In (Faint) Defense of Starlight Glimmer · 3:31pm Dec 28th, 2015
Hey, remember when I called Starlight Glimmer a "fsking psycho" back in my S5 reaction thread?
I'm gonna retract that.
Don't get me wrong, I don't actually like her. Yet. I didn't like Sunset Shimmer at the end of Equestria Girls (incidentally, what do you call the first Equestria Girls movie when it's also the franchise name? Is there a name like "A New Hope" we can add to it?) but two movies later she is legitimately one of my favorite characters in the entire property. The distinct possibility yet exists that Starlight will eventually appeal to my "bad girl trying to do good" affinities strongly enough for me to swallow her tooth-gnashing color scheme and her irritating voice. She's also got an uphill battle because Josh Haber made her redemption montage way too easy (in the interest on ending S5 on a high note, kind of like how Twilight could fly perfectly while singing "EVERYTHING IS PERFECTLY FIIINE" at the end of S3 only to discover that this is not strictly the case come S4). It's possible I will come to love her. I have a doubt.
That said, there's a lot of hate for Starlight Glimmer out there that seems to be based on the conclusion that she set out to destroy Equestria based on a lost childhood friendship, which is... not strictly fair. This is kind of like going back to "Lesson Zero" and saying "Twilight set out to drive an entire town into physical combat because of a late friendship report!" Well... no. It was a terrible side-effect of her desperation, one that she never realized could occur, and one that she instantly regretted when she saw it taking place. The problem with powerful unicorns like Twilight and Starlight is that they tend to really throw a wrench in the works when their Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome flares up. And yes, Starlight has a mean streak. Like Trixie before her, Starlight's C.M.F.I.S. doesn't manifest as passive tea parties with inanimate objects. It manifests as a focused, direct, rage-revenge at Twilight for wronging her. In Trixie's case, it was the loss of her reputation; in Starlight's case, Twilight took from her the only friends she ever had post-Sunburst.
And yes, she made those friends by maintaining a toxic cult in a secluded area of Equestria. But she legitimately believed she was making the lives of her fellow ponies (who all--prior to the Mane 6--came to her first) better by doing so, and I believe that in her own messed-up way, the citizens of Our Town were her friends.
Starlight crosses a line by stealing the Mane 6's cutie marks without their permission. This much is also true. For perhaps the first time, she is not trying to make ponies' lives better, crossing over instead into the sinister sort of ideological evangelism. Seeing an alicorn, of all things, turns her philosophy on its head; she no longer wants to improve ponies' lives individually, she begins thinking big-picture. With an alicorn on my side, she thinks, the entire world can know this happiness!
But that's just it. It wasn't clear to me with the S5 premiere because her motives were still completely opaque, but by the end of S5 we can see that Starlight really did intend to make Equestria holistically better. She went about it wrong. Boy howdy, did she go about it wrong. And when her vision of a better world was threatened, she literally got murderous. Unlike Trixie and Sunset, who shot death-bolts at our main cast under the malign influence of the Alicorn Amulet and the corrupted Element of Magic, Starlight was made shooty solely by dint of her collapsing ideology. This is unmistakably reprehensible. But deep down, Starlight wants ponies to be the best they can be. And in her faint defense, this is something that no other serious would-be Equestrian conqueror can claim. Discord wants amusement and relief from his own creeping boredom, the ponies' suffering be damned. Chrysalis wants her people to prosper, but at the expense of everyone else. Nightmare Moon wants praise and adulation. Tirek wants power. Sombra wants--well, it depends if you canonize the comics or not, frankly, but it's either "power" again or "to get revenge for years of endured pain." Sunset? Again, hinging on the comics, it's either "power" or "a position at Celestia's side that she felt she deserved."
Starlight feels that destiny and special purpose are toxic concepts. I can't pretend I haven't wondered this about the "My Little Pony" universe myself, especially in light of the disquieting reveals about poor Troubleshoes and even Diamond Tiara. Starlight thinks everypony would be better without them. It is hard to say that she is absolutely 100% wrong on this point. Her real evil villain moments come in grasping too quickly for an opportunity to spread the light of her belief and in desperately lashing out in killing rage when it looks like her life's work is going to be undone. That's why she's a real villain. The entire season finale is just an act of clueless, petty revenge, no different than "Magic Duel" in its intent (leaving aside its unintended and apocalyptic consequences).
Strip away her petty revenge and you have a very powerful unicorn who wants what's best for every single pony in Equestria, not just Equestrian society. She is a tremendous force for good because unlike most villains, this was always her intent. She needs lessons in patience and forgiveness, and to be reminded to not get so wrapped up in her plans that they start achieving the opposite end of their intent[1]. But in her heart of hearts, she really wants the best. For this reason, I'm going to give her a chance.
[1]I will be the first to admit that this latter point is a serious issue with me personally. Those of you who've read "Contraptionology!" will recognize this as the seed idea for the concept of "convolvement," and it definitely stems from my own real-world issues.
Yeah, Starlight Glimmer was definitely paving the road to Hell. It can be hard to look past the effects of her actions, but once one does, it's clear that she's a rather tragic figure, one who lost her way rather than deliberately stepping off of the path. I do think the writers can do some good work with her. Sunset is a fine precedent in that regard. I just wish they hadn't tied the bow so neatly in the finale.
3647900
Well, just like Twilight and flight skills, it is possible they will undo the bow a little starting in S6.
