Finale Thoughts (Spoilers) · 12:00am Dec 1st, 2015
Regarding Starlight's backstory. Because I've seen a lot about it on my feed, I thought I'd offer my thoughts.
I really don't see what the issue is. It's easy to make up reasons why something doesn't work, and then find justifications for why it doesn't work, even in the face of evidence. It's delusional, but pain can often make delusion seem rational if it helps you cope with that pain. Grow up with that ache, always looking for reasons why it makes sense, and she'll find all of them.
Sometimes it just takes someone showing you that you were wrong, in powerful imagery that you can't deny, to help get over it. It started with the season premier episode. And, presumably, Starlight's been watching them. She's seen them overcome darker things, painful things, and move past them because they were friends, and because they had different talents.
Maybe she chalked it up to coincidence, too. But this happened, but then that happened. Disregarding the fact that this and that happened because their friends, with different talents helped them to happen.
Take the season as a whole. All of this could relate to how Starlight grew up. Well, almost all of it. Some little snippets from episodes, potentially highlighting parts of Starlight's life.
Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep
"What if I hadn't tried to stack the books so high? He wouldn't have gotten his cutie mark to save me. It was my fault."
Bloom and Gloom (Directly relevant)
"He got his cutie mark before me. We split up. He went elsewhere. We never saw each other again."
Castle Sweet Castle
"It's not my home anymore without him. I'm not sure what I can do to replace him. What if I get hurt again? I can't do it again."
Tanks for the Memories
"See?! This is what happens when ponies get cutie marks! I can't let that happen to others. I can't let it happen to me again. If I make friends, then they can't have cutie marks."
Appleoosa's Most Wanted
Nothing much here, actually.
Make New Friends but Keep Discord
"So he's going off to make new friends? Well, fine! I don't need him!"
Slice of Life, Princess Spike, Canterlot Boutique
... nothing ...
Amending Fences
I'm not sure if I can come up with a witty quote for this one. I don't think Moondancer and Starlight share a lot in common. Starlight went out and tried to fix what hurt her. Moondancer avoided everything until it shoved its nose in her face.
Crusaders of the Lost Mark
"See! Everypony without a cutie mark gets bullied when they're young. Cutie marks cause divisive mean spiritedness in the young. And when they're young, their habits are still forming."
The Mane Attraction
"See! Countess Coloratura grew apart from Applejack when really grew into her cutie mark! She let it go to her head, and now look at her!"
Of course, these are me pulling things together out of whole cloth, for the most part. The episodes I didn't reference, because I'm writing this pretty much out of thin air. It also relies on the assumption that Starlight was, at least part of the time, spying on Twilight to learn her secrets and weaknesses.
Also, this is my opinion.
I actually liked the episode, quite a lot. It's given me a lot to think about, and reason out. Maybe it's a case of post-hoc justification for liking something, but I liked it either way.
Starlight's backstory is perfectly fine in the grand scheme of MLP Freudian Excuses. Move along, nothing to see here.
It's... just a massive letdown. It's the same Focus Episode Idiot Ball that gets handed to any character 90% of he time they're in the spotlight pre-this season. The fact that S5 managed to consistently do focus episodes without turning the focus character into a flaming ranting irrationally-acting yahoo gave hope for Starlight. But I suppose it wasn't to be.
Worse is that it was used to prop up a story with adventure elements (the "big event" episodes attract the fandom like moths to a bug zapper). And for once, I can't blame the fandom. It was dumb and character-underminding when original-recipe Sunset Shimmer, it was dumb and character-undermining when Tantabus. and it's extra-dumb here.
But the backstory itself, taken on its own "merits", is perfectly serviceable. It's possible to even enjoy it.
Me, I'm just bitter because the one villain I I actually liked suddenly got to be the dumbest, craziest one.
EDIT: And we never get to see why in any sort of depth. Cue the song!
3582883
Could you elaborate, please?
What was dumb? I can't see anything that connects Sunset, Luna, and Starlight's backstories.
And I think Starlight's story fit her character perfectly. It gave her to motivation she needed to think about cutie marks the way she does, and eventually grow into the character that could match wits with the Princess of Friendship. She was hardly dumb.
Or am I missing your point entirely?
3582883
I think the idiot ball can be rather subjective, honestly. They look like an idiot to us because we can see the proper solution easily. But, to the one holding the proverbial idiot ball, it's much harder to see the right solution because of XYZ reasons. If they're dumb reasons, and don't make sense, or worse: no reason at all, then that's closer to an objective idiot-ball. Character being dumb for dumb's sake. Unless they're written dumb throughout (and thus the character is an idiot ball), then it's a poorly designed character.
