Ranking The Reformations Of FiM, From Worst to Best · 6:50pm Nov 7th, 2016
Starlight Glimmer's reformation continues to remain a divisive subject among the fandom, with some people praising her, other condemning her, and many others (like myself) being more neutral to her while generally leaning more towards love or hate for her. One of the most common complaints is that Starlight's reformation pails in comparison to Sunset Shimmer's and that she was a bad attempt at creating a Sunset Shimmer character in the show since the writers and show staff said Equestria Girls was seperate from the main series. Well, while I figure comparing Starlight and Sunset is in vain since they are two different characters (they have very little in common, they were both powerful unicorns, they're both Twilight Sparkle foils and were named as such, and they're both redeemed villains, but that's about for similarities), I decided it wouldn't hurt to take a look at all of the major (and perhaps minor) reformations in FiM (including Equestria Girls, but not the IDW comics since they are of secondary canon at best, and Sombra's reformation would be the worst one of all if it were allowed to be included) and see how they stack up.
I already said I'm not going to include King Sombra's reformation from the comics, and since Flim and Flam remain antagonists in both the show and the comics, fanfiction can't be included, and The Shadowbolts are of questionably villainy, I also won't be including any of The Shadowbolts or The Dazzlings (just thought I'd make that clear, because Sonata Dusk got a ton of redemption fanfics after "Rainbow Rocks" even though she was willingly going along with what Adagio and Aria were doing). Because of these rules, there are nine reformations that will looked at on this list.
9. Princess Luna (Redemption Arc: Friendship is Magic Part 2 (Mare In The Moon), Luna Eclipsed, Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?)
Reason: Oh boy, between this and making her fourth of five places in my ranking of the princesses, I'm definitely drawing the anger of those rabid Luna fans. I can already hear cries of "Luna's redemption was amazing!" and "How dare you insult best princess!", as well as "She was never a villain, it's all her sister's fault!". Here's the thing, regardless of the circumstances Luna still chose to give into temptation and force her subjects to appreciate her night, and had her eternal night gone on uninterrupted she could've very well starved or killed all her subjects. As for her reformation, even if you believe Nightmare Moon was a seperate entity and that Luna was corrupted by outside forces, there's still the fact that Luna's redemption arc was practically non-existent. It was brought up in "Luna Eclipsed" then practically forgotten about after that episode, before it was hastily reintroduced in "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" with the Tantibus, and then it was resolved within that episode. I suspect the writers never really intended to touch on Luna again after "Friendship is Magic", but gave her own episode in Season 2 due to her popularity with the fandom (though judging by Twilight's horn color the episode may have been planned for Season 1) then they just gave her a triology of episodes in Seasons 3-5 with her and the CMC, and it's really saying something when those are considered to be her better appearances.
8. Trixie (Redemption Arc: Magic Duel, No Second Prances, To Where And Back Again Parts 1 and 2)
Reason: First Luna and now Trixie? I'm really not going to make a lot of friends with this list. But Trixie only really became a villain at the end of "Boast Busters" when she ran off rather than explain why the Ursa Minor showed up, and as I've mentioned before when talking about "Boast Busters" she didn't do anything wrong up to that point, it was the actions of three of the mane six that were wrong yet because of "protagonist centered morality" they were not called out for it. "Magic Duel" had Trixie become a villain through corruption, but it just sort of glanced over her actions after she was freed from the alicorn amulet. Then "No Second Prances" was likely written to address the complaint about how Trixie should've been Twilight's student and not Starlight's, and in doing so that required the end of "Magic Duel" to be retconned, and it took until "To Where And Back Again" for Trixie to truly cement herself in a non-selfish spotlight. Even then, she largely was just there to butt heads with Discord and spring the imposter Discord's trap. I do hope she's not becoming the new Discord for Twilight, because her "rivalry" with Twilight was pretty much non-existent, Twilight was never trying to upstage Trixie and Trixie was never directly looking to challenge Twilight, and by the time Twilight became an alicorn Trixie should've realized she would not be able to match Twilight at magic.