I like Starlight.
But how do you explain Starlight's brainwashing room? It was created wayyyyy before Alicorn Sparkle and company came to town.
Looking at it that way, yeah, I suppose I have to give Starlight some credit.
Reviewing the most powerful unicorns, there's a lot of potential there that reminds me a little of the X-Men. This may take some explanation.
Trixie is more than capable of neutralizing or otherwise embarrassing five of the Mane 6 even without the Alicorn Amulet.
Sunset's magic isn't shown very much, but to be Celestia's student, she must have been pretty powerful. More importantly, she's smart.
Twilight even prealicornification had ridiculous OP magic.
Starlight is so powerful she was able to hold her own against alicorn Twilight. Starlight's also smart, having worked out Starswirl's spells.
All of them are far and above the level of most ponies. I find this such an interesting concept, because here on Earth, we're pretty much all biologically the same.
I can't remember which X-Men movie it was, but somebody was trying to use a machine to turn everyone on Earth into mutants. Equestria reminds me of that, because even if everyone is special, some are going to be more special than others.
3647914
My thought: ponies who once came to her willingly would likely begin to doubt after some time. Sugar Belle, Night Glider and Party Favor, for instance, presumably came to Starlight of their own free will but were (by the time the show takes place) torn between reciting Starlight's philosophies and being so desperate for cutie marks that they started getting touchy-feely with the Mane 6. From Starlight's point of view, this was dangerous backsliding, much like an alcoholic obsessing over the taste of whiskey. Ponies needed to be focused, to be returned to center when they started getting erratic. It was never intended to be an indoctrination chamber for the unwilling, even though, when you get right down to it, that's what it was all along. Our Town catered to the lost and lonely wanderers of Equestria, people disenchanted with the world and looking for a better way. I doubt Starlight ever kidnapped ponies and threw them in there prior to the events of the show.
This is admittedly all headcanon, but it seems reasonable. Shrug. You could also make the argument that Starlight Glimmer found waylaid travelers who were perfectly content with life and bent them through reprogramming. There's a particularly grim idea for a Double Diamond fic to be found therein: say the poor dude was x-treme skiing in the remote mountains, broke a leg or something, and was nursed back to health in the only town in any reasonable distance, being forced to listen to Starlight's poison banter while he was laid up in traction. That's great material for a different (read: not-me) author.
3647942
That was in fact the first X-Men, released in 2000.
The closest we get is "Through The Mirror", which is the subtitle of the movie's novelization.
No, Sky, it's inane. Call the spade what it is.
I like this post a lot. You've as concisely as possible actually laid out the reasoning for my utter obsession with Starlight Glimmer, who has rocketed up my favorites list so hard the next BIson-wannabe has already felt it. In the end, she's Idealism Gone Wrong, and not only am I a sucker for that mindset, but given that this is a show people ascribe tons of idealism to, be it within or beyond the fourth wall, she's laser-guided on FiM zeitgeist in all of its facets. "Faint defense", nothing, you've outlined the makings of a treatise on why she's the most poignant and show+fandom-relevant villain the show's ever had.
I would sit and listen to her tell me her life story. I'm that invested.
I really hope Kelly Sheridan comes back next Everfree.
Still not convinced, personally. (But this should come as no surprise, really, considering I'm naturally vindictive by nature. Evil, after all...)
She basically flipped out because she was apparently unable to write a freaking letter. That has to be one the daftest excuses for genocide I think I've ever heard. And that would be kind of okay if they had embraced that, but instead they tried to sell it off as tragic.
Base case: Starlight is clearly just geninuely medically insane. Given how quickly she she flipped around - and why; i.e. because basically Twilight offered to make HER a part of the Special Pony Club (Twilight, of course, doesn't see it that way) and not because otherwise she was going to kill the entire of the planet[1]. (Which would have been more credible.) That sort of instability is not normal.
As it is, Starlight has basically got her way; now she's part of the special clique in her own mind, which is okay - since it's been very clear from the outset that she's actually not interested in equality; she's only interested in ensuring no-one is better than her. She's principally been rewarded for willful endangerment of the entire planet, let alone brainwashing, kidnapping (Mane Six) and whatevrt eh hell type of assualt stealing cutie-marks get. And without even the dubious measure of a Harmony Laser.
I find the idea she may basically take the slot that really ought to have been Sunset's particularly egrarious, since it does not at ALL feel like she deserves or has earned it.
(What I would most like to see - and never will - would be Starlight simply cracking and going berserk over the first little thing that goes even slightly wrong and going on a rampage and proving that what she actually needs is medical help[2] or a good blast of Harmony (which is the Equestrian equivilent of Naruto/Nanoha therpy no jutsu/Starlight Befriender or something).)
So, suffice it to say, while she was a pretty good villain, I think she will make a very poor protagonist.
Especially when, like, we have so many protagonists already, not to mention the other rather overlooked characters. (Celestia still hasn't had a damned episode yet, and it would be nice if Equestria Games was the only time Spike got to be genuinely badarse and not the punching bag - or more Deroy, or more Cadance etc. Heck, Shiny could probably do with some character development; maybe have an espiode with Shiny and Pony!Flash, just to show he's not EqG!Flash exactly...)
