Diamond Tiara's Character Arc [S5E18 Spoilers] · 7:55am Oct 12th, 2015
Howdy, y'all.
I think it's obligatory that I lead this off with the following warning: if you haven't seen the latest episode, Crusaders of the Lost Mark, and if you intend on seeing it at some point, turn back now. A lot of stuff happens in the episode. Stuff you don't want to be spoiled on. Trust me on this one.
You have been warned.
So, that episode happened. Truth be told, I'm still reeling from it. I don't think any words in any order can describe how happy I am with this episode. It was fun, beautiful, and marked a huge milestone in the series. It won't go down as my favourite episode ever (Magical Mystery Cure remains untoppled), but it's a damn close second.
I'm not gonna do a whole lot of analyzing of the episode, mostly because I don't like analyzing them and I'm not good at articulating my opinions anyway, but I do want to throw my two cents into the whole issue of Diamond Tiara. But before getting into that, I have to get this out of my system.
OH MY FUCKING GOD HOLY SHIT APPLE BLOOM SWEETIE BELLE AND SCOOTALOO GOT THEIR GODDAMN CUTIE MARKS AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Ahem.
So, Diamond Tiara got a redemption arc in this episode. Most people seem pretty happy about this, but most also seem to agree that it came kinda out of the blue. That her mother was introduced as a way to shift blame for Diamond's attitude from Diamond herself to her family and upbringing instead. And it also seemed to happen rather quickly, yeah? A heel-face turn, most people might call it. Just one bad day and a few songs between her being nasty to being redeemed. Not too realistic.
Now, we can chalk all of those misgivings up to lazy writing, or having to stuff the whole thing into 22 minutes, or we could just say "friendship is magic!" and call it at that.
Or we could look a bit deeper.
I really loved Diamond Tiara in this episode. It's the first time we really get a close look at her character—the first time she gets to be a protagonist and share her story. If you look at her portrayal in this episode and try to put it together with her portrayal in the rest of the series, it doesn't break down as many people contend. It doesn't reduce her to a caricature, or simplify her in any way. Rather, if you extrapolate and look closely at the details, it paints a picture of a very complex character, and a beautiful character arc. An arc that isn't nearly over.
Let's have a look.
Diamond Tiara first appeared in Call of the Cutie. There are a few important things to note about her here. First is that, compared to how she became in later episodes, her behavior isn't all that antagonistic. She picks on ponies when it's easy, she acts entitled and bratty, but she's not super nasty or anything. Hell, she even invited all of the would-be Crusaders to her cuteceanera. She's not going out of her way to be a bully.
Taking into account what we know about her home life now, it makes sense. Diamond Tiara doesn't necessarily want to be mean and nasty to anyone. But with her mother undoubtedly forcing her worldview upon Diamond, she has a sense of entitlement. Her mother makes her think she's better than other ponies around her, and tells her how to act accordingly. Maybe Diamond doesn't want to act this way, but she also doesn't see an alternative. She wants her parents to be proud of her, as most of us do (she's a total daddy's girl, as evidenced in Family Appreciation Day), so she follows in her mother's footsteps.
And it works out pretty well for her, since her special talent is literally bossing other ponies around. Her entitled attitude and superiority complex work fine since no one is standing up to her. Her parents are happy, she's happy, and all is well. She even has a friend in Silver Spoon who shares a similar worldview, affirming Diamond Tiara's attitude and mannerisms, making it all the easier to go along with.
This brings up another crucial point in Diamond's character arc: Silver Spoon is the key to it all. In Call of the Cutie, she and Diamond Tiara act virtually as equals. They both seem happy with each other's company, and they're legitimately best friends—keep in mind that friendship is the core value of this entire series, too. They even have a cute little dance à la "Sunshine, Sunshine, Ladybugs Awake." Although this little dance becomes exceedingly rarer throughout the series, which is important, so remember that. And maybe this is me reading into things a bit, but I think Silver Spoon's friendship is the most essential thing to Diamond Tiara's entire character. Silver Spoon gives her someone to strengthen and affirm her mother's worldview, which she isn't necessarily comfortable with otherwise, while also giving her a real friend to confide in and to be herself around. If Diamond felt as trapped as she led us to believe in Crusaders of the Lost Mark, then having a real friend like that must've felt like a huge boon.
