where Roger points out he can only escape when it’s “funny”. As for Beetlejuice... he shares a lot of similarities with Discord. At the point where Tirek took Discord’s Magic, it was “unexpected”, and he had been learning friendship at this point, so his chaos was dulled by the want for friendship and the guilt of tricking his first friend and her friends. Had he been at his full, chaotic potential, we would’ve gotten a better indication to his power. Just something I thought I’d point out, since chaos magic is something I know my way around.
You guys seem to forget that specialty is also important here. Taking as an example Discord and Celestia, what we have seen so far is that Discord is the master of transformation and teleportation and Celestia seems to be mastering telekinesis (she raises the sun every day after all) and a combat magic at some point. Rating them with the argument "who won" isn't a good way to value their magic. It's like taking two children, that one is good at painting and the other is good at sculpting and rating them basing on their ability to write. Sure, painting, sculpting and writing is considered as art, but specialties are different. I'm not a math nerd, but I'm pretty sure it should be considered too. Does that make sense?
Uh, not quite. Okay, it has been stated by show runners and writers that Tirek had absorbed nearly all the ponies in Equestria, the montage was just to show he was going to many towns and absorbing their magic, so already the "XPonies" calc is way WAY off." Lets start with speed. Nightmare Moon who is relative to Celestia was able to react to an elements of Harmony blast, which was able to reach the moon in 2 seconds, this would mean that NMM roughly has 50% Light speed reaction speed and possible travel speed. For power, Celestia is capable of moving the sun, many stars casually in fact. He Attack potency would be ranging from multi star level to Solar System level. This does not mean she can destroy a solar system, it means she has the raw magical force needed to harm a physical being with durability equivalent to a Star or a Solar System. Luna should be relativtic to Celestia so she would be around the same level. Twilight, Starlight, and Starswirl would all be planetary based on feets seen in two parters and external lore. Drwolf almost had the right Discord explanation but quickly abandoned it. In Shadow Play we see that the Pillars have a certain amount of light magic in them that differentiates them from others, it is what allowed them to use Ponehenge to banish the Pony of Shadows. It is not only implied that the mane 6 have the same level of magic, but even more of it within them. So when Tirek absorbed their magic, it wasn't just their base EP, Pegasus, or Unicorn magic, but their very light/harmony magic. Which allowed him to overpower Discord because mane 5/6 magic>>Discords magic. This is shown when just those 5 powers make Tirek significantly bigger and allow hem to shatter Discords wrist chains, which were growing with Tirek. Discord is by far the most powerful being in MLP but he has very specific counters that Tirek can manipulate. Discord has universal feats after all. Gears is pretty good at this, but he was way off in terms of their actual power level and scaling
I agree with this for the most part. Discord being Universal is a possibility but it depends on how much chaos he is inflecting/around. But yeah, respect for Gears for doing all that math, but based on feats in the show, he is way off on just how powerful an Alicorn is.
I know this is late, but Discord being the strongest being is very controversial. There are characters with better feats such as Nightmare Moon, Cosmos, Tirek(when he reaches his og power in season 4 finale Canterlot), Twilight, and Grogar are all characters with better feats/scaling
Wow, who knew algebra wasn't completely useless X3 Although I think using 68 as the number of ponies Tirek drained magic from kinda throws the whole thing off...
I think Twilight may be the most powerful one. The reason why I think this is that Princess Celestia knows that Twilight could overpower her and that's why celestia is so persistence on confirming that Twilight is an equal among the Alicorns. so my logic is the power of friendship (PF)PF>AMEP(all magic of Equestria ponies.)This means T>C,C,LD.and that means Twilight could have defeated tirac on her own. so and if Twilight knows she has a lot of power because she is the Alicorn of the most powerful force and it was confirmed by twilight that alicorn magic and friendship magic are two different types from this line:Twilight: I may have given you my alicorn magic but inside me I carry the most powerful magic of them all.so Twilight is very powerful at the point. I think this is the point where she realizes how powerful she might be. this might be making her afraid of using it. Who wouldn't be? This would explain why starlight was able to match twilight and why she was capture by the changelings.There will be a point where she is force to use her full power to win. and I think I know how.Nightmare moon, Daybreaker, Discord, King sombra, Chryslsis, Tirac, the shadow pony, and the essence of Nightmare inferno, Midnight sparkle, the siren magic, Gaiga everfree, and juniper demon form as one powerful being.
Good theory doc and gear!!! well i think their power depends on their destinies. you see,Princess celestia has i guess more than the power she needs to raise the sun because she can raise both how do i know so?because after princess luna's banishment princess celestia took the responsibility of both the sun and the moon. and yeah i agree that they have less power than discord because his destiny is unlimited chaos right? and princess cadence,she gets her power from the crystal heart and the LOVE of the crystal ponies and others! since her destiny is Love she is the princess of love! and twilight? she is the MOST powerful in my opinion why? because her power can be raised up as much as poweful her friendship is towards her friends ^^. So could've happened wih sunset shimmer and starlight if they have experienced the same situations or something like princess twilight
My personal theory regarding Discord's level of power is this: Discord's magic makes it look like he has a lot of "power" (with the reality warping, and all that) but it is actual the "nature" of his chaos magic that makes him nearly unstoppable, and i personally believe that he only has a "little" more "power" than either Celestia or Luna has. Still, this was a nice video :)
Nice, math.(seems legit)But I always think power of unicorns not as great as many thought to be.(#unicornnotmasterrace) In Boast Busters episode Twilight said that unicorns had a Little magic and can use spells in area of their special talent. So since then I always thought that Celestia can rise the Sun not because of her power(though she very powerful), but because of her cutie mark she need to use far less power than unicorns use before founding of Equestria.
boast buster has long been retconned i feel. its implid unicorns can improve their magical attributes and learn new spells. twilight and starlight have advantages in that regard however because of their specialization in spells. spells in their cutie mark catgeory is simply natural spellwork. like rarit''s gem finder spell. since then she has laso shown a considerable bit of energy and control form telekinesis and magic to repair things. However it would say that a pony with a cutiemark in one regard is better at that talent or magic than most others. thus twilight could learn rarity's gem spell, but rarity will always be superior to her.
Even if all of the premises were correct (they are not); this final value would be the LEAST magic the "median" alicorn princess could had related to a "median" pony. . Energy output (blasts) increases quadratically with the amount of "magical potential" [the thing Tirek eats] accumulated. -> This is based both on the scale of the damage shown through multiple episodes using the same spell by Twilight at her maximum mental state (highest level unicorn [S2E26], Lesser Alicorn [S4E02]; Super Alicorn [S4E26]); correlative to the increse in size of Tirek´s body being limited by the enhancing on his muscles and bones (squared, not cubed). There are many considerations not taken into account in this analisis: . Discord´s "magical potential" is probably weaker than Celestia or Luna. The only reason they could not "defeat" Discord is his ability to block their abilities (he was shown to be able to remove Celestia´s tail onscreen without her noticing it [S4E01]; then he did the same with the mane six´s wings and horns [S2E01]). -> Discord can not steal magical potential, with the Elements of Harmony providing both passive levitation and "laser shooting" to each of their bearers regardless their pony kind [S2E02]; even if he removed Luna & Celestia´s horns they would have sealed him in stone anyways. . Tirek could probably drain Discord´s magic as early as the time he could do it with many pegasi at once (since Discord posseses the same basic cloudwalking and flying magic from one of his wings). -> The reason Tirek waited was to get as much information as posible [plus the convinience of teleportation from Discord, since Tirek aparently can only open portals to other planes (but not teleport himself)]. . Once Discord give him leverage that will ensure the last one standing against him will surrender [Super Twilight]; he felt secure enough to try taking everything by himself [also it would be dangerous having Discord around and free (even if it was on his side) making jokes and pranks on the heat of the battle]. -> "Once a traitor, always a traitor" (it does not matter WHO Discord betrayed: himself or the ponies, it was a ticking bomb ready to explode on Tirek´s face at the worst moment). . Rainbow Dash probably has much more "magical potential" than most (if any other) living pegasus. The sonic rainboom (ground fullblast mode) [S2E03] and her "epic use" of cloudmolding to levitate 5 mares a few hundred meters up [S3E07]; sugest her being the equivalent of a "highest_level pegasus". -> There is also the actual "antigravity potential" measurement done in S2E22 for Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and many other pegasi (both of them being way outside the "standard deviation" ); with the bonus of luttershy having two measurements (pre and post training). . Something similar with the feats of strenght of Applejack, BigMac and Maud Pie [also the alternate reality of S5E25 showed that the max potential for Pinkie Pie (war mode) on strenght being similar to her older sister]. . It is unclear if Tirek absorved or not the magic from Spike (who with his "Spikezilla" supermode [S2E10] could destroy buildings with ease and lift himself over a mountain while holding stuff with his tail and one of his claws). If it was the case, his adition could completely compensate the relative "weakness" of Rarity and Fluttershy. . There must be an anti-teleport spell around the Canterlot Castle; as otherwise Discord would had moved himself and Tirek directly to the throne room [instead of having to walk through the ground doors and then the bridges shown on S4E26 before reaching their true targets]. This implies Tirek absorbed a much higher number of guards than the ones onscreen.
Here's my rating on how powerful all of the mlp characters #1 Discord #2 Star Swirl #3 Average alicorn #4 Starlight Glimmer #5 Average pony #6 Teric (when in custody)
Hey Doc!! Nice work with Gears, I think he's got it in him to go far! That said though, there is another point to consider. The raising of the Sun and Moon. While we don't have exact numbers, the idea of needing close to 32 to 33 Ponies (Unicorns) to move either body with their combined magic, makes sense from a Lore perspective. As even with those numbers, the Unicorns eventually lost their magic permanently as a consequence. So not just power, but the Cutie Mark attunement to the body in question would produce the result we see between the sisters...However...this leads me to a concern. Between the Sisters especially, I believe Luna is currently the Strongest, with Twilight being the strongest of all 4 Alicorns without an amplifiers. Why do I think this? Simple: Celestia moved the Moon, presumably alone, for 1,000 years. Now there might be mitigating factors, such as the Elements' lingering magic effecting the Moon making it less difficult for Celestia, or perhaps Luna's own magic being stuck there being a factor. Regardless, Celestia had to do roughly 33 Unicorns' magic worth of work each day WITHOUT an attunement via Cutie Mark to mitigate the strain. Then I suppose then next question to ask is: Why then is Celestia still able to move the Sun? Two ideas come to mind, first is that Cutie Mark talents are so ingrained, Celestia's actual strain to raise and lower the Sun might be MUCH less than the average pony. A rough guess would be a higher tier Unicorn like Sunset Shimmer or Twilight (Before Alicorn status) with said Cutie Mark would be able to do it routinely. The other option I think, if we take the strain into account, Celestia's Magical Power must have been greater than Luna's if only by a certain margin in the past. This would in turn lead to another question. How did Nightmare Moon beat Celestia and require her to use the Elements of Harmony? Depending on which camp you fall into. Nightmare Moon being a Nightmare entity that possessed Luna or Nightmare was just an alternate personality brought on by a Psychotic break and use of Dark magic, either case became a Force Multiplier, or at least an additional boost that put her over-the-top. Now, if this is true, and if the only power she lost was her Nightmare enhanced boost by the time she was back in Equestria and returned to normal, why isn't that more clear? Trauma, from what she did to herself and her sister, and being hit by the Elements. Remember in Tantabus, that happening again and again is her Nightmare, her punishment, so it could NOT have been pleasant. Nothing limits potential like a real traumatic experience. Plus, in the same episode we may have seen the upper limit of her power. With it being split between the Tantabus itself and her holding up an entire dreamscape with so many ponies using it to fight what was essentially her own power? Yeah, Luna is NO SLOUCH in the power department, especially when the Tantabus returned to her...all that power, and due to her Sister's current "example", she keeps it under wraps. But what about Flurry Heart's crystalling? They seemed to BOTH be struggling about the same amount to hold the storm back? See above, Luna is following Celestia's lead. It would make sense if Tia never told Luna about her loss of overall magic that Luna would take her cue, holding her power back until her sister "Decided to get serious" and go all out. Besides, they both had to use their power to restore the Crystal Heart, and that is NOT a small amount of power, I'd wager. As such from Luna's perspective holding back despite the damage and discomfort from the ice would seem a wise move overall, though likely it was because Celestia COULDN'T push harder than that, and had to strain after a rest to help restore the Crystal Heart. Overall, I feel that between the sisters, Luna is the stronger...but again, I think Twilight could be stronger in sheer Magical Potential than all of them. And for those interested, YES, the strain from 1,000 years WOULD be why I think Tia was bested by Chyssi at the end of Season 2, after all 2 to 3 months or so is NOT enough time for a possible permanent drop in power level to be mitigated...plus her destructive potential might have lead her to hold back anyway, the argument there is old and I'm older so there! But that's a rant for a different day. If interested let me know. Great work, and I'll see you all next time!!
