"Every Little Thing She Does," and what it means for Twilight and Starlight

Normally I don't do blogs. Heck, this is the first blog that I've ever written on this site. "So what's the occasion?" says the one person who might actually be reading this. Well, with season six quickly entering its final stretch I thought it was about time to talk about Starlight Glimmer. While I hardly think it's necessary at this point given the title, I'll go ahead and mark that this will contain spoilers for everything we've seen from season six so far, various other episodes throughout the series, and the Equestria Girls series.

Well, let's get started. I'm going to begin with a couple of points about my opinion on the characters and a bit of my personal headcanon. Some of those opinions will probably be about as popular as someone saying that they thought Flash Sentry was a fantastic and complex character. Please hold all rotten tossin' vegetables until the blog has ended.

First, I actually...kind of...like Starlight Glimmer. By the time season five was over I felt the same way about her that I did about Sunset Shimmer after the first Equestria Girls. She wasn't the greatest character we've been given by any stretch of the imagination, but I thought she had a lot of potential to bring some fun and interesting stories to the table. And really, I could say the same thing about pretty much all of the characters after their initial appearances. The Mane Six weren't exactly legends among fictional characters when Friendship is Magic premiered, but they grew to be far more fun, sympathetic, and complex characters as the series went on and we saw them develop.

Second, one of the major complaints I always saw about the finale of season five (aside from the severely underdeveloped backstory for Starlight) was how quickly she was forgiven and became friends with the Mane Six at the end. Personally, it's always been my interpretation that the final montage at the end where we saw her befriending the Mane Six was - much like an 80s movie montage - meant to represent events taking place over the course of several weeks, or even several months. Not something intended to take place over the course of hours or days. While that's obviously up to interpretation, I think that season six has actually given a lot of support to the idea. So as I discuss this, I will be working under the assumption that this is the case, and might occasionally note how I think it's supported.

Finally, the main problem that I've had with Starlight in season six is, once again, very reminiscent of how I feel about Sunset Shimmer. For most of season six I've felt like she was just horribly underused. In Friendship Games and Legend of Everfree, they took a character that Rainbow Rocks was building up as one of the main points of focus in the series and relegating her to little more than another support character. After six seasons, our lead heroines still aren't perfect, but they've learned so much about friendship and grown up so much that it's kind of difficult to use them as the ones needing to learn friendship lessons. With characters like Starlight and Sunset, they had an excellent way to continue teaching lessons about friendship without having to retread what the Mane Six have already learned and without having to cut them out entirely. Rather than being the recipients of the lessons, the Mane Six were now in a position to teach the lessons to ponies who needed it.

The problem is that after setting up a perfect situation to do that, they just kind of...dropped it. Instead of taking chances on new characters with the regulars taking on a teaching role, they tried to create situations that still focused entirely on the regular cast while shoving off the new characters to the side. And I honestly feel like the story has suffered for it, because a lot of the situations they put the regulars in feel more forced than they would have if we'd been seeing the new characters learn something.

Take The Times They Are a Changeling for example. While I don't think it was a bad episode, I really think it would have benefited from focusing on Starlight rather than Spike. Even ignoring that Spike has already had one good episode this season in Gauntlet of Fire and a couple others throughout the series, while Starlight has been in desperate need of more development, her situation really just suited the story better. Her own situation - a former villain who learned what friendship could be through a member of the main cast, who did something bad for what she believed to be a good cause, and who regrets her actions but doesn't understand the nature of friendship well enough to make up for her mistakes on her own. This could have been an amazing parallel for Thorax's situation.

Furthermore, she was so out of touch with the world while running Our Town that she didn't even know what the Wonderbolts were. Between her own questionable past and obliviousness to common knowledge in Equestria, she would have had the perfect reason not to be afraid of Thorax, and the perfect motivation to want to help him fit in. Likewise, her blatant fear of disappointing Twilight would have made for a fine justification for trying to hide him and hesitating to defend him when his identity was revealed. Instead, we have Spike befriend him because Thorax saved him (which totally couldn't just be a ruse to gain his trust), and - despite having learned the value of owning up to his mistakes in Princess Spike and showing that he was more than willing to put himself on the line for what he believed was right even when it was a painful decision in Gauntlet of Fire - decide not to defend him because...um...there were still a few minutes left in the episode that they needed to fill?

