In Defense of Midnight Sparkle SPOILERS!!! · 11:05pm Sep 28th, 2015
Alright, let me come out and say I'm in the pro-Midnight Sparkle party. I had no idea she was coming, mainly because I work to avoid the Equestria Girls section of the pony aisle. She's hardly the worst villain. Sombra still has that dishonor in my book.
The main criticism of Midnight Sparkle I've seen is that SciTwi is "too nice" to be a villain, and normally I'd agree. But when you throw large amounts of magic into the equation, it doesn't matter. Magic: I don't have to explain shit.
Even if it's friendship-based magic. If you have someone that doesn't understand it, of course it could corrupt. Attending Crystal Pre Academy, she didn't have friends. She didn't understand friendship. Her only companion was Spike, who, up until that day, couldn't talk. She didn't want to conquer Equestria, she just wanted more of it to understand, perhaps when she didn't understand it in the first place.
soo cop out answer?
All they had to do was make scitwi more evil, and not even that much, she just had to want to do what she was doing. As it was she didn't want to hurt people, but took no steps to prevent it.
3428239 But I did explain it.
Twilight ignored Sunset's warning, and was convinced by the Shadowbolts, and regretted it almost immediately.
That's a strange and bizarre way of spelling the Flim Flam Brothers.
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Let me ask two dumb questions then. She wore the pendent in the bike part, it fell from her neck and opened up, causing man-eating plants to come out that almost ate her teammate.
1. Why was she still wearing it after it almost killed someone? As opposed to... locking it up? Taking it home? Burying it six feet under? Putting it someplace safe where it wouldn't kill anyone?
2. Why did that teammate that almost DIED want her to open it?
Friends or no, I never saw Twilight as the sacrifice others in the quest for knowledge type. This was contrived to all hell.
And again, she wasn't evil, she didn't want to do it. She wasn't mean, she wasn't a bitch, she wasn't seeking to hurt others. So why'd the magic corrupt her? Magic? that's not really an answer.
3428269 Why did the element of magic corrupt Sunset?
Stolen magic == evil in the human universe, maybe?
What I want to know is... was she even evil? I mean, they said 'you're destroying the world!' but how would they know that? She was just opening a few harmless portals.
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In the first movie Sunset was trying to take over Equestira. the element just gave her the power to do that.
This movie... I guess Twilight was trying to learn about magic? So the magic power just gave her the ability to do that... by absorbing all the magic everywhere I guess...
It was contrived as all hell.
I'm not saying I dislike Midnight Sparkle, by all means, evil Twilight rules. I'm only saying the way they got there was BS and made no sense.
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One thought that keeps coming back to my mind. Just because you're intelligent, doesn't mean you aren't prone to being stupid, or doing stupid things. Pony Twilight is without a doubt very smart, but she threw all of Ponyville into chaos over the fear of being tardy in submitting a friendship report.
Everyone. Absolutely everyone, has moments where they experience a lapse in judgement, and do something that they shouldn't do. They don't mean to do it, they just do.
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Making dumb mistakes is fine, I expect that.
Knowing and willful is a whole other ballgame.
After the plants, what she did was knowing and willful.
3428269 Those are fair criticisms, but... How to explain...
I think the final 10 minutes was stronger than the rest of the movie. I'm more critical of the first 60 minutes.
Rather than rag on Midnight Sparkle, I'm ragging on the build-up for not presenting her motivations better.
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right there with you. I liked Midnight Sparkle. But the build up was horrible.
Although, while I'm probably alone in this, I don't care for Sunset Shimmer. So that part of the movie... yeah... Replacement Twi she is not.
3428299 As a huge Sunset fan, I'm right there with you, and I hope EG4 shows that she isn't Replacement Twi, but a character in her own right.
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That'd be nice to see, maybe I'd like her then once they give her her own character and stop having her simply be another version of Twilight.
I mean honestly, i could write her out of the second and third movie altogether and they'd either get better (third movie-replace her with pony twi) or stay the same (second movie-they defeat the sirens with Rainbow stepping up to sing in Sunset's place.)
Oh, that'd be awesome, Twi vs scitwi. The former trying to teach herself friendship, the latter just wanting to learn everything about magic, not caring about anyone else...
3428320 Gonna have to disagree with you there. Sunset was integral to Rainbow Rocks.
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How so?
I mean, Twilight could have (and should have) been the one to spot them fighting each other under the stage.
Also, when they performed, the song they played could have easily been enough to defeat the bad guys, it just wasn't so Sunset could have a moment in the spotlight. (to serve the plot)
other then those two events, her role was pretty much an observer that didn't do anything to advance the story.
