Here is something that has been bugging me for a while. What was EQG1 Sunset's motivation to try and take over equestria?
I mean I know it is stated that she wanted power and to rule as princess, but that was at the very least 30 moons ago. Time has a way changing people. So, maybe she realized that she was getting a little ahead of herself and she wasn't ready to be a princess yet. So, she decided to try and come back to Celestia to try and make amends, but when she came back she saw that she had been replaced by Twilight as Celestia. Now, normally this wouldn't bother anyone. But Sunset grew up pretty much being told that she was irreplaceable and was extremely important to Celestia. However, seeing that when she left, Celestia didn't even bother to try and look for her in the human world, and simply replaced her like she was nothing more than garbage. This left Sunset with a broken heart and a desperate need for vengeance against those two ponies. Thus, EQG1 eventually came to pass.
However, this is merely my headcanon. But what do you think her motivation to steal the crown is?

A few rules:
-Headcanons are allowed
-NO simply stating she is a selfish bitch. That is a lazy answer.
-NO TROLL COMMENTS!!!!!

4736055 Well, you say we can't call her a "selfish bitch", but that's exactly what she was. Sure, when she started out as Celestia's student, she probably wasn't so bad. But Sunset only wanted power. She didn't want friendship, or life lessons. No, she wanted a pair of wings and a kingdom to rule.

The mirror was her only ticket to that power- or so she thought, as stated by the comics. So she jumped through it. And when that didn't work, she decided to steal the Element of Magic to gain the power necessary to defeat Celestia.

Her only motivation was her selfishness and greed. Her want for power.

4736056
Yes, but as I said before, time has a way of changing people. So she realized she was going against Celestia's wishes so she went back to apologize. But when she saw Celestia with Twilight, Sunset would probably hate Celestia so much that she would abandon Celestia and her ways entirely, thus going right back to being a selfish bitch.
All I meant was no saying she was a selfish bitch throughout all that time. Sorry for not making it clearer (I have a bad habit of doing that, sorry)

4736055

-NO TROLL COMMENTS!!!!!

Also

Time has a way changing people

I really want you to go back to 1932, and tell Germany that when discussing WWI.

I'm sure they'll be just fine with how it ended, no anger at all at the outcome.

4736063
ummm... what does that have to do with this?
Did you do that just to get me mad? Because if so, then you failed miserably.

4736064 Just saying that time doesn't change everyone.

4736055
I guess that could've happened, but one thing I really like to point out is how Sunset Shimmer acted when she first stumbled across Canterlot High.
In the Fall Formal crown pictures, in the first one, Sunset Shimmer is smiling. A real nice smile, not an evil one.
So, what I think was, Sunset Shimmer was originally nice to all the people at Canterlot High, which probably would've changed her view of things. Then, as you said, she went back to Equestria and tried to make amends with Celestia, discovering that she had been replaced. This angered her, and she finally became the bully we know in EG 1.
It would also explain how Sunset knew about Twilight and the crown. Also, who knows, she probably kept going back and checking the progress.

4736064 I love that you edited that to try to 'show me up' without me noticing.

I also love it when people can't take a joke, and have to be serious all the time.

4736076
sorry
I didn't know. Next time could you let me know if you meant it as a joke or an insult, please?

4736073
Now, this right here is some lovely logic I can get behind. Bravo. A thumbs up for you.

4736063
Funny and makes sense. What a wonderful combination.

4736055
I'm actually a touch confused. How long is thirty moons, exactly? Days, months, or years? Can't be years, because sunset isn't that old in the human universe, and I have no idea how ponies age, neither in Equestria or in the real world, or if her equestrian age carries over to the human world. And it can't be days for numerous reasonings. That merely leaves months. A month a moon is two and a half years of her being in the human world. I do believe the combination of what 4736056 said and your follow-up comment makes it clear: She went from personality A to personality B then back to A and then settling on B after a giant magical rainbow laser of friendship smacked her upside the head.

Plus, we're told and shown her motivation in the first movie, and told a bit of backstory in the comics (if up you so choose to accept them as canon). She wants the crown for its power, and wants the power to be able to rule Equestria. >Insert information about comic stuffy here because I merely gave'em a skim on the mlp wiki.< We may not entirely understand the reasoning behind Sunset's moyivation, though. We are only given oh so much information directly, so we must infer the rest and fill any remaining blanks ourselves with what theories we would like to hold most dear about our beloved miss Shimmer.

4736082
As I also said, head canons are allowed here

4736073
Huh, never noticed that. So, could Celestia have been lying about Sunset this whole time? If so:

4736082
Thanks

4736084
Now, that would imply I actually have some head canon to begin with, my dear. I really don't, though. I'm not sure why I don't, but that is how I am. Do with that what you will.

