Just a scientist who's working through the six levels of writing in her spare time. Currently attacking number four, Structure.
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Xanatos Gambit: noun. A plan for which all foreseeable outcomes benefit the creator — including ones that superficially appear to be failure. The creator predicts potential attempts to thwart the plan, and arranges the situation such that the creator will ultimately benefit even if their adversary "succeeds" in "stopping" them.
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Hmm... so that's the real reason why she was spying on the Six when they were with Discord...
See, I told my whole class that Starlight Glimmer x Twilight Sparkle would work perfectly.
They don't think the same.
Glad that someone has good shipping taste.
Okay...nothing weird at all about somepony just sneaking into your room to cut a few hairs from your mane. Nope. Not weird at all. Totally not a stalker!
And you so can't hear the sarcasm in my voice.
......... Really dude? Seriously?
Sighs. I can already disprove it. Cause it makes no sense considering her motives. Twilight stole the only place she felt safe, and she wanted revenge. She never even thought about trying to reverse the damage. So how would this be any kind of victory?
People keep on compaining about Starlight not living up to Tirek. But that is the point here. She isn't tirek and her scale of threat is different. She has no interect in destruction or conquering. She wanted revenge for having her 'utopia' destroyed. She wanted friends but in a way where she had control and didn't have to be afraid.
6710688 No consequences for her actions, a position of influence over the most powerful ponies in Equestria, the friends and sense of belonging she's always been looking for, and having the perfect opportunity to drive a knife into the back of the Mane Six if she ever decides she feels like it? Gee, I wonder why that would be considered a victory.
Faking her reformation turns an extremely unconvincing redemption into one of the most brilliant strategic ploys I have ever seen.
The greatest threat comes from the very last person you wouldn't suspect. Perfectly brilliant in a way as I also wasn't a big fan of how Starlight was "redeemed" in the end. She should be punished for her actions, future or not. Place her in jail, send her on an endless quest with no end. Anything to show her the consequences of her actions.
Something that petty deserves some extreme Punishment and even I have lost faith with how the show tried this stunt.
6711406
Her what actions?
If you look at it closely, she barely did anything truly wrong.
The whole "our town" affair may have been weird as heck, but everyone was there voluntarily. She only equated Mane Six because she was afraid they would do something to take it away, and to be fair, they sort of were. And yes, she may have actually destroyed Equestria several times over with her time-travel shenanigans, but that was not her intent and she was quite horrified when she learned what she did.
Mostly her crimes were pretty small in intent, if not in execution.
6711761
And therein lies the key. She may have started small, but by the very nature of what she wanted her influence would have spread across all of Equestria. The only reason this isn't apparent is because she was stopped before it got that far: fixing a small problem before it turned into a big one. Her ambition is bigger on the inside in other words.
Of course she was horrified when she realized that breaking the Mane Six's friendship would ruin Equestria. She wanted to fix world, not destroy it. She just found it completely unbelievable that the fate of the entire country rested on one group of friends, and frankly I have to agree. If you heard something like this in real life you wouldn't believe it either. See Silver Quilted's short review of the season finale and his comments on ego for an expansion of the argument.
6711902
Well, yes, she wanted everyone to be equal... and she was kinda overprotective of that dream, but we have very scant evidence to support that she would actually try to recruit ponies against their will.
And if "our town" sort of communities were voluntary, that would be absolutely nothing wrong with them.
6711935 Remember how the Tree of Harmony sent the Mane Six to Starlight's village? From our perspective, yes, they are all consenting adults: while the town may be a lot like a cult they're not being held against their will. Equestria itself, however, objected to what was going on. This whole mess wouldn't have happened if the map hadn't sent Twilight to go drive Starlight out. Why? I don't know, but it considered Starlight a threat. Now that I think about it, that makes the Mane Six the bad guys, interfering where they're not wanted. Kind of like the U.S. actually.
6711954 Well, Equestrian map implied that those guys could be better off outside their weird little cult-thing.
And to be fair, it kinda was right.
But that is magical omniscience morality license. Usually, you would not be able to know what is better for an informed adult better than said adult himself, which is why we have all those non-interference rules.
And besides, Mane Six didn't actually do anything. They came in, talked to ponies there, and then they were captured against their will, then discovered Starlight secret, and that prompted the ponies to want to get out.
It wasn't like the protagonists stormed the place SWAT-style and dragged everyone out whether they wanted that or not.