DRWolf and Gears Dazzlehorn, Take in for account the Alicorn magic is 3-fold( Earth, Pegasi, and Unicorn). So the variable that Gears presents is feasible to 1/3, plus their each individual magic themselves.
Dobie Tanpaw A hypothesis is an idea that could be tested out to determine if it's true. A theory, however, is an idea that really can be tested in a sense but never can be confirmed to be true until proven to be true by the source that the theory was made over. The reason a school science project has hypotheses instead of theories is because the people working on said projects have enough items and information to create a testable idea and determine whether or not their ideas were true. As of now, we have no idea as to whether or not this subject of alicorn magic will ever be discussed in the series. We still have yet to be given more information before we can confirm or deny if what Gears and Dr. Wolf are saying is true. And if this was merely a hypothesis, and if what you're saying about it is true, I think MatPat would have to change his RUclips channel's name from "The Game Theorists" to "The Game Hypothesists" or something along those lines.
Fiddle Dee Dee a theory is a well substantiated explanation of something, based on information that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Whereas a hypothesis is an idea or explanation that you then test through study and experimentation. In this case, what they are presenting is more of a hypothesis than a theory. And while I do not watch MatPat's Game Theorists channel, I do watch his Film Theorists channel. And I would have to say that a lot of what he presents is actually hypothesis, not theory... But like I said in my initial comment, I'm being overly pedantic. In common usage, Theory and Hypothesis are synonyms. Besides the term "Fan Theory" sounds a whole lot better than "Fan Hypothesis"...
A part of me wonders, because of Nightmare Moon & Daybreaker, that Celestia & Luna are both holding back, but that is kind of nulled out because of how they struggled against Discord! Awesome video!
Very sound logic to calculate the power out put of an Alicorn. However I believe the users own 'self' also adds some power/boost to their natural magic, yet when it's used by a stranger/someone else it does not have quite the same power/out put. Just my own take on things. :)
So many unknown variables to keep track of (i mean, it is only 2 other variables but still). An alicorn, based off of that math, is just 68P > D > 2A which goes to 34P > D/2 > A. So an alicorn could technically have a power level of 1 and the inequality would still work.
Vary nicely calculated I must say! However, there are things people tend to overlook when analysing Twilight and Tirek's fight, as well as Discord. One thing everyone forgets to factor in. Skill. Discord is probably a lot older then Celestia and Luna, so he could probably beat them with wits and skill sence they were a lot younger and less experienced back then. There's also something else I've noticed. In season 2 we actually see Discord's magic mear the end of the second episode appear around his claw, and it's gold. In season 4 when Tirek steals it, it's all chaotic looking. Why? I'm thinking that perhaps Discord messed with his own magic so Tirek wasn't able to use it properly. He is the spirit of chaos, I wouldn't put it past his ability to do so. Or maybe it's not that at all, and what I first mentioned is the diciding factor. Skill is something people seem to forget about when analysing this show. How did Starlight keep up with Twilight in their fight? Skill! She studied Twilight and planned everything out. Including learning aerial combat. She knew Twilight could fly, andI doubt Twilight was ever expecting to have to fight a unicorn in an aerial fight. Tirek seems to me like someone who uses his cunning and tricks only when he needs to. But as soon as he's powerful enough, he starts to just muscle his way through things. If, and I mean IF this is true (I'm not going to pretend like I have proof or anything. Because I don't), then perhaps Twilight could only fight him to a stand still because she was actually casting attack magic, wail Tirek, who I doubt went to a library and studied up on how magic had progressed sence he'd been locked up, might have just been blasting out raw unfocused magic. Or at least less focused then Twilight's. If this was true, then if Twilight's attacks held just as much power as Tirek's, then hers would probably cut through his because his attack wasn't as concentrated. But if his had more power, then his attack would be able to fight her more focused blast yo a stalemate. Though there is one other thing people tend to forget about. And that's that they didn't actually fight for vary long. Were they actually evenly matched? Or were they just pushing out as much magic as possible, and eventually one would overpower the other. Though that's admittedly a stretch. But it's still something nobody serms to think about. Anyway, thank you for reading! Sincerely, Guardian Blade the positive analyser of Equestria Amino. Ps. If you need a quick analysis of something, just look me up on EQ Amino. I can be busy at times, but I'm quite willing to help.
well in my opinion, IF each pony were the same "indiferent of type (earth,unicorn,pegasus)" and we accept that "alicorns have the best traiths of each" THEN at MINIMUM they have "3 times base power" + longetivity" so in my head they simple have a "mana bar" that is BIGGER the Str & COn of an earth pony, the Dex of a pegasus (+wings & wheater control) + Unicorn magic (I do not know if it is CHA or Int to cast) so they have "unicorn magic x 3" "pegasus flight x 3" or "eath pony durability x 3" IF they choose to "put all eggs in one basket" and the main reason why celestia & luna are SO POWERFULL is simply SKILL, they had AT MINIMUM 1000 years of practice twilight had "magic" as a SPECIAL TALENT and 16 times the mana she had as an unicorn durring the tirek fight, TIREK was STRONGER but LACKED any form of magick proficiency, Or in "dbz terminology" Tirek was "broly" twilight was "imperfect cell" ( i say immperfect because broly is weaker than ssj2)
If were talking purely raw magical energy then the equations work fine but 'power' and 'energy' are not the same thing a ponies 'power' is there energy plus there skill in using it, we can assume safely that twilight has a great deal more energy for example then starlight, but starlight has a good bit more skill in wielding that energy offensively as she has studied combat magic for far longer then twilight has [twilight mostly has studied cantrips and tricks, and a few practical spells like teleportation, she never saw any reason to dedicate herself to offensive magic believing most likely that her friends would always be there to make up any shortcomings she might have in such situations] thus twilight has the greater potential of the 2, but because of her self reliance and training starlight has the greater actual output so starlight is thus more powerfull then twilight, even though twilight has more magical energy.
Actually, this isfalse. Starswirl prooves that a unicorn can have more magical energy than an alicorn. And Starlight's cutie mark is a star with a swirl of magic over it, meaning her destiny is to be as powerful as Starswirl.
I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot too but I have to say... In the time where Luna and Celestia’s had to use the elements on Discord can we say their power has grown? Because in the episode where Discord is being reformed Celestia tells the six how she enchanted the elements to be able to resist Discord’s chaos magic and not be taken away, so if her magic can rival Discord’s now, is it safe to say her power has grown? But that brings more questions: how weak were they back then? How strong are they now? How strong can they get? Touching on another topic though we’ve seen the episode where Twilight actually leads Cerberus herded back to the gates of Tartarus and as Gear said Tirek had to get strong enough to absorb Equestrian magic, so wouldn’t it have made sense to put some sort of barrier the keeps the villains of Tartarus in? Including Tirek? On another note speaking of Twilight who’s talent is magic along with Starlight how strong are they and how strong can they get? They’re both young now but we’ve seen Starlight switch the cutie marks of the two princesses as well as their magic. Of course one could argue that a hard spell could do it, but is it really that simple? What if someone swapped the magic of Discord with themselves or even Tirek when he absorbed all of Equestria’s magic? (I have too many questions 0.o” but hey food for thought :D)
An interesting angle for interpreting alicorn power level but there will be some additional factors that would make it not easy to calculate. One such factor being the level of skill to efficiently use such magical energy.
The Alicorns are as powerful or pathetic as the story demands. This show has long shown it doesn't care about a minor thing like consistency, and trying to apply sense to it is the definition of casting pearls before swine.
JoeMavro Those idiots don’t even follow their own logic. (Ben 10 vs Green Lantern) They also cheated Twilight out of a win, and I don’t want Dr Wolf associating with them
I really like this video. We did lack in informations about an Alicorn's actual straight. However, I think that we should consider that there are many kind of magic and Discord's magic Cann affect the very fabric of reality, while Celestia's and Luna's control only the sun and star which, in comparison, are more weak than Discord's kind of magic. Then again, we must consider that, before overpowering Discord, Tirek absorbed Spike's magic as well and no one knows how strong the avarage dragon exactly is, but thanks to the Equestria Game's episode, we know that Spike's fire breath alone could completely melt a huge block of ice. I think this could be good material for more hypothesis and theories about "power levels" in the show.
Pretty sure most people noticed That a question ya is basically in a continent similar to North America. So basically the country is just massive and seems if we basically Add all the cities that are named similar to an actual city and equal their population together in might go a lot better. Now for making it as simple as you did that's really cool and even my knowledge of math would be like OK this is gonna take a little bit to figure out. I could basically try to solve the problem but they never said if there's a bunch of more cities or towns in between the major ones.
I like the work here, but I have two major problems, and they both happen back to back in the video. First, and much less important, a season isn't a unit of measurement in-universe. The episodes are not shown in order, and all we know for sure is the first three seasons took place over the course of a single year. That being said, it doesn't really change the fact that Teirk clearly has little if any magical power on his own. More importantly, while he was only *shown* absorbing the power of sixty-eight ponies plus Discord, what was shown was a montage. He's shown in many different places absorbing the power of all the ponies present. Using the assumption that there were only sixty-eight ponies in Appleloosa alone, much less everywhere else he's shown to be absorbing power, is absolutely crazy. I really do love the idea behind it and I like the work done, but treating this story telling shorthand as literal fact gives this presentation a big problem. This is, at best, the minimum for one alicorn's worth of power. But it is by no means a definitive answer. Theory aside, great work! There was one weak point in your delivery, it's important to make your voice sound engaging while rattling off dry numbers like that while still making sure the numbers themselves are clearly audible. It's a bit of a balancing act so it's not a big deal you didn't quite strike it on the first try. You came down on the boring side, which most do. Other than though, I enjoyed the presentation and look forward to seeing more from you, Gear.
