EDIT: 16/02/13 Added: "Celestia was planning to turn Twilight into a Alicorn Princess, which is terrible!"

NOTE: This is not intended to attack anyone. Please refrain from flaming other people for having different opinions.

In my vision, Princess Celestia is apparently the most hated/disliked/disregarded pony character among the good guys in MLP:FIM. And she also receives a mass amount of false characterization and crude joking from the community.  

I find it very difficult to search for her on YouTube, Deviantart, EQD, Google images, ponibooru, without stumbling upon several videos/deviations of Celestia being trollish, tyrannical, cruel, sexual deviant or just an all-out depraved monster. Of all the cartoon characters i've seen so far, i've never seen one being so fanonically butchered as Celestia is.

Here are some arguments that gave origin to all the "Celestia abuse"

She sent Luna to the moon
Now i think i understand why people are so strongly focused on this argument; specially because they think it was too much of a "cruel" fate for Luna. But people seem to forget that it wasn't Luna. Not anymore. It was NIGHTMARE MOON who's a completely different alter-ego of Luna. Unlike Luna, NMM is cruel and mean-spirited, 'cause not only she wanted to grant eternal night, but she also wanted to usher an era of evil, just like Lauren Faust says: [link] And note that she was banished IN the moon, not ON the moon. And i'm more than sure that Celestia seriously had no intentions of hurting her sister, it's even said in the opening sequence that Celestia tried to REASON with her, but it didn't work(because she turned into a whole different pony, remember?), and that she RELUCTANTLY tried to defeat her sister. Also note that the E.O.H. have a mind of their own, i'm sure Celestia did her best to turn her sister back to normal, but it was probably too much for her to wield ALL of the elements on her own(since she can't do too much without Luna's help) which might've caused some sort of "collateral effect" which is probably what caused Luna's banishment, proving that Celestia didn't intentionally banish her sister. I can only imagine how emotionally hard it was for Celestia to live for a thousand years without the company her beloved sister, who ages the same way she does while everypony grows old and die.
People also talk like if Luna/NMM was conscious during the entire period of her imprisonment, yet display no canon proof about it rather than pure fanon.
This argument is also brought up because Luna is apparently one of the most over-appreciated MLP:FIM characters there is. Specially by the "New Lunar Republic" who are known to be apparently fanatic towards Luna and always portraying Celestia as a tyrannical ruler. I know they have plenty of sane members, but a lot of them seem to demonstrate a lot of hate towards Celestia. Here's a good example: [link]
I seriously found that comment completely preposterous, not to mention that it was posted in an beautiful tear-dropping comic series known as "the real story" by Nimaru(go check it out if you feel like it). And to think that this community uses "love and tolerate" as a slogan, but very little of it is demonstrated towards Princess Celestia, other than senseless hate.

She turned Discord into stone
This argument is significantly similar to the previous one, 'cause Discord is also an over-appreciated character. But people seem to forget that he's a VILLAIN who likes to torture ponies just for fun. After all, he ruled over Equestria in tyranny and chaos. Notice that when Celestia tells the story about Discord's ruling era, it can be heard screaming and moaning on the background, which is undoubtedly a sonorous representation of how life was like for ponies while Discord ruled. I admit that the initial "changes" that were made in ponyville by Discord didn't look too cruel, but after witnessing how ridiculously overpowered he is(after all, he stole the E.O.H that were under the protection of a spell that only Celestia can break), and his "twisted", yet wicked and mischievous personality, i'm almost sure that he had ADDITIONAL plans for ponyville, and no pony would like it one bit.
Like i stated before, the E.O.H have a mind of their own, so if they turned him into stone before, it's undoubtful that the same would happen if the Mane 6 used them on him.  
I also find it unfair to have all the fingers pointed ONLY at Celestia, yet people seem to forget that Luna also contributed on turning him into stone.

I understand that Discord is loved by many among the community, but defending a villain from a hero is a very irrational move IMO.

