Hey now, don't misunderstand me wrong, I like Sunset Shimmer. But there's still a lot about her that doesn't add up. Consider the following:

1: If Sunset left Celestia because she felt held back in her magic studies, why the heck would she run away to a world with no magic?

2: What does happen to an Element of Harmony that is brought to another world? Assuming she didn't intend to turn into the Devil, what exactly was Sunset's original plan?

3: Rainbow Rocks establishes that Sunset had no way of communicating with Equestria besides the magic book she never used. If that is so, how the heck did she know about Twilight, the Element of Magic, and that both would be in the Crystal Empire that particular night? Where did she get the recog?

The portal only stays open for three days, and we know Sunset appeared on the first day, meaning she can't have been sneaking around spying before stealing the crown. If we assume thirty moons means two years, and Sunset has spent four years in the human world (since she had won the Fall Formal three times) her only other chance to access Equestria was two years earlier. So, her entire plot hinges on her having access to information that she couldn't possibly have acquired.

Discuss.

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1.
>implying she knew what was through the portal

2.
Why is it unreasonable for her to think the Element would give her a lot of power, especially given her power-crazed mindset? Seems like a reasonable assumption for an unreasonable person to make.

3.

The portal only stays open for three days

I can't remember the exact wording, but I was under the impression Celestia said something like "It's only open for three more days." I don't remember her saying how long the portal was open overall. This opens up the opportunity for plenty of snooping about.
Furthermore, Sunset could have easily come over and done some snooping around during the previous cycle, allowing to make a more long-term plan.

I think what she saw in the reflection when first looking into the mirror colored her idea of what was sort of magic it held. And in her mind, if whatever this magic was, was enough for Celestia to guard the information so closely and repeatedly refuse to tell her about it, it must be something extremely powerful. She'd eventually discovered that it was a portal though whatever forbidden research she had been doing, but it's reasonable to believe that the details about what exactly was on the other side may have not been spelled out in that source. And then when being dumped on the other side without magic (her entire identity up until that point), it ended up quite a shock. (and in this regard, I don't think that panel in the comic where she's stepping through onto the other side makes much sense with the intrigued/scheming look on her face - would have been more of a shock/fear, imo).

Which leads to #2, in a way. When Sunset set off to pour over the library tomes, especially those in areas which were restricted (but not secured so well that her advanced magic couldn't break the wards), it's reasonable to believe that on her way to finding the tome that eventually did tell her that the mirror was a portal to another world, she would have come across hints like this about the Elements.

And #3 is the one that I'd tend to agree most with you on. It's almost like they'd need to re-con some sort of other magic/device/communication/scrying/etc method to explain this - since Twi wasn't even close to ascending 30 moons prior, let alone any indication that the mirror had been moved to the empire or that she'd be there on that day.

Unless her plan had simply been to use that 3-or-so days that it was open to investigate and hope to find one or more of the elements, and just ended up lucky-for-the-sake-of-plot that Twilight's was right there. The first movie did have a lot of holes/etc. But I'm pleased with how the whole thing has turned out, especially with the fanfic fuel it provided.

Retracting that bit above - just remember the whole crown-switcheroo part from the first movie. So it was definitely premeditated very specifically.

Edit: And I have no idea what anime/etc that avatar is from, but it's pretty frigg'n cool.

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1.

>implying she knew what was through the portal

Fair enough. Why did she decide to stay, then? Once she'd figured out what kind of world she was dealing with, she could have just jumped back through the portal. At worst she'd get a scolding from Celestia.

Why is it unreasonable for her to think the Element would give her a lot of power, especially given her power-crazed mindset? Seems like a reasonable assumption for an unreasonable person to make.

I'm not doubting her reasoning, I'm wondering what that reasoning was, exactly, and how she arrived at it.

I mean, you can't have your antagonist go: "I know something about this magic artifact that you don't!" and then just forget to mention it again.

I can't remember the exact wording, but I was under the impression Celestia said something like "It's only open for three more days." I don't remember her saying how long the portal was open overall.

It was Luna, actually, and her exact words were: "On the third day, when the moon reaches its peak in the night sky, the gateway will close." On the third day meaning three days, exactly.

Er, actually scratch that bit I added at the end. Forgot that she'd brought the fake crown to swap... so yeah... even more with you on this one.

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Why did she decide to stay, then?

Panic, I assume. And a desire to be far, far away from Celestia.

I mean, you can't have your antagonist go: "I know something about this magic artifact that you don't!"

See, that's the thing. I don't think she actually knew anything more than we did. She was guesstimating.

