The real problem with “Every Little Thing She Does” · 11:16pm Apr 5th, 2017
I've been re-watching Season 6 to prepare for and ease into Season 7, and I just finished watching “Every Little Thing She Does.” On the first watch, it rubbed me the wrong way even though parts of it made me laugh. I thought it made Starlight seem like a borderline sociopath. On the second viewing, that issue didn't seem as pronounced. True, Starlight acted purely out of selfishness, but she probably intended to lift the concoction of mind spells as soon as she got the all the activities “out of the way.” And to be fair, after she finally realized what she did wrong, she did deliver a good apology to the 5 Element Bearers that at least sounded sincere.
However, I noticed another problem that highlights a larger flaw with Starlight Glimmer's role in the show. Most of her interactions with the Five are when they are in a compliant, mind-controlled state. She has very little on-screen authentic interactions with them. When they first come to the castle, she acts guarded and sort of impersonal and ungrateful. Here they are taking time out of their busy schedules (except maybe Dash) to spend time with her and help her with her friendship lessons, and all Starlight cares about is not losing face after she talked a big game with Spike. Yes, she does make it up to them later – in a frickin' montage! It's no wonder so many fans have a hard time getting a read on her personality and her relationships with the Mane 6. The actual friendship parts are always brushed over in two-minute montages at the end of episodes. We're told that Starlight is friends with the Mane 6, and we're supposed to assume that she established a rapport with them, but we never really get to see it.
And just from reading the synopses of the first several episodes, it looks like the trend of not showing Starlight interact with the Element Bearers other than Twilight will continue, making me wonder why Starlight and Trixie don't simply move to Our Town and have their own little filler episodes every now and then.
Sigh. Maybe Scootaloo will fly this season, and all the crap will have been worth wading through to get to that amazing moment.
Considering we're getting an episode with Rainbow Dash's parents, maybe Scootaloo could even get adopted!
Or be shown as having parents!
Or a house!
4485137 They did show Scootaloo's room in one episode. But yeah, a family would be nice.
4485187 Operating on the headcanon that it's a room in a group home until proven otherwise because I'm a horrible person.
All that you said is huge fatal flaw that, alongside the aesop amnesia, backwards development and broken aesop, establishes season 6 as the worst season of the show.
I could talk for hours why I hate Starlight, but almost all of my reasons stem from one source: her wasted potential. The writers of the show don't know how to use her and this fact becomes more apparent every time she shows up in an episode for more than 30 seconds. I'm willing to give the new season the benefit of the doubt, but considering MLP's irreversible negative quality trend, I'm not overly hopeful.
4485457 I'm starting to agree. S3 was seemed bad, but that's just because it was half length so the stinkers stood out more.
4485593 I agree that the writers don't know how to use Starlight, which poses the question of why they insist on trying to sell her as Replacement Lavender Unicorn. And yeah, some TV series have improved after a slump, but I'm not holding my breath that it'll happen for MLP.