>>7968
>Nightmare Moon, what is she? A mere evil entity that took advantage of Princess Luna or Luna's own darkness unchecked? Maybe a little of both. A shame that in Luna's emo self punishment and stoicism we didn't get see her explored more as I can think of different angles were Nightmare Moon could be interesting. Oh, imagine if they had introduced Kirins earlier..

Kirins weren´t considered until far too late in the game and if NMM was introduced in later seasons. Perhaps we would have received much more depth related to her backstory rather than resorting to her as the first stop that serves as an introductory villain (for the most relevant gen that MLP has had thus far). An aura of mystery mostly because writers just showed her without much thought (in terms of background context) about her until later in the show (or comics)

Even then, Luna could change her body and deliver her appearance like she did in Luna Eclipsed. That single moment shows that Luna could be capable to roleplay/act as her at any time just by spending a little amount of magic and put some artificial fangs into her mouth. Or even in the comics, when she displays towards Daybreaker that she can adapt her identity as NMM. They have both used their Canterlot voices in Between Dusk and Dawn as well (when they normally use it with the evil versions for intimidating the rest)

And it happens in reverse: artist draw Nightmare Moon with Luna´s body and just changes her eyes (they glow in blue) for illustrating her corruption.

Originally, they were found in that state and if you take into account Nightmare Knights and the previous arc (The Pillar 6), while I haven´t read the comics from the pillars, it seems that Starswirl educated them for balancing their behaviours and raise them with more balanced values than the ones that they had at the time. Daybreaker was the strongest out of the two and Luna showed signs of loyalty. It´s funny, we always portray Nightmare Moon as the main villain but just because she is popular and made her debut in the first episode of the series, it doesn´t mean that she can beat her sister. In fact, as NMM wasn´t strong enough, she didn´t end turning into the parallel bodyguard for Eris.

The line between defining darkness by just setting up differences of their behaviours with just the bodies…said exercise implies a huge risk at assuming that just because NMM shows up, her design makes her evil (the same treatment is translated with Daybreaker as well). Tons of gray arise here but I guess that what prevented them from being evil comes from their well-settled values from Starwsirl (putting his faith on them) and the amount of responsibility that they hold, how committed they are with their duties.

>PoLS, from the anon who has a obsession with crossing bridges.
it seems that you have just crossed a bridge over troubled water (and said water seems to be full of nightmares, considering the most recent sticky)