So, anyway, towards the end of Call of the Cutie, the Crusaders stand up to Diamond Tiara and ultimately steal her limelight at her own party. This is the moment that set her whole arc into motion. Suddenly there are these three ponies who are fed up with her attitude and are willing to fight back, and it works. It shakes her world and, in her mind, threatens her standing in her parents' eyes. And that terrifies her. So she sets the Cutie Mark Crusaders in her sights, trying desperately to hold onto her worldview that's worked so well for so long.
As we've seen, it didn't work out so well for her.
Fast-forwarding through her next few appearances, we've got her and Silver Spoon in The Cutie Pox. Nothing too notable here, save perhaps that the Crusaders—Apple Bloom in particular—seem to be gaining more popularity, and Diamond Tiara seems to be losing some, increasing her animosity towards them. She appears again in Family Appreciation Day, and this is the first time she goes out of her way to willfully antagonize any of the Crusaders, accompanying her father to Sweet Apple Acres seemingly for the express purpose of humiliating Apple Bloom, and again targeting Apple Bloom by suggesting she bring Granny Smith to Family Appreciation Day. This is also interesting in that it's the first time she's antagonizing somepony over something other than their cutie mark, or lack thereof. She's attacking Apple Bloom right at home, indicating that she's becoming more aggressive and personal. It's little details like this that reveal Diamond Tiara's slow unraveling.
Ponyville Confidential is a really interesting one. When you think about it, when you really think about it, why in the world did Diamond Tiara want to be editor-in-chief for the Foal Free Press? She doesn't care about school. She doesn't care about her classmates. She sure as hell doesn't care about the actual newspaper. She cares about a select few things: herself, her standing with her parents, and her friendship with Silver Spoon (note that Silver Spoon is absent in this episode).
What she really wants out of this editor-in-chief position is personal acclaim. Her tactic of antagonizing the Crusaders isn't working so well, so she tries a roundabout tactic instead. In her mind, if she can increase the quality and the circulation of this newspaper, her popularity will skyrocket! Everyone will forget about the Crusaders, especially since they're actually working for her in this one, and her parents will be so proud. It seems like a surefire thing, and it goes hand in hand with her special talent of being the boss.
A lot of what I've written here is speculation, really, but this take on Ponyville Confidential is clear as day. She wants this newspaper to be successful because it's a reflection of herself. And when the Crusaders threaten to stop writing their Gabby Gums column, Diamond Tiara responds, and I quote, "I don't care about feelings! Gabby Gums is my bread and butter, and I'm not gonna let you goodie-two-horseshoes take that away from me!" If that's not telling of her real motive here, I don't know what is. And from there she moves onto blackmail—another step up from her standard antagonistic regime, and again attacking the Crusaders on a more personal level. She's desperate to make this work. To bring herself back up and to knock the Crusaders back down.
But we know how the episode ends. Diamond Tiara gets demoted, all thanks to the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Not only does that further increase her animosity towards them, but I'm sure she got a firm scolding from Spoiled Rich when she got home that day. She had failed, and you can be sure her mother was going to drill that point home. Her world is probably really crumbling at this point.
Next on the chopping block, One Bad Apple. There's not a ton to be gleaned from this episode since it's mostly about Babs, but there's a little—and one very curious line at the end. So Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon show up out of the blue to mock the Crusaders while Babs is around—again going way out of their way just to get under their skin. The part where Babs teams up with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon is pretty interesting, because you can tell that Diamond knows exactly what she's doing. What better way to get at the Crusaders than to go after their newest friend, and to steal her away completely? And it works really well, and Diamond is very happy about it.
Also, and this is pretty subtle, this is the first time where you see Diamond being just a bit more antagonistic than Silver Spoon. Diamond is calling all the shots, and she gets most of the duo's speaking lines here. Silver's just along for the ride, often not adding anything other than laughter, or parroting what Diamond Tiara has already said. This, I think, is the first signal of a deterioration in their friendship. Diamond has become so obsessed with the Crusaders that she's forgetting to treat Silver Spoon as an equal. It doesn't seem to bother Silver Spoon yet, though.