Interesting Theory but one must consider that this is just a base power for alicorns if we were talking pure magical potential then we'd have to take into consideration "nightmare forms" as that increase their power drastically (see nightmare moon and/or daybreaker)
While I have to say that all the assumptions you made may decrease the reliability of the result, let me tell you that I really appreciate your train of thought and the general approach. It's rare to see math like this being used in relation to MLP. I'm eager to see more of this.
It's important to remember that it's not just power, but how you use it. For example, Celestia has often been shown to be easily defeated, indicating that despite her immense power, she lacks the skill needed to use it effectively in combat. Even if the sisters did have the power to match Discord, I still doubt they'd be able to win. Twilight, on the other hand, has faced more enemies recently, giving her more experience. In addition, she's spent much of her life around her brother, whose talents revolve around military service. It's quite likely that she picked up a few things from him as well.
Well, like everypony said to me, “With great power comes great responsibility.” So, I am not at power levels with the princesses or the combined power of all ponies, but just enough for one pony to withhold.
I get the impression that the alicorns hide most of their potential. I mean, celestia can move the SUN. That's a HUGE entity. I imagine they prefer not to use that power because, if they can move celestial bodies, they could have the potential to cause a lot of damage. I don't think at all that twilight was using all the reserves of magic she obtained from her fellow princesses. If she was, MLP would not be a kid friendly show anymore.
it takes roughly 13 unicorns too move the sun (established in the journal of the two sisters), not really that impressive. the error in thinking like that is that people forget that equestria's sun is magical in nature and assume that it works the same way our real world counterpart does which just isn't the case at all.
I feel like to make it more accurate during the audience scene with the stage look at how big Tirek grew after getting all that magic, count how many ponies is in that scene and measure it up to how much bigger Tirek grows after taking Discord's magic. After that do it with how much Tirek grows after consuming the alicorn magic and then divide it by 4 and I feel like you will get a more accurate answer to this "dilemma".
Hey my theory is that a alicorn's Magic comes from how much of there eliminated is in use so for twilight it would be friendship for casinos it would be love for Celesta it would be good magic and for Luna it would be how many ponies are dreaming sorry for any mistake in spelling bye
Even if you have 64-67 Ponies, and Match then up against Discord. Discord would decimate them. Like I said, he can do literally anything. He is too powerful. Which is why they made him an ally and friend.
Maybe, but what we dont know is when he convert ponyville in chaotic world only affects ponyville, not all Equestria, and even if he manage to convert all Equestria to chaotic is only Equestria, not the whole world, making their limit visible in their range of magic reach, in top of that we must know how many things he can hold in their mind at time converted that be another limit you can put in him (like how many attention you can have) , so yes he is powerfull but also because a intelligent use of their magic but is not infinite.
Raptec Clawtooth Badillo Discord only sought out Ponyville at that time. When we saw him tormenting Celestia and Luna, it was clear it became too much for the Mane 6 to handle so they attempted to step in and put a stop to his shenanigans, or Canterlot was also being affected. Either way I just believe Discord is more powerful than he lets on, like I said, because of his personality. By the way, thank you for taking the time to read my comment.
Shining Armor, whom we can assume is a relatively powerful unicorn, struggled to maintain a barrier around Canterlot for the better part of one week. Celestia comfortably controlled two celestial bodies without any evident strain for 1000 years and the sun alone for an unspecified period of time prior and subsequent to that millennium. There is no scenario in which her power could ever be considered only 60 some odd times that of Shining Armor.
Cool video, also although it is comics based it is worth noting that in the time before alicorns a team of, if I'm not mistaken, eleven unicorns raised the sun and moon just fine on their own.
An interesting theory, except Tirek was clearly lying when he claimed he and Triboost!Twilight were evenly-matched: only he was climbing out of the rubble after their Beam War. She was unmarked and uncovered, so Twilight was actually edging Tirek out slightly. On top of that, Twilight would have likely started to be able to bring in more and more of her spells into the battle, making her more versatile, and giving her a much larger advantage against the more limited Tirek, who seems to turn the power he steals into a raw number without taking any of his victims' actual talents or spells (thus why he couldn't warp reality after siphoning Discord's magic). The longer the battle raged, the more likely Twilight's eventual victory, so Tirek cut the battle short when it was clear he was going to lose. On a meta level, FiM's writers have never had an issue solved with pure magical might. Starting to do that now would seem very strange, as well as being counter to every previous Aesop. So the power of Might had to be defeated in-story, just as it always is, to make way for the power of Friendship or Love. This is FiM's DNA, so to speak. Addressing an Alicorn's power on a different level than mathematically, logically it would be higher than that of a Unicorn. This has been shown to be true in _The Journal of the Two Sisters_ as well as in the season 4 finale, specifically when the sisters mention the groups of Unicorns that used to raise and lower the sun and the moon, ending up as completely drained of their magic as Tirek's victims. Even Starswirl, acting on his own, ended up this way (as well as gaining the beard for which he was named). But the sisters were easily able to handle the sun and moon, restoring the Unicorns' magical power and gaining their cutie marks in the process. It stands to reason an Alicorn would have more magical power than a Unicorn: Alicorns contain traits from all three main pony tribes, an while they have never shown Earth Pony magic in the show, they can cast spells like Unicorns, and fly and even manipulate weather like Pegasi. Possessing three different types of magic within a single container without it ripping that container apart would indicate co-existence between the different energies, or a resonance. Resonance between the different magicks would likely result in them amplifying each other. This means that Unicorn!Twilight casting Magic Blast at Alicorn!Twilight also casting Magic Blast would likely be overwhelmed, despite it being the same spell. Of course, there is the thorny issue of Starlight Glimmer, a Unicorn, being able to match Twilight, an Alicorn. Starlight has been shown, on every occasion, to be an exceptional Unicorn, but even Twilight never tried to directly match an Alicorn before she became one herself. Starlight? Is as powerful as the story says she needs to be. Therefore she's an outlier to the entire thing. Or: "Screw the rules, I have Plot Armour." It also stands to reason that Natural Alicorns, Celestia and Luna, would be more powerful than Ascended Alicorns, Cadence, Twilight, and Flurry Heart, because they were born with their three magicks in balance, have the opportunity to allow their power to grow even greater over an extended lifespan, and the wisdom and teachings from the old Alicorn community to guide them. The Ascended Alicorns are mortal, lack some of the pony tribes' characteristics on a genetic level, and have only the knowledge that Celestia and Luna give them. They're not going to be quite as powerful as the Natural Alicorns. The closest would be Twilight, who, having had to carry all the Alicorn magic within her, even for a short time, had to have her capacity for carrying magic (or mana pool) expanded. She is currently closest to being able to succeed Celestia.
shor's bones he's cleaver in which I do like and I do hope I see more of him and that skill that he used on the math. I do hope to see more of him in the future. Keep up the good work! ^￦^
If the eq is possibly about 1 million to 100 million That would mean that 1/4 of the 1 million or 100 million, If discord is = to two of the princesses that would mean the main 5 (execution for twilight) is = to two princesses that would mean tereck would be able to drain discord, so if tereck had a fourth already that would mean he would get an extra 3 quarters, this is Starting to get longer than I thought but you get the idea right doc.
It kind of is obvious if one takes it out like that but we also need to consider how the magic works and to what extent. Earth, unicorn, pegasus, alicorn, and even Discord's magic works pretty differently for starters. One could argue that earth, unicorn, pegasus, and even Discord's magic sort of has a time limit or almost like a battery and would need refilling...alicorn magic, however, doesn't seem to share the same limitations. Not to mention there is more to power than sheer force. To somewhat quote from a game, 'A man with a briefcase can steal more than a force of 10,000'.
I have a theory: what if Celestia have turned into Day Breaker before? That would explain why she doesn't do almost anything... because she is afraid of turning into her again also pay attention to this what Day breaker said in this dream.That would make a lot of sense especially because Luna knew Day Breaker's name but she wasn't there when she said it. What do you think?
I think the Main 5 having the same magic as the average ponies is believable because despite their connection to the Elements, they are still "average" ponies. And even after Tirek drained them, they still activated the Rainbow Power, which is basically the Elements of Harmony as a Super Form, so he obviously didn't drain that.
I like it. Whereas some theorist choose to look up on the lore, Gears uses math to solve the problem. If Gears and Doctor Wolf combine their skills (Doctor Wolf on lore and Gears on the calculations), who knows how many more mlp questions could be answered.
Only point to add would be that the main six peeps *might* have different levels magic compared to others, what with the whole elements being bound to them n' all
(No english native) Another way in which the magic power can be misunderstanded is in their use in raw power vs smart use : imagine your magic is one paper sheet, you can make a ball and throw it with force a few meters(raw use) or you can do a plane and make it fly a very long distance because you know how fold it (smart use) , my point is even if you have little magic if you know how to use it in a smart way can "look" like something more powerfull. Also i think x32 is not a bad thing, actually imagine if you have not only the strength of 32 people but also the speed, and more important the management of 32 little things doing simultaneally
DrWolf, Gears is your nephew does that make you half pony? Also, this solves another plot hole. If Chrysalis can covert love into magic then this shows how she defeated Celestia in season 2 as there were more than 32 adoring guests at the wedding + Shining Armour and 5 of the main 6+ any magic Crysalis has on her own.
Dr. Wolf is a magically uplifted normal wolf into sapience (think of Winona). All of his "family members" (ex: his brother is a dragon), is through adoption. The main reason Celestia losed that battle was a miscalculation (if she shooted that beam at fullpower from the get-go, she would have scorched the whole room and severely burned most of the ponies present for the wedding). After getting her beam overtaken and burning her own horn, the extreme pain make her lose conciousness [falling to the ground]; then before she could recover enough to cast any spells or fly away, she was encased in a pod. . Shining Armor may be AT MOST a "higher level unicorn" like his sister, but he is no alicorn (Chrysalis drained most of his love because he was allowing her to use magic on his mind, but she got nothing from Cadance who had her full magic still available for the climax). -> Even Chrysalis was surprised of being able to "defeat" Celestia, as she never thinked her power could ever rival the Sunriser (it did not, she was just lucky).