But why leave him in the garden? Doesn't that mean that the other statues are ponies who were petrified by Celestia?
Maybe i should remind people of when everyone made jokes of Celestia sending ponies to the moon, when in fact it's false because she only did it once and with the E.O.H., and remember that she lost connection to them. The same case goes with this subject, considering that Celestia petrified a character only ONCE, and not only she did it with the E.O.H., but she did it with Luna's help, which could prove that it's probably very difficult(maybe impossible) for Celestia to do this on her own, and since she lost connection to the E.O.H., i guess it makes it pretty clear.

"People are assuming Celestia turns ponies to stone because of Discord's comment: "It's quite lonely being incased in stone, but YOU wouldn't know that because I don't turn ponies into stone!"

Notice he never actually said CELESTIA turns ponies to stone, he just said he doesn't. To me that kind of comes off as: "I don't turn others to stone so it's not fair you turned me to stone". He never directly claimed Celestia does that, and even if he did, he's the spirit of DISHARMONY, the opposite of Harmony, which includes Honesty. Are people REALLY going to take DISCORD's word at face value?"~ShadowWing09

Now the reason why she decided to put his statue in the garden is rather unknown. In my imagination, it would be so that it would make it easier for her(and probably Luna) to keep an eye on him. Since he's overpowered and if he happen to escape his "prison", he could use his powers to reach Canterlot almost instantly, so throwing him in a deep dark dungeon or anywhere alike would be a stupid idea.
I also imagine that Celestia(or a royal employee, guard, etc.) put him in the garden because he's (possibly)a VERY old enemy of Celestia, who's believed to be defeated forever, so putting him in the garden to everyone else to see would cause no harm.

After all, it's a statue. And there's no better place to put a statue than with other statues.  

She trolls everypony
Now there's something that should be said and known: that the "troll" term that is frequently and repeatedly used on Celestia is seriously misplaced, not only in the show, but several times on the web, also consider that it's an internet slang like said below:

"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion."

Additionally, trolling consists on unfriendly, aggressive and crude jokes/pranks that is usually meant to anger/frustrate/offend someone and/or hurt their feelings. Unlike trolling, Celestia's pranks are in fact friendly and are usually meant calm and/or lighten up the mood of everypony around by showing her friendly and playful nature. Saying that her pranks should be considered trolling is almost the same as saying that every person in the planet is a troll. If you still think that she's such, there are some arguments below that could clearly explain her true nature. Also note that most of the time, Celestia doesn't know what's happening with the mane six. I know Celestia is frequently described as a "god"-like character, but she's a physical being, her form has defined limits, which means she can't see everything at once and there's no proof in the show that she can be anywhere/everywhere instantaneously, and there's no proof that she can see everything/the future. She didn't even expect Luna to be transformed into Nightmare Moon.
And also, consider the fact that when she's there but doesn't interfere, it's often for the ponies own good. Often by working it out on their own, to learn valuable lessons about each other, themselves, and friendship in general. She can't solve everypony's problems all the time, they must learn to overcome their challenges so they can become stronger.

Are lessons about friendship THAT important?
Well, i'd say they really are. You see, it's said in "return of harmony" that she and Luna have lost their connections to Elements of Harmony(and you know that they are the MOST powerful magic known to ponydon) so who's gonna wield them? It's left for the mane six, but they're young, so they gotta learn stuff about friendship constantly to keep the E.O.H. powered up. They're VERY powerful magic, so that would mostly make the mane six the HEROES of Equestria or something.

What about "Bird in the hoof" where Celestia TROLLS the Cakes with the tea incident?
What she did was merely to lighten up the mood. She obviously noticed how tense and nervous the Cakes were acting(even Twilight was nervous), i understand it because Celestia is a very important pony, but that's why she pulled the tea prank, to break the ice and show her friendly/playful side and that she doesn't need(and doesn't enjoy much) to be treated as a "worshiped lord", because she obviously enjoys being treated more as a friend and she just went to the party to have fun. You'd think that most stereotype "GlockStars" like to be treated as kings, pampered all the time and have everything given to them in a large platinum tray, but that doesn't go with Celestia, she outright breaks the princess stereotype by displaying her friendly and playful side, and that's why i love her.