It was Luna, actually, and her exact words were: "On the third day, when the moon reaches its peak in the night sky, the gateway will close."

Alright, fair point.

I'm going to defer to fanfic for a good justification on #1. I think it was that "diary of the fallen star" here that did a phenomenal job (imo) of rationalizing this from Sunset's point of view. I keep making references to this one here and on reddit... I think it's just wonderfully done.

1: If Celestia decided she wasn't fit to become a princess or to continue studying with her, she could have stayed in the other world because it'd be ashaming to come back to her family (and to other ponies, if she bragged about being Celestia's student) after having failed Celestia. Or she could have gone to the other world only a few hours or minutes before the portal closes and think it would stay open longer and/or that her magic would somehow come back over time.

2: I think her original plan was simply to go invade Equestria using the element while the princesses were at the summit, assumming she knew about it.
There's the theory that the Element of Magic is useable by anyone when in another world in a fanfiction (I don't remember which though :/) that I kinda like, too. So maybe she actually planned to activate it on her (like she did when turning into a demon) and go through the portal so she could use it in Equestria as well.

3: There, I don't really see any explanation. She couldn't have even known the Crystal Empire existed, or that Celestia moved the mirror there. Or what Twilight's crown looked like, since it was only one year between the pilot episodes and the season 4 premiere episodes (I think so, at least). Unless Celestia decided to send her lots of details about how everything was going in Equestria through the book (and then, I don't really see how she could have guessed the crown's shape and colors).
Before she went to the human world, Celestia may have told her about the Elements of Harmony, but pretty much all she could have done was guessing everything right somehow.

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Edit: And I have no idea what anime/etc that avatar is from, but it's pretty frigg'n cool.

Thanks. It's from Wakfu, a French cartoon with obvious anime influences.

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There, I don't really see any explanation. She couldn't have even known the Crystal Empire existed, or that Celestia moved the mirror there. Or what Twilight's crown looked like, since it was only one year between the pilot episodes and the season 4 premiere episodes (I think so, at least).

The problem is that no matter how you cut it, Sunset could only have learned all she needed to know by going through the portal earlier if "thirty moons" is actually less than the time between Twilight's coronation and the start of the movie. And that is ridiculous, because Twilight hadn't even gotten used to her wings in EG, so I doubt getting stuck in the human world that long would have been a huge issue.

Unless Celestia decided to send her lots of details about how everything was going in Equestria through the book (and then, I don't really see how she could have guessed the crown's shape and colors).

Nah, when Sunset dug that book out of her locker, it had this thick layer of dust on it. She pretty much said she only brought it along as a keepsake and didn't even know if it still worked.

1. She probably didn't know. Once she found out, she knew she could either go back and get caught by the Royal Guard, or hold out for at least one cycle. She might be a human now, and have no magic, but at least she is free to do whatever she wants, and can bide her time and let the bitterness fester. Better a free woman/mare in hell than a prisoner in heaven.

2. There might be some magic babble behind it. For instance, Sunset knows by now that the human world and Equestria function in fundamentally different ways. One reason the Element of Magic might behave very differently is that it's physically removed from the force the Elements sprang from - whatever's behind the Tree of Harmony. Even if Sunset didn't know about the Tree, she might still have known that the Elements had some sort of connection to Equestria, and have deduced that severing that connection would grant her access to its power that she couldn't get in Equestria. She did turn out to be right - but without the controlling influence of the other facets of harmony, the Element of Magic ended up taking as much control of her as she of it.

All of the above, as you will rightly point out, is pure magic babble. In the end, not every question needs to be answered, and it's sufficient explanation to say Sunset was simply pretending to know more than she actually did.

3. The portal seems to close at what might be 22:00, so if it's exactly three days that it's open and Twilight spent only the one night in the library that's shown on-screen, Sunset arrived at 22:00 during the night before the night she stole the crown. That leaves a full day that she could have gone through the portal in either direction relatively unhindered. She can teleport, alongside other forms of magic, and very few people in the Crystal Kingdom proper are liable to recognize her.

You can do a lot of snooping about in a day, if you're as driven and methodical as any student of Celestia should be capable of being. Twilight's ascension was very recent - Sunset might learn about it in something as straightforward as that day's paper - and once she got wind of that, it's a short stint of research that quickly leads into Twilight's recent history, which has the Elements of Harmony and the Element of Magic specifically all over it. Combined with the research she was doing before she entered the portal to the human world, that would give her some ideas. Cue some quick scouting of the castle's layout and there we go.

