Starlight Glimmer, Dragons and Iguanas · 5:34am Nov 30th, 2015
Something about the season finale's been bothering me. Specifically, Starlight's backstory, motivation and redemption. I thought at first that I just needed some time to process it, but that feeling hasn't gone away yet. Something about it doesn't quite sit right, somehow.
Let's list things in chronological order:
1. Starlight loses a friend when he gets his cutie mark.
2. Starlight is leader of a town where everypony is supposedly equal without their marks.
3. Starlight is angered when the Mane 6 free the town of her influence and flees to plot her revenge.
4. Starlight somehow acquires Starswirl's spell and sets about wrecking the timeline to show Twilight that her friendship isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things.
5. Twilight shows Starlight the consequences of her meddling.
6. Twilight convinces her to give friendship another try after seeing her childhood.
7. Starlight is redeemed in the span of a song that may or may not be several days in real time.
Bear in mind that these were revealed to us in the order of: 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 6, 7
Starlight seemed more like an ideological antagonist when first revealed. She doesn't pose a direct threat like previous major villains, but her worldview and influence did have unhealthy side effects despite looking good on the surface. Equality is nice and all; nopony wants to be sidelined or bullied just because of a mark on theirs or somepony else's butt. At least, that's what Starlight claims. She's altruistic and wants everypony to be equal and happy; there's our first indication of her motives.
But the season opener showed that it also resulted in false happiness and all-around mediocrity in everything the townsfolk do. And on top of that, Starlight has no qualms being top mare in a town of equals and at times seems to enjoy the power she wields over others. At this point, whether or not she sincerely believes in her touted ideology takes second place to her apparent desire for power. Her equality movement could just be a tool for subjugating others to do her bidding, or she could have just lost sight of her original goal after getting a taste of power. Those who've read George Orwell's Animal Farm would be familiar with this. That makes her a cunning villain or a misguided idealist, which is quite different from what we've gotten up to that point in the series.
The Mane 6 defeat her, and she runs off to plot her revenge. Fair enough. Starlight then acquires one of Starswirl's spells and somehow becomes as powerful or more powerful than Twilight. I can buy that. With a time spell, she has all the time in the world to hone her skills, and for all we know, she could've spent years mastering the arsenal she used against Twilight. Shenanigans ensue. From her interactions with Twilight, we see that she's a really driven character who enjoys being in total control of the situation. She also seems to believe in her touted ideology to a certain degree ("Spare me your overblown ego, no group of friends, not even Princess Twilight is that important!"), so maybe equality isn't just a means to an end for her after all.
When Twilight drags her off to the future, Starlight looks genuinely devastated upon seeing the barren wasteland. A little denial at this point is not unreasonable. We see that she is not a total monster; she doesn't want Equestria to burn just for her revenge; she just has a hard time believing that the Mane 6 are that essential to Equestria's survival.
So far, so good. We have a power-hungry villain who knows how to manipulate others, who knows how to patiently and adequately prepare for a task, and who believes that she's working for a worthy cause in showing that cutie marks aren't as big a deal as everypony thinks. She's also human (equine?) enough to set limits to her ambition; destroying the world isn't on the agenda. And on top of that, she's got a wonderfully cheeky sense of humour.
And then... and then we get to her backstory.
Starlight lost a friend because he got his mark, and she never made any more friends because she was too afraid that another cutie mark would take them away, too. In of itself, that's not an unreasonable reaction for a child. What's less reasonable is for that sentiment to carry all the way into adulthood. It's not like a mark appears more than once, so making friends with ponies who've already gotten their marks shouldn't have been a problem. Her sentiment would've needed to evolve from 'cutie marks break friendships' to 'cutie marks cause inequality and unhappiness' in order remain a reasonable motive for her actions in the season premier and beyond. But we aren't shown anything else, and it seems that we are being led to believe that this childhood experience is the driving force behind all her actions.
So... Starlight wants to remove cutie marks in order to prevent friendships from being broken. And she tries to prove her point to Twilight by stopping Rainbow Dash from getting her mark in order to break up the friendship between six mares and a dragon? 
You could say that she's blinded by a thirst for revenge, but that still kind of undermines the whole image we've had of her and her ideology.