Anyway, so the episode happens, and we get the scene at the end, where Babs stands up to Diamond and Silver. This scene has a lot more impact now that I've seen Crusaders of the Lost Mark. For those who don't remember how the scene went, here's the important part:
"F-friends?" Silver Spoon said.
"Yeah!" Babs said, advancing. "You got a problem with that?"
"Well what if I do?" Diamond snapped. "What are you gonna do about it?"
Babs smirked. "Tell your mothers about your bad attitudes!"
At that point, both Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara look scared out of their wits. Knowing what we do now about Diamond's home life and her mother, it's easy to understand why. Who knows? Maybe this indicates that Silver Spoon has a similar situation at home—although probably to a lesser extent. Either way, I just thought the scene was interesting.
Now we jump all the way ahead to Flight to the Finish. What I found interesting about this one is that Silver Spoon gets a lot more of the focus here than Diamond—I actually think she has more speaking lines than Diamond in this episode. But in their first confrontation with the Crusaders, all Silver Spoon does to bully them is call them blank flanks and make fun of them for that. It's old hat at this point. In her own words, "We already called them blank flanks!" As far as she can see, that's all they've really got to work with. But we already know that Diamond Tiara has been getting progressively better at attacking the Crusaders on a more personal level. Showing that Silver Spoon can only fall back on "blank flanks" reveals how much more invested in this rivalry Diamond is than Silver Spoon. Silver really only seems to do it because Diamond wants to. Because her friend has such a vendetta against the Crusaders, and she just wants to see her friend happy.
Ultimately, it's Diamond Tiara who thinks up the idea to hit Scootaloo where it hurts most: her wings. This is probably her most personal attack yet. But, again, in their next confrontation, it's Silver Spoon speaking the most. What's interesting, though, is that Silver Spoon only brings up the fact that Scootaloo can't fly. She states it over and over, rounding it out by saying that's why they'll never get chosen to be flag carriers, which is what they'd already been teasing them about anyway. It's Diamond Tiara who actually tries to go at Scootaloo about why not being able to fly is a bad thing, and why she should feel bad about it. Her one line, "A pegasus pony at your age? You should've been flying long ago." really drives this point home.
In the end, this episode is a good showcase of the strain this rivalry is putting on Diamond's friendship with Silver Spoon. Silver just doesn't care as much as Diamond about all of it. She's become less of a friend and more of a follower, egging Diamond on and setting her up to drive home the insults. Again, things like this are subtle, but they're there.
So the Crusaders steal Diamond's limelight again at the end of the episode, just making her angrier. Nothing too special about that.
Next, let's take a quick pit stop in Pinkie Pride of all episodes. During the first song of the episode, Diamond gets a brief singing role. What's important here isn't what she's singing about (she's just being her usual, bratty, snarky self towards Pinkie, who happens to be friends with the Crusaders). No, the important bit is what's happening while she's singing.
She's got this little sundae in front of her, and then Silver Spoon comes and meets her at the table with a big milkshake. Without even hesitating, Diamond knocks her sundae away and steals Silver's milkshake. Before she can drink it, though, Silver steals it back, and Diamond makes an angry face. Essentially what just happened there is that Diamond's selfishness is dominating her mannerisms to the point that she's stopped caring about her friendship with Silver Spoon. Not only is Silver acting like a follower, Diamond's treating her like one. Diamond has her own agenda, and she doesn't care who she tramples to fulfill it. It's a very short moment that most people probably forgot, but it's incredibly telling.
It's telling of Silver Spoon too, actually. The fact that she takes her milkshake back is the first real instance where she shows any kind of independence. She's not taking Diamond's shit this time. She's getting fed up. It's a very crucial detail, because it really helps set up her confrontation with Diamond in Crusaders of the Lost Mark. It didn't come out of nowhere—her irritation with Diamond has been building all along.
Now, what would you say if I told you that Twilight Time is as much an episode about Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon as it is about the Crusaders and Twilight? Seriously, go watch the episode again and pay close attention to Diamond and Silver every time they appear.
