Ranking The Starlight Focused Episodes Part 1(16-9) · 12:11am Mar 26th, 2022
Didn’t think you’d see me again did you?
Ah Starlight. She’s a very mixed bag with the fandom, on the one hand she gets a fair amount of love on the other hand people think she’s a washed down Sunset and a terrible character.
I personally like this character(as you can clearly tell) and she does have a fair amount of episodes dedicated to her. Also for the sake of this list, I must tell you that in order for this list to work, Starlight must have a major contribution to the episode, so unfortunately Celestial Advice and Heart’s Warming Tail won’t be on here because Starlight does little to nothing in these episodes.
16th Every Little Thing She Does: Oh goodness where do I begin with this episode. I mean I don’t hate it but I still dislike it. So apparently Starlight’s been skipping out on friendship lessons since she met Trixie and distracted Twilight with her magic skills. So she decides to do all five lessons with Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity while Twilight is off on Royal business.
Spike understandably thinks this is a bad idea but Starlight is confident she can handle this. The assignments with Mane 5 prove to be difficult because their needs overwhelm her too much(which is honestly fair they are overlapping each other), so she decides to make the Mane 5 more open to suggestion with a spell. It was likely meant to be temporary because she did say they’d thank her for it but it still is loco. She then transforms them into mindless drones and tries to get the lessons done, and it goes horribly wrong. It takes Twilight spoon feeding her on why this was bad because Starlight is an idiot for this episode for the plot to work.
Thankfully this episode still salvages her character by giving her some amount of reasoning for her actions, she didn’t want to be a disappointment to everyone and when she does apologize to the Mane 5 it does feel genuine. She does also get punished by having to clean up the castle albeit with the Mane 5’s help and does learn her lesson but she’s still so unlikable here.
Hard to believe she’s my favorite pony Eh?
15th A Matter Of Principals: Just so we’re clear just because an episode is low, does not mean that Starlight is the cause of it. In fact she’s the saving grace in this, however the episode’s quality is more of why it’s on the list. Hence why A Matter Of Principals is here on the list. Starlight is chosen to be head mare because the Mane Six are being sent on a cutie map mission, why isn’t Spike in charge? Well he didn’t want to be.
Once the Mane Six leave, Discord shows up and reveals that he thought he would be in charge for some reason, and when Spike reveals it was Starlight in charge, that’s when I get annoyed. Discord begins tormenting Starlight throughout most of the episode and continues to blame everything on Starlight herself to the point where he sics a bug bear on the students to get them “motivated” to run. Starlight then banishes him because she had enough of his awful behavior.
Then the scavenger hunt(I am not using the name they gave it) for the magical artifacts begins and Discord shows up as a spirit to haunt the scavenger hunt. In the end Starlight ends up giving in and for some reason apologizes to Discord even though she literally did nothing wrong. I hate episodes where the victim shame people, and the worst part is Discord becomes the vice head mare, in the end the Mane Six reveal Discord set up a fake map mission, a dangerous one might I add. Thankfully the episode is saved by Starlight and Spike’s interactions and Discord doesn’t end up being the vice head mare for long so I can give it that.
14th Road To Friendship: This episode is definitely better than the last two but this episode still isn’t very good. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to watch Starlight and Trixie’s argue for the whole darn episode. Though it is hard to side with either of them because on the one hand Starlight did have some valid complaints but on the other hand she sold Trixie’s wagon.
I guess the point was I wasn’t supposed to take a side, if it was, than good job writers. Anyway Starlight and Trixie apologize and learn their lesson to make their friendship stronger. Certainly not a bad episode but I don’t like it either.
13th The Parent Map: Firelight and Stellar Flare are kind of annoying this episode given how they treat Starlight and Sunburst, but I don’t hate this episode. Starlight and Sunburst are good characters and had good interactions, the ponies in Sires Hollow were pretty good and Firelight and Stellar Flare were good characters at the end of the day. So yeah, I’m neutral on this one.
12th No Second Prances: In this episode Starlight is tasked by Twilight to make a new friend for her dinner with Celestia. After some failed attempts with Big Mac and Mrs. Cake, she begins to stress out and goes to the Spa in which she meets Trixie. Twilight disapproves of this and y’know what I don’t blame her, Trixie was acting all schemy.
So Twilight tries to get Starlight to make a different friend but of course Starlight isn’t happy with this. Starlight and Trixie end up bonding more and want to try a new magic trick in Trixie’s show, The Manticore Mouthdive but Starlight can’t do it on that day because of the dinner with Celestia, and Trixie then guilt trips Starlight into helping her.
Soon after Twilight finds out what’s going on and lectured Starlight on missing the dinner and once she admits that she didn’t want Starlight and Trixie to be friends, Trixie let’s it slip she used Starlight to beat Twilight(whether she actually was or not is debatable) crushing Starlight’s heart in the process as she leaves and Trixie’s also heartbroken about this. Twilight does end up mending things with Starlight and Trixie and they do reconcile. So yeah the episode wasn’t the best but I don’t hate it.
11th Student Counsel: It’s a pretty cool episode, Trixie shows that she values seeing Starlight and is understandably upset when she doesn’t keep her word when she doesn’t help with party preparations(though I’m more or less blaming Twilight for forcing Starlight to stick around for longer than needed). Starlight, Sunburst, and Trixie were all pretty great this episode. Terrmar, Maud, and Mudbrair were decent. Although I don’t like how Starlight thought it was her fault that Silverstream wandered off because she did close down the school and she CHOSE to wander off and cause a ruckus but that’s probably a me thing. Ah well, the episode was decent.
10th The Cutie Map: It’s an alright episode for Starlight, she is a likable character, so are the Mane 6, and the townsponies. And Starlight does seem to think what she’s doing is right so I don’t really hold a grudge against her plus she is an intimidating villain. Though the dictatorship vibes creep me out a bit. I’m sorry but it does.
9th A Horse Shoe-In: A lot of people dislike this episode because of Trixie being an arrogant idiot. Personally I can see why that would be the case, that’s why the episode isn’t very high but I can tell she has good intentions, but she’s sometimes very lazy and doesn’t even try but she does somewhat redeem herself each time. The first time she made it clear to Starlight that the nap incident wouldn’t happen again, and standing up for Gallus was honorable. The beginning was also heartwarming given how sweet the interactions were between Twilight and Starlight.
Even though Starlight telling off Trixie admittedly was justified, she indeed did go a bit too far and Trixie did make a good contribution enough to get a job as Counselor. And hiring Sunburst as Vice head mare was a good choice. The episode was pretty good but I wouldn’t put it in the top eight.
A Matter of Principals is easily the worst episode of the entire series, in my opinion.
I just realized that most of these episode’s situations are some what caused by starlight herself.
5646912
Explain please.
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In the 16th the trouble started when starlight mind controlled the others, In the 14th she saw how cramped the wagon was, but still went, 11th was caused because of the things she said, and for 9th it was caused because she didn’t tell trixie the truth.