She TROLLED Fluttershy by bringing a dying bird to the party and made Fluttershy cry. She didn't know it was a phoenix
The most logical explanation for it is that Celestia knew Fluttershy is good with animals, so she probably assumed that Fluttershy already knew about phoenixes. That's probably why she didn't tell her. Even though Fluttershy had good intentions when she took Celestia's bird away without her permission, it was still a precipitate move. Like Celestia said, it would've been much easier if Fluttershy simply asked Celestia about the bird. Also, consider that Fluttershy forgiven in the end and made a new animal friend, and i think this fact should be really put into consideration. I doubt my neighbors wouldn't feel worried if i took their dog(without them knowing it) with me because i thought it was sick when in fact it was just pregnant.

What about "the ticket master"? She knew Twilight had 5 friends, but only sent 2 tickets
It's very inaccurate to flag it as "trolling" act. There are not only one, but plenty of theories that could serve as a fair/clear explanation
1)She didn't know her friends wanted to go too. Sure, she knew Twilight had 5 friends, but she didn't know THEM.(remember this is only the 3rd episode) It's almost the same as looking at your friend's friends list and you see a bunch of people who you barely know. I bet she didn't even imagine they dreamed of going to the gala, considering how "awful" it is.(you'll know what i mean if you saw the "best night ever" episode). She was probably expecting Twilight to give the second ticket to somepony else just for generosity. Or maybe to Spike.
2)That was a friendship test. If Twilight was a REAL friend, she would refuse the tickets unless she had enough to go with ALL her friends. And she passed at the end. The extra tickets were given to her as a "prize" of some sort.
3)That was just a honest mistake.

What about "Sonic Rainboom" where Rarity falls to her death and Celestia just sits back and watch?
You're right, but you forgot about one thing: EVERYPONY was sitting back and watching. Thing is Cloudsdale we're talking about here, the home of the pegasi. I find it kind of unfair how everyone pointed all their fingers at Celestia when she wasn't the only pony there who could've done something. Besides, Twilight could also have used her unicorn powers to save Rarity, but she didn't. So if you're saying Princess Celestia is Evil/a troll because of that, you're saying Twilight is too.
Also, people don't seem to consider that if Princess Celestia actually saved Rarity, Rainbow Dash probably wouldn't have performed the Sonic Rainboom, wouldn't have won the competition and wouldn't have learned her friendship lesson.  

What about "Return of harmony"? Discord is destroying ponyville and Celestia did absolutely nothing to stop him
I have to say that this kind of statement is really poorly made. She didn't join the action 'cause the only thing that can stop Discord are The Elements of Harmony, but Celestia can't weld them.(she explains it right after the beginning) Also, you're stating that Celestia did ABSOLUTELY nothing. Perhaps you forgot that Twilight and the others were completely Discorded(...and defeated). Twilight was right about to call it quits, but it didn't happen 'cause Celestia sent back all the friendship reports Twilight learned in Season 1. In the process, Twilight's strength(i.e. spirit of friendship) was restored, then she went to de-discord her friends and they defeated Discord at the end. But if it wasn't for Princess Celestia, ponyville would probably be completely lost. And the mane six would probably have remained discorded.

"Something I'd like to add about the Discord issue. It's also possible that Celestia couldn't help Twilight and the others stop Discord because she and Luna had to defend Canterlot from his influence and power. Had Canterlot been taken over by Discord, Equestria would've been lost and (possibly), Celestia and Luna would've been "Discorded" as well. So this proves that Celestia also has a duty to protect the capital city of Equestria because if Canterlot fell, it would've been [link]."~S-Missile

There is still the fact that she made Spike Stomach-sick by sending all those letters
I admit, it might have been quite painful, but it was a (little)price to be paid for the salvation of Equestria. She probably knew Twilight was "discorded", so she had to take necessary, hurried (and probably)drastic measures to help on the situation. It was probably a tough choice for her to make:
1)Keep Spike stomach-healthy and let Discord take over Equestria.
2)Give Spike a slight stomach ache, but take a very last chance to save the Mane 6 from Discord's influence and save Equestria from eternal chaos.
She had to take her pick, but look on the bright side, Equestria was saved from chaos and Spike is no longer stomach-sick. You should feel lucky that she didn't pick the alternate choice and have the Mane 6 to remain discorded and keep Equestria under Discord's dominance.  