It's starts off pretty maudlin. Diamond tries to use her butler to make herself look good and improve her social standing, and Silver Spoon smiles and nods along. They then proceed to gloat about getting to meet famous celebrities in Manehattan for the express purpose of making the Crusaders feel bad. When the subject of Princess Twilight comes up though, Diamond sees an opportunity. And being that her special talent is manipulating ponies, she puts a plan into action swiftly. She wants to befriend Twilight, and she wants to stop Twilight from being friends with the Crusaders. What better way to raise her social status, and having her mother know that she frequents the company of a princess? It would be the ultimate way to resolidify her crumbling worldview. She knows she can use the Crusaders to do this, and she starts playing nice with them to do it.
By the way, all throughout the scene where Diamond is trying to convince the Crusaders to bring her along to Twilight Time, she speaks in first person. "You must bring me along next time you go!" "Can I go?" Silver Spoon has to physically interject more than once to correct Diamond. "You must bring us along." "Can we go?" Just another stepping stone in their failing friendship. It's pretty sad to watch, actually.
Anyway, when they actually get to Twilight Time, Diamond realizes that Twilight seems a bit upset that the Crusaders brought guests along. This seeds an idea in her mind that, if she can manipulate the Crusaders into bringing even more ponies along, it might put a snag in their friendship with Twilight—her exact goal. So that's exactly what she does. And she does it really cleverly, too. She plays dumb, acting like she doesn't realize that making the Crusaders popular by abusing their relationship with Twilight is a bad thing. You can tell that she totally does know, though. And she's loving it.
Meanwhile, Silver Spoon's doing all the grunt work. Of course.
Then Diamond puts another layer of complexity into her plan. When she realizes that the Crusaders are going to try to weasel out of bringing anyone to Twilight Time, she uses that to pit the entire class against them. Now not only is their standing with Princess Twilight in jeopardy, but their social status in the school will be at risk too. And everyone will see Diamond Tiara as the hero, and she'll become friends with a princess, and everything will be great!
Doesn't this plan sound completely far-fetched, though? It's outright ridiculous, and it has next to no chance of actually working. And I think that Diamond actually realizes this on an intellectual level. But at this point in the series, she feels like she's fallen so low that she's just that desperate. She's doing everything in her power to take the Crusaders down, even if it's the most convoluted plan ever, and shows no signs of actually working. Twilight's friendship with the Crusaders isn't fading anytime soon, and the class will get over it. Nothing's going to change.
But something has to change. That's what Diamond thinks, anyway. Because if nothing does, then her parents will see her as a failure, and that's the only thing that really matters to her anymore.
Yeah, I just recontextualized Twilight Time as The Tragedy of Diamond Tiara. And it totally works, too.
So after that plan fails, Diamond doesn't get another good showing until this most recent episode, Crusaders of the Lost Mark, where this character arc reaches a climax.
Diamond Tiara wants to be student pony president, simply because it's a popularity contest she believes she can win. It's a desperate delusion, just as her plan in Twilight Time was, but she has to roll with it since it's the only chance she's got. Silver Spoon tries to help as usual, but she's taking a different approach this time. She's not being a follower in this episode—she's trying to be Diamond's friend again. Her equal. Of course, Diamond takes this poorly and scolds her for stepping out of line. That ends up being the biggest mistake she's made yet. Silver Spoon already seems to be at a breaking point, and Diamond is just pressing harder.
Next comes the big triple whammy against Diamond Tiara. First hit: she sees that she only got one vote—her own vote—losing in a landslide. It's a moment that strikes her hard, forcing her to realize point blank just how far she's fallen in popularity since Call of the Cutie. No one is taking her shit anymore. It's her nightmare coming to life.
Second hit: Silver Spoon didn't even vote for her. She confronts Silver Spoon, her supposed best friend, and Silver Spoon tells her straight up that she's done. Notice: this is the thing that really puts Diamond over the edge. Through all of her efforts, she failed to realize how her attitude was negatively impacting her friendship with Silver. How she was destroying her link to the one pony who was on her side. The one pony she could be real with. Her one real friend. Suddenly she's left alone in her shattered world. She storms off, clearly very shaken. It's really sad, when you take everything into account.