7. Babs Seed (Redemption Arc: One Bad Apple, Apple Family Reunion, Bloom and Gloom, IDW Comics Main Series #21-#22, Friends Forever #13)
Reason: Babs' redemption may have been more consistent than Trixie's or Luna's (as well as who will rank directly above her), but that's largely because the IDW comics did such a splendid job with her in 2014 and early 2015, while the show practically forgot about her and even now may be trying to replace her. Babs had no real reason to become an antagonist, and her "excuse" for bullying her cousin and her friends is that she was being bullied back home. That excuse never holds water, two wrongs don't make a right and if you don't like being bullied, you have no right to do it to others to make yourself feel better (if you know what it feels like to be on the other end of the punch, you shouldn't be able to justify doing it to someone else). She doesn't even have the excuse of not being able to tell a grown-up or coming from a broken family, she just on a whim decided to bully her cousin and when the CMC decided to get even they were labeled bullies simply for overreacting to a situation. Reformed Babs was really good, thanks to the IDW comics (her inclusion in "Apple Family Reunion" could've amounted to something if Applejack hadn't kept shutting down any potential plot points involving Babs and Apple Bloom), but as an antagonist she was really weak and I even mentioned that for the sake of "One Bad Apple" in terms of its moral she had no reason to be there other than because the writers didn't want to use Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.
6. Discord (Redemption Arc: Keep Calm and Flutter On, Twilight's Kingdom Parts 1 and 2, Make New Friends But Keep Discord, What About Discord?, IDW Comics Friends Forever #2 and #20, To Where And Back Again Parts 1 and 2)
Reason: Discord's redemption was pretty rocky up until "To Where And Back Again", the show redeeming him was likely due to fanservice and to establish why Twilight would become a princess a few episodes later (she succeeded in doing what Celestia was unable to accomplish, turning a foe into a friend), and when the show was allowed to continue beyond 65 episodes the writers had to struggle to think of how to reasonably potray and handle Discord now that he was reformed. Sadly, "Twilight's Kingdom" didn't exactly accomplish that, in its decision to make Twilight the protagonist of the two parter it ended up causing Discord to revert back to his old ways in a sort and side with Tirek against his friends. Then the show just sort of glossed over this betrayal in Season 5, leaving it up to the IDW comics to address the role Discord played and the guilt he might still harbor. It wasn't really until "To Where And Back Again" that Discord truly did something selfless outside of the comics, but Season 6 showed that at least now his "friends" consider him an equal and don't just treat him like they expect him to completely change (that's not friendship that's forced obedience!). We already know Discord won't be in the movie, but for right now in the show at least he needs to start caring more about ponies besides Fluttershy, show that even if he pretends not to, he does care about the rest of his friends. Yes, Fluttercord is a wonderful ship, but there's no reason to keep making Fluttershy a relevant character in each of Discord's appearances. If he needs Fluttershy to feel wanted, then something's wrong with his character.
5. Gilda (Redemption Arc: The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone)
Reason: Gilda's redemption is probably what helped lift "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" to the ranks of a good episode and kept it from being forgotten (alongside the fact that it was one of Amy Keating Rogers' final episodes before she left for Disney). It was understandable, at least a little, why she became a villain in "Griffon The Brush Off". And "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" showed why she became so attached to Rainbow Dash. In many ways, she was like Fluttershy, except instead of hiding and shrinking away from conflict, Gilda chose to bury her feelings of loneliness beneath a thick blanket of aggression to ensure she wouldn't be pushed around or seen as weak. When she became reformed, her voice sounded a bit off, and from what little we can gather of her cameo in "The Fault in Our Cutie Marks", so far her attempts at spreading friendship in Griffonstone haven't met with much success (probably because the nation is still very run down, not a lot of time for friendship when you're probably struggling to find work). Fanfics usually tackled Gilda's redemption better.