"Did Celestia even KNOW what that was doing to Spike? People seem to imagine Celestia giggling maliciously as she listens to Spike's cries of discomfort, but she might not even have been aware of what was happening to him. Like you said, she's vastly intelligent, but not all knowing. Even if she did know, you already offered a counter arguement: The fate of Equestria hung in the balance, so she didn't have much of a choice"~ShadowWing09

Celestia didn't tell Luna that the royal Canterlot voice was no longer used so she let Luna make herself look bad in front of everypony
You talk as if Celestia have set Luna up. What if Nightmare Night was the first time Luna went out to visit the common folk? It's possible that Luna was speaking normal while in Canterlot with Celestia and that Celestia wasn't aware of Luna speaking out in public in the Royal Canterlot Voice.

Just because Celestia is vastly intelligent, doesn't mean she knows everything.

Celestia was beaten by Queen Chrysalis, proving that she's weak
Yes, she DID lose the fight, but she's far from weak; i'd say she just got unlucky that Queen Chrysalis chose the ideal pony to suck so much love and make her powerful enough to beat Celestia. But you should've noticed how frightened and and scared Chrysalis looked when Celestia lauched her attack, Chrysalis obviously knew that Celestia is not one that anyone can mess with. At least she TRIED to stop the Queen! This is the VERY FIRST time we see Celestia attempting to use her power to protect her subjects. It proves that she actually CARES for her subjects and would gladly put her life on the line to FIGHT to protect her subjects. Nopony else but Celestia stood up against the queen at that moment. Even though she failed, that was a commendable attempt IMO.

"In my opinion, Celestia *could* have defeated Chrysalis, or she at least possessed the power to do it, but she didn't use her full power because doing so would have caused too much collateral damage and innocent casualties. So she tried to defeat the queen first with a safe amount of her power, and when that failed, relied on the Elements first, her full power (and all the damage it would cause) being only a last resort." ~Astaenes

She didn't apologize to Twilight after being cold with her for not believing her about the fake Princess Cadence
People focus on this argument because they state that Celestia should be all-knowing. I acknowledge that Celestia is 1000 years old wise, but that doesn't make her all-knowing and there's just NO way that she could've suspected that it was an impostor, because she didn't display any suspicious behavior while Celestia was around, even though Cadence is her niece. In the end, all Twilight did was recklessly throwing several accusations at her without any visual or live proof, making herself look bad, specially because the impostor was a too good of an actress to have anypony suspecting that she's fake. I know that Celestia didn't apologize, but instead she congratulated Twilight for believing herself in the shadow of doubt, which was very kind from her IMO.  

Also note that Twilight's brother, Shining Armor(who's said to be her "BBBFF", but was even colder with her) didn't apologize to her either, but nobody says anything about that.  


Princess Celestia is lazy/useless! She's never around to help in a crisis
Well, i hope you didn't forget that she's the RULER of Equestria;(an entire kingdom!) and role of which one would be undoubtedly very busy with. She's been raising the sun AND the moon and maintaining Equestria in a good shape at the same time for a thousand years; and i'd say she did a pretty good job; now i'd like to see YOU pull that off.
Also, it's mildly inadequate that the ruler of a kingdom goes solve problems personally, big powerful people don't personally go fight battles or sort out problems personally, they send troops to do that instead. Did Bush go to Iraq to fight terrorists alongside the marines? No. Did Obama personally put a bullet in Osama's head? No either.
Besides, Celestia can't personally go into every danger and die by chance, if that happens, there would be only one pony left to rule Equestria and Luna would find that all the extra workload isn't what she's cut out to be; that would endanger Equestria of crumbling down because of ineffective government.

