Starlight Glimmer's Incredibly Stupid Backstory · 9:44pm Nov 28th, 2015
Spoilers, obviously. Read my rant after the break, if you've seen the finale.
Ok, so what the hell. Starlight's motivation for her numerous heinous deeds was revealed, and it's super pathetic. She just straight-up overreacted to an easily resolved problem. The appropriate response to the event of 'my friend is moving away because they got accepted to boarding school' would be to congratulate them on their success and agree to keep in touch through the mail, not to immediately denounce friendship entirely and become a literal soul-sucking communist. It took me like five minutes to come up with a much better backstory that explains her villainous nature much better, without even going into stuff too dark for the show:
Starlight Glimmer was born into a noble unicorn family along with her older brother Silver Shine. One day, Silver got his cutie mark, but much to their parents' dismay, it was for his talent as a waiter in the foodservice industry. In anger and disappointment, they disowned their son. Starlight loved her brother, and begged her parents to reconsider, but they refused and scolded her for questioning their judgment. It was then that Starlight realized how awful cutie marks were, and she pledged then-and-there to create a society where everypony was equal and she could reunite with her brother without being subject to social stigma.
In this case, her scheme in the finale would be motivated purely by revenge. This would still allow for Starlight's reformation, but Twilight would have to go about it differently. She could say something like:
"I'm so, so sorry that happened to you, but that's no reason to erase all cutie marks! A cutie mark expresses a pony's individuality; it's what makes them unique! You loved your brother because he was special to you, would you really take that special happiness away from everypony? Just because your family wasn't caring enough doesn't mean everypony is against you! Just make some friends! Friends are like a family you can choose, and they're there to support you when you need it, even when the whole world seems against you!"
And BAM, she realizes how stupid she was being and the story's ending is the same. Except not nearly as poorly conceived.
#endrant