(On the point of comics Sombra, let me just say that I think the comics have been really, really, REALLY BAD at handling with Sombra and the recent stories in that regard have been weak. Especially when you compare to say... Chrysalis, who is portrayed as out-and-out Evil. I would squarely point the finger at the comic and call "speciesist" since it has tried to make the arguably worst villain (save possibly Starlight) that even in canon got blown up, not redeemed, as more sympathetic than the other two major nonpony villains. Co-incidence? I think not, even if it is subconscious. Of all the villains they could have chosen to try and make sympathy for Sombra was the least credible choice.)
[1]I remain convinced the desolate waste was the Angel Bunny Future.
[2]Well, that's not what I'd do personally, but let's curb the Evil Lich-inflicted horrors for the sake of argument, shall we?
3648012 That has to be one the daftest excuses for genocide I think I've ever heard.
She didn't murder a fly. The outcome of her actions, something she was ignorant of, did.
You know, I think I'd forgotten, or possibly never quite realized, how phenomenally meta-textual this bit was. I doubt it actually calmed anyone down, though. It reminds me of one of my favorite yearbook quotes, something someone wrote for me back in seventh or eighth grade: "You are mistaken, citizen. No one is screaming."
To be fair, Pinkie's second bout of C.M.F.I.S. is also pretty horrible, as by the end it involves party artillery, a multi-story pinata capable of crushing a pony, theft of intellectual property, and brief forays into a live-action universe. It's a wonder Ponyville survived. But I think your point is pretty fair. Season four was all about C.M.F.I.S, but the consequences faced by most of the mane six were little more than self-inflicted shame and ruin. Or in Fluttershy's case, sad-feelsies. Someone really needs to make Fluttershy stop playing on the easiest difficulty setting.
3648076
Yeah, in my read, that was basically Twilight singing, "CALM THE HELLLL DOWN, BRONIIIIIIIIIES!"
3648076
Also,
Try playing the pony mod for "Crypt of the Necrodancer." Fluttershy is EFFING DIFFICULT.
3647946
Kay.
3648012
I think 3648027 may have the right of it here. The leap people make, and the leap made here when you state:
...is from "lost childhood friend --> intent to destroy Equestria." Several steps are missed in making this leap. Admittedly the episode trips over them pretty quickly in its desperation to show more apocalypse porn, but they're there. The actual progression is:
Childhood trauma (friend moves away) --> Shapes an ideology about how the world works --> Causes her to carve a little niche where she lives her dream of a better Equestria --> Wrecked by Twilight (who sees the fault in Starlight's methods) --> Sparking a vow of revenge to wreck Twilight's perfect little life in return. Starlight, being (a) isolated for many years and/or (b) shortsighted simply does not realize the apocalyptic consequences of wrecking Twilight's friendships. Making the first leap implies that genocide was her goal, which it most certainly was not. (If genocide were her goal, why did she relent so completely when she saw the Death and Dust future? it would seem to imply her thought process was "Gosh, I didn't realize the annihilation of Equestria would be bad," and that's just goofy.)
Should Starlight have maintained a long-distance friendship with her little coltfriend? Yeah, probably. But having tried this myself on the occasion of one of my own friends moving away, back before the age of the Internet and Skype and hey you kids get off my lawn, I can tell you that trying to maintain an school-age pen-pal friendship by letter is ridiculously difficult; the relationship thus forged often bears very little resemblance to a friendship. And even if she had kept up a correspondence, no letter exchange was going to actually fix that one moment of childhood trauma where Starlight first understood that the very visible machinery of destiny at work in Equestria was not a positive force. And it's that understanding that's driven her ever since.
Me, I'm still hung up on the fact that she somehow never learned that Twilight Sparkle and her friends were the Elements of Harmony, that they saved the world a few dozen times before she ever showed up, and at the very basest of baselines didn't think that altering the life of a motherbucking alicorn would change anything!
She spied on them talking to the literal personification of chaos, and later attended a seminar that would almost definitely have had a sign on the outside proclaiming who was giving it. I mean, did she just think Twilight was so self-centered that she'd give a lecture based entirely around her own clique?
I can seriously look past every other flaw. My only sticking point is that the words 'butterfly effect' never crossed the mind of a unicorn powerful enough to fight the literal embodiment of magic and smart enough to alter Star Swirl's spell and the very nature of time travel so drastically!
3648133
This is true. It's massively short-sighted of her. If you wish to be as generous as possible toward Starlight, though, here is a possible answer:
Starlight is a tremendously potent unicorn, who presumably achieved all her powers through innate ability and hard study. She may see Twilight's very honest crediting of her friends giving her the power to overcome multitudinous evils as mere lip service to the (in her eyes, false) ideals of destiny and harmony. Starlight may actually believe that Twilight would have shepherded Equestria through all these obstacles just fine; she believes that strongly in the primacy of the individual.
Or, she just doesn't fully comprehend exactly how much crap has been going down in heartland Equestria the past few years. Regardless of what she feels about the sham that is Destiny, she should realize that alicorns tend to bend history around their actions. Messing with an alicorn's past is likely to have drastic and far-reaching consequences beyond just making their social life a little more miserable. Even if she didn't realize that it would lead to the end of the world per se, she should have realized that at least.
3648159 The worst part is, I can buy the social isolation of Our Town preventing her from knowing about the Elements. I can even buy the Elements never coming up in conversation, since the Mane Six genuinely don't talk much about it. But, it is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to spy on Twilight all season and not eventually reach the conclusion that she's important! Girl's got her own castle with a magic butt map, for crying out loud! She's not Nosy Neighbor Jeff, she's a bloody princess!