I think her hidden backstory, what happened between the time Sunburst left and when she set up Our Town, is the iceberg of motivations that we're missing. If her life took a turn for the worse after Sunburst left, off screen, it would be easy to link the two events together, and snowball it all together.
I honestly don't think she's dumb. Crazy, sure, but intelligent enough to pull together a plan like that and think it would be for the betterment of the world. And, after the first few misses: Nightmare Moon swayed by somepony else, or Celestia herself, Discord dealt with some other way, or not coming by at all, and Chrysalis taken down another way, the first timeline would only fail when Sombra came along with an empire at his disposal and a hugely powerful magical artifact. Thus, she would think it worked - up until that point. At which point she could blame some other thing.
Anywho... just some more thoughts.
3582937
Nah, we're sort of flying past each other. It's fine.
There's nothing that expressly connects them, it's just that the excuses brought about the two characters regarding the reasonings for their actions are... incredibly dumb. Not their actions. Their reasoning. Now that I think about it, they even make Starlight look utterly sane in comparison.
Sunset's post-Rainbeam "I didn't know there was a better way" after being shown in her origin story to having been directly under the tutelage of the personification of A Better Way is one of the great dissonances of the character. No one cares about it now since her redemption arc has bought her goodwill forever, but it still exists. She did know. She just chose to ignore.
Meanwhile, if you're one of those people who came out of Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep thinking that Luna was justified in her actions and not unhinged at all, then I'm afraid we have nothing more to discuss.
I don't contest this.
But wow it sure would have been great to see summa that in the episode so we could care more. Just how close was this friend that Starlight would pull a Moondancer over this one event? The reasons everyone is crying foul is because that one tiny flashback moment is all we get. What about the rest of her damn life? What about how Our Town got started? What about her becoming a bitter mage? This episode is the epitome of why people drill "show, don't tell" into writers' ears. Because when one doesn't listen, we get this.
Sounds pretty Moonie to me.
3582959
Rarely do I excuse the idiot for being an idiot. I will try to help the idiot in as nice a way as possible, but I will call a spade a spade whenever possible, and do my best to allow them to see that spade as well.
Which is actually what Twilight did. I commend her. She was easily the best part of this finale.
As for the rest, it... looks like we agree on more than I originally thought
I've actually been thinking along these lines, and I think I can fill in a few of the blanks.
Appleoosa's Most Wanted
"Look at the suffering it caused! The years wasted! And now he's supposed to be happy that he can spend the rest of his years as a professional laughingstock? He wasn't looking at it wrong; that mark's the best proof I could ask for!"
Slice of Life
"He left. He didn't even say goodbye. I wasn't a part of his story anymore. I thought I mattered, but I was just a loose thread who never got resolved."
Princess Spike
"I'll take it upon myself to help them, to do everything in my power to ease the burden. And when others join my cause, they can help me. When they see the light, they'll be so grateful that they'll trust my every word."
Canterlot Boutique
"It's easy to make everypony happy if they all want the same thing. It's just a matter of convincing all of them that they do."
Amending Fences
There may not be a direct connection, but there are certainly strong parallels between the two spurned unicorns who went down ultimately self-destructive paths until Twilight interceded.
3582974
And that's where free-writing bites me in the butt... because I was just thought-streaming with only a little forethought about what I wanted to say. Their origins and motivations for doing what they did were very similar, and in that made-up quote, it's very like Moondancer. It's what they both did about it that differentiates them. Moondancer withdrew from society for the most part. Starlight tried to make her own society.
3582988
This is also true, about the idiot-balling. An idiot is still an idiot, but to the idiot, his or her particular ball must seem more like a lens through which they see the world. It distorts things out of place. And yeah, Twilight smacked away the idiot ball... but when that's all you've got, you hang onto it pretty hard.
3582990
Those are good ones. I especially like the Appleoosa's Most Wanted one. That's pretty straight up there in Starlight's anti-cutie mark mindset.
3582999
no dood
i pulled that quote directly from the episode transcript
3583015
Oh. Whoops.
3583015
I'm apparently derping it all up tonight.
3582990
I love the Canterlot Boutique one.
3583043
One of the best ironies of the season: Sassy Saddles is a better homogenizer than Starlight Glimmer. And the dresses cover cutie marks!
3583160
It's all in the marketing. Starlight Glimmer is terrible at marketing, apparently.
Lol sound good those reason. Sometime we mistake the most simple thing and cause large problems.
Maybe it was good idea they stuck to a simple thing and she needed to just be teach sometime thing like this happen.
I wasn't that impressed by this episode. The idea of getting back through time to change events is trite. The way Twilight talked Starlight round left me a bit unsatisfied because it was so abrupt and uncalled for. I’d preferred Starlight gradually weakened by doubts.
But all of these gripes are petty w/r to the pleasure of meeting the young Rainbow Dash. That was awesome.