4. Starlight Glimmer (Redemption Arc: The Cutie Re-Mark Part 2, The Crystalling Parts 1 and 2, No Second Prances, Every Little Thing She Does, To Where And Back Again Parts 1 and 2)
Reason: Starlight Glimmer was such an impressive antagonist, she served as a reminder that not all monsters are obvious and noticeable in plain sight. Some of the worst monsters are the ones that don't appear to be evil and horrible on the outside, but on the inside they're quite terrible. The problem is, the writers made her such a good antagonist that they forgot to sell us on her as an antagonist, and then they just sort of hastily skipped through her redemption in its key stages. It didn't help that Season 6 didn't really do much with her, and then came "Every Little Thing She Does" which was a big step backwards for reformed Starlight that revealed a glaring flaw in her that needed to be corrected, her overreliance on magic to solve all her problems. "To Where And Back Again" did manage to fix this and have Starlight overcome her concerns about being a leader, but it would've been even stronger if we'd gotten to see more of Starlight struggling to earn forgiveness, and seen more of her trying to prove she had changed. I can't help but feel like she would've worked better if Twilight had taken in the past Starlight at the end of "The Cutie Re-Mark" or if Starlight had been introduced in Season 6 with only the hints of backstory she got in "The Cutie Re-Mark" and "The Crystalling". We'll have to see if Season 7 does anything with her, and whether or not they'll address her failure to redeem Chrysalis and what sort of effect this might have on her.
3. Diamond Tiara (Redemption Arc: Crusaders of The Lost Mark)
Reason: While it did come a little out of left field, the show writers knew better than to try and justify Diamond Tiara's bad behavior prior to her redemption. The introduction of Spoiled Rich and "The Pony I Wanna Be" doesn't justify or excuse what Diamond Tiara did, but it puts it into context, it explains why she did what she did. And while it may have been a little rushed, it at least made sense why Diamond became a bully and why she never truly managed to change on her own. Many kids who become bullies end up that way either because their parents let them get away with their bad behavior, or because their parents themselves are bullies. And many kids in abusive families don't realize that the way they're treated is wrong, they're taught from a young age to respect their elders and never question their parents because their parents always have their best interests at heart, and as is seen in Diamond's case, that's not always true. The only reason why Diamond Tiara misses the top two spots here, is because there was really no build up at all to hint that she might not be so horrible (in fact episodes such as "Ponyville Confidential" and "Flight to The Finish" seemed to imply she was a G-rated sociopath who didn't care who she had to hurt to get what she wanted, and that's going a little too far. Yes, kids are cruel, but it's usually not until their teenage or college years that they can truly stop caring about anyone but themselves). A little bit of foreshadowing here and there would've been nice.
2. Sci-Twi (Redemption Arc: Legend of Everfree)
Reason: Sci-Twi is Luna's redemption arc done right. Even if the worst of her actions were the fault of peer pressure and blackmail, "Legend of Everfree" showed that even unintentional actions can have long term consequences and that it's not always to make that change, there's always the fear of regressing or sliding back. While I may not approve of the movie putting Sci-Twi into the leadership role for The Rainbooms just because her pony counterpart held that role in the first two movies (in time maybe Sci-Twi could become a leader but for the time being she's just getting used to be good and leadership is something she should earn when she proves to be ready for it), her concerns about losing control to her dark side are very real and very justifiable. In many ways, this is what Anakin from the Star Wars prequels was lacking, concern about the monster he could become.