Final hit: Spoiled Rich scolds her for being a failure. This is the one thing that Diamond was trying to avoid. Her one real motivation for doing everything that she's done. It's the nail in the coffin—the straw that broke the camel's back. Her worst fear has come to fruition, and she can't handle it. At last, she breaks, showing us her real self for the first time. She's not a diabolical monster. She's a filly trapped in an oppressive world with no way out that she can see. All she really wants is to escape the pressure—the expectations. She can't do it anymore.
And during this breakdown, the Crusaders swoop in at just the right time. They extend the olive branch, telling her that there is another way. But Diamond has lived this way for so long, she has a rough time accepting their help. They're the ones who brought her world down, after all. But out of sheer desperation, she tries.
And she succeeds! Sort of.
For the first time, she stands up to her mother. Not necessarily because she has the newfound strength to do so, but because it might be her only option. She can't see a way to repair her old world anymore—might as well try this, right? And when it actually works, she's stunned. This is the moment that really looks like a heel-face turn, but I contend that it's more shock than anything else. Notice that she's really saccharine sweet after standing up to Spoiled Rich—overly sweet, even for this show. Why is she like this?
Well, put yourself in Diamond's shoes. Here you are, having struggled for so long to maintain a vision of the world that you didn't even like because you were terrified of what might happen if you didn't. You've failed at every turn. You've trampled your only friendship. You've disappointed your family. It's the worst moment of your life. And in your desperation, you try, for once in your life, being real. Showing everyone the pony you actually want to be. And that sudden, simple act of friendship makes things better. You're shocked. How do you possibly cope with the realization that it was just that easy?
Diamond doesn't know how to act, so she puts the niceness on overdrive. She's still very much a broken filly, I think, existing in a world she hadn't believed could ever exist. Her old life is gone, but it was such a hardened lifestyle that she can't yet figure out how to handle it. All we can hope is that, with a lot of time and friendship, she can repair herself. She obviously has a lot of work to do, but hopefully it's a task she's up to. Because if she's not… if she descends back to that broken, scary place she's lived in all her life… I fear for what that would do to her.
I think she's gonna be okay though.
At any rate, I oughta wrap this up. This turned out way longer than I anticipated. Share any of your opinions below, and thanks for reading!
Keep on keeping on,
—Arg
It's things like this, that make me wish so bad that the show wasn't restricted by it's tv rating.
Don't get me wrong, I love the show as it is and think it's great, but it could be so much more if given the chance.
I'm not asking for it to be a M-rated show, not at all, but a higher age rating would really help the show as a whole.
Having a higher rating would give the writers and animators more freedom to work with, and it might help bring in people who dismiss the show because of it's reputation as a show for little kids.
Excellent analysis.
Exquisite analysis. It really drives home one of Silver Spoon's lines in "Crusaders of the Lost Mark": "I don't have to deal with her drama anymore." That's how Diamond Tiara's one friend saw her desperate attempts to preserve her status. That's how far apart they'd drifted. Yet another layer of tragedy in bringing the poor little rich filly to her absolute nadir.
I was hankering for a story that explored her character arc. And here's an awesome blog that does just that I'm more detail.
A golden horseshoe for you then!
Good stuff.
Seriously brilliant analysis. I'd go one step further and say that this was a turning point for Diamond Tiara's whole adult future, in that it put her onto the path of using her great talent for leadership for good rather than evil or short-sightedly selfish purposes. And given how great that talent is (look at how skilled she is at, what, 12-15 years old?) and how prominent is her family, this might have implications for the larger Equestrian future.
I don't think anyone could've explained it better than this. Heck, I didn't catch on to most of that character arc until you brought it up. Well done, my friend.
Nice to see someone did there homework, by the way a landslide victory? I could swear Diamond literally yells one vote.
side note: for anyone that still thinks this took place in one afternoon, I've rewatched this episode a few times, at the club house Sweetie says and I quite "We saw you yesterday" so give or take a day has passed.
3464804
When I heard Diamond yell "One vote?!" I took it to mean that she only got one vote, not that she lost by one vote. How else would she instantly have known that not even Silver Spoon voted for her?
3464871 good point, I just thought she lost by one, after all she did demand a recount and I guess she went in to do it herself, just saying, silver spoon just happened to be that one vote.
An excellent and insightful analysis.
