Does no one besides me think that Lightning Dust isn’t the redeemable type of character?

I mean, she’s arrogant, egotistic, and she cares about no one but herself and putting on a good show.

Not redeeming her was also something that I believed gave more realism to the show, so why grumble about her not being redeemed anyway?

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I think there is a difference between redemption and what they ended up doing to her.

I don’t think it’s redemption that people were clamoring for. They just wanted a reasonable conclusion to her story, and the ending of Washouts was absolutely not the way to go about it. It’s possible to be invested in a character without actually rooting for them. I’m personally a huge fan of Trixie, though I certainly don’t consider her a heroine.

Lightning Dust is the same way. She’s interesting because she’s an unrepentant twat often cast across from Rainbow Dash, another unrepentant twat. And yet, despite the good initial dynamic, it never felt like anything really meaningful came from her appearances in the show.

That’s why LD has fans. We know she’s a Heel, but even in that role she was done dirty by the writers.

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The issue is the ending of The Washouts. She was intentionally putting a filly in danger against her will, which is criminal negligance, not recklessness. Compare this to Wonderbolt Academy, where the only one at risk is herself (she couldn't have known about the balloon, and come to think of it Cloudsdale seems to have no air traffic control if it freely lets unauthorised objects into its airspace).

"She's arrogant, egotistic, and care about no one except herself and putting on a good show"

No offense, but not only did you describe Lightning. But you also accidently perfectly described Trixie, who got her arc with Starlight and a role in the Season 6 finale onward.

Do I think Lightning deserves a redemption arc by Rainbow directly? No, that just won't work. Since you brought it up, do it the way Trixie did, using a formerly redeemed character with a history to a main character. For Trixie and Twilight, Starlight was a bridge. Perhaps another character can do this, I propose Gilda. She has a history with Dash in an antagonistic way, but also made amends with her in a way thanks to Pinkie.

Scootaloo didn't work because she was idolizing them, and this caused compitition. If say Gilda was impressed by Lightning's ability and Dash, just like Twilight did with Starlight, attempts to push that away. Basically do the same thing we did to Twilight to get her to like Trixie.

I should write a story about this.