3648129
I just can't swallow the idea that she was stalking Twilight for however long she was, and never did any background research. So I can't see it as anything other than blithe disregard for the obvious, if not necessary, then at least potential catastrophic consequences of her actions. What's more, her own backstory indicates that she is setting out to outright ruin the lives of Twilight and her friends. That's what you get when you find her motivation was based on losing track of her childhood friend, and applying a bit of symmetry. And I think that goes beyond petty. She's trying to do to them something that traumatized her enough to become an insane cult leader.
Basically, what 3648133 said.
3648129
Two points. One - that was not her intent, but it was the result. Two - and most importantly two - seeing that was not what made her stop.
It should have been,
It ABSOLUTELY should have been. They should have her redemption happen THERE, with the ultimate results of her petty quest for vengeance laid out before her. That would have largely ended this debate before it began.
But it was not.
She actually stopped ONLY after they went back once again, and ultimately when Twilight offered to be her friend. Otherwise, Starlight stated she was determined to just keeping going on and on and on until she "won"[1]; forever, if necessary, just to spite Twilight. And that was the point she crossed the line irretrievably from "is just misguided." She, then and there, showed that she was willing to risk killing EVERYTHING just out of sheer bloody-minded spite. (And literally insanity - that "repeating one action and over and over and expecting a different result thing?)
I mean, at that one instant in time, as a professional Evil-doer, I was actually applauding her; I mean, she'd essentially WON. And then the show flopped out with probably the least convincing face-heel turn ever. (Speaking as one who has ever bought Discord's reformation, not really[2].)
(Needless to say, I am NOT fond of the last five minutes or so of the finale, save that final shot.)
To be slightly less fascetious, then, it seems to me far more that the progression was:
Childhood friend gets something she doesn't have and can't share with her (moves away)--> develops sense of entitlement that no-one should have anything she doesn't or be better than her --> manipulates (possibly even kidnaps, though we have no evidence of that) and brainwashes vulnerable and uncertain ponies into a position where their very identity is taken away, while she maintains her own at their expense (her "better Equestria" is "every one is equal except me, because i'm secretly better than they are") --> justifiably wrecked by Twilight --> goes on revenge which is basically the equivilent of a two-year old throwing a tantrum because she can't have what she wants and no matter what the cost to anyone else. (And eventually only stops when she is given something that in her twisted little mind, she considers to be a reward; she's gotten her own way after all.)
I think the trouble is, you're analysing it from the perspective of the reactions of a (medically mentally healthy) sane and reasonable person. Starlight does not appear to me to be either of those things. (Nor am I, frequently, when you come down to it; there is a certainly good chunk of "takes one to know one" regarding her coming from this direction. I could easily be as petty as Starlight if it really came down to it. I can - sort of - identify with that level of petty vengeance and entitlement, the desire to lash out and hurt everything and everyone out of sheer bile and anger... Which is why I tend to have a very dim view of the characters that do, especially when they do so without admitting to it. (Don't get me started on Saskue Uchiha, for example...))
The show wants us to believe that she is sane, of course.. But that just does not gel with what they have actually showed us. (It's Princess Spike all over again; the show wanted us to believe he'd been incompetant, despite actually showing that by-and-large what is commonly regarded as a child did a job that is hard for most ADULTS and was undone only by such contrived circumstances I'm still 95% it was Discord's doing.) The disconnect between show and tell is glaring, I feel.
It is perhaps also worth noting that, as someone who considers himself to be an actual equalist, Starlight rubbed me the wrong way from her very first appearance. And despite commending her capabilites as a villain throughout the finale, I still cannot really bring myself to like her even in that mould; she's the worst sort of Evil: self-deluded self-righteous.
(Right, I've babbled enough for the moment, I have to go now and command a large starfleet of good-aligned angels/elves/humans against an armada of religious zealot space-dwarf fanatics and kill their high cleric...!)
[1]And thus killed everyone, because she didn't care if that happened, so long as she got her revenge. (The refusal to accept even the possibility because it would conflict with her desrie to see Twilight suffer merely proves the point about petty/insane.
[2]What About Discord? had me nodding and going. "Yep. Still Evil." For all he might genuninely - for the moment - think he's trying to reform...
3648232
She is obviously a very polarizing character, isn't she?
Question:
If a pet project has so wrapped up its creator that they're now 23 steps removed from the original intention and actively seeking revenge on those who thwarted you 5 steps-in-law from that goal ago...
Is your convolvement convolveluted?
3648232
You should submit this to Fimfiction, because not a single bit of this happened on the show.
3648244
That's just textbook convolvement, as Pinkie might say! Certainly at a very advanced level, though.
Well, while I can certainly understand where she comes from, simultaneously I feel quite strongly about her wishing to Equalize everyone, by simple dint of the fact that not everypony is equal. Some are better at some things than others, and vice versa. You'll notice that by her Equalizing the citizens of Our Town, she did not raise them all to the same level; she brought each of them down to the lowest common denominator.
As for Equestria Girls titles...perhaps Equestria Girls: Through the Looking Glass?
Or
Equestria Girls: Trouble On Two Legs?
Oh, and:
3648232
Please stop using this. This goes for the entire internet, not just you.