1. Sunset Shimmer (Redemption Arc: Rainbow Rocks, Friendship Games, Legend of Everfree)
Reason: Well, she may be number one, but there is one thing that holds Sunset Shimmer back from being the gold standard by which all other redemptions in FiM should be judged. By the time of "Rainbow Rocks" she's already at least friends with Flash Sentry and The Rainbooms, even if the rest of the school doesn't trust her. We never get to see her working to earn the trust of the six friends she tore apart and manipulated for her own personal gain. The movie also ignores a comment that The Dazzlings made to Sunset about how The Rainbooms didn't ask her to be in the band, possibly out of fear no one would come to see them play if they gave her a position. Everything else about her redemption though, was solid. While she never was tempted to revert back to her old ways or join The Dazzlings, she still had to contend with the fact that most of the school didn't trust her and she was afraid of saying what was on her mind for fear that it might be wrong. But in the end, she overcame her own self doubt and proved to everyone that she had changed, helping The Rainbooms to defeat The Dazzlings. "Friendship Games" and "Legend of Everfree" has since gone on to establish her as the unofficial leader of The Rainbooms, even taking on the Obi-Wan mentor role in "Legend of Everfree". To me, Sunset Shimmer and Sci-Twi are two parts of the same puzzle when it comes how to write and handle redemption properly. Sci-Twi is proving to yourself that you've changed, that you're better than who you used to be and that you won't regress back to being evil, while Sunset Shimmer is proving to others that you've changed, proving that you can be trusted, and that you aren't the same person.
And there you have it, come back tomorrow when we take a look at the Top Ten New Characters of Season 6.
Here's my top five redemption story arcs:
1: Sunset Shimmer
2: Princess Luna
3: Diamond Tiara
4: Starlight Glimmer
5: Trixie
4289061 What does Pinkie have to do with Trixie's redemption?
4289069 It's part of what she did under the alicorn amulet, not necessarily what she willingly would've done or been capable of doing without the power boost.
For me, the ranking is:
1. Starlight Glimmer
2. Diamond Tiara
3. Sci-Twi
4, Trixie
8. Discord
9. Gilda
I skipped 5-7 because the other 3 constantly rotate depending on my mood, but I like them all more than the other two.
4289149 How come Sunset Shimmer isn't in the top four?
4289150 I just think the other redemptions are more effective, especially in terms of their length.
Plus, there's also the factor of how much I personally wanted the reformations to occur.
I'm sorry, but wasn't that what Trixie tried to do in No Second Prances and To Where And Back Again? She was taking joy in laughing in Twilight's face that Starlight was her friend. Unlike Discord, Twilight does kind of have a reason for not trusting Trixie. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just pointing out what I personally got out of her.
4289712 I really don't think that's why she befriended Starlight, or why she continued to try and be with her. At first she just saw Starlight as a chance to finally best Twilight at something, then, much like with Discord, she actually became attached to Starlight and cared about her.
4289716 I would agree with you if the episode showed more to Trixie then there was of boasting. I mean, Trixie can show potential for a decent character like in the IDW comics, but in the series, I never really saw anything that made it look like she really cared for Starlight outside of using her to make fun of Twilight. I mean, with the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, we do see him make real changes to his life and it's the changes that not only win over Belle, but us, the audience as well. I never got that with Trixie. Do you understand what I'm getting at?
4289734 Yes, but keep in mind that in "To Where And Back Again" she was at Starlight's side in a second when she was suffering a panic attack, she was responsible for the group coming up with a code word in case they got seperated, and she scarificed herself to spring imposter Discord's trap.
4289767 I know that, but the episode keeps putting in moments like her 'struggling' to admit she makes mistakes and acting hypocritically nasty to Discord (Using the code just to tease him) and making fun of him even at the end. These don't match up. Like I said, the comic wrote her better because they developed more of her nice qualities more then her nasty ones. They at least showed she really does want to change.
4289777 Her teasing Discord at first was justified, Discord was complaining nonstop just because he couldn't use his magic. Trixie being stubborn for no reason wasn't needed though, and Discord was paying her a compliment at the end and she had to be aware of who he was and what he could do.
4289792
Discord had a reason to be bitter, because his friend was in danger and the easiest way to save her is not possible. Trixie at best appeared as insensitive.
4289797 Well, what about the other rankings here? Any thoughts on them?
4289819 I think Luna, Gilda, Discord and Sunset were handled the best.
Sunset Shimmer's Redemption Arc is by far the best! <3