4736087
Technically, no. Well, Celestia wouldn't have known about Sunset's nice nature. She was obviously only planning to take over Equestria; why would she need to be mean to the students? Then, that changed.
She may not have been friends with the students, but she wasn't a bully in the first year, I bet.

4736082
2 and a half years is reasonable. We're not exactly sure when Sunset arrived at Canterlot High, heck, it could've been 6 years ago. Well, we know this from the fact that the CMC look like they might be in grade 7 or 8 (though if this really is an American school, that puts them in Freshman year o.O Late bloomers much?) and the Human five are probably in grade 11 or 12, along with Sunset Shimmer, which means she's definitely being in this world for four years, the time of the all the EG movies happening during her fourth year of school- senior year (?). And since the fall formal happens at the start of the year, this makes sense given the time of the movies.
But anyway, 2 and a half years is half a year before the Equestria Girls movie started- this would probably be the best time for Sunset to cross over and learn about what has changed (Crystal Empire, Twilight's crown, etc) and get really frickin pissed. This is probably about...half way through season 3? Not sure how she would've learnt though. Oh well. Another problem is that their must have been some other motive to have her be a bully BEFORE she found out about Twilight. Maybe she was bullied?

*takes deep breath* Wow.

My particular headcanon is that Sunset saw Celestia as a surrogate mother and as such she did everything in her power to please her, getting to be a princess was in her eyes Celestia finally acepting her as her daughter, in that way the constant denial of Celestia was in Sunset view her saying " you are not good enough for me".

Replacing her with Twilight was just the final nail in the coffin, so what we see in the movie is basically a giant scream of attention of someone who felt deeply betrayed and seeks vengeance against her betrayer

I like your take there--yes, most likely she wasn't selfish or mean. That much is already obvious once she accepted Twilight and the Human 5. If her very nature was selfish, mean and greedy, she would not have accepted that and would have rejected it out of pride--which is the basis of greed and selfishness. So at the start as Celestia's student, she must have been like Twilight--very bright, very promising. Sort of like Anakin, only unlike Anakin who has a fixed destiny, hers was more open. But things do happen--when she was replaced by Twilight, there would of course be anger, and rejection. Then the need to have revenge and prove that she's better. But she wasn't totally corrupted by those, or else like I said her fall would have been much deeper. That is the difference between her and Adagio--Adagio's need for power and control was purely rooted from greed; Sunset's driving force was more a need to belong, really. I think more than anything else, she wasn't really proving it to Celesetia or anyone else, but she was proving it to herself. So it was a search more for self-worth, and we can see that more in RR when even after she turned good, she felt some sort of rejection still when people around her still didn't trust her.

... This is the most apologist-biased Sunset Shimmer motivation thread I've ever seen. Well, since the last one about a month or two ago.

4736181
Yes, it's pretty nauseating isn't it?
Bullies don't need tearjerker backstories. Please take it from someone who knows, guys. Pre-RR Sunset isn't your woobie.

Is it because all people have their own stories to tell? After all, no person starts out as evil. In the real world there will always be different shades of grey, not the outright black and white that fiction will have (which is ironic because we're talking about fiction here, not reality). Fleshing the character out also helps in making one's own story--head canon, as we do term it, but even in theatre it's being done so as to find what drives a character. Pure greed is very, very rare--people will always have an explanation as to why they do it, whether that excuse is real or their own. Regardless, in the case of Sunset she is not an evil person, or else getting back up would be much harder and near improbable.

4736184 The sad thing is that I love Sunset from RR and Albinocorn's fics because she acknowledges that she was a selfish bitch. It shows growth. This shit does nothing but put the onus on ponies who went about life after she left. EqG Sunset was pretty much Twilight's evil twin sister. she even had the evil jacket of evil.

4736195
Nobody is born evil, but that doesn't mean every villain who ends up redeemed and popular was actually a misunderstood and mistreated woobie. Sometimes you really are a bully who realized that there's no one to blame but yourself, and then turned a new leaf.

And this is why Studio DHX is vastly superior to IDW Comics: Luna decided to become NMM of her own accord; she was not forcibly possessed by some external demon.

Like Sunset for what she is and was. There's no need to whitewash.