3648273
Yeah, I believe you'll find very few people who take the standpoint that Starlight was acting correctly in Our Town, actually advancing any kind of real long-term greater good by her actions.
"Through the Looking Glass" is a solid, obvious choice, though a bit needlessly referential. I think the best we're going to do is 3647983 's "Through the Mirror."
Yeah, no.
You keep hammering on this point, Skywriter, but I've seen absolutely nothing in the text to back it up. Starlight's watered-down equalism is profoundly and massively hostile to the individual; it's an expressly class-based ideology that has no room in it for the needs and desires of the individual, only of the group. Indeed, it regards the expression of individuality as a problem to be solved. You're equating her with liberalism when the proper parallel is leftism.
(To the extent that her philosophy is coherent enough to be properly analogized to real-world ones, at any rate. It's hard to do that with the show, which has, quite rightly, avoided doing things like explicitly promulgating a race-based divine right to rule on the part of the alicorn princesses.)
Starlight is committing the classic logical error of deciding on her conclusion, which just so happens to reconfirm and exacerbate all of her worst biases, and then working backwards from there.
AOTRS is wrong about some things, but he is bang-on right that the snapping point for Starlight is when she sees that she's making Fallout: Equestria come to pass and doesn't back down right then. And that's after months and months of supposedly spying on Twilight, which should have clued her into some stuff. That's bad writing, and we can try and ignore it in favor of the intention, which is that Starlight just needed some good redemptioning... but dammit, Haber, learn to plot. This isn't the first time you've done this.
Starlight doesn't necessarily come off as evil, and I'm leery of terms like "psychopath", but she's clearly mentally damaged and a danger to herself and others and needs something more than a friendship song.
Also, to put my own biases right out there front and center... I'm going to be royally honked off if Starlight joins the mane cast and spends all her time hanging out in Castle Needsaname being Twilight's Friendship Student. That is a role that properly belongs to Sunset Shimmer, who motherfucking earned it, and it sticks in my craw that the best-arced character they've ever conceived and executed also ends up exiled in a franchise they refuse to allow to get its cooties all over the central one, while they bring in this ringer to take her place.
You will never be Sunset Shimmer, Starlight. You will always be Friendship Student #2. I want you to know that. It's important to me that that knowledge festers inside you. For years.
3648282
Yeah, good points. I was just pulling that "primacy of the individual" thing out of my butt on the condition that you want to be particularly kind to her. I don't actually believe it; I think the text really does present her as short-sighted to a fault. This may be Starlight's fault, and it may be Haber's. Hard to know.
And yes, part of the reason why I did this blog post was to hammer down why Starlight continues to bother me. Like you, I was initially very angry at Starlight for messing up my perfect Mane 6+1 with Sunny, and this was admittedly not 100% fair to Starlight, who needs to be judged for the wreck that she is, not the wreck that she isn't.
3647914
That was my immediate reaction as well, upon reading, "who all--prior to the Mane 6--came to her first". While Skywriter's headcanonical explanation is plausible and consistent, I personally felt that the existence and readiness of the indoctrination chamber implied that not all residents of "our town" had become devotees of her cult merely through Starlight's persuasive arguments...
It's a matter of choice, really – but the very fact that you need to choose to believe certain things about her past in order to stomach her redemption makes it look just a little weaker and more forced.
Yes, I agree that she genuinely believed her own philosophy, despite the fact that she neatly excepted herself from having to actually live by it, and that she really intended to improve ponies' lives – but how one pursues one's goals, and specifically how one treats others in that pursuit is much, much more important than mere good intentions. Lofty goals are cheap; anybody can have good intentions. But striving towards them with integrity and without cheapening, undermining, or outright poisoning those goals is where genuinely good people (or ponies) separate themselves from mere pretenders. The conflation of good intentions with actually doing good is the definition of self-righteousness.
The series' obsession with redeeming every villain can sometimes be a little grating or ring false to us adult fans with a little more life experience than the target audience. This one isn't even the worst example; that honour probably belongs to Diamond Tiara's heel-face-turn, which came at the expense of retconning her entire established character (shallow as it was) out of existence, asking us to accept that it was all just an act. Without the spectacle of the encutening of the CMC to distract everyone, I doubt that would have gone over with the audience anywhere as well as it did.
My headcanon, ever since S1, has been that unicorns, compared to other breeds of ponies, tend to be high-strung, a bit neurotic, or just plain eccentric. Twilight is a neurotic nerd with OCD tendencies; Rarity is a perfectionist drama queen; Trixie has an ego big enough for three ponies and a bit trouble with her sense of proportion; Lyra is, well, Lyra; and so on. (Earth ponies, in particular, tend to think that channeling all that magic through their horn messes with their brains.) So, when powerful unicorns go bad, they tend to go spectacularly off the rails.
3648159
I think Starlight believes, for ideological reasons, that there can't be anything inherently special in Twilight and the rest of the Mane Six. If she breaks their connection right from the start, then somepony else will step up and handle the threats, because all ponies are Equal, right?
And she's not entirely wrong: in all of those bad futures except the Eternal Night Equestria, someponies had, indeed, stepped up and stopped various villains and Equestria-ending threats. Only none of the alternate Element-Bearers, or other heroes, managed the same streak of wins as the Mane Six did, eventually leading to a catastrophe.
