About

"Trollestia" and "Tyrant Celestia" are nicknames for Princess Celestia from My Little Pony Friendship is Magic that are associated with the act of trolling, and have inspired image and video derivatives of the Princess acting mischievously.

Origin

Princess Celestia is a recurring character in My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. She and her sister, Princess Luna, were the supreme rulers of Equestria, and were tasked with raising the sun and the moon respectively. Luna became jealous of Celestia because ponies played throughout the day, but slept during the night. One night Luna refused to lower the moon, thereby threatening Equestria with eternal night. Celestia banished her to the moon, leaving herself responsible for raising both the sun and the moon each day and night. After the events in the first two episodes, which take place a thousand years after Luna's initial banishment, Celestia goes back to ruling the land of Equestria with Princess Luna raising the moon again.^[1]

Throughout the series, there are times when Celestia speaks and behaves somewhat less formally than would be expected of a princess or an absolute monarch.

Spread

Trollestia

"Trollestia" arose from Princess Celestia's tendency to create frustrating situations for the rest of the cast. In Episode 3, Season 1 ("The Ticket Master"), Princess Celestia sends Twilight Sparkle two tickets for Twilight and a friend to attend the Grand Galloping Gala, a prestigious yearly event held in Celestia's castle. She intentionally only sends two, even though she knows Twilight has five pony friends.

Later on in the season, in Episode 22 ("A Bird in the Hoof"), Celestia further demonstrates this behavior. While holding a party in Celestia's honor, the hosts are intimidated by the princess, and compulsively attempt to keep her teacup filled after every sip, opening themselves to a joke by Celestia (shown below).

The first Trollestia image was posted to /co/ on November 4th, 2010 by an anonymous user. It was an indirect response to requests over the previous several days for someone to create an image of Celestia bearing a trollface.^[11]

As illustrated below, however, the concept of Trollestia seems to have taken hold in the fandom well before any images were created.

[click to see image]

The first image on Ponibooru^[2] appeared on March 23rd, 2011, and was posted by an anonymous user.

The single topic blog "Princess Trollestia" was created on Tumblr^[3] on April 21st, 2011. A Reddit thread titled "Trollestia Loves Destruction"^[4] was created on May 8th, 2011. Derivatives can be commonly found on Ponibooru^[8], Tumblr^[10], and Equestria Daily.^[9]

There is a Facebook page^[9] with over 850 likes as of June 2011.

Tyrant Celestia

Since Princess Celestia was the sole ruler of Equestria for a thousand years, fans have questioned how she kept her power for so long. Although she was initially the co-ruler with her sister Luna, the act of banishing her has been joked about as befitting a Machiavellian, power-hungry tyrant. Many of the show's followers joked about the "Corrupt Ruler," bestowing on her the title "Tyrant Celestia, Ruler of All Equestria". Art depicting her corruptness, including an Advice Animal style template on Memegenerator^[5], and DIY LOL.^[6]

Molestia

Further tarnishing the image of Princess Celestia can be traced back to (though probably not originating from) an Anonymous post on /co/, November 24, 2010.^[12] The post contained the following image:

The numbers in the image are a reference to Rule 34 from the rules of the internet.. Reaction images and references to "Molestia" became common among some fans, serving basically the same purpose as references to Pedobear or Me Gusta. Fan art began popping up, often depicting Celestia standing over other characters from the show in compromising positions.

"Do you like Bananas?"

"Do you like Bananas?" is a catchphrase that originated from the flash animation "Friendship is Magic Bitch" made by Newgrounds member Skaijop^[13] on August 8, 2011. The video features Celestia who's receiving guests at her castle, although she doesn't really show interest in what they are telling her. After a while she starts asking the person whether they like bananas. She keeps doing this in various ways untill she is clear of the other's opinion. Following by that is a cannon coming out of the floor that launches the guest towards the moon.

Through the popularity of the video, the phrases in it also gained popularity. This has made Celestia's actions in the video a popular way to troll/derail threads. The poster will start with the question "Do you like Bananas?" and continues this in similar ways as Celestia. To finally end with sending the other to the moon.

Search

Search queries for "trollestia" picked up in April of 2011, and peaked the following month. The search results previous to MLP:FiM for Molestia can be attributed to the actual Latin rooted word which can mean annoyance or molestation.^[14]

Derivatives

External References