4736225 Except in reality that is not often the case. Most bullies had a history of either being mistreated themselves, or else raised badly. It is the rare bully who just do it for the sake of doing it. More often many have their own stories; again, whether that is true or their own making. That is why, to take it a bit more into fiction, a more layered character like Magneto is more fascinating (I am not so sure now about how he is in the "all new, all different Marvel" since I have not followed on comic books for years now; last time I actually followed comics was way back in the 90s) since he is not motivated by pure evil, but on the need to protect (or his perception of the need to protect) homo superior against the bias of more normal humans. I am not too certain about Apocalypse though (since even back then I see him more your stereotypical bad guy, with his mantra of "only the strong will survive")--but perhaps he might have just a convoluted past as Magneto had.

In short then, we all have our motivations on why we do what we do, and it is not out of pure evil or selfishness. Pre-EqG Sunset then most likely had something that drove her to do what she did; as I've mentioned, if she were purely greedy, mean and/or selfish her acceptance of Twilight and co. would have been not as instantaneous, and would have been much, much harder on her part. That she did accept it most likely shows that, as Luke would say of Anakin, there must be some good in her, enough to have her redeemed and accept them.

4736242
Sure, I already said nopony is born evil.
But that doesn't mean she has a nauseating woobie emo backstory of being kicked like a puppy, betrayed, and mistreated by awful eeeeeevil ponies who took advantage of her.

Tangent: In the future, if you must make literary references for serious purposes, try something other than (1) Marvel/DC Comics, (2) Star Wars, (3) Sonic, (4) Naruto, (5) Bleach. Try hard.

Comic books/anime are the closest thing to FiM/EqG that most people can relate with here. It's also more in line with FiM/EqG than, say Les Miz, though of course I am not saying that FiM/EqG has little-no depth as compared to literary classics (people find depth in where they find it, so even some people find much depth in comic books after all).

But back to Sunset--we simply don't know. Not yet anyway. We're only given hints, but nothing to the point of being substantial, so until that time we're here to freely roam and see what made her that way, again until that part of her story has been solidly closed so as we cannot deviate much from it.

4736055

Basically: She had a somewhat messed up sense of self-worth, which apparently grew worse as time went by. She equated her value as a person entirely by the level of success and status she could achieve, which can be a very unhealthy attitude. Most likely, she was unhappy due to her lack of friends and positive influence and mistakenly believed that the answer was more power.

I mean I know it is stated that she wanted power and to rule as princess, but that was at the very least 30 moons ago. Time has a way changing people. So, maybe she realized that she was getting a little ahead of herself and she wasn't ready to be a princess yet. So, she decided to try and come back to Celestia to try and make amends, but when she came back she saw that she had been replaced by Twilight as Celestia. Now, normally this wouldn't bother anyone. But Sunset grew up pretty much being told that she was irreplaceable and was extremely important to Celestia. However, seeing that when she left, Celestia didn't even bother to try and look for her in the human world, and simply replaced her like she was nothing more than garbage. This left Sunset with a broken heart and a desperate need for vengeance against those two ponies. Thus, EQG1 eventually came to pass.

While Sunset did seem to be aware of Twilight's achievements (somehow, even though that doesn't really make sense), I don't think that fits the timeline, nor her implied shift in attitude.

Remember, it was implied she wasn't an abusive power-mad alpha bitch when she appeared in the mirror world - her Fall Formal portraits indicate that it was a gradual change rather than something relatively sudden.

We know she spent a minimum of four years in the human world since the Fall Formal is a yearly event. Now, assuming "moons" is the same thing as months, that means the portal opens every 2.5 years. So, most likely she has actually spent five years in the human world, and had exactly one other chance to return to Equestria before the events of the movie, two and a bit years earlier.

Equestria Girls is set between season 3 and 4. If we take seasons 1-4 to represent a period of one year, as is implied by the show, Sunset's hypothetical first return would have occurred the year before the show starts. If we use the alternative fanon model where each season represents a year, it could have occurred some time before season 2. Either way, Sunset would not have had any reason to believe Twilight Sparkle would end up a princess even if she was somehow able to find out about Twilight's exploits.

(For that matter, it's unlikely she would have been able to return without being notices, especially if her goal was reconciliation, what with the mirror being kept in Celestia's palace at the time.)

I still have no idea how the heck Sunset was able to know the stuff she had to know for the plot of the movie to make sense, but the way the portal is presented as working means she couldn't have gained that information by actually going back to Equestria.

4736302

Comic books/anime are the closest thing to FiM/EqG that most people can relate with here. It's also more in line with FiM/EqG than, say Les Miz, though of course I am not saying that FiM/EqG has little-no depth as compared to literary classics (people find depth in where they find it, so even some people find much depth in comic books after all).