Hi there. I must say, this Special Episode puts on another important Question about Celestia herself: IF she really lived for over a Thousand Years, and it was Magic that holds her to life all that Time, how can it be (expect from series rules) that she was still alive, after she gave Twilight ALL her Alicorn Magic? She didn't even become older after that. I would mean, that if magic holds away the effects of Time from an Alicorn, this effect would boost in after the Force that holds it off so long is vanished. At least, she would look like Granny Smith, OR she would fall to dust in only a few hours / minutes. I know, this don't match into the Series, but even then the makers could bring in a happy end and a reason why she is still alive, in bring her back like a Phoenix, rising from her own ashes. Luna was banished, so she would survived this and Cadence isn't quite old enough to feel the pressure of Time. On the other hoof... does Time really work in Equestria as in the rest of the world? But thats maybe a theme for another Time. ^^ Cya
Oh and another thing for Celestias Power: In all Seasons, every Time she had a magical Duel with a Villian, she lost. So, if she really lived over a thausend years, she lost ALOT of her Power, or she wasn't the most powerful from start. (This stuff with raising the Sun and the Moon... Don't know. There are alot of explanations expect from Magic how this works. I mean, come on: Moving a Stellar Object as big as a Sun without devastation to the rest of the Star System OR the rest of the World itself and same for the Moon? Or have gravitation no effect on the Tides on this World? ) Also there is another thing that gaves me to think. We have the Magical Princessdom of Equestria and Crystal Empire. Most of that land is good for living and growing crops or appletrees or... you know what I mean. But then you have plenty of Locations around this, were Live is nearly not existend, or veeery harsh. I know, that is normal, but could it be, that the magical "King"doms drain the Planet from its "Magic"? I mean, if you see the Movie, you should mean that the rest of the world is a barren dessert (Yes the Badlands aren't called so for no reason) But with all this twilighted creatures around, Equestria would be a Box of Gold for them. So why don't they invade Equestria, steeling Ponys for slavery, Food, magical Crystals, whatever else on treassures are to find there? Or are Equestria and the Crystal Empire only visible for Ponys and Pony related races and guests? I don't think so. But, to put logic in an animated series is like to dry the ocean with dessert sand. So, better not try it too much, it would only lead to Brain Damage. And if you ask somepony about that, the answer always will be: because Magic. ^^ Cya
I have an analysis video on my channel about the size of Princess Twilight’s laser, from during the Dragon-Ball-Z-styled battle in the Season 4 finale. I’d enjoy seeing new calculations based on the volume, and how many units of magic fills a unit of volume.
A ~= xP/2 I will open with this, and explain after. Your equation (4A = xP + D) is correct, but the number you supply for xP is impossible to determine. And if D ~ xP, then 4A ~ 2xP. In other words A ~ xP/2 I would imagine skill in the use of said magic has a rather large impact on any given being's subjective power. (thx Jared Jenkins.) People have already commented on Starlight and Twilight's fight in the season 5 finale, but is this a result of Starlight having nearly as much magical power as Twilight, or could it be because Starlight is supremely skilled with her magic in areas Twilight is less familiar? A better example of this is what happened to Discord's power. Discord is able to use his magic for basically anything he wants because he is skilled in the use of his type of magic, but Tirek was only able to use it to power his laser blasts. That's much less impressive in my opinion. However, this also happened to Twilight, who according to herself, was only just learning how to control her own power. So as I think about it, that whole fight seemed to be a powerhouse duel between two unskilled fighters. Just imagine what an equivalent fight between skilled fighters would look like! Obviously the biggest factor to change your conclusion would be the number of ponies Tirek drained off screen. I know you mentioned that the on-screen number was chosen for simplicity's sake, but it is by no means a leap of logic to say the real number is massively over that (especially since the number you counted was merely a montage). We've seen upwards of 20-30 ponies in Appleloosa, we've seen upwards of 50 ponies gathered at one time in Canterlot, we've seen upwards of 20-30 ponies in one place in Manehattan, we've seen upwards of 40-50 ponies in Ponyville, and it's impossible to not say each of those cities hold a looot more than shown on screen. Even on a low estimate, Tirek would have drained hundreds (if not thousands, assuming the small numbers we see in the show is due to animation difficulty) of ponies if it is true that "with *no* pegasi to control the weather..." indicates he took all the pegasi's magic. So I think it was a mistake to assume Tirek only stole the magic of 68 ponies, but I also recognize it would be near impossible to extrapolate truly how many he took from. If we assume it was hundreds of ponies, then an alicorn could equal 300 or so normal ponies; or if Tirek took thousands, then an alicorn could equal well over a thousand ponies. However, whether consolidating the magic of many beings into one decreases the overall effectiveness is another difficult factor to consider. That happened only on the scale of four on Twilight's part, but on the scale of hundreds or thousands on Tirek's part. So perhaps hundreds of ponies' magic is objectively more powerful than an alicorn, but consolidated into one being, it is reduced significantly. TL;DR - After considering skill, numbers, and power consolidation, I think your estimate is a fair estimate, but could also be off by two orders of magnitude. What can be proven is 4A = xP + D (in other words A ~ xP/2).
This is interesting, and relatively supported by lore, as it took a group of unicorns to raise and lower the sun before the alicorn princesses came to power, as explained in hearths warming eve
I personally always assumed, and still do assume that Discord isn't so much more powerful than any of the Princess, but that it's the type of Magic he uses that allows him to outplay the Alicorns. But that's just my personal head-canon. But I will point out that this is sorta supported in that Discord's Magic does look very different from everypony else's.
Seeing as you only used on-screen drainings, I turned your value into a percentage, making the average alicorn equal to 48.5% of the pony population. Multiply by four, we get their combined power being 194% of the ponies. This makes Discord's power equal to 94% of the pony population. However, this would also mean Celestia and Luna were weaker in the past, as two alicorns is 97% of the pony population. Course there is also how one uses the magic. So, Discord could be able to defeat both of them from being smarter.
The biggest problem I have with this is that you can't tell how many ponies were drained off-screen. If Tirek drained 2k ponies, an alicorn is now as powerful as 1k ponies.
Also, I would assume that Tirek betrayed Discord not because he gained the power of a few more ponies, but because he thought he had stopped the danger that the elements of harmony represented to his plan. Twillight alone can't do as much as all 6 of them combined.
Yes all of the yes
Legitimate question: How would you go about solving this?
Twilight is strong alone though her element alone is just a cjem on a crown with no purpose
Very calculative, Gears is very clever
TheOddSusie agreed
He is pretty smart, but he end scaling for the characters is way off.
Dalvyn The Drunk. I agree with you sir.
Season 5 and 7 provide extra data points to consider. Season 5's finally has a single unicorn match Twilight in magical combat, indicating her personal power is not much greater then a non-alicorn can achieve. In season 7, that same unicorn is able to switch the magic and cutie marks of two other princesses, a feat which implied either her power was greater then their own or that moving their power is an easy feat.
I further note, in season 3, Celestia was able to cast a spell that protected the Elements from Discord's magic. I suspect her normal difficulties were not because his magic is greater then hers, but rather that it is different at a fundamental level then that which Ponies use, making it hard to counter.
Finally, Twilight and Tirek were close enough in power to fight each other, but there is a difference in skill and intent to consider. Twilight was inefficient in her use of magic, and was not inclined to minimizing damage to Tirek. Tirek needed Twilight beaten down but alive to drain, so was likely limiting how hard he hit her; enough to break bones, but not to risk an instant kill.
I suggest the answer to the question of how powerful the Alicorn Princesses are is the same as for the question of How Strong is Superman: exactly as much or as little as the writers want/need them to be.
Actually, your assumption is that Starlight is somehow average, which is definitely not the case. It shows that Starlight has the magical potential to match an average alicorn. Also, Starlight's magical strength goes up exponentially with anger or stress.
And we all know how pissed off Starlight was. Also they were fighting in the sky, so Twilight was probably holding back as to not accidently knock her out and send her falling.
Strlight doesn't even need to use magic to stand on clouds, if this is not overpowered i don't know what is! She's not more powerful than Celestia or Luna, but definitely more powerful than Twilight or Cadence (And Flurry Heart at her actual age) She can be stopped, but not really with magic, as magic is what she's the best at!
Brilliant!
Also I must clarify that Starlight is a prodigy in terms of magic but not an overpowered monster. Elder Alicorns are more Powerfull than the most skilled Unicorn but not at the insane godlike level that the fandom generaly asume.
They are not Gods!
Perhaps I should clarify further. There have been many instances during the show where the Alicorns have each shown high levels of personal power when doing so resolved key plot points. There have also been many instances where the same Alicorns have proven incapable of solving various problems using their magic. Yes, I used Starlight as an example of a Unicorn that could match or exceed their abilities, but that was only one example.
Trying to put a number on any of the abilities in the show only works if the writers all agree with said numbers. The only semi-official numbers ever given was that Celestia and Luna can raise and lower the sun and moon with ease, and without them it takes a hundred Unicorns working together to raise and lower the moon with great effort. If we exclude any "boosting" from their "special talents", this would imply each of the Royal Sisters are at least 100 times more powerful then the average Unicorn. Since Celestia was able to raise and lower the moon on her own for one thousand years when her "talent" is for raising the sun, then her personal power must be over 100 times that of a regular pony...
.... And the first time Celestia got into a one on one fight on screen she lost. Whenever the plot required her to be sidelined, she proved useless. She is only as powerful; as the story allows, and how powerful that is changes from story to story. The same is true of the other Alicorns as well; twice Twilight was able to immobilize every Pony in a wide area, yet she was unable to stop a single (admittedly powerful) Unicorn when said Unicorn was threatening to destroy history. Cadence was able to shield the Crystal Empire for days, but was captured by a changeling off screen. The list goes on and on....
Let's not try to put numbers on what the Alicorns can do. Rather, let's enjoy watching what they choose top do instead.
Comparing the power of an Alicorn is just like trying to figure out the power scaling in Dragonball Z. XD
Yeah, it's easy.
Given the fact the normal unicorn Starlight was able to fight Twilight to a standstill, I’m pretty sure magic has its own set of rules, and cannot be so easily measured.
I agree and don't forget Starswirl. Both them have incredible amount of magic as a unicorn so yeah like you said magic isn't so easily measured. Or it's just the fact that they know a lot of spells along the way making them as powerful or equal to an alicorn, whereas an alicorn is given that amount of magic but has to get used to that amount first before unleashing it's full potential.
@@SonGoku-e7q Makes sense. So, what would be your magical equation?
@@mikemagnus9447 I dunno my friend, my brain, my intelligence does not exceed beyond what you want.
@@SonGoku-e7q star swirl is the one that gave celestia and Luna wings. Maybe alicorn have more strength and it depends on how skilled the unicorn is
Starlight is probably prepared in season 5
Twilight was not prepared for what Starlight was doing and we've seen the Twilight went back in time for hours
And in the duel between Twilight and Starlight we see both of them tired. Twilight used more strength then Starlight, and Starlight is a better aim person. So ig Starlight is more skilled in dueling and Twilight has more raw power
And possesses more knowledge in magic. So in the end Twilight is more powerful 🤷♀️
Need some time to think it over. Not very good with math. Thank you, doctor! And thanks to Gears! Wish him luck!
Cue the "Nobody said there'd be math!" reference.
Firstly Gears, your logic is flawless. However, I’m going to use a realistic point of view, rather than a mathematical one. So looking back at all of the times we have seen Discord, he has shown tremendous magical prowess, where as he is more powerful than Luna and Celestia, none of the Mane 6 can defeat him on their own, without the Elements of Harmony, and even Starlight in the season 6 finale saying that he could, and I quote, “take on the entire Changeling army by sneezing if he wanted to.” Discord has even claimed that he can bend reality at his will whenever he pleases, and has claimed in Keep Calm and Flutter On, that he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.
Going back to the season 4 finale though, we clearly see that his chaotic magic is taken away from him by Tirek. Nevertheless, I still think this was only possible because of one reason. Discord was caught off guard. He was betrayed and was baffled at how it felt to be on the receiving end of it. If he would have known about it, and wasn’t surprised at this, I’m sure he could have defeated Tirek, unless one of Tirek’s abilities is that however powerful he gets the more magic he is able to drain. I still believe this is highly unlikely for Discord.
