Is Evil Sexier? - The Case of Sunset Shimmer · 11:01pm Oct 10th, 2015
It's been pointed out, and with some justice, that Sunset Shimmer is portrayed as sexier or at least more sexually-attractive before her reformation.
Evil Is Sexy. Not just in looks, but also the point about "looser sexual morals" -- we do not know if Sunset Shimmer had sex with Flash Sentry, but she was dating him (supposedly) just to increase her domination over the school, something for which she feels bad later on when she has her Heel Face Turn. Whether or not they had sex, she was feigning (or not so feigning) more affection for him than she felt, which was a cruel way to treat him.
From the TVTropes article:
When paired with Beauty Equals Goodness, this is reconciled by making the good characters' beauty more genuine and the evil characters' appearance more focused on inspiring lust, separating "pure" beauty from sex appeal
and this gets done with Sunset Shimmer too; compare these pictures:
Evil Sunset Shimmer.
Nightmare Sunset Shimmer.
Good Sunset Shimmer.
To some extent this is the Madonna-Whore Complex. To some extent this makes sense, though -- good by its nature tends to be more long-term in thought than evil, and being sexually "good" generally involves more long-term thinking than being sexually "bad."
Some fanfics assume that Sunset Shimmer is "fast" or "loose" based on nothing but her earlier style of clothing and the fact that she was dating Flash Sentry. This totally does not follow: Sunset Shimmer's evil desire was to gain power rather than fulfill sexual lusts, and Flash Sentry is demonstrably a gentleman, whose affections might be won without giving him sex. What's more, it's more than a little bit possible that she actually loved Flash Sentry (but now regards herself as not good enough for him).
In general, it is unwise to assume that because a character is on the side of the Bad Guys (or Girls) that it means that she partakes of all vices.
NOTE: I tried to find a good picture of Sunset Shimmer's angelic or Humanoid Alicorn form, but I couldn't find one. I'd appreciate a pointer to it.
A pointer to Sunset's "Angelic" form? I'd suggest searching for "Sunset phoenix".
This one seems perfect:
derpicdn.net/img/2015/9/27/988824/medium.png
As for Sunset's sexual mores, I'm still fond of a personal theory that she's never found humans sexually attractive. Twilight got wired for it, obviously, but Sunset? Not so much. Dating Flash was just another means of clawing her way up the social ladder.
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The hilarious irony would be if Sunset Shimmer fell in love with Pony Flash Sentry. There's at least one fanfic in which they were lovers before Sunset Shimmer went to the Humanoidverse. The main problem with that one IMO is that Sunset Shimmer was pretty young when she went through the Mirror Portal, but I do see how their personalities could mesh well.
My governing assumption about Sunset Shimmer's sexual morals is that they are basically upper-class Canterlot Equestrian: she comes from the same social class (and, actually, clan) as does Twilight Sparkle, and they share similar assumptions. They have rather different personalities, of course -- Twilight is more contemplative and Sunset more active -- but also with clear points of similarity, as we see in Equestria Games.
I discuss the sort of attitudes I'm talking about in "City Courtship." Basically, pre-marital virginity generally good though not a requirement, sex good with love, bad absent love, make an effort to make a marriage work, acknowledged affairs better than divorce, be loyal to one's House; to sum it up briefly. She wouldn't see sex for the sake of having sex to be a good idea; she also would be willing to have sex with someone she loved; and to some extent all bets are off because this is Sunset Shimmmer and she's trapped in a weird hyper-evolved ape-thing body and dimension anyway, and possibly inclined to go native.
I see Sunset Shimmer as extremely intelligent and extremely passionate, and much less inhibited about expressing her passions than is Twilight Sparkle. On the other hand, I don't think that this means that she's slutty, and still less do I think that she's someone who would be easy to coerce or pressure into sex (or for that matter, anything -- strong will is one of Sunset Shimmer's defining traits).
I do think that it's possible that she at least strongly likes Humanoid Flash Sentry, whether or not she's sexually attracted to him or has had sex with him. At no point even when evil did she actually try to hurt him, and Flash Sentry is pretty darn likeable. His personality is such that he would have treated her with kindness and respect, and she clearly feels bad about having taken advantage of him in the past.
What evil looks better can't be true because Pinkie is best....wait what about evil Pinkie...lol
I have to admit myself, the 'evil' versions of the various characters tend to look more attractive, even with the 'touch me and die, worm' attitude they tend to give. Well, maybe not Chrysalis. I simply do NOT get the attraction to her in fandom given that in her 'real' form she looks like a half-rotted corpse!
I also wonder why no one ever uses that idea expressed by Lewis about evil/genuinely villainous characters being bitter and prudish and essentially a miserable joy-hating sourpuss. You'd think at least someone would try it for the change of pace.
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The closest thing I've seen to "evil Pinkie Pie" is Angry Pie (Discorded Pinkie) and she's less attractive -- a lot of the attractiveness of Pinkie Pie comes from her good cheer. An evil Pinkie Pie might be more like the Joker. Cupcakes Pinkie Pie certainly isn't attractive at all.