I'm not trying to be argumentative or troll or anything, I just don't see it. Maybe I missed something.
3428344 You are missing something. Sunset had the means to "text" Celestia, getting a hold of PonyTwi.
And except for opening the last verse of Welcome To the Show, she very much was in the background.
Midnight Sparkle is SciTwi rainbowfied in the EQG universe.
Think about it, the mane 6 got their rainbow powers when they where powerless thanks to Teirek, then they opened a container full of magic. 
SciTwi did the same thing, only a slightly different equation. If she doesn't have pony powers I'm going to be mad. 
Sunset was demonic thanks to the element of magic. Twi was just overpowered by magic, but she was still her self. She couldn't control it, but the mane 6 had practice and knew what to do .
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True... but it wouldn't have been hard to bridge that gap.
I could come up with at least ten different ways it could have been done. I'm pretty sure you could too if you tried. Heck, even her having the 'text' book was a contrivance that didn't fit her original character.
How long is a 'moon' anyway?
I once heard that Sunset was only added to Rainbow Rocks after the fact. I believe it.
3428822 Believe it or not, my first draft of my Letter for Rainbow Rocks was written as if Sunset was a one-and-done villain. It was gonna be a pretty dark joke.
Then I fell in love with her in RR. I'm a sucker for villain redemption.
My brain's already firing on all cylinders, ready to eviscerate this movie as well.
3428923 That sounds rather interesting actually lol
I'm actually really tempted to do a draft of Friendship Games that is pontwi vs an immoral scitwi.
basically Scitwi would be actually... not evil, but immoral. She'd be trying to get the magic from them on purpose, not caring if people got hurt.
PonTwi would be in Sunset's spot. it'd be her vs herself, trying to take every chance to teach herself what she's missing.
I never liked Sunset because (before this movie retconed it) she was redeemed, she didn't seek redemption. The 'Friendship Cannon' made her good.
Big difference.
This movie retconed it where she realized the error of her ways moments before it hit.
cop out.
Also her lack of character and totally ripping off of Twilight.
to me she's less her own character and more the writers way of saying, "Don't like alicorn Twilight? Here's a replacement."
3428942 Yeah, if Sunset hadn't appeared in RR, I was going to have my RR entry be her suicide note as she hung herself from the portal statue.
Dark, lol
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very dark lol
I'd read it :)
I also vehemently support the idea of a seventh element, because she represents a very, very import part of all lasting friendships: Forgiveness.
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That falls into the whole, she was redeemed by the friendship cannon issue.
The element made her good, she didn't change, she was changed.
Difference in subtext, but it matters.
And yeah, I know this movie retconed it.
3428983 Really? Where? I've seen it twice so far, and that's escaped me.
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In the first movie, she was blasted by the friendship cannon and made good.Oh, you're talking about the retcon. It was in the opening part that summarized the other two movies. It stated she realized the error of her ways before the cannon blast hit her.
You know... when she was a demon...
3428988 No wonder I missed it. The dailymotion video link I have doesn't have that.
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I ended up watching it streamed on youtube.
fought with a crappy internet connection 2 laptops, and an apple tv.
ended up watching it on my iphone airplaying it to the apple tv
took me 2 and a half hours to watch the whole movie.
Yeah... wasn't worth it.
Wait, people didn't like this? Like, actually complained about it?
Utter madness. I can't imagine. It was totally awesome, a complete overwhelming of one's self to the basest of desires, now achievable with newfound power.
What's to even criticize?
"Absolute Power corrupts absolutely."
Midnight Sparkle made a lot of sense really. You take this outcast girl who is shunned and pushed around, who has a strong desire to learn, and suddenly give her arcane powers capable of creating holes in space, well, that's going to overwhelm her. Remember, Midnight Sparkle didn't want conquest, she didn't want power - she wanted to learn more about magic. She was getting her first real taste of it, and being a magical lightweight who bit off more than she could chew, wanted to know more about it. She was your classical mad scientist, so taken by a thirst for knowledge that she felt would fill the void in her heart that it became all-consuming.
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I feel really dumb for not mentioning this earlier, but I simply wasn't able to respond in a timely manner. SciTwi choosing to keep wearing the pendant, despite knowing the danger it presented, that kind of stupidity is demonstrated by a lot of people every day in the real world. People who get addicted to heroin, or other narcotic substances. They know it'll kill them eventually, but they just don't care.
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Because they're addicted...
At what point did it show scitwi addicted to magic?
Did I miss that because to me she looked horrified at what it was doing.
And please don't say she was addicted to learning...
Sombra gets way too much hate.
He didn't do much because he didn't NEED to.
Take a closer look at the events of Crystal Empire.
To me, the worst villain is Nightmare Moon.