When we look at Tirek, he is imposing, and large, but he can only drain magic, and shoot magic energy blasts from his horns, and make stuff levitate. Because he is this large, he must be very durable right? If he was about Discord’s size, but still had the same amount of power then it’s safe to assume that Twilight would have mopped the floor with him, but the writers had to have a large, powerful, imposing, and deadly villain this time. Discord could probably go to Tirek’s height if he wanted to. Discord is the most powerful being in Equestria if you think about it. His magic makes no sense, he is unpredictable, and very clever. The only thing holding him back is himself. Because, he doesn’t take anything seriously. If he did, he’d already rule Equestria right now.
Thank you!!!! I was thinking the EXACT same thing: Discord, is a god. In their world, he is GOD. There is no going above what he is. All the ponies and alicorns should be very grateful that he doesn't really want to rule Equestria anymore, because he friggin would and no one would be able to stop him without the elements. And the ONLY thing that was his downfall before, was his own arrogance. His ego is so huge that he just gave his opponents the oppertunities to do him in, because he was so confident that they couldn't find any way to do it, aka, underestimating your enemy, which is something no one should ever do. He could teleport on a dime, bend all of reality at his will, it's a damn good thing that he is a jokester and a trickster, because if he had a serious personality and was determined to rule? There would literally be no stopping him, what so ever. Cuz he can make ANYTHING happen. You show up to his door? You just got turned inside out and now your guts on the outside. Think you can escape? BAM thrown into another world and dropped into a pit of wolves or something. There would be NO stopping him what so EVER if he didn't have such a big ego and was more serious. It's a good thing this guy is funny, because the ponies would be screwed if he wasn't.
Olivia Jachim Than you for taking the time from your day to read my long comment. I appreciate it. :)
Discord is so powerful the writers had to find a way to nerf him completely for the season six finally, or there would have been no episode.
Saphiria TheBlueDragonKnight Well typed. Typed=Said.
Thank you!
Holy heck, your nephew was easily able to teach me something teachers never could! Congrats Gears!
As for Discord, his magic is chaos at its purest form. It’s not that it is omnipotent, rather that it what he needs it to be at that moment.
For example, if he was trapped in a cage with, say, Twilight, he would promptly walk through the bars and grab something comical, before returning to his cage with no problem. This is because it’s a comedic route, and the non-logical “cartoon-logic” that comes with a being of chaos.
However, if Discord was trapped in a cage with Fluttershy, he very well couldn’t do the “leave and return” trick because his thoughts would be on saving his friend, rather than just doing what feels right.
(I know he can teleport but that’s not where I’m getting)
I call his powers “cartoon logic” because they’re much the same to older cartoons. A few examples that fit him quite well would be:
Roger Rabbit
Beetlejuice (the cartoon in particular)
In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, you see the very same trick used as I just explained, where Roger points out he can only escape when it’s “funny”.
As for Beetlejuice... he shares a lot of similarities with Discord.
At the point where Tirek took Discord’s Magic, it was “unexpected”, and he had been learning friendship at this point, so his chaos was dulled by the want for friendship and the guilt of tricking his first friend and her friends. Had he been at his full, chaotic potential, we would’ve gotten a better indication to his power.
Just something I thought I’d point out, since chaos magic is something I know my way around.
Wow. That was the most logical explanation for the alicorn power I have ever seen. I'm impressed. Congratulations.
Here's a challenge for you explain Starlight's power compared to Twilight's. ;-)
That just comes down to magical aptitude and natural gift (As stated by both Twilight and Starlight in previous episodes)
Even dispite the fact that Twilight is an Alicorn and Starlight still is a mere Unicorn.
How does this compute?
Your argument means nothing, since it's canon that Starswirl, a 'mere' unicorn, is more powerful than Twilight. So Starlight is north far fetched.
Um well?? What do you think twilight is wayyyyyyy more powerful
No she's not. The show pretty much says Starlight is a match for Twilight.
You guys seem to forget that specialty is also important here. Taking as an example Discord and Celestia, what we have seen so far is that Discord is the master of transformation and teleportation and Celestia seems to be mastering telekinesis (she raises the sun every day after all) and a combat magic at some point. Rating them with the argument "who won" isn't a good way to value their magic. It's like taking two children, that one is good at painting and the other is good at sculpting and rating them basing on their ability to write. Sure, painting, sculpting and writing is considered as art, but specialties are different. I'm not a math nerd, but I'm pretty sure it should be considered too.
Does that make sense?
WOW, Doc your nephew really made my head gears spin with all that math
He's one smart pony
Uh, not quite.
Okay, it has been stated by show runners and writers that Tirek had absorbed nearly all the ponies in Equestria, the montage was just to show he was going to many towns and absorbing their magic, so already the "XPonies" calc is way WAY off."
Lets start with speed. Nightmare Moon who is relative to Celestia was able to react to an elements of Harmony blast, which was able to reach the moon in 2 seconds, this would mean that NMM roughly has 50% Light speed reaction speed and possible travel speed.
For power, Celestia is capable of moving the sun, many stars casually in fact. He Attack potency would be ranging from multi star level to Solar System level. This does not mean she can destroy a solar system, it means she has the raw magical force needed to harm a physical being with durability equivalent to a Star or a Solar System. Luna should be relativtic to Celestia so she would be around the same level.
Twilight, Starlight, and Starswirl would all be planetary based on feets seen in two parters and external lore.
Drwolf almost had the right Discord explanation but quickly abandoned it. In Shadow Play we see that the Pillars have a certain amount of light magic in them that differentiates them from others, it is what allowed them to use Ponehenge to banish the Pony of Shadows. It is not only implied that the mane 6 have the same level of magic, but even more of it within them. So when Tirek absorbed their magic, it wasn't just their base EP, Pegasus, or Unicorn magic, but their very light/harmony magic. Which allowed him to overpower Discord because mane 5/6 magic>>Discords magic. This is shown when just those 5 powers make Tirek significantly bigger and allow hem to shatter Discords wrist chains, which were growing with Tirek.
Discord is by far the most powerful being in MLP but he has very specific counters that Tirek can manipulate. Discord has universal feats after all.
Gears is pretty good at this, but he was way off in terms of their actual power level and scaling
I agree with this for the most part. Discord being Universal is a possibility but it depends on how much chaos he is inflecting/around.
But yeah, respect for Gears for doing all that math, but based on feats in the show, he is way off on just how powerful an Alicorn is.
I know this is late, but Discord being the strongest being is very controversial. There are characters with better feats such as Nightmare Moon, Cosmos, Tirek(when he reaches his og power in season 4 finale Canterlot), Twilight, and Grogar are all characters with better feats/scaling
Wow, who knew algebra wasn't completely useless X3 Although I think using 68 as the number of ponies Tirek drained magic from kinda throws the whole thing off...
I think Twilight may be the most powerful one. The reason why I think this is that Princess Celestia knows that Twilight could overpower her and that's why celestia is so persistence on confirming that Twilight is an equal among the Alicorns. so my logic is the power of friendship (PF)PF>AMEP(all magic of Equestria ponies.)This means T>C,C,LD.and that means Twilight could have defeated tirac on her own. so and if Twilight knows she has a lot of power because she is the Alicorn of the most powerful force and it was confirmed by twilight that alicorn magic and friendship magic are two different types from this line:Twilight: I may have given you my alicorn magic but inside me I carry the most powerful magic of them all.so Twilight is very powerful at the point. I think this is the point where she realizes how powerful she might be. this might be making her afraid of using it. Who wouldn't be? This would explain why starlight was able to match twilight and why she was capture by the changelings.There will be a point where she is force to use her full power to win. and I think I know how.Nightmare moon, Daybreaker, Discord, King sombra, Chryslsis, Tirac, the shadow pony, and the essence of Nightmare inferno, Midnight sparkle, the siren magic, Gaiga everfree, and juniper demon form as one powerful being.
Good theory doc and gear!!! well i think their power depends on their destinies. you see,Princess celestia has i guess more than the power she needs to raise the sun because she can raise both how do i know so?because after princess luna's banishment princess celestia took the responsibility of both the sun and the moon. and yeah i agree that they have less power than discord because his destiny is unlimited chaos right?
and princess cadence,she gets her power from the crystal heart and the LOVE of the crystal ponies and others! since her destiny is Love she is the princess of love!
and twilight? she is the MOST powerful in my opinion why? because her power can be raised up as much as poweful her friendship is towards her friends ^^. So could've happened wih sunset shimmer and starlight if they have experienced the same situations or something like princess twilight
First! Hi Doc! Nice to see your nephew! :D
Is there any other "Brony" in your family, now that you have shown at least Two?
In the eloquent words of Firebrand...
Math Time!
You're a great uncle for willing to help out your nephew
My personal theory regarding Discord's level of power is this: Discord's magic makes it look like he has a lot of "power" (with the reality warping, and all that) but it is actual the "nature" of his chaos magic that makes him nearly unstoppable, and i personally believe that he only has a "little" more "power" than either Celestia or Luna has.
Still, this was a nice video :)
Nice, math.(seems legit)But I always think power of unicorns not as great as many thought to be.(#unicornnotmasterrace)
In Boast Busters episode Twilight said that unicorns had a Little magic and can use spells in area of their special talent.
So since then I always thought that Celestia can rise the Sun not because of her power(though she very powerful), but because of her cutie mark she need to use far less power than unicorns use before founding of Equestria.
Илья Антонов This makes a lot of sense.
boast buster has long been retconned i feel. its implid unicorns can improve their magical attributes and learn new spells. twilight and starlight have advantages in that regard however because of their specialization in spells. spells in their cutie mark catgeory is simply natural spellwork. like rarit''s gem finder spell. since then she has laso shown a considerable bit of energy and control form telekinesis and magic to repair things.
However it would say that a pony with a cutiemark in one regard is better at that talent or magic than most others. thus twilight could learn rarity's gem spell, but rarity will always be superior to her.
Even if all of the premises were correct (they are not); this final value would be the LEAST magic the "median" alicorn princess could had related to a "median" pony.
. Energy output (blasts) increases quadratically with the amount of "magical potential" [the thing Tirek eats] accumulated.
-> This is based both on the scale of the damage shown through multiple episodes using the same spell by Twilight at her maximum mental state (highest level unicorn [S2E26], Lesser Alicorn [S4E02]; Super Alicorn [S4E26]); correlative to the increse in size of Tirek´s body being limited by the enhancing on his muscles and bones (squared, not cubed).
There are many considerations not taken into account in this analisis:
. Discord´s "magical potential" is probably weaker than Celestia or Luna. The only reason they could not "defeat" Discord is his ability to block their abilities (he was shown to be able to remove Celestia´s tail onscreen without her noticing it [S4E01]; then he did the same with the mane six´s wings and horns [S2E01]).
-> Discord can not steal magical potential, with the Elements of Harmony providing both passive levitation and "laser shooting" to each of their bearers regardless their pony kind [S2E02]; even if he removed Luna & Celestia´s horns they would have sealed him in stone anyways.
. Tirek could probably drain Discord´s magic as early as the time he could do it with many pegasi at once (since Discord posseses the same basic cloudwalking and flying magic from one of his wings).
-> The reason Tirek waited was to get as much information as posible [plus the convinience of teleportation from Discord, since Tirek aparently can only open portals to other planes (but not teleport himself)].