The unfortunate thing is that this issue probably could've been avoided if we were shown more mature motives. Doing a job well but losing it just because someone with the right cutie mark came along? Check. Social discrimination because of an unsightly mark? Check. Unfair expectations from others based on your mark? Check. Extra points if these happened to ponies other than Starlight and she genuinely wanted to help after seeing their misfortune. Troubleshoes Clyde (s5e6) is a prime example of how marks can lead to unhappiness, even if it's only because they're misinterpreted. But, no, Starlight's broken friendship is all we get.
So instead of the competent antagonist we've had so far, Starlight also turns out to be a seemingly petty villain who never managed to mature beyond her childhood sentiment of cutie marks breaking friendships. Although it is not completely unrealistic for villainy to stem from such mundane events, or for a villain to have such a disconnect between her beliefs and actions, it's just disappointing that this is what Starlight amounts to.
I've seen this happen elsewhere before:
Legend of Korra: instead of a revolutionary who wants to stamp out the inherent inequality that bending creates in society, Amon turns out to be a bad guy with daddy issues.
Legend of Korra: instead of a leader who wants to stamp out incompetence from the Earth Kingdom, Kuvira turns out to be a bad girl with mommy issues.
The Dark Knight Rises: instead of a radical who wants to stamp out the corruption of Gotham City, Bane turns out to be a lovesick boyfriend following at the heels of Ra's Al Ghul's daughter.
In addition, the manner of her redemption at the end, lightning speed aside, only addresses her original grievance against cutie marks and not her ideology that it can lead to inequality and unhappiness. It almost looks like we're being informed that, yes, the false belief that cutie marks break friendships really is all there is to her, and fixing that fixes everything. And whilst it is certainly possible to dream up events between her childhood and now to maintain Starlight's image as a truly threatening and competent antagonist, that's just going to highlight the inadequacy of her childhood experience in justifying or explaining all her actions. That's the writers leaving us to do all the legwork.
Ignoring the fact that MLP is generally about showing that friendship conquers all, and that the writers have to conform to whatever message the higher-ups believe children can understand, I feel that Starlight could've been a much stronger character if she relented, but still refused Twilight's offer of friendship. You typically don't discard a lifetime of ideology that quickly. Instead, she could've departed with a truce, and the writers could've left that as an opportunity for plenty of character development in Season 6. If you want to give kids a more mature message, it's that friendship doesn't always solve everything straight away. You have to work on it, and it may even hurt you to do so in the short term. Please bear in mind that I'm not expecting or demanding this much from the show staff; but I was hoping that it could've been better than what we got.
In conclusion, I feel that the issue is not that Starlight is totally unrealistic or nonsensical; it's that she could've been so much more than that. At this point, it looks like her power and influence occurred in spite of her origins rather than because of it.
It's like seeing the shadow of a magnificent dragon, only to find it being cast by an iguana.
...Wow, I'm suddenly very glad I didn't waste my time on that episode (or the first one for that matter). That sounds incredibly disappointing, and the really sad thing is that it is what I expect from the show now.
3580901 I wouldn't say watching the two episodes is necessarily a waste of time. I did have fun seeing all the alternate timelines, and the back and forth between Starlight, Spike and Twilight was entertaining, too. It's pretty much the last seven minutes or so where I feel that things slipped. On the whole, I still enjoyed the finale; the... problematic resolution just kept it from being perfect for me.
As far as expectations go, I don't feel that the show is taking a turn for the worse yet. Maybe it's more a case of the show getting more ambitious in its story arcs, but not always succeeding in execution. Amending Fences is one where I think they got just about everything right in meeting their new aspirations, whilst The Cutie Re-Mark just fell short of it at the end.
What bothers me the most about this episode is how submissive Starlight becomes after all is said and done. This is a pony who once shut Twilight up in the middle of her friendship speach, and it feels like she lost some of her character when she says a line like "I know I can't apologize enough, and I'll accept whatever punishment you planned". Her deciding to believe Twilight aside (which, while still a bit too fast - they could have given it more time instead of showing so many versions of the future - was at least better than Sunset Shimmer), I think the episode would have been great if they'd leave some rough side of Starlight at the end there.
3580943 I was more talking about the premiers and finales than the regular episodes because those do seem to have at least mostly recovered in season 5. I feel like the big ones have all had problems that significantly hurt the episodes since season 2, and the season 4 finale in particular was an absolute disaster which seriously hurt my interest in the show as a whole.
One thing I didn't like about Starlight's backstory and redemption was that it ignored the undercurrent of narcissism in her actions and beliefs.
