Sunset Shimmer: A Critique of Her Character: Part 1

So, it's no secret that I'm not an Equestria Girls fan. In fact, I think the're both awful movies that would have done the series justice if they had just never been made.

If you don't know, Dark Qiviut made an excellent analysis of Flash Sentry character. If you have not read it, here it is: http://mlpforums.com/blog/91/entry-15345-flash-sentry-a-critique-of-his-character/

He makes some excellent points about just how much of a bad character Flash Sentry is. Out of all of Equestria Girls, Flash Sentry is the thing that the most people seem to complain about. Whilst he is an awful character, I don't think that he was the worst thing about the series, or even the worst new character.

That prize goes to this character: Sunset Shimmer. I thought that as Dark bashed Flash Sentry, I would do the same thing with Sunset Shimmer, because there is as much if not more to talk about.

So what are the problems with this character?

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Former Student of Celestia

So it's stated at the start of the first film that Sunset Shimmer was Princess Celestia's old student, who learnt under Celestia not long before Twilight did. However, when she didn't get what she wanted she left for the school.

But what did she want exactly?

I'm presuming it was some kind of power, but we're never told. It was explained in the IDW comics that she wanted to find out more about the mirror or something, but even taking that into account, that's lazy, uninventive, and stupid. In the end though, I'm not going to take that into account, because it's the movie's/show's job to explain this.

Out of all of the villains that have backstorys, nearly all of them were creative. Nightmare Moon fell from grace through bitter jealousy of her sister; due to her getting praise for her day but everyone sleeping during her night. Therefore she wanted to make it night all the time so she would finally receive the respect she deserved. What an awesome backstory; undoubtedly the best out of all of them.

But we did get a few more backstorys, and when they did they usually put an ounce of effort in to them. For example: Discord was a hideous tyrant who ruled Equestria in a state of unrest and unhappiness, until the royal sisters used the Elements of Harmony on him, turning him into stone. Sombra was a tyrant too, but on a much smaller scale than Discord, but he met a similar fate, okay, that ones not hugely creative, but it's a million times more effective than Sunset Shimmer's. And despite my dislike for G4 Tirek, he did get a really expressive and interesting backstory, which was actually the second best in my opinion.

Chrysalis and Starlight Glimmer didn't get one, but I don't think either needed one, although Starlight would have been nice and I hope to see it explored in a future episode. But I'm talking specifically about the execution of backstories here, not the fact that they have one.

In Sunset Shimmer's case, she just didn't get what she wanted so she escaped through a magical mirror. Are we going to get to know why? Of course not, and even if we take the comics into account the origin is undoubtedly the worst.

Put effort into your backstories, make them awesome. There not actually that hard to come up with, but you can make them really dynamic and creative. Also, Tirek's backstory took less than a minute, and that was in a 40 minute two parter, in which this movie has almost double the time.

There is absolutely no excuse for this.
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Introduction

But I could have forgiven that. As I said, Chrysalis and Starlight Glimmer didn't have a backstory, and yet Starlight Glimmer was without a doubt the greatest MLP villain so far. If this villain would have been executed well, then she still would have been great, despite her awfully rushed and lazy origin.

But she wasn't.

I'll get to the god awful Canterlot High section in a bit, but we're first going to talk about Sunset Shimmer as a serious foe to the mane six like she was in the first couple of minutes.

I knew she was going to be a complete bore, just when we first see her.

You know, when we first meet the villain, you've got to try and make this scene kind of awesome in order to make a good first impression on the audience. I'm talking specifically about the first lines of dialogue. Let's list all of the main villains in the show, minus Sombra, and see how they made their first appearances to the audience.

Nightmare Moon: Nightmare Moon came in from a state of shock. When the audience had been awaiting for Celestia to appear, when they saw it to instead be placed with blue smoke transfiguring into a black alicorn, it was shocking and kind of creepy. She then spoke vengeful, hate spewing dialogue, and seemed to enjoy every moment of getting her sweet revenge. Could be better, but it still made her seem like a hard foe to defeat

Discord: When we first see Discord, he speaks in a creepy echo from the stain glass windows. We get a sense of his moral code, how he is an all knowing chaos god, and just a colorful expression of his personality, flawlessly introducing the audience to the villain. His riddles and rhymes also make him seem menacing and challenging. The audience knows that this guy is going to be a huge threat just from the get go. This entrance is one of the best. It's cool, dynamic, and fully shows the audience his personality and code in under 2 minutes.

Queen Chrysalis: Chrysalis was a villain who we don't know is the villain until later on, so it's hard to put a lid on when she was actually introduced. Nevertheless, they completely pulled it off. The writing does a good job as introducing her as a brat at the beginning, but I feel her true introduction is This Day Aria. Sure, you could make the argument that it was when she locked Twilight in the dungeon, but I think since the episode used a certain style of writing for its antagonist, it's hard to put a lid on it. Nevertheless, This Day Aria was flawless. It showed us how Chrysalis thinks and acts, and makes the already frightened audience get the creeps even more. Again, you can argue when Chrysalis was actually introduced due to how she was weaved into that episode, but This Day Aria worked really well.