. Once Discord give him leverage that will ensure the last one standing against him will surrender [Super Twilight]; he felt secure enough to try taking everything by himself [also it would be dangerous having Discord around and free (even if it was on his side) making jokes and pranks on the heat of the battle].
-> "Once a traitor, always a traitor" (it does not matter WHO Discord betrayed: himself or the ponies, it was a ticking bomb ready to explode on Tirek´s face at the worst moment).
. Rainbow Dash probably has much more "magical potential" than most (if any other) living pegasus. The sonic rainboom (ground fullblast mode) [S2E03] and her "epic use" of cloudmolding to levitate 5 mares a few hundred meters up [S3E07]; sugest her being the equivalent of a "highest_level pegasus".
-> There is also the actual "antigravity potential" measurement done in S2E22 for Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and many other pegasi (both of them being way outside the "standard deviation" ); with the bonus of luttershy having two measurements (pre and post training).
. Something similar with the feats of strenght of Applejack, BigMac and Maud Pie [also the alternate reality of S5E25 showed that the max potential for Pinkie Pie (war mode) on strenght being similar to her older sister].
. It is unclear if Tirek absorved or not the magic from Spike (who with his "Spikezilla" supermode [S2E10] could destroy buildings with ease and lift himself over a mountain while holding stuff with his tail and one of his claws). If it was the case, his adition could completely compensate the relative "weakness" of Rarity and Fluttershy.
. There must be an anti-teleport spell around the Canterlot Castle; as otherwise Discord would had moved himself and Tirek directly to the throne room [instead of having to walk through the ground doors and then the bridges shown on S4E26 before reaching their true targets]. This implies Tirek absorbed a much higher number of guards than the ones onscreen.
Wait years for this topic to be discussed
Here's my rating on how powerful all of the mlp characters
#1 Discord
#2 Star Swirl
#3 Average alicorn
#4 Starlight Glimmer
#5 Average pony
#6 Teric (when in custody)
Hey Doc!! Nice work with Gears, I think he's got it in him to go far! That said though, there is another point to consider. The raising of the Sun and Moon. While we don't have exact numbers, the idea of needing close to 32 to 33 Ponies (Unicorns) to move either body with their combined magic, makes sense from a Lore perspective. As even with those numbers, the Unicorns eventually lost their magic permanently as a consequence. So not just power, but the Cutie Mark attunement to the body in question would produce the result we see between the sisters...However...this leads me to a concern.
Between the Sisters especially, I believe Luna is currently the Strongest, with Twilight being the strongest of all 4 Alicorns without an amplifiers. Why do I think this? Simple:
Celestia moved the Moon, presumably alone, for 1,000 years.
Now there might be mitigating factors, such as the Elements' lingering magic effecting the Moon making it less difficult for Celestia, or perhaps Luna's own magic being stuck there being a factor. Regardless, Celestia had to do roughly 33 Unicorns' magic worth of work each day WITHOUT an attunement via Cutie Mark to mitigate the strain. Then I suppose then next question to ask is:
Why then is Celestia still able to move the Sun?
Two ideas come to mind, first is that Cutie Mark talents are so ingrained, Celestia's actual strain to raise and lower the Sun might be MUCH less than the average pony. A rough guess would be a higher tier Unicorn like Sunset Shimmer or Twilight (Before Alicorn status) with said Cutie Mark would be able to do it routinely.
The other option I think, if we take the strain into account, Celestia's Magical Power must have been greater than Luna's if only by a certain margin in the past. This would in turn lead to another question.
How did Nightmare Moon beat Celestia and require her to use the Elements of Harmony?
Depending on which camp you fall into. Nightmare Moon being a Nightmare entity that possessed Luna or Nightmare was just an alternate personality brought on by a Psychotic break and use of Dark magic, either case became a Force Multiplier, or at least an additional boost that put her over-the-top. Now, if this is true, and if the only power she lost was her Nightmare enhanced boost by the time she was back in Equestria and returned to normal, why isn't that more clear?
Trauma, from what she did to herself and her sister, and being hit by the Elements. Remember in Tantabus, that happening again and again is her Nightmare, her punishment, so it could NOT have been pleasant. Nothing limits potential like a real traumatic experience. Plus, in the same episode we may have seen the upper limit of her power. With it being split between the Tantabus itself and her holding up an entire dreamscape with so many ponies using it to fight what was essentially her own power? Yeah, Luna is NO SLOUCH in the power department, especially when the Tantabus returned to her...all that power, and due to her Sister's current "example", she keeps it under wraps.
But what about Flurry Heart's crystalling? They seemed to BOTH be struggling about the same amount to hold the storm back?
See above, Luna is following Celestia's lead. It would make sense if Tia never told Luna about her loss of overall magic that Luna would take her cue, holding her power back until her sister "Decided to get serious" and go all out. Besides, they both had to use their power to restore the Crystal Heart, and that is NOT a small amount of power, I'd wager. As such from Luna's perspective holding back despite the damage and discomfort from the ice would seem a wise move overall, though likely it was because Celestia COULDN'T push harder than that, and had to strain after a rest to help restore the Crystal Heart. Overall, I feel that between the sisters, Luna is the stronger...but again, I think Twilight could be stronger in sheer Magical Potential than all of them.
And for those interested, YES, the strain from 1,000 years WOULD be why I think Tia was bested by Chyssi at the end of Season 2, after all 2 to 3 months or so is NOT enough time for a possible permanent drop in power level to be mitigated...plus her destructive potential might have lead her to hold back anyway, the argument there is old and I'm older so there!
But that's a rant for a different day. If interested let me know. Great work, and I'll see you all next time!!
DRWolf and Gears Dazzlehorn, Take in for account the Alicorn magic is 3-fold( Earth, Pegasi, and Unicorn). So the variable that Gears presents is feasible to 1/3, plus their each individual magic themselves.
I hate to be entirely pedantic, but what you have there is a hypothesis, not a theory...
Dobie Tanpaw A hypothesis is an idea that could be tested out to determine if it's true. A theory, however, is an idea that really can be tested in a sense but never can be confirmed to be true until proven to be true by the source that the theory was made over. The reason a school science project has hypotheses instead of theories is because the people working on said projects have enough items and information to create a testable idea and determine whether or not their ideas were true. As of now, we have no idea as to whether or not this subject of alicorn magic will ever be discussed in the series. We still have yet to be given more information before we can confirm or deny if what Gears and Dr. Wolf are saying is true. And if this was merely a hypothesis, and if what you're saying about it is true, I think MatPat would have to change his RUclips channel's name from "The Game Theorists" to "The Game Hypothesists" or something along those lines.
Fiddle Dee Dee a theory is a well substantiated explanation of something, based on information that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment.
Whereas a hypothesis is an idea or explanation that you then test through study and experimentation.
In this case, what they are presenting is more of a hypothesis than a theory.
And while I do not watch MatPat's Game Theorists channel, I do watch his Film Theorists channel. And I would have to say that a lot of what he presents is actually hypothesis, not theory... But like I said in my initial comment, I'm being overly pedantic.
In common usage, Theory and Hypothesis are synonyms. Besides the term "Fan Theory" sounds a whole lot better than "Fan Hypothesis"...
A part of me wonders, because of Nightmare Moon & Daybreaker, that Celestia & Luna are both holding back, but that is kind of nulled out because of how they struggled against Discord! Awesome video!
What a fun video! Good job, Gears!
Very sound logic to calculate the power out put of an Alicorn. However I believe the users own 'self' also adds some power/boost to their natural magic, yet when it's used by a stranger/someone else it does not have quite the same power/out put. Just my own take on things. :)
So many unknown variables to keep track of (i mean, it is only 2 other variables but still). An alicorn, based off of that math, is just 68P > D > 2A which goes to 34P > D/2 > A. So an alicorn could technically have a power level of 1 and the inequality would still work.
Vary nicely calculated I must say! However, there are things people tend to overlook when analysing Twilight and Tirek's fight, as well as Discord.
One thing everyone forgets to factor in. Skill.
Discord is probably a lot older then Celestia and Luna, so he could probably beat them with wits and skill sence they were a lot younger and less experienced back then.
There's also something else I've noticed. In season 2 we actually see Discord's magic mear the end of the second episode appear around his claw, and it's gold. In season 4 when Tirek steals it, it's all chaotic looking. Why?
I'm thinking that perhaps Discord messed with his own magic so Tirek wasn't able to use it properly. He is the spirit of chaos, I wouldn't put it past his ability to do so.
Or maybe it's not that at all, and what I first mentioned is the diciding factor. Skill is something people seem to forget about when analysing this show. How did Starlight keep up with Twilight in their fight? Skill! She studied Twilight and planned everything out. Including learning aerial combat. She knew Twilight could fly, andI doubt Twilight was ever expecting to have to fight a unicorn in an aerial fight.
Tirek seems to me like someone who uses his cunning and tricks only when he needs to. But as soon as he's powerful enough, he starts to just muscle his way through things. If, and I mean IF this is true (I'm not going to pretend like I have proof or anything. Because I don't), then perhaps Twilight could only fight him to a stand still because she was actually casting attack magic, wail Tirek, who I doubt went to a library and studied up on how magic had progressed sence he'd been locked up, might have just been blasting out raw unfocused magic. Or at least less focused then Twilight's.
If this was true, then if Twilight's attacks held just as much power as Tirek's, then hers would probably cut through his because his attack wasn't as concentrated. But if his had more power, then his attack would be able to fight her more focused blast yo a stalemate.
Though there is one other thing people tend to forget about. And that's that they didn't actually fight for vary long. Were they actually evenly matched? Or were they just pushing out as much magic as possible, and eventually one would overpower the other. Though that's admittedly a stretch. But it's still something nobody serms to think about.
Anyway, thank you for reading!
Sincerely, Guardian Blade the positive analyser of Equestria Amino.
Ps. If you need a quick analysis of something, just look me up on EQ Amino. I can be busy at times, but I'm quite willing to help.
well in my opinion, IF each pony were the same "indiferent of type (earth,unicorn,pegasus)" and we accept that "alicorns have the best traiths of each"
THEN
at MINIMUM they have "3 times base power" + longetivity" so in my head they simple have a "mana bar" that is BIGGER the Str & COn of an earth pony, the Dex of a pegasus (+wings & wheater control) + Unicorn magic (I do not know if it is CHA or Int to cast)
so they have "unicorn magic x 3" "pegasus flight x 3" or "eath pony durability x 3" IF they choose to "put all eggs in one basket"
and the main reason why celestia & luna are SO POWERFULL is simply SKILL, they had AT MINIMUM 1000 years of practice
twilight had "magic" as a SPECIAL TALENT and 16 times the mana she had as an unicorn durring the tirek fight,
TIREK was STRONGER but LACKED any form of magick proficiency,
Or in "dbz terminology" Tirek was "broly" twilight was "imperfect cell" ( i say immperfect because broly is weaker than ssj2)
If were talking purely raw magical energy then the equations work fine but 'power' and 'energy' are not the same thing a ponies 'power' is there energy plus there skill in using it, we can assume safely that twilight has a great deal more energy for example then starlight, but starlight has a good bit more skill in wielding that energy offensively as she has studied combat magic for far longer then twilight has [twilight mostly has studied cantrips and tricks, and a few practical spells like teleportation, she never saw any reason to dedicate herself to offensive magic believing most likely that her friends would always be there to make up any shortcomings she might have in such situations] thus twilight has the greater potential of the 2, but because of her self reliance and training starlight has the greater actual output so starlight is thus more powerfull then twilight, even though twilight has more magical energy.
