Cadence's Dark Secret...

I don't know much, but with all variables in place from outside the show and side info about season finale, I'd suppose Discord has his hands in this (maybe she's related to Celestia AND Discord)

 

Maybe she's just using Twilight's brother to get married, which could make her "Queen" of Equestria instead of a princess, giving her more power than Princess Celestia or Luna. She would then in the cliched fashion, attempt to kill off or get rid of Shining Armour once she has that power, as she would have no other need for him. She would use the clones, that way, nopony would know it's actually her that got rid of Shining Armour, they would think it's the mane six.

This plot would cover a lot of plotholes up once and for all i.e. Why doesn't Equestria have a queen?, and also teach an important moral about loving somepony for more than riches or power.

 

Clones make everything complicated. Maybe Princess Cadence is herself a clone? Maybe that is her talent, and she's using it to somehow bring down Celestia? Are the clones there as part of a third party group? What about Shining Armor? is he a clone? Are they all secretly clones of eachother? Are the writers clones? What if I'm a clone and I don't realize it? AAAAAH!

See what I mean? Clones make things way too complicated to figure out. It's like trying to win a chess game, but the other guy has 4 kings, 2 queens, and so many pawns that he has to stack them.

 

I doubt it, Luna would've sensed her real daughter's abduction or at least appeared to protect her during the final battles. I think Cadence is the daughter of King Plothole and Queen WhatThe von Hay.

 

Luna was fighting changelings of her own I guess. After all, while Celestia was on the wedding, she was at that telescope. Then she saw the changelings coming and propably was fending off the ones she could. Or maybe flew away to get reinforcements (Lunar Guard!). Also, Celestia only got defeated because the Changeling Queen had not only her own, huge power besides her (almost matching that of a god) she was also "fed" (insert too much playing LoL reference here) by Shining Armor's love (which is a lot) for who the hell knows how much time.

 

I think maybe Celestia wasn't taking the queen very seriously. Because honestly, when was the last time, outside of Nightmare Moon, she personally dealt with an actual physical threat to herself? I think she used what she thought would be the minimum amount of power necessary to incapacitate her, and then have her removed, but the queen proved herself more powerful than Celestia realized, and she payed the price for it. At that point, if she was conscious, Celestia might have come to the conclusion that using more of her power could hurt her subjects, because let's face it, subtlety isn't something sun gods do. Luna and Cadence, plus the Elements were still in play, so Celestia may have decided to see how things played out. She certainly didn't look all that hurt at the end. Just my thoughts, let me know what you think!

 

It just looks like alicorns are not all that god-like as they were thought to be without the Elements of Harmony at their disposal. And Luna was probably just busy (whether that'd be busy fighting of changelings or busy napping is anyone's guess).

 

True. Speaking of, WTH Royal Guard? For ponies who were protecting the city, they sure didn't seem to be around much, or notice that outside the translucent force field that there was an army of evil shape shifting monsters. Kinda expected better from Canterlot's finest.

 

Yeah, come to think of it, they probably really mostly serve an ornamental purpose, because, well, a princess just has to have guards (and their presence may reassure the citizens). Never mind the fact that both (actual) princesses are arguably more capable of dealing with any actual threats by themselves. Well, most of the time.

Still, they were pretty useless. Really makes you wonder if Shining Armor is doing all that great as Captain of the Royal Guard.

 

My conspiracy theory: Celestia purposely lost to Queen Chrysalis because she knew that it was going to end like it did!!!

No, really. There has to be SOME reason she lost, because there is no way she's less powerful than that other ridiculous queen. -.-'
I like airstream's theory. It makes sense.

And yeah, what was with the royal guard? Makes sense that they would be ornamental, since, like airstream said, there hasn't been any major war or threat that they've had to deal with in a while...

 

Well, in Chrysalis defense, she was feeding off the love of Shining Armor for a while which probably boosted her power enough to defeat Celestia (Chrysalis was surprised to defeat Celestia). It seems that love is more powerful then the sun.

 

Yeah, Chrysalis herself said that feeding off of Shining Armor's love for Cadence made her even stronger than Celestia, so that pretty much answers that.

 

Pah. Love stronger than the sun? Let's take Shining Armor and Princess Cadance and toss them into the sun, see if their love can withstand nuclear fusion. Celestia is strong enough to take a pony whose main job is moving and enormous ball of rock through space, and hurl her indigo flank 384.4 thousand kilometers away. I think that Celestia is far more powerful than anypony gives her credit for.

 

Pff, or Equestria's sun and moon are just really small and unimpressive compared to our own.
And yes, presumably she was very powerful, back when she had access to the Elements. But nowadays she can hardly get anything done without Twilight and her friends.

To be fair though, moving both sun and moon and ruling over both day and night for a millennium must have been pretty draining. Now that Luna's back, she should probably allow herself to go on a small vacation. Just for a century or so. Or at least a week.