I would assume that if they came in, talked to all he ponies there, found out that everyone who was there was there because they wanted, there wouldn't be all that much they could (or would) actually do.
6711965 Well put. I think we've strayed quite a bit off topic though. My point was she's angry, powerful, driven, intelligent (her most dangerous quality), and that her reformation utterly shattered my very high suspension of disbelief. I wrote this story to point out that the Main cast has given trust to somepony who should not be trusted, and that that can, and possibly should come back to bite them.
6711993
I don't think of it as being "reformed". She was never a bad pony in the first place, right?
She wasn't in it for personal power (even if she did enjoy it a bit over much), or to destroy something, or conquer the world, or whatever. She just wanted everyone to be friends. And then she kinda got carried away by a silly revenge plot, that even she knew was petty and silly.
It is precisely because she is intelligent and driven, once shown that her methods were inefficient and/or destructive, she changed them. I mean if six ponies can come in her perfect community and break it apart in two days without raising a hoof, she must have been doing something wrong.
That's what smart people do - change their approach when they see that it's not working. It's stupid people who do the same thing over and over regardless of the results.
So, yeah, maybe she needs to have an eye on her, because obviously she has the whole evil narcissistic power trip thing, and tends to have trust/control issues, but she is a rational being with rather benign goals, there is no reason to treat her like a criminal. Especially since with her trust issues that is exactly what's most likely to cause her to actually do something stupid and evil.
6712013 You think her heel-face-turn was genuine, and there's nothing I can say to that: no clever argument, no piece of evidence, nothing. We'll just have to wait for season six and see what happens. Frankly, I'll be happy with one of two outcomes: a proper, long-term reformation process that involves earning trust, or her turning out to just be biding her time. As long as it's addressed, I'm good. Until then, keep the possibility in mind that she's not as honest as she appears.
6712034 fair enough.
For now I just hope that they will remember her existence at all in the next season, and won't just put her on a bus in the first five secondds of the first episode.
6712066 She has massive plot potential. The only way they'd do that is through executive meddling or utter stupidity.
6712094 ...both of which happen way more often than any of us would want ))
6712094 This show has plenty of both behind it. The way I see it, there are two things we can reasonably assume they're going to do: 1) Pile on lame excuses and retcons in an act of damage control, ala Sunset Shimmer. 2) Bury her and never mention her again, ala Trixie.
#2 is really the only honourable course of action they have left. I'd really hate to see her dragged through the mud next season, and God knows they're never going to actually do anything clever with her. #1 is probably what's going to happen, though. I would be genuinely surprised if #2 happened.
I was about to say canon Starlight isn't that smart. Then I realised it is the show that portrays her inconsistently.
On one hoof, she's smart and manipulative enough to set up a cult, and to tail Twilight for months, undetected, planning her revenge.
On the other, she falls for Fluttershy's ruse, and then plans her revenge without taking the butterly effect into account, despite the fact that it is the key concept that makes her plan possible in the first place.
As for the canon ending... your theory might work. And it would add some narrative symmetry to the whole situation. I don't know why this story has so many dislikes.
However, I don't dislike the canon ending like many people do. At first I did. It felt silly and forced from our perspective, but then we aren't ponies. The reason we so like watching them is that they are better than we are, and live in a world where it works. This is what we wish we have. And so, I swallowed the ending, even though it didn't sit well with my human instincts. But then I thought...
* Starlight Glimmer was alone, with no friends, something that made her more unhappy than she admitted.
* Both her confidence and her self esteem had just taken a plunge (she had just learned that through her mistake she might have wiped out her entire species. That tends to shake people)
* And then, at the lowest point of her life, when she had literally nowhere to go, she was offered friendship and support.
* She was accepted and welcomed, everypony smiled. There were hugs and a musical number.
* She became one of them... and until she's ready to find her own place among them, she'll be living with their leader, just to make sure everything is okay.
The irony is so delicious.
6783125 All excellent points. The swing vote (so to speak) will be just how close pony psychology is to human psychology.
A human placed in that exact situation would, unless he belonged to a tiny minority of the population, be unable to admit he was wrong, not for something he built his entire worldview on. He would continue on his current path, regardless of how much damage it would cause in order to avoid owning up to a mistake, because changing his mind would be more terrifying than the literal end of the world. Starlight has been shown to have a somewhat childish worldview, so in her case this is more likely than usual.
