Twilight's Rivals

Had this thought going through my head and I'd like to share.

All of Twilight's rivals represent directions Twilight's life could have gone if she'd not been such a faithful student and then good friend.

With Trixie Lulamoon we see the Twilight that put style over substance - that cares too much about what others think of them. Trixie's great strength is that she's really good at getting the group to follow what she wants. For her, that means getting them to go to her shows and getting them to applaud. For Trixie, the fame and adoration of others is central to her entire life - even her job. She's shown herself willing to lie (her "defeat" of an Ursa Major), cheat (using the Alicorn Amulet to beat Twilight in a magic duel), or steal (what she became because of the Alicorn Amulet). Trixie is all about doing things the quickest way possible towards getting what she wants. It's a mask of narcissism that hides her deep insecurity. Twilight escaped this path through diligence under Celestia's tutelage.

With Sunset Shimmer we see the Twilight that was pure ambition. Unlike with Trixie who hid behind a facade of ego, Sunset really was a narcissist. Everything was owed her, everything she wanted was deserved, everyone in her way was in the wrong. She wanted the fame, adoration, title, power, and anything else she set her eyes on. This is the Twilight who takes all of Celestia's teachings and uses them for selfish purposes. She's intelligent, knowledgeable, and resourceful, but ultimately shallow and petty. Twilight escaped this path through her unswerving loyalty to Celestia and then through her dedication to her friends.

With Starlight Glimmer and Moon Dancer we get to see two versions of the Twilight that rejected friendship. One shuts herself off from the world turning to pure study to fill her life, the other to making the whole world the same so that there's no differences anywhere (and thus nothing to be rejected for.) Starlight has been shown to be seriously powerful, but seems to lack the focus, direction, and brevity of Twilight's training. Moon Dancer seems to have the focus and brevity, but lacks direction as it looks like none of her research is meant for anything. Both are shown the error of their choices in very similar ways - Twilight reasons with them, shows empathy for their situation, and teaches them that there's a better way. Twilight escaped this path through Celestia's prodding and her friends' love.

What's interesting about all of this is that each of these rivals is shown to be equal to Twilight in some way, but not in every way. Trixie is a leader, Sunset is trained, Starlight is powerful, and Moon Dancer is studied but none of them are all of those things. Starlight was a leader only to further her own ends - as soon as it wasn't useful, she stopped doing it.

What I'm getting from all of this though is that the key reason Twilight didn't end up like any of these other unicorns is Celestia. That's such an interesting thing because it's likely that the movie will have Twilight and Celestia either full on disagreeing about something, or Twilight having to completely let go of her mental image of herself as the student and surpass her teacher in some way. It's doubtful they'll go the Harry Potter route and kill off Celestia, but it's not exactly outside the realm of possibilities when you consider that the whole purpose of the cartoon is to sell toys. And Celestia is most definitely not a big seller anymore.

It'll be fun to see how they pull it off.