I'm sorry... What? I can't even... Okay, first off, no. Comics and anime really aren't. Certainly there are references, but comics and anime don't share that much with MLP/EqG. Second, what in the actual hell does Les Miz have to do with this? MLai didn't even mention the damn thing and you just threw it in to support your point—without even having supported your point to begin with.

But back to Sunset--we simply don't know. Not yet anyway. We're only given hints, but nothing to the point of being substantial, so until that time we're here to freely roam and see what made her that way, again until that part of her story has been solidly closed so as we cannot deviate much from it.

Bullshit. In fact, let me bring in a special guest commentator to this point. Take it away, Minds Eye:

[9/26/15, 11:22:30 AM] Minds Roshi: "we simply don't know. Not yet anyway. We're only given hints, but nothing to the point of being substantial,"
[9/26/15, 11:22:37 AM] Minds Eye: She was an old student of Celestia's.
[9/26/15, 11:22:39 AM] Minds Eye: Who wanted to know more.
[9/26/15, 11:22:46 AM] Minds Eye: and Celestia wouldn't teach her that yet.
[9/26/15, 11:22:48 AM] Minds Eye: Boom

Sorry, bud, but your woobie is in another castle. Perhaps you can find it somewhere in Naruto Shippuden, where the big bad really just needed someone to offer him friendship to erase all the death and destruction he caused.

4736336 No, I am not saying FiM/EqG share the same thing with anime/comic books, but they're more in line with it than something along the line of say Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" or some other classic. Whether we like it or not, that's the reality of it. We just have to deal with that reality. I am comfortable with it since I do enjoy different genres, whether it be books, comic books, music--but not too much with TV or movies, ironically. I threw in Les Miz to make my point--which, again, FiM/EqG isn't going to be in line with something like that.

And again, my point--we simply don't know. So we're free to roam, and at the end of the day my head canon is only as good as your head canon, until the big guys from Hasbro finally make something out of it, and heck if it does turn out to be some big emo thingie. It's like those who can't accept PT Star Wars--it's there, deal with it. Not accepting it won't make it go away, until Disney rewrites the whole canon (at which point I would think most SW fans would be up in arms--but that's a whole other story).

4736055 I drew from the comics, mostly, but also formed some bits of headcanon on my own. It's all there in my first couple stories with her.

4736360

4736371 Trust me, just have fun with it; I'm just having fun here speculating about things. You'll just laugh this off ten years from now, and wonder why you even get into talks like this. I just roll with whatever is being said here. It's nothing serious. But if it's religion--well, that's another thing...

4736408 Oh, believe me, I'm laughing. But not for the reason you think.

4736055 Maybe the mirror's cycle syncs TOO well with her menstrual cycle.

4736408
There's a reason I mentioned those franchises as examples of things not to compare MLP FiM against, especially on a (fan) fiction site where you can find some good quality writing.

Big Two superhero comics and Star Wars both suffer from contradictory canons, wild fluctuations in quality, too many cooks, tonal inconsistency, character inconsistency, and developments driven purely by profit. Sonic is not literature, period. Naruto and Bleach are stories which had a decent premise and the authors had solid first arcs in mind harking back to classic literary themes, but after that become interminable formulaic tripe, again with developments driven by profit.

When critiquing or discussing a work in question, use measuring sticks which are objectively good. Why use bad literature as points of comparison to what you're discussing? In this case your only motivation is widespread knowledge of said bad literature, but ppl should strive to rise above that. You mentioned Les Mis? Yeah, use Les Mis! And other actual literature.

I know I've said this before (though on another thread), but the only real hints about what drove her down the path she took is from "My Past Is Not Today" , the part where she sings about "Ambition Is what I believed the only thing that would set me free". The last song in the Friendship Games Soundtrack adds to this with another line: "There was a time before, I didn't know where I belonged, I thought I needed more, And that I couldn't get along, But who I am, Was all I ever needed."

Like it has been said before she has self-worth issues and went about trying to fix it the wrong way. It was why she was remorseful for her actions after being hit by the rainbow of friendship in contrast to the Dazzlings who were merely stripped of their power.

Note: I have not read any posts in this thread other than the first one. (and won't)

I've mentioned this before, but I think that Sunset's "reason" for wanting to take over Equestria… was something of a misnomer. Allow me to explain.

Sunset was in that world for years. Thus, there's no way she could have possibly known about any of the events that happened in the interim. I think she came out of the mirror several hours before the Mane Six showed up, probably wanting to see Celestia – not because she turned over a new leaf (she hadn't), but because she got bored. High School is boring, and she'd probably accomplished everything she felt she could. Maybe she thought Celestia would take her back if she could fake humility (if so, then she'd have been sorely mistaken).