Red Arabus: Whilst out of the ones I've listed, this guys my least favorite, he too had an creepy and dynamic introduction. It was flawlessly paced, giving the audience the creeps as we follow the brown unicorn going along his normal business and running into a creepy, hooded figure. Red Arabus also says one of the most memorable lines of the entire show, and it cuts away at just the right moment to make the audience excited and scared. I will say again that G4 Tirek was amazing for his first couple of scenes. Too bad they completely fucked up later.

Starlight Glimmer: Like Chrysalis, Starlight is a villain who we don't know is the villain until later. However, unlike Chrysalis, she does have a traditional introduction. When we see her coming out of the door, she seems a little to nice and courteous, and the audience already are weary of her. There's also her song, that brilliant, expressive song. We see the way she thinks, her genuine belief that she's doing good, her creepy, deceitful, personality, and her moral standpoint.

Sunset Shimmer: Sunset Shimmer's introduction is awful. The second I see her, I think "oh, it's just another villain." There's nothing memorable about her or her introduction. Her first lines are "sorry it had to be this way, princess." There's no effort put into it, the writers just think that it's just any other scene, and fail miserably to create a good introduction. To give you a taste of how important an introduction is, it gives the audience a first impression, and is the major difference between "meh" and feeling anticipated. True it does strictly depend on the character you have, and a strong opening can only get you so far. However, it really is important to a large degree, and Sunset Shimmer failed to grab me when we first see her.

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School Bully and Plan

So I already had very low expectations for this villain, but at least when we were in Equestria she had one thing in her favor. She was at least kind of threatening. She possessed a challenge to Twilight, and seemed to be a powerful archmage. Sure that's boring, but it's at least a threat to some degree.

But the moment we get into Canterlot High, Sunset Shimmer doesn't even have that. Sure, she does kind of work as a foil to Twilight, but she's only a threat because the stupidity of Twilight makes her be. However, that's more of a problem with the movie.

Compare all of the other villains, all of them had some level of high threat and opposition against the main 6. I'm not talking about raw power, because Starlight Glimmer didn't really have any significant raw magical power. I'm talking about if your villain works as a character which can produce a high level of conflict, stakes, and work against the protagonist with equal or higher convinces at their side.

Sunset Shimmer doesn't produce any kind of serious conflict for the entire second act. Yes, she is kind of working against Twilight, but as more of a slice of life antagonist than a main villain. This is suppose to be a big event for the series, this is suppose to be a large, epic conflict. But yet Sunset Shimmer is just a bully, that's it.

She's also the prime example, the spitting image, the very definition of a one dimensional character. There is only one side to her personality, she's an evil bitch, that's it. Compare that to Starlight Glimmer and Discord, who were both complex and three dimensional.

It was basically just like having Diamond Tiara be the main villain for a two part episode, it just wouldn't work. But she even fails at that, because we've had so many other, better slice of life antagonists in the show with more interesting personalities. The Flim Flam Brothers were corporate businessmen who were efficient at their job, industrialist leaders, and didn't want to hurt the Apple Family as much as they wanted to outsell them. That's a really cool idea for a character, and it makes the characters kind of have an edge.

But in the third act, she goes from boring to over the top goofy. Her demon design looks fucking atrocious and he plan is to take over Equestria with zombie teenagers. Do I even have to make fun of this? Her dialogue is goofy, her voice is goofy, her plan is goofy, and if that wasn't campy enough, she lets out a high pitched maniacal laugh.

I'd actually say Sunset Shimmer is one of the worst villains, ever. Not just in MLP, but ever. I can't name one redeeming quality about her character: she's one dimensional, her plan is laughable, her dialogue sucks, she has a shit introduction, she possesses no real threat until the very end, her backstory is insulting to even be called a backstory, and most importantly, she's boring.

And then, for the reformation. One of the lowest points in the entire show.
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Reformation

You know, in a movie or an episode/two part episode, something with one narrative. If your going to reform a villain, you have to show some hints of it first. Sure, Discord was reformed in season 3, but that didn't directly link to Return of Harmony. This is one story, so you need to show some good in the character before you can reform them.

Sunset Shimmer was pure evil. There was nothing about her which said "you know what, maybe she might have another side." We're made out to believe that she was a bastard from day one.

This reformation in the crater was comical. To see this pure evil villain suddenly crack up and apologize is unfitting, stupid, and wrong. And there was no reason for it either, they could have just killed her off like they did with Sombra and it would have been the exact same fucking movie.

Luna's turn back to good worked because it was a turn back to good. We saw that she was once good and that she and Celestia worked as a team. So therefore, whilst a little out of place in the context of the scene preceding it, Luna's turn back to good overall worked. And what fixed the slightly out of place scene is that in Luna Eclipsed, it showed us that she didn't change overnight, and whilst being good, still had the Nightmare Moon personality and attitude, which worked really well .

Sunset Shimmer becomes a prime example of a Mary Sue in the next film as well. Never getting angry at anyone but herself, always tolerating the HuMane 5's insults, never giving in, giving the lesson at the end, and having no character faults other than the last movie, in which I'm convinced that the Elements of Harmony fucked with her mind or something, because this is a pure personality reset. That's for another day though, when I tackle how she was portrayed in Rainbow Rocks.

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