Actually, this isfalse. Starswirl prooves that a unicorn can have more magical energy than an alicorn.
And Starlight's cutie mark is a star with a swirl of magic over it, meaning her destiny is to be as powerful as Starswirl.
Yes, i believe that this would hold up
It's obvious you put a lot of thought into this, it turned out rather intriguing
This was great! Good job Gear! =D
I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot too but I have to say... In the time where Luna and Celestia’s had to use the elements on Discord can we say their power has grown? Because in the episode where Discord is being reformed Celestia tells the six how she enchanted the elements to be able to resist Discord’s chaos magic and not be taken away, so if her magic can rival Discord’s now, is it safe to say her power has grown? But that brings more questions: how weak were they back then? How strong are they now? How strong can they get? Touching on another topic though we’ve seen the episode where Twilight actually leads Cerberus herded back to the gates of Tartarus and as Gear said Tirek had to get strong enough to absorb Equestrian magic, so wouldn’t it have made sense to put some sort of barrier the keeps the villains of Tartarus in? Including Tirek? On another note speaking of Twilight who’s talent is magic along with Starlight how strong are they and how strong can they get? They’re both young now but we’ve seen Starlight switch the cutie marks of the two princesses as well as their magic. Of course one could argue that a hard spell could do it, but is it really that simple? What if someone swapped the magic of Discord with themselves or even Tirek when he absorbed all of Equestria’s magic? (I have too many questions 0.o” but hey food for thought :D)
An interesting angle for interpreting alicorn power level but there will be some additional factors that would make it not easy to calculate. One such factor being the level of skill to efficiently use such magical energy.
The Alicorns are as powerful or pathetic as the story demands. This show has long shown it doesn't care about a minor thing like consistency, and trying to apply sense to it is the definition of casting pearls before swine.
Whoa. I'm thoroughly impressed ! ^^
Wiz and Boomstick need to hire you guys from time to time.
JoeMavro
Those idiots don’t even follow their own logic. (Ben 10 vs Green Lantern)
They also cheated Twilight out of a win, and I don’t want Dr Wolf associating with them
this was a great video
Alicorn = GOKU
For the last F&$@ time! Nobody said there’d be math!!!
I really like this video. We did lack in informations about an Alicorn's actual straight. However, I think that we should consider that there are many kind of magic and Discord's magic Cann affect the very fabric of reality, while Celestia's and Luna's control only the sun and star which, in comparison, are more weak than Discord's kind of magic. Then again, we must consider that, before overpowering Discord, Tirek absorbed Spike's magic as well and no one knows how strong the avarage dragon exactly is, but thanks to the Equestria Game's episode, we know that Spike's fire breath alone could completely melt a huge block of ice. I think this could be good material for more hypothesis and theories about "power levels" in the show.
Pretty sure most people noticed That a question ya is basically in a continent similar to North America. So basically the country is just massive and seems if we basically Add all the cities that are named similar to an actual city and equal their population together in might go a lot better. Now for making it as simple as you did that's really cool and even my knowledge of math would be like OK this is gonna take a little bit to figure out. I could basically try to solve the problem but they never said if there's a bunch of more cities or towns in between the major ones.
Looking forward to more from Gears
Twilight is about the same power of Starlight except Twilight is an allicorn, so Starlight should be equal to season 1-3 Twilight
Dang, your nephew is awesome!
So how does that translate into... horsepower? :)
Somehow I thought of the Autobot named Gears when you mentioned your nephew.
A power scale discussion about Alicorn? I was expecting Josh and Silver to talk about this not Doc.
I like the work here, but I have two major problems, and they both happen back to back in the video.
First, and much less important, a season isn't a unit of measurement in-universe. The episodes are not shown in order, and all we know for sure is the first three seasons took place over the course of a single year. That being said, it doesn't really change the fact that Teirk clearly has little if any magical power on his own.
More importantly, while he was only *shown* absorbing the power of sixty-eight ponies plus Discord, what was shown was a montage. He's shown in many different places absorbing the power of all the ponies present. Using the assumption that there were only sixty-eight ponies in Appleloosa alone, much less everywhere else he's shown to be absorbing power, is absolutely crazy.
I really do love the idea behind it and I like the work done, but treating this story telling shorthand as literal fact gives this presentation a big problem.
This is, at best, the minimum for one alicorn's worth of power. But it is by no means a definitive answer.
Theory aside, great work! There was one weak point in your delivery, it's important to make your voice sound engaging while rattling off dry numbers like that while still making sure the numbers themselves are clearly audible. It's a bit of a balancing act so it's not a big deal you didn't quite strike it on the first try. You came down on the boring side, which most do.
Other than though, I enjoyed the presentation and look forward to seeing more from you, Gear.
Interesting Theory but one must consider that this is just a base power for alicorns if we were talking pure magical potential then we'd have to take into consideration "nightmare forms" as that increase their power drastically (see nightmare moon and/or daybreaker)
While I have to say that all the assumptions you made may decrease the reliability of the result, let me tell you that I really appreciate your train of thought and the general approach. It's rare to see math like this being used in relation to MLP. I'm eager to see more of this.
This definitely sounds about accurate. Then again I suck at math so. Great video guys!
I'm watching this after 5 years and this helped me understand math.
It's important to remember that it's not just power, but how you use it. For example, Celestia has often been shown to be easily defeated, indicating that despite her immense power, she lacks the skill needed to use it effectively in combat. Even if the sisters did have the power to match Discord, I still doubt they'd be able to win.
Twilight, on the other hand, has faced more enemies recently, giving her more experience. In addition, she's spent much of her life around her brother, whose talents revolve around military service. It's quite likely that she picked up a few things from him as well.
Gears great work hope see you more . I agree what you say.
Well, like everypony said to me, “With great power comes great responsibility.” So, I am not at power levels with the princesses or the combined power of all ponies, but just enough for one pony to withhold.
I get the impression that the alicorns hide most of their potential. I mean, celestia can move the SUN. That's a HUGE entity. I imagine they prefer not to use that power because, if they can move celestial bodies, they could have the potential to cause a lot of damage. I don't think at all that twilight was using all the reserves of magic she obtained from her fellow princesses. If she was, MLP would not be a kid friendly show anymore.
it takes roughly 13 unicorns too move the sun (established in the journal of the two sisters), not really that impressive. the error in thinking like that is that people forget that equestria's sun is magical in nature and assume that it works the same way our real world counterpart does which just isn't the case at all.
I feel like to make it more accurate during the audience scene with the stage look at how big Tirek grew after getting all that magic, count how many ponies is in that scene and measure it up to how much bigger Tirek grows after taking Discord's magic. After that do it with how much Tirek grows after consuming the alicorn magic and then divide it by 4 and I feel like you will get a more accurate answer to this "dilemma".
Hey my theory is that a alicorn's Magic comes from how much of there eliminated is in use so for twilight it would be friendship for casinos it would be love for Celesta it would be good magic and for Luna it would be how many ponies are dreaming sorry for any mistake in spelling bye
Even if you have 64-67 Ponies, and Match then up against Discord. Discord would decimate them. Like I said, he can do literally anything. He is too powerful. Which is why they made him an ally and friend.
Maybe, but what we dont know is when he convert ponyville in chaotic world only affects ponyville, not all Equestria, and even if he manage to convert all Equestria to chaotic is only Equestria, not the whole world, making their limit visible in their range of magic reach, in top of that we must know how many things he can hold in their mind at time converted that be another limit you can put in him (like how many attention you can have) , so yes he is powerfull but also because a intelligent use of their magic but is not infinite.
Raptec Clawtooth Badillo Discord only sought out Ponyville at that time. When we saw him tormenting Celestia and Luna, it was clear it became too much for the Mane 6 to handle so they attempted to step in and put a stop to his shenanigans, or Canterlot was also being affected. Either way I just believe Discord is more powerful than he lets on, like I said, because of his personality. By the way, thank you for taking the time to read my comment.
Shining Armor, whom we can assume is a relatively powerful unicorn, struggled to maintain a barrier around Canterlot for the better part of one week. Celestia comfortably controlled two celestial bodies without any evident strain for 1000 years and the sun alone for an unspecified period of time prior and subsequent to that millennium. There is no scenario in which her power could ever be considered only 60 some odd times that of Shining Armor.
4:11 my brain just crashed.
Cool video, also although it is comics based it is worth noting that in the time before alicorns a team of, if I'm not mistaken, eleven unicorns raised the sun and moon just fine on their own.
An interesting theory, except Tirek was clearly lying when he claimed he and Triboost!Twilight were evenly-matched: only he was climbing out of the rubble after their Beam War. She was unmarked and uncovered, so Twilight was actually edging Tirek out slightly. On top of that, Twilight would have likely started to be able to bring in more and more of her spells into the battle, making her more versatile, and giving her a much larger advantage against the more limited Tirek, who seems to turn the power he steals into a raw number without taking any of his victims' actual talents or spells (thus why he couldn't warp reality after siphoning Discord's magic). The longer the battle raged, the more likely Twilight's eventual victory, so Tirek cut the battle short when it was clear he was going to lose.
On a meta level, FiM's writers have never had an issue solved with pure magical might. Starting to do that now would seem very strange, as well as being counter to every previous Aesop. So the power of Might had to be defeated in-story, just as it always is, to make way for the power of Friendship or Love. This is FiM's DNA, so to speak.
Addressing an Alicorn's power on a different level than mathematically, logically it would be higher than that of a Unicorn. This has been shown to be true in _The Journal of the Two Sisters_ as well as in the season 4 finale, specifically when the sisters mention the groups of Unicorns that used to raise and lower the sun and the moon, ending up as completely drained of their magic as Tirek's victims. Even Starswirl, acting on his own, ended up this way (as well as gaining the beard for which he was named). But the sisters were easily able to handle the sun and moon, restoring the Unicorns' magical power and gaining their cutie marks in the process.
It stands to reason an Alicorn would have more magical power than a Unicorn: Alicorns contain traits from all three main pony tribes, an while they have never shown Earth Pony magic in the show, they can cast spells like Unicorns, and fly and even manipulate weather like Pegasi. Possessing three different types of magic within a single container without it ripping that container apart would indicate co-existence between the different energies, or a resonance. Resonance between the different magicks would likely result in them amplifying each other. This means that Unicorn!Twilight casting Magic Blast at Alicorn!Twilight also casting Magic Blast would likely be overwhelmed, despite it being the same spell.
Of course, there is the thorny issue of Starlight Glimmer, a Unicorn, being able to match Twilight, an Alicorn. Starlight has been shown, on every occasion, to be an exceptional Unicorn, but even Twilight never tried to directly match an Alicorn before she became one herself. Starlight? Is as powerful as the story says she needs to be. Therefore she's an outlier to the entire thing. Or: "Screw the rules, I have Plot Armour."