Funnily enough, while not generally a fan of redeeming villains, DT was one antagonist I always did want to see brought back over; I always felt (apparenty rightly) she was basically just young and didn't know any better, and it would take just one nasty shock from the real world to burst her bubble - which is more or less what happened.
Brilliant and insightful! You did an excellent job of breaking down her character for this study. It really makes you think.
Also, lets thank our lucky stars that her "one bad day" didn't end like this:
flickeringmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/joker1.jpg
I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.
This is the best Diamond Tiara analysis I've ever seen, and I've read a lot of it. It made me realize a few key things:
Babs was hanging out with DT and SS for several weeks, so she had to have met Spoiled Rich at some point, or at least learned about her. The fact that she's willing to sic a parent like Spoiled Rich on their child shows Babs is playing hardball here.
Also, does anyone else think Cheerilee was deliberately manipulating Diamond Tiara into reading the ballots as a passive-agressive act since she normally can't punish the daughter of the head of the school board?
But why? If DT's mother is what we saw today, what did DT do to Babs or the CMC that she wouldn't approve of?
This line indicates that DT's mother would somehow be disappointed in her for her bad behavior... which she's engaging in specifically to make her mother proud.
This sums up my problem with this version of analysis: if Diamond Tiara was afraid of her mother finding out about her "bad attitude," Diamond Tiara is making her own decisions and trying to hide them from her mother. She could be many other ways and hide any of them from her mother, but she's not because this is the way she wants to be.
If Diamond Tiara is trying to win her mother's approval with her bad attitude, this line makes no sense. Diamond Tiara should want Babs to tell her mom about how she's tormenting blank flanks.
3471865
That's a fair point. I should've explained that part a little better. I think it still does make sense that Diamond Tiara would be afraid of Babs tattling to her mother, but you have to think about it differently. Think about it as Diamond Tiara would.
One thing that's clear to me is that Diamond is straight up scared of her mother. By this point in the series she's obviously seen her mother's bad side, and she's probably had a good few scoldings too. When you're scared of someone to that extent, you do everything you can to avoid involving them in your life. Except Diamond can't really avoid her, because it's her mom, and her mom is obviously very insistent upon her. Still, Diamond makes a point not to involve her mother when she doesn't have to. Why else does she seem so much closer to her father? Why else have we literally never seen or heard of Spoiled Rich up until Crusaders of the Lost Mark?
When Babs threatens to tell her mother, Diamond probably doesn't rationalize it like we do. She hears that her mother's about to get involved, and her mind jumps to the worst possible conclusion. "What would mother think if she knew I was associating with a blank flank? A member of the Apple family, no less! And that she stopped being my friend to hang out with those other blank flanks?!" Would it have gone badly for Diamond? Probably not. Is she willing to take that chance? Absolutely not. She wants her mother out of her life as much as possible.
3472780
I can see that based on your analysis. I'm not sure I agree, I think it's just an inconsistency because the show writers weren't thinking about it, and a lot of people are doing a lot of heavy lifting to connect dots, but it is consistent with the version you're building.
3472789
I can agree that, in all likelihood, it was a goof on the part of the show writers. But I'm of the mind that if there's a way to rationalize it and make it work, then that's what I'll go with. There's not an inconsistency in this show that I haven't been able to work around one way or another. It's fun trying to connect all the dots!
I just don't see it. DT has never seemed like she was terrified of anything, or that she got anything less than glee from tormenting anyone else whenever she had an opportunity. You're making a case that she's only tormented ponies strategically, and under duress. But we never see her do anything but torment ponies. Our best inference is that she bullies people all the time, everywhere, because she likes to. We never see her not bullying people.
And even if all that could be reconciled with the canon we have, and had been done on purpose from the beginning, it would still be bad writing. Good writing foreshadows things in ways that the average reader/viewer can pick up on, rather than deliberately or carelessly misleading them.
Glad I'm not the only one who saw this character arc, and noticed the recent episode was the climax of something that has been building up for the last 5 years.
I do recall especially noticing that something was up in Twilight Time with the Diamond/Silver dynamic.
3473514
That... is... wow. Bad. Did you not watch Ponyville Confidential, Pinkie Pride, or Twilight Time?
I can't even begin to imagine what this would even really look like.
3473999
So describe some scenes where she's front and center, and not bullying or being mean to someone.