Starlight believed that pony society was fundamentally flawed, and had been so for centuries, and that she had devised the solution to solve the "problem."
Think about the ego required to believe that you alone have discovered the overriding flaw in society and that you can and should unilaterally reorder the world in order to "fix" it.
Then there's the fact that, as you point out, she sets herself up as the de-facto ruler of "Our Town" and appears to enjoy her position of authority. This also supports the idea that Starlight has a sense of superiority.
Personally, I was hoping that her redemption would involve her learning humility.
3580981
Instant-reformations is an increasing trend in MLP unfortunately.
Discord, Sunset Shimmer and now, Starlight Glimmer. What bugs me is that all these usually happens in the span of say...4 sentences?
'cept Sunset Shimmer who got blasted real bad and decided from then on she has amends to make. She's not NMM!
3580981 Yeah, her dominance and snark were amongst her more defining traits, and it's going to take something a whole lot more devastating to knock her down to such a submissive state. It's like there's a whole chapter missing in her story as it is, which I hope Season 6 might explore or retcon.
3581007 Ah, fair enough. Slice of Life episodes usually work out okay; it's just the more narratively demanding adventure or 'epic' episodes where things tend to get a little iffy.
3581293
Here's hoping for Season 6. I think I wouldn't mind even a certain degree of retconning if that addresses the issues you pointed out.
3581389 Quick reformations, I can accept to a certain degree. Reformations that do not accurately address the character's struggles or motives for being a villain in the first place are a whole lot harder to swallow.
I'm getting flashbacks to Princess Spike, where the episode pinned the blame for the disasters on Spike's abuse of power, when they were more based on a general lack of common sense from just about everypony else.
I have to agree with what you said with an addition...she must have had to break into the same restricted section of canterlot twilight had to when twilight messed with time travel which is probably breaking the law in itself...THEN...she basically committed what most planets would call HIGH TREASON.
I;m honestly surprised the girls were so easy to forgive her...yes I get this is a cartoon for little girls primarily and they have to do something like that but it still feels like a copout and a hell of a missed opportunity.
Starlight shimmer has all the makings of a criminal mastermind...a perfect recurring villain for the show. Hasbro have missed a great opportunity to set the scene for the next season.
I liked the idea of her just being a huge hypocrite that would do all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify her position of power above others. Her turning out to essentially be holding a grudge that makes Luna's jealousy issues seem mature by comparison was a huge downgrade. If MLP wasn't a kid's show, this is the point where Twilight proceeds to give her a "Reason You Suck Speech".
I did NOT like how Starlight was more magically powerful than Alicorn Twilight, The element of magic no-less! I also would have liked to see all the villains together bickering and fighting over Equestria, with the poor ponies caught in the crossfire. Nightmare Moon is my favorite character though, so that perversely means that this episode is in my top 10 ;p
That's a good point about her motivations seeming fairly petty. I question the idea that the ending montage was supposed to last only a few days though. We see Starlight spending serious quality time with each of the Mane 6 and bonding with them, interspersed with them wandering about town, and then her making a journey out to Our Town and back. That seems to me to be at least several weeks, maybe a few months. After Sunset Shimmer that's the most gradual reformation we've ever seen. (Remember the beginning of the show when Luna was blasted with a laser that turned her instantly good and she was immediately reformed?)
3581704
I agree with the sentiment that Starlight can't just be allowed to get away with no repercussions. If she had broken into restricted archives, that's easy enough to prosecute for. However, punishing her for the alternate timelines is going to be... interesting. They're alternate timelines, so aside from Twilight and Spike, no one else from the prime timeline would have a genuine grievance against Starlight. I mean, can you imagine taking something like this to court?
Twilight: "She must be punished for destroying Equestria six times over!"
Judge: "Uh..."
Twilight: "I saw those alternate timelines!"
Judge: "Do you have any proof of this?"
Twilight: "Well..."
At best, Twilight might be able to prove some time travel shenanigans occurred, but aside from that, it's pretty much just her word that Starlight actually wrecked Equestria. As far as everyone else is concerned, Starlight is being punished for hurting people who don't even exist.
3582611
This didn't really bother me, though. Twilight might have more raw power than any unicorn, but depending on your headcanon for the mechanics of spellcasting, she might not necessarily have the same degree of skill and efficiency with all schools of magic.