3648232
It's not the moment she recants, no. But it's the moment when she starts to doubt her plan for the first time. Until that point, she's been completely certain that her vengeance is righteous; now, she starts justifying it to Twilight, and tries to deny that what Twilight showed her was the real future resulting from her interference (when she knows it's all her own spell!). Seeing the gray devastation shocks Starlight, but she refuses to admit it at first.
3648282
Except she did. Enough to listen to Twilight's words, and humor Twilight by sharing what set her on her path of warpedness in the first place.
Then she relived the saddest moment of her life and decided "screw it" as a consequence.
Now no person would sat that Starlight was right or not at least a little unhinged--far from it. But there's no bad or non-believable writing on display here, nor are there any looney-bin grade gaps in judgment. Just overt and intense distraughtness/sadness interfering with judgment.
3648304
I'm not you, but I would probably guess that it's the disconnection between what the narrative is selling and what's in the actual text. Those are metatextual problems that are not easily sussed out and resolved; they can be hard to get a bead on. Sometimes a failure of execution is very straightforward and you can articulate the reasons easily (Sombra, for example, is regarded as meh by many people for very obvious reasons) and sometimes it really isn't.
But I'd go with the narrative-to-text disconnect. It's why Starlight sticks in my craw, at any rate, along with my own biases in the matter.
3648352
I would submit that there's a big, big difference between "an act" and "social performance," especially at the age Diamond Tiara is at. Crusaders of the Lost Mark rung true to a lot of people precisely because, magical butt tattoos aside, putting on "an act" for years in order to satisfy the requirements of your place in society is absolutely something children do. Many children. Many adults as well. Things like performative femininity are a real problem.
3648203 Marxist ideology teaches that it's theoretically impossible for any individual person to be important.
3648405 And cultist ideology teaches that the cranapple muffin is the path to enlightenment.
3648076
I so wanted a sound effect of crashing to play just a split second after she got offscreen....
I've generally excused the inconsistency by considering it to be Twilight using her instinctual skills instead of otherthinking the problem, as she does later.
"Okay, I need to angle the main pinions up while pressing backwards at 27 degrees, lifting the right wing slightly until the loop is at -- TREE!!"
We don't actually know the details of how the others came to Our Town. Double Diamond, at least, seems to have crashed on the nearby mountain while skiing. Maybe he was just trying to find some place to not die in the snow.
3648436 Starlight Glimmer is an ideologue, and vaguely Marxist. It's perfectly consistent with her character to believe an ideology rather than what's before her eyes.
3648396
Firstly, I rather think that there's a lot less "ringing true" going on, and a lot more "Hooray, an interminably dragged-out story arc finally paid off! Who cares about anything else?"
Secondly, it's absolutely true that such things really happen and can be a serious problem. However, tacking it on at the very last second, merely as a convenient excuse to wave away everything that happened before, is not a good way to handle things. Further, in their haste to attribute everything bad about DT to her mother, they didn't pause to think whether all of it made sense. For example, the ridiculous notion of taunting "Blank Flanks" and treating them as lessers, based on nothing but a slight variation in the timing of their butt tattoos, is perfectly plausible as something that dumb kids would do; it jibes with all the silly cliques and substanceless popularity contests we remember from our school days. But if you attribute this to a grown adult, it becomes ridiculous, bordering on insane.
Just imagine a mother at a parent-teacher conference saying, "Who cares about her grades? What I need to know is if she's popular! Does she shun the nerds properly, and did her boobs come in earlier than anyone else's? That's what really counts in life." That is not a real human being, that's a caricature. A caricature of a real, existing, and problematic personality type maybe, but overdrawn, ridiculous, and unbelievable nonetheless. Not exactly something you want to base an important plot/character development on.
Couple this with a reprise of "Pity the poor bully, for she has a bad home life/traumatic past" from One Bad Apple, and the actually harmful clichee "the bully is a coward and will back off immediately if you stand up to them", which gets impressionable kids beaten up every day, and the only thing that could distract from the sheer unbelievability of it is a bunch of catchy songs and the sheer joy of seeing the CMC finally getting their marks.
I think you're far too soft on the psychological underpinnings of Starlight Glimmer. Even if the psychology on display was insightful enough that you could send the episode to a journal for immediate peer review, dramatically it runs too solidly against the grain of what we've already seen of the character, who is basically an ideological totalitarian with an obsessive streak, a petty attitude, and a hot temper if things don't go her way. The twist tries to engage us in "she's lonely and needs a hug badly" sympathy, and it has to do this after several gleeful scenes showcasing the character at her most bastardly and vicious-minded (it certainly doesn't help that we as viewers get to see every dystopia and apocalypse her actions have wrought).
This level of turnaround might work gradually, over the course of several episodes of development, and definitely with some helpful hints and clues prior to this point, but not when it's given the time needed to boil a kettle, and certainly not with such extremes. It's a twist so tight you can hear its neck bones crunching.
I also find it unconvincing to suggest good intentions keep Starlight at least nominally afloat. This is firstly because this doesn't really mitigate the severity of her actions - and, at best, makes her look astonishingly myopic and idiotic - but secondly because I think it's ambiguous whether she had good intentions at the time.