So yeah, I basically just feel like they set up a situation where they could focus on teaching new characters like Starlight and Sunset by using the regulars as teachers, but got too nervous (or felt too much studio pressure) and fell back on their tried-and-true money machines. As a result, two characters who had real potential to become exciting new members of the cast just kind of fell into the cracks while we brought Twilight (or Sci Twi, in the case of Equestria Girls) back to the forefront.

However, the latest episode has actually convinced me to reconsider how they've been handling Starlight. Because, as unlikely as it might seem, it almost suggests that their decisions when it came to handling Starlight have been intentionally leading up to something. Every Little Thing She Does not only managed to give Starlight more development, but it actually explained a lot of the choices they've made with her this season. Even better, they actually showed a great deal of maturity in how they handled her actions, both current and former.

One of the reasons why I believe that this season has supported the notion of season five's final montage taking place over a long period of time is due to the fact that - while the montage ended with her and the Mane Six clearly being friends - she really doesn't seem to feel that way in most of the episodes where she appears. Even as early on as The Crystalling, it's implied that she only really considered Twilight and Spike her friends. She doesn't really interact with the rest of the Mane Six in either episode. She's rooming with Spike and Twilight, opts to sit next to Twilight on the train, and barely interacts with the others (if at all). And later on in the premiere when Spike was trying to reassure her when she was down on herself for failing to reconnect with Sunburst, we have this little interaction:

Spike: Well, Twilight obviously thinks you're worth being friends with, and I do too!

Starlight: Thanks, Spike. At least I have two friends, even if one of them does have dragon breath.

Rather than mention the rest of the Mane Six along with Spike and Twilight, she specifically says that she only really has two friends. We get more direct evidence of this through dialogue during No Second Prances. When Twilight is explaining why they're preparing dinner, we have another little exchange between the two where she makes a similar claim:

Starlight: If it's just you, me, and Princess Celestia, why are there four seats?

Twilight: Well, the whole point is for you to bring a new friend. That way, the princess will see for herself just how far you've come. And how good a teacher you have.

Starlight: Well, I can't choose. I like all your friends.

She specifically refers to them as Twilight's friends. She says that she likes them, but much like her dialogue in The Crystalling suggests, either doesn't consider them her own friends or doesn't seem to think they consider her their friend. She's also clearly anxious about the idea of befriending someone new, and tries to cover it up with jokes about how she might have gone about it in the past.

We get more implications that this is the case in her later appearances, even if she doesn't outright say it. With the exception of A Hearth's Warming Tail, even in the episodes where she shows up she's almost never interacting directly with the others. In fact, she only even seems to be around the others when she's finishing time alone with Twilight/Spike, or when she's going to be spending time alone with the two of them. In Spice Up Your Life, she and Twilight are returning from figuring out how to fix the map, and otherwise she doesn't interact with anyone. In The Times They Are a Changeling, she's going on a trip with Twilight and Spike to see Sunburst, but the rest of the Mane Six are absent. And, of course, in Every Little Thing She does she's actively trying to avoid spending time with them, and indicates that she's been spending a lot of time studying with Twilight.

In other words, it might not be that the writers have been ignoring or forgetting to add Starlight into the other episodes, but that they were intentionally leaving her out because the episodes involve the entire gang getting together, or because the episode was focusing on other characters without Twilight or Spike being present. In Newbie Dash, The Saddle Row Review, 28 Pranks Later, and Dungeons and Discords, Twilight and Spike only appear when the whole gang is getting together. In most of the other episodes Twilight and Spike either barely appear before the story shifts to focusing on pairs of the rest of the Mane Six going on their own travels, or they don't even appear at all. This episode actually justifies Starlight's absence as something intentional due to her being afraid of interacting with the group as a whole, and generally only feeling comfortable with Twilight and Spike.