Combat spells might be more tiring for her than, say, Starlight who probably has been training a lot in preparation for her revenge. I wouldn't be surprised even if a random unicorn guard outlasts her in that respect, since it would make sense for a soldier to master that school of magic. Utility magic like transmutation, conjuration, teleportation, anything that improves her efficiency at studying, those are where Twilight's probably miles ahead of everypony else.
3582849
Fair point about the duration of the montage. However, I feel that the lightning speed is not in those parts, but in how quickly she discards her long-nurtured ideology and submits to whatever punishment they deem necessary.
I consider it somewhat forgivable because it's the first time the show dealt with a villain. I don't think it would go over so well with everyone if they tried to pull that off again.
That said, I would contend that it may not be exactly comparable to Starlight's reformation. Luna didn't seem to be in a normal state of mind, and some folks even consider the Nightmare a completely separate entity. I would liken blasting her with the Elements to a real-world case of someone with psychological ailments taking their medication. Starlight in comparison seems fully lucid, sane and capable of self-reflection.
For the record, though, I am of the opinion that Nightmare Moon is Luna, and that she doesn't get to shrug off all responsibility for her actions. And they did address that in Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?, though I do think they were laying it on way too thick with her guilt and angst in that episode.
3583087 You have a point, its surprising there was no middle ground where she didn't want to hurt anyone, but she still could have escaped. That said, I feel like by the beginning of this episode she has already mostly abandoned the ideology of equalism (shame that, it was the most interesting thing about her) for a focus on petty revenge. I think Starlight, more than any other villain, considers herself the "good guy" through most of this. I think when she was pacing around that foyer, only a few minutes after the end of the time battle, she seemed to me to be still deeply in shock, she had just seen a lifeless wasteland she caused.
She put on a brave front of "oh, I'll take my punishment" when confronting the Mane 6, but I think that was bravado. If Twilight had actually been like "that's good to hear, because in 3 days time we will ship you to Tartarus" I bet Starlight would have done a runner sooner or later. It's only because she was just directly given friendship, which was what she was really after all along, that her temporary good behavior stuck.
As for Luna, temporary insanity is kind of hard to adjucate. I think if all the other villains changed their appearence and name when they were feeling evil, they would get a lot more sympathy. In fact, you can see Magic Sheep as an indictment of the first two episodes. Luna punishes herself for NMM because she feels like Celestia never really punished her, and she has to face consequences for her action. (Not saying the moon banishment wasn't a punishment, just that Luna doesn't seem to see it that way.)
3583872
Hmm, I hadn't considered that. I think the really meek tone is what's getting me. She sounds rather broken when we've mostly been given the impression that she's so much tougher than that.
This might be what hurts the most, I think. Starlight got oversimplified to make her easier for Twilight to deal with. It could've been a real treat to see Twilight forced to really think her way through a friendship problem from an ideological angle for once.
True. Thing is, headcanons on that got developed long before any official stuff came along, so it's not surprising to still see the 'Nightmare as a separate entity' ideas colouring people's perception of Luna.
Yeah, I actually liked that they went with that angle, though I think Luna's excessive repentance was misdirected. It's not like Twilight or any of the others were even alive to have suffered because of her, unless she was talking about that really short stint in Ponyville. Would've been way more meaningful if the dreamwalking was between her and Celestia.
3583968 I really hope Starlight Glimmer doesn't hang around next season beyond the premiere. Without equalism, she just seems really boring to me. I was hoping they would drop her off in Our Town and wash their hooves of her.
Yeah, making Magic Sheep much more focused on just Luna and Celestia would have been a superior episode.
3583087
true but its not just breaking and entering she has done...she also brainwashed a town and was planning and tried to do the same to the mane 6, including kidnapping and locking them in a room where they got fed propaganda 24/7.
Shame one can't like blog posts. In all seriousness though, Starlight comes off merely as petty at best, with the treatment she's given. Not that I wanted some long ass ideological Naruto fight or anything. Same thing kinda happened to Sunset, though in her case her change of heart was a bit more understandable, what with the whole transforming into a demon thing and being horrified by it.
About the magic sheep episode: all I got from that is that Luna likes being punished and Fluttershy wants to be a pet. LOL.
3833570 Well, at least they're making the best of what's done. I still think Starlight would've been far more interesting as a recurring antagonist who softens with each encounter, but I appreciate their efforts to develop her as a character after a somewhat rushed redemption. Not bad at all, so far.