Granting for the sake of argument the rejection issues brought up to explain her behaviour, it seems equally plausible to suggest her actions after that point were selfish from the start. She clearly enjoyed her authority and machinations in the premiere, openly displays impatient contempt when her ruse is revealed, is hostile towards both backchat and any attempt to dissuade her, and takes the exposure and turnaround not as a sign of much-needed soul-searching, but as a personal slight to be avenged out of spite, however obsessively. There's a case to be made for self-indulgence at the expense of others' welfare - indeed, in the guise of caring about others' welfare - a self-righteous and/or delusionally hostile mindset, and narcissism in her actions, none of which require any altruistic or decent motives.
The biggest problem is that Starlight Glimmer's issues - and she clearly has several - are reduced to a single-psychology explanation that simply can't carry the magnitude of its alleged consequences on its back. Her backstory isn't that different from Moondancer's earlier this season, whose response was basically to become a crabby shut-in, and even then it raised awkward implications about her relationships with, say, Minuette and family members.
And that's a pretty mundane friendship problem compared with what Starlight got up to, first with the commune and second with the revenge plot. Either Starlight is an astonishingly messed-up individual, or Moondancer is a relatively - and extremely - restrained member of an astonishingly messed-up species. In both cases, a flashback depicting one rejection scene just doesn't cut it.
(Lastly, though this is just me, I'm simply unimpressed by the overplayed "reform-the-villains" card and contend that, with the possible-and-emphasis-on-"possible" exception of Gilda's - because at least some actual groundwork had been laid out before the episode in question - there hasn't been a single satisfying conversion in the series since Luna's. I also find it depressing that one of the few ideological villains in the show ends up reduced to yet another emotional problem, but again that's just me.)
3648276 You know, I was actually going to put Through the Mirror, and then thought better of it.
Starlight's biggest problem wasn't with her character, but wit her presentation. Throughout the finale, she's condescending, overpowered, and her redemption doesn't require her to sacrifice anything. It's not really a problem with her character, but with what she's given to work with.
3648240
Oh very much so, clearly.
3648266
The rest is what I saw in her behavior and character, but at the very least she unquestionably placed herself in a position of absolute power and authority over a bunch of ponies that were evidently uncertain enough in the lives (i.e. vulnerable) that they believed what she was saying, while lying to them the entire time.
3648282
I entirely concur with your reading.
Wouldn't be the first time...! (But let me just iterate that, despite my quite obvious ferverently feelings on the subject, what I present it is, of course my personal opinion. (And I do tend tend to type as I would speak (as Skywriter is aware...!), curtersy of a quarter century of DMing which can suggest my emphaticness is more hostile than I intend, just so as we're all clear I'm not mad at anypony or anything.
Well, except the episode writer, because I do expect rather better out of pony; and even then on a scale of Red Alert 2/Ultimate Alliance/Dragon Age[1] to Mass Effect 3, the finale is still leagues above the latter...)
3648274
First, I probably should have said "one of the definitions..." but I am ultimately an engineer-trained necromancer, not a psychologist. (Which is why I did not even attempt to place any kind of name to (what I see as) Starlight's mental problems.) But you are right, it is a pithy saying and I should probably aspire to better.
[1] Actually, it's pretty hard to recall a game that had a really good ending....
Well said. If the series were to end right here, I'd think they were setting up Starlight to supplant Twilight as Unicorn #2 of the Mane Six: she's a pony with huge potential[1] that has a lot to learn about friendship (and being a productive member of society). With season six on the horizon, I doubt we'll ever see her again outside of a one-shot episode.
I also see a parallel between Starlight and Diamond Tiara: set either one in pursuit of a goal, and they're a nigh-unstoppable freight train. The real trick is getting them to change course.
[1] Assuming she didn't have the level of schooling that Twilight did, I get the feeling that Starlight might actually have more raw magical talent. From stealing cutie marks, blasting away a mountain pass, and levitating herself around Cloudsdale, she's busting out magic tricks that range from rare to unprecedented.
I have many issues with Starlight's redemption, and while I'm willing to keep an open mind, I'm not sure that I see much of a path ahead for correcting them.
I try to take the "Everything is perfectly fine!" comparison to heart, but then even at the time that episode aired I strongly suspected (since confirmed by the show staff) that it was created to serve as a possible final episode. Hence the tacked on flying scene made sense, as how could you give Twilight wings and then never show her using them? However, despite that final cast shot of everyone smiling at the camera in "The Cutie Re-mark", I didn't really get that vibe from this one. I feel like this one was created with a definite "more to come" intention, and as such it really bothers me that they seemed to hurry through every potentially interesting bit of fallout from Starlight's crimes. The hug in "Our Town" especially carried the subtext "now we never need to see or speak of these villagers again."
If Starlight's backstory had been about how getting her own Cutie Mark had led to her being shipped off to boarding school and losing her only friend, I might be able to buy into her crusade being against the whims of destiny and being more altruistic. (It also would have made more sense to me, because forget writing letters... How did someone as magical as her not manage to eventually follow her friend to Celestia's school?). It would have added a nice bit of self-hatred of her own special nature, which might have been interesting. As it was, her backstory felt more about how achievement for others had a negative impact on her, and so the best solution was to form a society around repressing everyone else from ever achieving anything again.
It's hard for me not to see her as a very petty character at heart.
Some people say that this can't be compared to Magical Mystery Cure because the Writers didn't know if there would be a continuation after season 3 while writing it while they almost certainly knew there would be a season 6 after The Cutie Re-Mark but I'm not so sure.