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The Changelings in general strike me as Creepy Pathetic (rather like Gollum), which is why I go with the idea of them having descended from a higher state. Now, I rather like the character of Smeagol, which is why he gets to show up in my world and get a second chance at heroism, as Delver.
Chrysalis, I do not like and never have liked. She doesn't even have the poisonous charm of the Dazzlings. She's just plan nasty.
Midnight Sparkle blows all the Sunsets out of the water, but I do think that Shimmer's powered up good form is more attractive than Sunset Satan
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Well that would be an example of the evil version that is less attractive rather than more but you can find "attractive evil Pinkie" out there though it might be quite strange to do so.
I think a lot of this is down to the first movie unquestioningly adopting a lot of the tropes of a High School movie. I'm generalising insanely broadly here, but most girl-focussed High School movies revolve around the conflict between a reserved, mousy, 'unattractive' (supposedly, though of course the actors would all be insanely hot in real life), often bookish or intellectual Good Girl against a sexy, hot, mean, Bad Girl; The Guy will start off dating the Bad Girl but dump her for the Good Girl by the end. Equestria Girls pretty much replicates that (with the exception that Flash had already dumped Sunset before the movie began), right down to Sunset's more bold and brassy colour scheme against Twilight's cooler, less provocative colours, and of course Twilight's outfit is designed to read as more modest even if her skirt is the same legnth as everyone elses (because the Lt Uhura look is big in the EqGverse, I guess).
As you say there is a bit of Whore-Madonna in there, but I think more through popcultural osmosis than by intent.
I don't mind the new jacket -even if it reminds me a little of the one Jackman seems to wear in the X-Men films- but changing the clothes has bothered me for a while.
Its not that the new design is bad, exactly... but I liked her original costume. And it sort of bothers me that they seem to equate that look with "evil", and others with " good".
Personally, I think she considers the idea of mating with one of the locals to be bestiality. Also, her idea of what might or might not be provocative is as alien as she is. She only started to dress the way she does now because someone finally explained Terran values to her.
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You've got a good point. Pony in Humanoid Form Twilight Sparkle fits the "good girl" model perfectly -- even the fact that she's actually an adult of her own kind in the form of a Humanoid late-adolescent fits a few high school romance / musical type movies -- and Sunset Shimmer dresses superficially like the high school sexualized "bad girl" even though she doesn't seem to be doing anything all that terribly bad in sexual terms. And Flash Sentry, by preferring Twilight to Sunset, is rendering judgement on a preference for good over evil -- here, the strange part is that Sunset doesn't seem to care that much about who Flash prefers, which is sort of confirmed in Rainbow Rocks, where she says she was never even attracted to him that way.
Which may even be true. Sunset also feels bad about how she treated Flash, but this may be more out of simple decency and a Harmony-based, Equestrian morality in which causing emotional pain to another sapient being through falsifying one's own emotions toward them is always bad behavior, than because she realizes she loved him and threw it away by behaving badly toward him. Sunset never shows any sort of romantic attraction toward anyone, really, in any of the three movies.
Of course, neither do any of the Humane Five. The only romances shown are Twilight x Flash, and some background stuff with Mackie x Cheerie, and Lyra x Bon-Bon. Presumably, things would be different if this were an actual series.
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Both are excellent points. Just because Pony Fluttershy and Pony Rarity are apparently willing to contemplate xenophilia (with Discord and Spike, respectively) does not mean that Sunset Shimmer is necessarily willing to engage in any such actions. The fact that her Humanoid form is only just approaching the local age of marriage, coupled with what I think are probably more sexually-conservative Equestrian Pony mores, would make it easier for her to avoid any serious romantic relationships.
As to dressing provocatively, in her native form Sunset Shimmer would normally go naked, wearing clothes only for social or erotic display. She is dressed decently enough according to the strictly-stated rules of the Humanoidverse -- she's wearing a simple outfit of shirt, skirt and boots with neither her breasts nor genitals, nor the underwear covering them, showing. And the fashions of the Humanoidverse aren't precisely ours anyway -- and Sunset Shimmer's clothes are actually closer to what Human women would wear in our world than what most of the Humanoid girls wear at that school!
3463251 She looks like a regular person wandering around Monster High.
I think Sunset managed to pull off the good girl look better than Twilight does. And Nightmare Midnight was more attractive than Nightmare Inferno.
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Yeah, the whole business with Flash dumping Sunset and then liking Twilight ends up being a dangling thread, because the audience already knows (though Rarity does not when she warns Twilight against involving herself with Flash) that Sunset's animus for Twilight already runs far deeper, and that a conflict between the two is unavoidable.
Not that it wouldn't have been rather hilarious to see Sunset lose it over about FlashLight. After all, for the person who has stolen your destiny and reason for being to then steal your boyfriend too has to seem like the ultimate in petty dickery, insult piled onto injury for the sake of it.
That would fit with the fact that Sunset appears to feel bad about how she treated everyone at CHS, rather than singling Flash out as a special case; notably we never see her make any especial effort to reconcile with him specifically, as opposed to mending fences with the student body as a whole.
Just for the record, if any beautiful evil temptress was thinking of using me in this way--I totally deserve it.