It also stands to reason that Natural Alicorns, Celestia and Luna, would be more powerful than Ascended Alicorns, Cadence, Twilight, and Flurry Heart, because they were born with their three magicks in balance, have the opportunity to allow their power to grow even greater over an extended lifespan, and the wisdom and teachings from the old Alicorn community to guide them. The Ascended Alicorns are mortal, lack some of the pony tribes' characteristics on a genetic level, and have only the knowledge that Celestia and Luna give them. They're not going to be quite as powerful as the Natural Alicorns. The closest would be Twilight, who, having had to carry all the Alicorn magic within her, even for a short time, had to have her capacity for carrying magic (or mana pool) expanded. She is currently closest to being able to succeed Celestia.
Nice job guys
Maths...My Little Pony... Christmas has come early!
Ohhh well I know that Demon Hawk one of my OCS is a alicorn but this got me in complete shock
Then there is outsmarting, on can defeat or balance against a far stronger foe by outsmarting or knowing their next step.
shor's bones he's cleaver in which I do like and I do hope I see more of him and that skill that he used on the math. I do hope to see more of him in the future. Keep up the good work! ^￦^
Fellow Skyrim player i see? :)
Yep. Been playing it for quite some odd years here and there. Before I took a arrow to the knee. X3
If the eq is possibly about 1 million to 100 million
That would mean that 1/4 of the 1 million or 100 million,
If discord is = to two of the princesses that would mean the main 5 (execution for twilight) is = to two princesses
that would mean tereck would be able to drain discord, so if tereck had a fourth already that would mean he would get an extra 3 quarters, this is
Starting to get longer than I thought but you get the idea right doc.
My greatest enemy! MATH! ~ LittleshyFIM
Not sure. Is there an Alicorn 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, Red God or Blue God form we can compare it with?🤔🤓
Also Alicorn Cells. Lots and lots of Alicorn Cells....
It kind of is obvious if one takes it out like that but we also need to consider how the magic works and to what extent. Earth, unicorn, pegasus, alicorn, and even Discord's magic works pretty differently for starters. One could argue that earth, unicorn, pegasus, and even Discord's magic sort of has a time limit or almost like a battery and would need refilling...alicorn magic, however, doesn't seem to share the same limitations. Not to mention there is more to power than sheer force. To somewhat quote from a game, 'A man with a briefcase can steal more than a force of 10,000'.
I have a theory: what if Celestia have turned into Day Breaker before? That would explain why she doesn't do almost anything... because she is afraid of turning into her again also pay attention to this what Day breaker said in this dream.That would make a lot of sense especially because Luna knew Day Breaker's name but she wasn't there when she said it. What do you think?
Sounds about right, give or take a few
I think the Main 5 having the same magic as the average ponies is believable because despite their connection to the Elements, they are still "average" ponies. And even after Tirek drained them, they still activated the Rainbow Power, which is basically the Elements of Harmony as a Super Form, so he obviously didn't drain that.
Ow, math. My brain, it fails me.
That got me thinking...did Tirek at some point by any chance encounter Fizzlepop Berrytwist and drained her magic?
I think they'd have a lower average, since part of the equation said 2A
I like it. Whereas some theorist choose to look up on the lore, Gears uses math to solve the problem. If Gears and Doctor Wolf combine their skills (Doctor Wolf on lore and Gears on the calculations), who knows how many more mlp questions could be answered.
Only point to add would be that the main six peeps *might* have different levels magic compared to others, what with the whole elements being bound to them n' all
DRWolf001, i know that Spike is pure-hearted
(No english native) Another way in which the magic power can be misunderstanded is in their use in raw power vs smart use :
imagine your magic is one paper sheet, you can make a ball and throw it with force a few meters(raw use) or you can do a plane and make it fly a very long distance because you know how fold it (smart use) , my point is even if you have little magic if you know how to use it in a smart way can "look" like something more powerfull.
Also i think x32 is not a bad thing, actually imagine if you have not only the strength of 32 people but also the speed, and more important the management of 32 little things doing simultaneally
DrWolf, Gears is your nephew does that make you half pony? Also, this solves another plot hole. If Chrysalis can covert love into magic then this shows how she defeated Celestia in season 2 as there were more than 32 adoring guests at the wedding + Shining Armour and 5 of the main 6+ any magic Crysalis has on her own.
Dr. Wolf is a magically uplifted normal wolf into sapience (think of Winona).
All of his "family members" (ex: his brother is a dragon), is through adoption.
The main reason Celestia losed that battle was a miscalculation (if she shooted that beam at fullpower from the get-go, she would have scorched the whole room and severely burned most of the ponies present for the wedding).
After getting her beam overtaken and burning her own horn, the extreme pain make her lose conciousness [falling to the ground]; then before she could recover enough to cast any spells or fly away, she was encased in a pod.
. Shining Armor may be AT MOST a "higher level unicorn" like his sister, but he is no alicorn (Chrysalis drained most of his love because he was allowing her to use magic on his mind, but she got nothing from Cadance who had her full magic still available for the climax).
-> Even Chrysalis was surprised of being able to "defeat" Celestia, as she never thinked her power could ever rival the Sunriser (it did not, she was just lucky).
Hi there.
I must say, this Special Episode puts on another important Question about Celestia herself:
IF she really lived for over a Thousand Years, and it was Magic that holds her to life all that Time, how can it be (expect from series rules) that she was still alive, after she gave Twilight ALL her Alicorn Magic?
She didn't even become older after that.
I would mean, that if magic holds away the effects of Time from an Alicorn, this effect would boost in after the Force that holds it off so long is vanished.
At least, she would look like Granny Smith, OR she would fall to dust in only a few hours / minutes.
I know, this don't match into the Series, but even then the makers could bring in a happy end and a reason why she is still alive, in bring her back like a Phoenix, rising from her own ashes.
Luna was banished, so she would survived this and Cadence isn't quite old enough to feel the pressure of Time.
On the other hoof... does Time really work in Equestria as in the rest of the world?
But thats maybe a theme for another Time. ^^
Cya
Oh and another thing for Celestias Power:
In all Seasons, every Time she had a magical Duel with a Villian, she lost.
So, if she really lived over a thausend years, she lost ALOT of her Power, or she wasn't the most powerful from start.
(This stuff with raising the Sun and the Moon... Don't know. There are alot of explanations expect from Magic how this works. I mean, come on: Moving a Stellar Object as big as a Sun without devastation to the rest of the Star System OR the rest of the World itself and same for the Moon?
Or have gravitation no effect on the Tides on this World? )
Also there is another thing that gaves me to think.
We have the Magical Princessdom of Equestria and Crystal Empire.
Most of that land is good for living and growing crops or appletrees or... you know what I mean.
But then you have plenty of Locations around this, were Live is nearly not existend, or veeery harsh.
I know, that is normal, but could it be, that the magical "King"doms drain the Planet from its "Magic"?
I mean, if you see the Movie, you should mean that the rest of the world is a barren dessert (Yes the Badlands aren't called so for no reason)
But with all this twilighted creatures around, Equestria would be a Box of Gold for them. So why don't they invade Equestria, steeling Ponys for slavery, Food, magical Crystals, whatever else on treassures are to find there?
Or are Equestria and the Crystal Empire only visible for Ponys and Pony related races and guests?
I don't think so.
But, to put logic in an animated series is like to dry the ocean with dessert sand.
So, better not try it too much, it would only lead to Brain Damage.
And if you ask somepony about that, the answer always will be: because Magic. ^^
Cya
I hope they make 10 more seasons in the future like in 2018,2019,2020 and 2021
I have an analysis video on my channel about the size of Princess Twilight’s laser, from during the Dragon-Ball-Z-styled battle in the Season 4 finale. I’d enjoy seeing new calculations based on the volume, and how many units of magic fills a unit of volume.
Now the question is how powerful are the Elements/Tree of Harmony and, by extension, their creators.
Celestia has the power to completely decimate Equestria on her own, but only if she was to go full on Daybreaker / Nightmare Star.
as an ace combat fan, i can tell you that the alicorn is a pretty powerful sub with railguns and can somehow launch aircraft
A ~= xP/2
I will open with this, and explain after. Your equation (4A = xP + D) is correct, but the number you supply for xP is impossible to determine.
And if D ~ xP, then 4A ~ 2xP.
In other words A ~ xP/2
I would imagine skill in the use of said magic has a rather large impact on any given being's subjective power. (thx Jared Jenkins.)
People have already commented on Starlight and Twilight's fight in the season 5 finale, but is this a result of Starlight having nearly as much magical power as Twilight, or could it be because Starlight is supremely skilled with her magic in areas Twilight is less familiar?
A better example of this is what happened to Discord's power. Discord is able to use his magic for basically anything he wants because he is skilled in the use of his type of magic, but Tirek was only able to use it to power his laser blasts. That's much less impressive in my opinion.
However, this also happened to Twilight, who according to herself, was only just learning how to control her own power. So as I think about it, that whole fight seemed to be a powerhouse duel between two unskilled fighters. Just imagine what an equivalent fight between skilled fighters would look like!
Obviously the biggest factor to change your conclusion would be the number of ponies Tirek drained off screen. I know you mentioned that the on-screen number was chosen for simplicity's sake, but it is by no means a leap of logic to say the real number is massively over that (especially since the number you counted was merely a montage). We've seen upwards of 20-30 ponies in Appleloosa, we've seen upwards of 50 ponies gathered at one time in Canterlot, we've seen upwards of 20-30 ponies in one place in Manehattan, we've seen upwards of 40-50 ponies in Ponyville, and it's impossible to not say each of those cities hold a looot more than shown on screen. Even on a low estimate, Tirek would have drained hundreds (if not thousands, assuming the small numbers we see in the show is due to animation difficulty) of ponies if it is true that "with *no* pegasi to control the weather..." indicates he took all the pegasi's magic.
So I think it was a mistake to assume Tirek only stole the magic of 68 ponies, but I also recognize it would be near impossible to extrapolate truly how many he took from. If we assume it was hundreds of ponies, then an alicorn could equal 300 or so normal ponies; or if Tirek took thousands, then an alicorn could equal well over a thousand ponies.
However, whether consolidating the magic of many beings into one decreases the overall effectiveness is another difficult factor to consider. That happened only on the scale of four on Twilight's part, but on the scale of hundreds or thousands on Tirek's part. So perhaps hundreds of ponies' magic is objectively more powerful than an alicorn, but consolidated into one being, it is reduced significantly.
TL;DR -
After considering skill, numbers, and power consolidation, I think your estimate is a fair estimate, but could also be off by two orders of magnitude.
What can be proven is 4A = xP + D (in other words A ~ xP/2).
This is interesting, and relatively supported by lore, as it took a group of unicorns to raise and lower the sun before the alicorn princesses came to power, as explained in hearths warming eve
I personally always assumed, and still do assume that Discord isn't so much more powerful than any of the Princess, but that it's the type of Magic he uses that allows him to outplay the Alicorns. But that's just my personal head-canon. But I will point out that this is sorta supported in that Discord's Magic does look very different from everypony else's.
Seeing as you only used on-screen drainings, I turned your value into a percentage, making the average alicorn equal to 48.5% of the pony population. Multiply by four, we get their combined power being 194% of the ponies. This makes Discord's power equal to 94% of the pony population. However, this would also mean Celestia and Luna were weaker in the past, as two alicorns is 97% of the pony population. Course there is also how one uses the magic. So, Discord could be able to defeat both of them from being smarter.
I didnt know there was going to be math