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I'll get back to you on this once I'm at my PC

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1: If Sunset left Celestia because she felt held back in her magic studies, why the heck would she run away to a world with no magic?
- In the comics, Sunset saw the image of herself as an alicorn Princess in the mirror, but Celestia refused to discuss it with her. Sunset read up about the mirror on her own time and found out about what it was.

2: What does happen to an Element of Harmony that is brought to another world? Assuming she didn't intend to turn into the Devil, what exactly was Sunset's original plan?
- I think her intent even before she transformed was to conquer Equestria. Sunset wanted power and authority all along but couldn't get them in Equestria, so she fled to the human world. But whatever power she had at the high school was shallow, she wanted actual power. Fair point about never explaining what happened to the Element though. For some whoring, I'll note I came up with an explanation and worked it into my Sunset Shimmer fanfic :p

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/194394/8/twilight-falls-sunset-dawns/chapter-8

3: Rainbow Rocks establishes that Sunset had no way of communicating with Equestria besides the magic book she never used. If that is so, how the heck did she know about Twilight, the Element of Magic, and that both would be in the Crystal Empire that particular night? Where did she get the recog?
- I think there was a writer statement somewhere that Sunset was indeed around the castle earlier in the day, but cannot find it. I've always wondered this myself. Even if we excuse her knowledge of point 2 as "She's Celestia's student, she would have studied magic and stuff", she clearly knew things about Equestria she couldn't have known about before she went through the portal. I tried to brainstorm possible ways she could have kept up, but couldn't think of any.

Let's not forget that it's hard to come up with any kind of sane timeline for Sunset's time in human-land unless time passes differently between human-land and Equestria (which would contradict the portal staying open for the same length of time in both worlds). After all, the time Sunset spent in human-land had to cover:

1) However long the gap was between Sunset's departure and Celestia taking Twilight on.
2) Twilight's entire magical education and growing from CMC-aged to adulthood.
3) Everything from Nightmare Moon's return to Twilight's coronation.

Since logic and what canon we have indicates Sunset was full-grown and mostly done with her education (barring magic of friendship) when she went through the portal, it's hard to see any timeline that doesn't conclude with Sunset Shimmer being a thirty-year-old who's still hanging around the high school and attending classes for some reason. That, or everything from 1, 2, and 3 all happened in the space of roughly three years.

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1. Celestia never said Sunset fell back in her studies, but that "she didn't get what she wanted as quickly as she liked" and basically became a bitter, spoiled brat from that point forward.

2. Presumably she thought it would give her enough power to take control of Canterlot (both the city and the school) and overthrow Celestia. Well, the school control thing worked at least...

3. Simple: She went out and purchased a copy of "Equestria Girls" beforehand to see where everypony would be and what they were up to and strategized from there.

In all honesty I'm still trying to figure that one out myself.

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since not much is given what I'm about to say is mostly headcanon that I have based on what the movies and last year's annual has given.

1. I don't think Sunset Shimmer knew what was at the other side of the mirror but from last year's annual it looks like she was drawn to it almost like it was calling out to her which lead to her obsession to know more about it.

2. I think when the crown crossed over it might have become unstable because of how different the rules are about how magic works within each demention. Which allowed Sunset to use it whereas she would not have been able to in Equestria because Twilight is the element of magic and would be the only one to be able to used it. As to how Sunset knew about it, she did sneak into a forbidden area of the royal library so maybe she found something about it. Personally I think mind control was one of the dark spells she learned about when she snuck into the forbidden area of the library and she needed the element to not only to get her magic back but as a power bust as well, then she could have mind controlled the human world's police and military and with its advanced weaponry invade Equestria but that all got scrapped when she lost the crown and had to make a new plan on the spot when she got it back.

3. As to how she knew about Twilight and some other details? I like to think that since Celestia kept holding on to the hope the Sunset would return she continued to write in her copy of the book from the movie in an attempt to reach out to her even telling her of current events not knowing Sunset would use that info against them.

I'm obsessed with Sunset Shimmer since the first EG movie came out, and I agree with all 3 of those theories. I believe there is a lot more unsolved to her background than just the portal and her time as Celestia's student, such as her true past, origins, birthplace, and family (knowing Sunny's real parents would be interesting), AND what really cause her to turn her own life upside down.

In the first EG movie, if Sunset Shimmer did throw the sledgehammer wouldn't it just go through the portal like any other object? A lot people wonder about that.

BTW
Tonight on unsolved mysteries,

Find out, who knows if Sunset betrayed Celestia for abandoning her studies or if Celestia betrayed Sunet for lying to Sunset about her past.
UPDATE!
We don't know the truth, so the brony community has to make theories.