3473514
Don't get me wrong—I'm not trying to make the argument that this character arc I've extrapolated was an explicit, purposeful thing the writers did from the beginning. If that were the case, I'd agree that it's bad writing since there's nothing explicit about it. I'm just piecing her character arc together as best I can with the new information given in Crusaders of the Lost Mark.
To your point that we never see her scared or doing anything other than bullying, I think that makes a good deal of sense, honestly. We've never seen her alone in the show—or as a focal character—up until Crusaders of the Lost Mark. Of course we've never seen her being anything other than a bully. That's the image she's trying to maintain—the whole driving force behind her character as I've presented it here. Since we've only ever seen her in front of other ponies, that's the only side of her we've ever gotten the chance to see. She can't be scared or defeated or friendly in front of anyone. She can't be the pony she wants to be—or she doesn't think she can, anyway. The closest we see is her getting frustrated/angry when things don't go her way.
3476025
Shifting the goalposts now?
3476216 No; I wrote:
So, show a scene with DT speaking in which she's not bullying someone, or being mean, or else she's being mean but not enjoying it. I guess I have to shift the goalposts a little for the scenes in Twilight Time, where she's not bullying but trying to manipulate people. But the larger point is that she's still always actively being a selfish bitch whenever she's on-screen, at least when she's speaking.
3476151
Oh, well, sure, then.
3473999
3476616
The only time Diamond Tiara is "nice" to anyone is when she's sucking up to them because they're doing something she wants them to do.
In Ponyville Confidential, she IS nice and encouraging to the Cutie Mark Crusaders at one point... but it is when they first turn in their first Gabby Gums column, and it is a huge hit. The Gabby Gums column is a gossip column, and therefore a bit mean-spirited, but Diamond Tiara, instead of being mean to the CMC, is instead simply showing a callous disregard for the feelings of the ponies she is covering in her gossip column.
The CMC are, at that point, her allies, and therefore, she is encouraging towards them - encouraging them to produce more of the mean-spirited Gabby Gums columns. When they stop doing what Diamond Tiara wants, she immediately goes back to being nasty and threatening them with blackmail.
Likewise, in Twilight Time, she's still a jerk, but she temporarily acts nice towards the CMC so that she can get in on spending time with Princess Twilight. Indeed, she doesn't even invite Silver Spoon along - Silver Spoon invites HERSELF along. Silver Spoon is a lackey, someone she can throw away if it suits her needs; she only cares about herself there, and her personal popularity, as being associated with Twilight Sparkle (and giving the people what they want) makes her, personally, more popular. She doesn't care about screwing things up for the CMC because she doesn't care about them, but actively being mean to them at that point would not be in her best interest - but it is worth remembering that during their first Twilight Time with them, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon both immediately suck up to Twilight, and then, apparently, spend the whole time they're there laughing on the inside at the CMC. The CMC had the impression that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were laughing at them behind their backs, and there's little reason to believe that they were not.
And she's a total jerk in Pinkie Pride, throwing away her own dish to steal Silver Spoon's, and then speaking in a very grudging tone of voice that Pinkie Pie did actually meet her standards, even though she never would have asked her unless her dad forced her to (and her dad seems to be a decent person from everything we've seen of him).
This is her general MO - if you're useful to her, or in a position where you can give her something she wants, she'll be nice to you, even suck up to you. But if you're not, then you're trash, and it is okay to hurt you.
Dang this is good analysis. I was thinking along similar lines. You may want to consider "Hearts and Hooves Day" too if you ever go back over this, though.
Oh, and I bet a slightly absentee father might be a contributor. Filthy Rich does seem to care about her, based on what we've seen.
You know, I hadn't connected Silver Spoon in CotLM with the bit in the Smile Song, but that makes quite a lot of sense. And, unusually for things-I-didn't-connect-but-that-make-sense, I do remember noticing it. I had no idea what to make of it at the time, except that DT and SS disagreed over who should have the latter's shake, but I like this interpretation.
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Eh... Could have benefits but even from a fan perspective I rhiunk this would be a big risk of ruining the literary qualities that brought a lot of Bronies and Pegasisters to the show in the first place. I think "that is what we have such an amazing and ever-evolving pool of fanwork for"