I seem to recall that the next seasons episodes are often start being produced before the current one airs. That far back the Hub was in serious trouble (and Discovery Family kind of still is) even if the writers believed the show had enough popularity to get a season six who knows how long the gap between it and five would be if the channel imploded and Hasbro had to shop around for a new network.
I really do think that the at least part of the blame does rest on wanting to wrap everything up with a nice little bow in case the show was cancelled/on hiatus for multiple years.
3648282 You have a good point about what Starlight really needs. I think she's definitely mentally unstable, and I think Twilight knows it. Her decision with the rest of the Mane 6 (in the apparent absence of a criminal incarceration system for ponies) goes pretty quickly from "she's so darn powerful and magical we can't let her go" to "Ok everypony, we're going to keep her here and befriend her to teach her a more healthy mentality."
"Offer of friendship" sounds much more palatable than "community based outpatient intense therapy." If 2 days after judgement Starlight had declared she would go off on her own, does anyone think Twilight would actually have let her?
3648685 I agree on a lot of your points, especially the annoyance on losing an ideological villain to another victim of childhood trauma.
But without the nostalgia glasses on, can you really say Luna's redemption was actually well done? Mare got hit with a brainwashing laser beam that instantly transformed her personality and had her hugging her sister and having her throne restored in under 30 seconds. Compared to that Diamond Tiara's redemption is practically a saga.
3649626
In my defence, the mechanics of Luna's transformation were, at the time, left sufficiently vague that some kind of magical corruption could be plausibly invoked to excuse her actions. The premiere also made a point of showing in its opening narration that she had been a good pony once whose resentment and envy pushed her off the edge, heavily suggesting her corruption was an aberration to be corrected rather than the default setting to be broken down and rebuilt. That gives her a tragic air that's at odds with most other villains' total "rarr I'm evil" behaviours prior to conversion, so at the very least Luna's appearance and apology feel...
Well, it's not earned exactly, because Nightmare Moon is still a nigh-apocalyptic villain and we expect big consequences from that, but it's at least consistent and you could at least reasonably feel she'd have a justified defence in a trial. I'll take that over Diamond Tiara's too-little-too-late sudden retcon any day, (and not just because Luna's conversion was blissfully free of annoying songs).
Otherwise, it's a fair cop; guilty as charged. I agree that it was rushed and shallow, and Luna's immediate disappearance for the rest of the first season is easily one of its biggest faults. Heck, the first we see of any implications of her actions is basically an ersatz-Hallowe'en lark. We don't get to see any genuine fireworks until midway through Season Five, whereupon she nearly causes another apocalypse!
I still maintain that Starlight Glimmer's revenge didn't actually involve a time-travel spell. That she used a time-magic touched illusion/dreamstate spell to basically just whack Twilight Sparkle over the head with that she's not that important. Which backfired hilariously. It being a cutie-mark based illusion spell (why pick the moment Twilight got her cutie mark? Unless cutie mark magic was Starlight's talent) solves just about every plot hole with the scheme. How did Starlight reverse engineer a time-travel spell that even Twilight might have had trouble with? She didn't. Just learned enough from it to use in another spell. How is Starlight so powerful when fighting Twilight? Because it's a illusion of her own creation and she can be as powerful as she wants. Plus the whole bringing Starlight back each time Twilight went back in time to try and fix things. Where was Starlight when Twilight was in each 'present?' obviously not in the same present timeline Twilight was in, because otherwise she wouldn't have had such a strong reaction to the one she did see.
Her goal in revenge was to use a bit of time travel and illusion magic to show Twilight Sparkle that she really isn't all that important. Also, maybe, to show Twilight that if she hadn't gotten her friends she'd be just as miserable as Starlight was. A pure illusion wouldn't have done it because that could be made to show anything. So Starlight Glimmer used the time-travel scroll to make sure each illusionary alternate timeline was something that could have happened. So when she sees the wasteland she's forced to confront that she might actually be wrong, by the exact same scheme she was trying to hit Twilight Sparkle with. Easy to ignore outside contradictions, but when your own scheme works perfectly except that it's proving you wrong instead of your enemy? That's enough to at least knock a bit of certainty out of her.
So the question to consider is this: If you take out the implied genocide and switch it to making Twilight experience bad dreams in an effort to make her admit she was wrong, what does that do to the analysis of Starlight Glimmer's character/psychology?
3649656
I myself have never had a big problem with the magical reformation of the Elements of Harmony... Whatever they might experience when getting blasted with that rainbow, I believe that Luna and Sunset Shimmer came out hyper-aware of what they had become and horrified by it, which is shown in tearful apologies. They're completely and utterly humbled and move forward burdened with guilt and regret. They're also both shown to still be feeling the fallout of their actions in their next appearances, where the citizens fear and/or dislike them.
With Diamond Tiara and Starlight Glimmer, however, we get none of that. Neither ever apologizes for what they have done (that we hear, at least). There are no tears, no strong expression of remorse. Hell, Starlight Glimmer is never really humbled, either in person or in the eyes of the audience... Twilight has to beg her to not screw over all creation out of spite for her, then calls Starlight the most magical pony she has ever seen. They are then instantly rewarded with all of the friends and respect they could ever want. Even if you buy that their personalities flipped enough to make them good ponies now, it certainly isn't the most satisfying journey for the viewers.
(All that said, I actually enjoyed Diamond Tiara's redemption for various other reasons, not the least of which was appreciating how thematically appropriate it was for the CMC to finally earn their Cutie Marks by befriending her.)