6783125 The whole "butterfly effect" aesop was done dreadfully in my opinion. I stand by my belief that all those AU's were done as filler to pad things out until the executive-mandated Glimmer reformation, and the butterfly effect was tacked on in a lazy attempt at giving it a purpose in the narrative. Now, sure, the butterfly effect is real, but to try to say that the minor details of a shonen-style action sequence in the clouds has any bearing on which big bad from the previous 4 seasons gets to make the world a shit place is pants on head retarded, and it's plainly obvious to anyone who thinks about it for five seconds that Woonaverse is going to win out in any scenario where the mane six don't hook up and do their thing just because NMM came first.
Notice how abrupt and unnatural it was when Glimmer decided Twilight needed to know her hackneyed backstory. It seemed as if she saw that the episode was running out of time since all those AU's hogged up all the space that could've been used for a natural build-up to it, as well as a proper exploration of a more well thought out backstory.
This situation is not salvageable. If the writing staff has any sense, and if the executives don't care one way or the other (which would require sense on their part), Glimmer is going to be rarely or never seen or heard from again. Then again, there's no reason for them to have sense since people will eat it up no matter how stupid it is, because ooo look at the pretty colors.
6787163 Remember Sunset Shimmer: a poor proper villain, but an amazing reformed one.
6786710 Well, she almost did, didn't she? Her admitting that she was wrong, or pushing through and dooming Equestria was the crux of the final confrontation.
(That's a cool fanfic idea, actually. Imagine Starlight destroys the scroll and the three of them get stranded in the past where the sonic rainboom never happened. Now Twilight will never see her friends again, not how she remembers them - but she can't afford to take her anger out on Starlight, because now she needs her help to prevent the disasters that are to come, writing a new timeline in the process by spending years as defenders of Equestria (and perhaps acting from the shadows to find a new set of worthy bearers and make sure they become friends. Does anyone feel like writing this one?))
6787163 Oh, the alternative timelines thing could have been done much better - but then the story would be
a ) too long even for a two-parter
b) too complicated for the show's declared target audience
If you dislike it so much, there is more stuff available to watch then we have the lifetime available to. I'm sure you can find something more to your taste
6787190 Eeh...
Sunset Shimmer is very plain and bland in my opinion. Plus the EqG movies in general are pretty bad.
6787998 I would've had most of the AU's removed entirely. Again, useless filler. Woonaverse could've been explored more deeply so we really get a sense of how screwed things are without the EoH, and there still would've been time for a believable transition to reformed Glimmer.
6788919 How do you imagine a believable reformed Glimmer?
6788971 One who's just starting to doubt herself and is willing to try the m6's way for curiosity's sake. Given, that's still really stretching it, but executive mandate is law so we can't exactly wish for the ideal.
6792210 They might take that route in the next season, just like they explored Twilight's rough start with being a princess, after the finale had made it seem like an almost seemless transition.
She certainly did.
Aaaah, now this is well done.
I'm guilty myself of dabbling in an alternate Season Five finale fic. It's not that I felt the two-parter was bad, just that the redemption angle was played out by this point. We pretty much knew it was a forgone conclusion, but still.
This feels good though. The concept, the execution, all very dark and insidious but without crossing any lines. Dancing dangerously close to them, mind, but it knows where to stop.
I won't say that the show could get away with something like this, but I will say it feels very true to the source material.
6719489 it's never good when surprise #2 happens! I'm so sorry, it had to be done
6711406 eXACTLY
I do hope this is canon. The whole Season Five finale just felt wrong to me, somehow. All the imagination that went into it was spent on coming up with dystopic alternate universes for Twilight to discover, while Starlight's once interesting character was reduced to just another bad apple to be reformed like the other villains. Starlight is not, and was never like the other villains. In the premiere, she had a cause that she sincerely believed in. But in the finale she was just petty and childish, and cared more about getting revenge on Twilight than in resurrecting her dreams of equality. It was such a disappointment.
But your story reminded me of the potential Starlight has, and might still have, as a villain who simply will not be swayed from her course. For that, I thank you. Even if it's too good to be true on the show, it is a well written and memorable piece of work.
Who wouldn't want to kiss Twilight?
Well, I find it extremely hard to imagine any kind of goals which are best (within possibility of pony mind) reached by a plan that overcomplicated.
9597832
and that's why she's a villain and you aren't.