This also does a lot to explain her motivations in this episode. She's clearly uncomfortable around the others, and doesn't even seem to be sure that they're her friends, but she follows Twilight and Spike around like a lost little puppy. Personally, my guess is that this is because they're the only two who she really opened up to about her past, and the only two who actually saw her at her lowest during The Cutie Re-Mark. While they undoubtedly told the others about what happened, it was still only Twilight and Spike who were actually there with her during the whole thing. She's also very much to Twilight what Twilight was to Celestia. She might occasionally fall out with Twilight or not understand what she's doing (as shown in the latest episode and in No Second Prances), but she's also desperate to make her mentor proud and hates the idea of disappointing her.

And by the time this episode starts, the things that she's learned will impress Twilight aren't friendship lessons. We haven't really seen Twilight giving her much praise for what she's learned about friendship. The two times we've really seen focus on her learning a lesson were in The Crystalling and No Second Prances. In the former case, while Twilight did admit to Spike that she was proud of how Starlight handled herself, she never really told Starlight as much. In the latter, when Twilight reconciled with Starlight over their falling out, she admitted her own mistake and acknowledge that she needed to let Starlight make her own choices, but she still never said or did anything towards Starlight that indicated she was impressed or proud.

No, what she's learned will impress Twilight, what will make Twilight proud and gain her praise, is accomplishing tasks. Twilight praises her for helping develop the magic spell that fixed the map. She praises her for her skill in teleportation and transfiguration. She praises her for mastering her shield spells. She and Spike both praise her for learning her speed and duplication spells. The two people that she really considers friends don't praise her for something vague and emotionally complex like friendship, but heap praise on her for performing magic. And right before they leave, when Starlight is panicking over not knowing how to complete her friendship lessons to Twilight's satisfaction, Spike gives her the out she needs - if she can finish them all quickly, she might be able to impress Twilight with her speed and efficiency. Just like she's been doing with magic.

This actually provides some very useful context that sheds light on Starlight's behavior in this episode, and serves as another example of why I like how this series handles reformed antagonists. One problem that I have with a lot of stories is that in a lot of cases, stories tend to treat "reformed" characters like it's a simple transition. As if a someone can just shift their entire belief system and lifestyle after one loss, or one motivational speech, and all is fine and dandy after that. But this show has actually taken a more mature and realistic stance on reformation with characters like Discord, Luna, Sunset, Sci Twi, and now Starlight. It's not easy. It's not something that will just disappear. Much like an addiction, people can fall back into old habits under stress, especially if they never properly addressed them.

Discord still causes havoc when he's insecure. He's never had a friend before, and so when he thinks he's losing a friend (like with the Grand Galloping Gala incident), he goes to extremes trying to win Fluttershy's friendship back even though she never really abandoned him. Luna learned to get along with modern ponies better, but still didn't trust them or herself, leading to the creation of the Tantabus and its rampage through the dreams of Ponyville's population. Sunset lost any and all of her former confidence because she constantly blamed herself for her mistakes, and didn't know how to make up for what she did. Sci Twi is apparently having nightmares and constant self-doubt about what happened when she went mad with power.

Starlight, fitting this pattern, starts falling back into her habit of trying to force order and control when she's afraid of failing her teacher. When she was afraid of reuniting with Sunburst and failing Twilight's lesson, she tried to manipulate Spike into delaying it by insisting that he tell her about his status as a hero in the Crystal Empire. When she was afraid of failing the lessons Twilight was expecting to see progress on with the rest of the Mane Six, she started off by trying to ease the pressure with a barely noticeable hint of compulsion. When she started fearing that it might not be enough to just help things along, it snowballed out of control into outright mind control. And much in the same way that people who are relapsing with any kind of addiction or behavior pattern often fail to realize how far they're going, it's only once Twilight actually spells out what she did (albeit in the form of a question) that she realizes just how far she'd gone and how horribly she'd messed up.