I don't think that I have any ideas about any of those points that haven't already been brought up, except that I'm pretty sure the answer to the third question is "Equestria Girls is a very poorly-written movie."

3744448 thing it people assume she would have hit the actual mirror, she might have been aiming for the frame that held it in place.

3744665 She was bluffing, so maybe she just thought that Twilight wouldn't think about it for long and quickly turn over the crown to be able to go back to Equestria.

3744665 yeah, properly true

Man, I wish I had time to take part in this thread. I'll just come back later with my own two cents and head canon,

3743978
Ok now that I am back... *rereads the questions* Ok be warned headcanon maybe used

1) Canonically I don't think she knew, if I remember correctly not even Celestia knew much about what laid across the Looking Glass.

2) That is a good question and I'm not sure. Perhaps she needed a source of concentrated (condensed/solidified) magic, and the crown was easier to steal than other sources such as the Tears of the Moon (the gems on Celestia's crown and torq). As for the demon thing, remember that Sunset was in tears when she put the crown on, going the theory that that she was possessed, the crown inflicted so much pain on Sunset that her mind shut down and the demon took over. The demon fed off the magic, and was able to resist the crown's attack on her.

3) Simple, Celestia wrote to Sunset. The journal may have become a way for the princess to vent and perhaps let it be known that Twilight gained the EoH. More complex, and headcanon, Sunset get updates about Equestria from the Equestriani Consulate in Providence who in turn get messages from Celestia and government.

4) Same as above, but it is a bit of a stretch and Sunset would have been using a lot of assumptions such as that the Looking Glass wouldn't be too far from Celestia and Twilight having just ascended would be with Celestia to learn about her powers and position.

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Yes. The time difference thing is one of the biggest cryptic holes of the plot for me.

That, or everything from 1, 2, and 3 all happened in the space of roughly three years.

Or, if we take into account Silver Quill's observation during his review of the Season 4 premiere, that everything between 'Friendship is Magic' and 'Princess Twilight' (including Equestria Girls-if canon) all happened in one Year!
But I find that hard to believe.

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Indeed. Though it's hard to tell who to blame for that. The writer? Or the executives?

Ooooor....Celestia intentionally fed information to Sunset Shimmer, all so there would be a reason for Twilight to learn about inter dimensional friendship.

I like to think ponies are adults only two or three years after the average age at which they gain their cutie marks, around being thirteen, and that Sunset spent about seven years and half in the human world before the Fall Formal (assuming the portal opens every two years and half).
So let's say that when Sunset leaves, she's fourteen and Twilight is nine. A few months later, Twilight is taken as Celestia's student. When she's fifteen, Celestia makes her go to Ponyville and she's sixteen when she has to go to the human world.
In the meantime, about Sunset Shimmer, well, the school's name could be a lie. Seeing how big it is, it probably also covers middle school and some higher grades than high school ones (I don't know much about how it works in the USA, but I'm french and in my high school, some students aren't actually high school students but are in higher grades). It would be pretty weird, though, because maybe older students aren't allowed to run for princess of the Fall Formal, or to come to the dance at all.
She could also have failed her classes at the beginning, especially if she came to the human world around May, making her older than most of her grade's students.

3745771 actually given that the season 4 premiere is set during the Summer Sun Celebration just like the series premiere did than that could prove that chronologically seasons 1,2 & 3 happened within 1 year and that season 4 is the beginning of a new one.

3746707
Yeah. That's true.
Plus that would explain all the scheisse from 1000 years ago (Nightmare Moon, Discord, Sombra/ Crystal Empire) returning.

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1. is partially answered by the recent IDW story arc "Reflections", as we see that Sombra is very much able to see and here what's happening on the other side of the mirror somehow. Maybe Sunset was able to do something similar?

As for the rest of it? No clue. They never establish what '30 moons' actually means.

We also don't know that she's won four Fall Formals. We DO know Sunset did something to upend Rarity from winning the crown at the Spring Fling. Maybe those pictures are all from different dances over the span of a year?

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Yeah, they pretty much flat out say the first three seasons occur during a single year, as it's stated to be the first Summer Sun Celebration since Luna came back.

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No. Time can pass at different speeds in the 2 worlds, and the portal still stays open for 3 Earth days on Earth, and 3 Equestrian days on Equestria. During the 3 days the portal is open, the time speed of both worlds coincide and stays in sync temporarily. Which would make sense since space and time are actually 2 parts of one property more correctly known as spacetime.