Upon reentering Equestria, she realized quickly that she was not in Canterlot, so it's likely she found the first pony she could (I headcanon it was Flash Sentry) and got the Cliffs Notes version of the first three seasons of show. Realizing she'd been replaced and forgotten by Celestia, she snapped, and came up with a plan on the spot to stick it to both Celestia and Twilight. Taking an Element Of Harmony into another world… Sunset no doubt expected its power would be magnified – she was right, but it's also obvious she did not expect to get turned into a demon.

Everything about Sunset's actions in the first movie indicate she was operating ad hoc and switching tack on the fly – this actually speaks pretty well to her intelligence, though not her personality.

tl;dr - Sunset never cared about taking over Equestria. She just wanted to make Celestia suffer, and used what few resources she had at her disposal. If Equestria fell in the process, so be it.

Then she got a Taste-The-Rainbow to the face and soon thereafter became Best.

4736055
> So, maybe she realized that she was getting a little ahead of herself and she wasn't ready to be a princess yet.

The funny thing is that she perfectly was. She wasn't going to be a princess Celestia would like to see, though, and most likely never would if not for the failure with Twilighs's crown.

I'm a bit unsure if I like the result...
Nah, let's be honest, I *don't* like the result. Hence, I like SS AU stories.

As for motivation, it's pretty simple. SS was raised by authority figure and was shown that she's fit for greatness, details left unspoken. There is a reason, why one of four Ruinous Powers of Chaos draws power from hope and ambitions. And a promise unfulfilled, even if the promise was only imagined, is a great source of hatred. Dear Celly gave SS a hope, but never cared to give an explanation what is needed and SS snapped. I guess, Celestia learned the lesson: look at Twilight. I mean, Twilight's only significant ambition is to serve Celestia.

4736360
4736855
If you absolutely must compare it to anime, pick anime that is actually good. Like pretty much anything by Studio Ghibli. Pick things that have strong writing to them, not just mindless/popular crap from Shounen Jump.

Also, might help if you chose something remotely in the genre MLP would fall under if it were an anime. Like, at least pick something from the shoujo side of the field instead of shounen.

4736073 Headcanon accepted.

My personal headcanon is a tad different. My theory is that Sunset, while poking her nose into places it shouldn't have been, became the host for a demon. Said entity twisted her mind and turned her into the antagonist we see in EQG 1. Then, when she puts the crown on, the demon grabs its power and uses it to fully transform Sunset into the demon's true form. Twi laid the Friendship-flavored smackdown on it, and it left, leaving Sunset to deal with the fallout.

I mean, did you see her as she transformed? Usually, when a villain pops a mega-evolution like that, they're laughing all the while or giving a triumphant speech; contrast Chrysalis's reveal from the Season 2 finale. She's cackling as she changes from Cadance into the Queen she really is.
But Sunset doesn't cackle. There's no triumph. Instead, we see pain. She's actually crying as she goes Boss Mode. It doesn't make sense for someone who'd spent so much time and effort on their master plan to start sobbing when things go their way. However, if the demon took over then, and forcibly changed Sunset, it'd make sense; a sudden, involuntary thing like that can't be painless.
Plus, look at the magic. Every other transformation - even Twilight's alicornation - was with their own color of magic. The M6 have special colors that are associated with their Elements, and Chryssy changed with a burst of lime-green fire. But Sunny's transformation is two-toned. The first color is that of her magic - a shade of turquiose that's on the blue end of the color - mixed with black. The demon's magic.

But hey, that's just a theory.
A LAME theory.
Thanks for watchingreading.

4738313
o.O
I love it

4738313

But Sunset doesn't cackle. There's no triumph. Instead, we see pain. She's actually crying as she goes Boss Mode. It doesn't make sense for someone who'd spent so much time and effort on their master plan to start sobbing when things go their way.

This needs to be said more often, because I think too many people weren't paying attention during this scene. Not only is Sunset crying during her transformation, she's struggling to take the crown off. She immediately realizes something is wrong.

I respectfully do not accept your headcanon, nice one though it is (I just like mine better). But I think the above quote further proves my point that Sunset was playing the whole thing by ear. If she'd actually had a grand master plan like so many seem to think, it probably would have turned out better than what actually happened… and not been as facially stupid.

That's actually one thing I like about Sunset compared to Twilight. Sunset appears to be able to adapt to new situations quickly and change tack with the circumstances, whereas Twilight is much more methodical and can't deal if a plan goes wrong (see "Look Before You Sleep" or, hell, "The Crystal Empire" for examples).