Furthermore, I believe she rarely participates in a fight because she doesn't want her subjects to start always relying on her for every crisis; they need to learn to take care of themselves and exercise their self-sufficiency. Kami from Dragon Ball puts it best: "It would not do for any man to begin saying, "Well, if things get bad, God will fix it." In the end, Earthlings must depend on their own power to find their way through." And he's got a point.  

However, she isn't entirely useless. In fact, she DOES personally intervene when it's necessary. In Swarm of the Century she rescued Fillydelphia from an infestation. In Lesson Zero she stopped the chaos at Ponyville which Twilight had set up. Also, in Return of Harmony - Part 2 she cured Twilight from Discord's influence by sending all her previous friendship reports back for her to read them. In A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2 Celestia put her life on the line when she attempted to stop Queen Chrysalis, and no doubt she would've won, had Shining Armor's love for Cadance not been so strong, and had Chrysalis not absorbed so much of it by that point. I mean, from Chrysalis's dialogue, even she was shocked that she was able to beat Celestia. In the MLPFiM Comic Issue #4, Celestia defends Canterlot from a horde of giant mutant cockatrices.

Also, i wonder why Luna never gets any flack for being "useless", eh? Don't you ever wonder where she was or what she was doing while Celestia was confronting Queen Chrysalis?

Celestia was planning to turn Twilight into a Alicorn Princess, which is terrible!
Twilight was fulfilling her destiny; Celestia sent that book with the unfinished spell to Twilight as a final test to her skills and to prove herself about all the things she learned so far, so that she could move to the next level of her studies, she was confident that Twilight could do something that the great unicorn StarSwirl couldn't, do something extraordinary. Turning her into an Alicorn Princess was merely a reward, which is a BLESSING, NOT a curse and the transformation came from Twilight, it wasn't cast by Celestia. Twilight was really happy with the way she was rewarded and her family was very proud of her, so really i can't see how this is a bad thing. And like Megan McCarthy says, Twilight didn't change drastically, she didn't get separated from her friends, she's still the same Twilight Sparkle as before; only with a couple wings and a place in royalty.

"The truth is: Celestia simply wants her student to be the best of the best. Don't teachers naturally want that from their students?  Think of it as graduation project. Normally, if a student is to graduate, he or she must make a project assigned by their superiors. If they succeed, they graduate. Celestia, as the superior, have Twilight, the student, a difficult project: complete that spell. (Can't remember its name) Twilight did it, and then she was rewarded. Isn't that kinda like graduation? To me, yes it is. So, no. I don't see it a strange thing."*MLP-SharpShooter

At least, if you're going to blame someone for such "terrible god awful thing", blame Hasbro, not Celestia, nor Twilight.

---
Celestia is probably the least loved among the good guys in MLP:FIM. While real canon antagonist such as Chrysalis, Trixie, Flim & Flam and Discord are treated like gods by the community, Celestia is still treated like trash, not to mention the several fanfictions where she's portrayed as an antagonist or something alike. and it breaks my heart when i witness the amount of abuse that is frequently thrown at her.


About the trollestia/molestia concept

Molestia is funny/sexy
I seriously don't see what's so funny about a defenseless and innocent filly being sexually assaulted and abused by a bigger pony. I admit that there is hot erotic action on display, but it doesn't change the fact that there's a VICTIM on the scene who is REALLY not enjoying the experience he/she is having. If you still think that it's funny or sexy, just wait until you unluckly get the experience of being painfully molested for the first time.  

My gut feeling also tells me that a lot of you people haven't read Molestia's original fanfiction, where she is described like this:

"Her eyes were open wide and her pupils were now resembling tiny black dots. Little streams of blood seeped into the whites of her eyes, making them seem bloodshot. Her face had a horribly creepy grin on it as her teeth continued to jitter and shake, as if she was freezing cold."  