That's a pretty mature look at relapsing for a cartoon written primarily for younger audiences, but it just helps reinforce that this has been building for a while now: Starlight misinterpreting what Twilight was trying to teach her wasn't something that she just did in this episode. That's what she thought Twilight was teaching her from the first episode of this season. Remember, Twilight's first friendship lesson for her was accompanied by a detailed list of tasks and goals to achieve. Spike and Twilight were both behind the idea that the friendship lesson would go well if they followed the list. And, more importantly, when she felt like she'd failed to reconnect with Sunburst, she specifically expressed that there wasn't any problem with the list, Spike, or Twilight. She insisted that there must be something wrong with her. Even in the premiere she thought that going by a checklist full of objectives was not only what Spike and Twilight wanted, but that her failure couldn't possibly be because you can't sum up something as complex as friendship with a checklist, but instead must have been due to her own failure to carry it out properly.

She's been under the wrong impression about what she was supposed to be learning this entire time, while Twilight (and occasionally Spike) has been inadvertently reinforcing that notion by constantly praising her for learning, developing, and mastering magic, but never really addressing what she's learned in terms of understanding friendship. Which, from a storytelling standpoint, is actually pretty awesome because it reminds us that Twilight isn't finished learning things either. She might have grown a great deal, but she's still far from perfect. While Spike was right in The Crystalling when he told Twilight that she needs to guide Starlight but let her make her own decisions (which was reinforced in No Second Prances), Twilight was also right when she said that she has a lot to learn about being a teacher.

And this episode did a great job of showing that she still has a lot to learn, but also of emphasizing how much she's learned and grown over the series up to this point. For example, earlier in the series during the first few seasons, could you see Twilight responding to Starlight's relapse the way she did here? Because I can't. The younger, less experienced Twilight probably would have been furious and more likely to accuse Starlight of going back to her old ways. We saw repeatedly in earlier seasons how the Mane Six had a tendency to jump to conclusions, make bad decisions due to emotions running high, and so on and so forth. Yet here, with all of the things she's learned about friendship and all the growing up she's done, Twilight doesn't do any of that. She's annoyed at what Starlight did, but she isn't angry. She doesn't rant and rave. She doesn't accuse. She just expresses her disappointment, calmly encourages Starlight to explain what happened, and remains patient and understanding when her student is explaining why she did what she did.

Then when it's all said and done, rather than punishing or scolding her she uses Starlight's mistake not only as a chance to clear up her misconceptions about what she was meant to learn, but also as a chance to teach her another important lesson about owning up to her mistakes. And this leads to what I think are probably the most important moments we've seen for either Starlight or Twilight in this season: Starlight does what she was supposed to do in the first place and spends time getting to know the rest of the Mane Six while doing something they enjoy, even if she's not very good at it. Afterwards, she actually calls them her friends - not Twilight's friends or Spike's friends, but her friends - when she's telling Twilight how grateful she is for their understanding. Twilight then goes on explain to a confused Starlight how in her attempts to clean up the mess she caused she's actually been doing her friendship lessons without realizing it. Finally, when the lesson she was teaching really clicks for Starlight, Twilight praises her for learning something about friendship, finally showing her that she'll still be praised for trying to connect with others rather than only getting praise when she's completing clearly defined tasks.

Maybe I'm just reading too far into this, and it just worked out this way purely by chance. I won't deny that I can do that sometimes. But if this was actually what the writers intended to do, then I tip my freaking hat to them, because...just...damn. So, for those of you who actually bothered to read my rant, thanks for taking the time. For those who didn't and just want the TL;DR version:

I'd say this was easily the best Starlight Glimmer episode that we've gotten so far, and possibly one of the best episodes in this season overall. Whether intentional or not, they managed to explain Starlight's absences in this season, remind us that both Starlight and Twilight still have a lot to learn, provide a realistic and plausible case of someone going through a relapse while trying to change their lifestyle, show how much Twilight has grown over the season, and show them both learning a lesson about their teacher-student dynamic by having Starlight realize how she's been misinterpreting what Twilight is trying to teach her and Twilight correct the mistakes she's been making as a teacher.