...This little text block(and more in the fanfiction itself) looks a lot like something that is generally used describe a MONSTER, and i don't recall monsters being sexy. If you still see Molestia as some sort of super hot porn star, then i suggest you to look at her original fanfiction and know the truth about her:  [link] I'm sure it will be more than enough to shatter any erotic dreams and fantasies you have about her when you see how she's unpleasantly described in the fanfiction. Trust me, it gave me nightmares for months.
The real Celestia doesn't have bloodshot eyes with tiny pupils, a creepy smile nor she is a molester, but she still beautiful and attractive IMO. I would surely choose her over the doppelganger Molestia.
I swear that Molestia would've died off real fast if it wasn't for JohnJoseco and his Ask-Molestia blog.


About the "Trollestia" concept
Some people assume that they just do it for "fun" and it's to give her more "personality". I immediately roll my eyes when people tell me that. To me, this is FAR the contrary of a "character improvement". If your intentions were to make her a better character, i guess it's safe to assume that i have better ideas than yours, 'cause i'm thinking about turning her into a superhero or a wise kung-fu fighter or a warrior princess like Xena. But it seems that people have a huge lack of creativity, 'cause trollestia and molestia are the only alternate Celestia characterizations i'm seeing on the web, it's very difficult for me to avoid bumping into any of this content, 'cause this stuff is everywhere; it's massively over-rated and i seriously don't understand why.
And as consequence, it really ruins her image. I know that 'cause i have friend who tells me that he used to actually believe that Celestia is a troll, but all these thoughts were gone after he watched the show, and now he's on my side defending Celestia. This is a live proof that all these "jokes" and memes can actually affect the way people think of the character itself.
People assume that her canon personality is boring, so they decide to twist her into a troll to "give her some flaws" to make her a more "enjoyable" character. But in my most sincere opinion, she's not a bad character. On the contrary, she's much more than i can say about other typical fictional princess characters; my guess is that people aren't "strong" enough to enjoy/appreciate her actual character so they turn into a lowlife troll. I don't need that. I don't need to twist her into a lowlife troll to make her more enjoyable, 'cause i already think she's great the way she is, and i sincerely think that trollestia just ruins her character. It's like that old saying: "If it isn't broken, don't fix it".

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not demanding anyone to stop making trollestia-related art. If you take it as just a joke and nothing more, i'm fine with that, but if it's taken too far, then we have a problem.

Celestia is a tyrant/dictator
Well, first let's see the actual definitions of tyrant:

1)An absolute ruler who governs without restrictions.
2)A ruler who exercises power in a harsh, cruel manner.
3)An oppressive, harsh, arbitrary person.

I really couldn't see any part of the show where she exercises her power in a harsh or cruel manner. And i really can't call her a "dictator" or "absolute ruler", considering that she's only CO-ruler(remember that Luna also rules Equestria alongside Celestia). I guess it's all brought up because people hate authority in general, since most real life nation-leaders are oppressive and cold-hearted. But i still think it's really irrational to compare all these real-life facts with a CARTOON about a fantasy-like land filled with multi-colored ponies.  


Celestia is in fact a kind and loving ruler, one willing to put the happiness of others before herself, willing to sacrifice what she loves for the greater good, and doing what she can to teach other ponies on how to better themselves. In my words, she is the most laid-back, fun-loving, kind-hearted ruler and monarch ever to be made in fiction.


I'm not trying to force anyone to love Princess Celestia. If she isn't your favorite, then fine, I won't criticize that. But be open-minded to both sides of the story, and don't be so quick to misidentify her role in equestria with tyranny, dictatorship, trolling, or negatively compare her with other characters. I've been seeing a lot of people calling her a "mary sue", but i already made a journal that sums all that up: [link] and make sure to read the comments for further clarification.

So these are my basic points of defending Princess Celestia. I may add some more later. If anyone has any comments or statements they want to add(or just note me about any grammar/spelling mistakes up here), please don't hesitate to do so.