after she was hit with the orbital friendship cannon Sunset's personality changed, my personal theory is that she felt all the pain she caused others in that moment and that changed her, but does anyone else have other theories?
(This is not an attack on Sunny she is best character(Ok maybe Twilight) but it is something that needs explaining)

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My headcanon is that she was in a great deal of pain during that transformation into a demon, and the memory of what she did leading up to and during that period has been burned into her so clearly that she'd terrified of going back to being that way. She did almost kill six people, after all.

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Equestrian Magic, the longer someone from equestria is away from their source of magic and fresh power, the more corrupted they become since a lot of the magic is from pure friendship and such anyway.

So a rainbow to the face clears their mind to make them see the error of their ways and become ready to reform, and now that she had such a strong dose and it's around her, she's not going to suffer a relapse easily.

It even worked on the Dazzlings as they have caused less trouble since they were blasted too.

A half baked theory I only thought of at the moment.

I think when she transformed her darkness took over, and she was seeing everything that was happening while trapped in her own mind. When the friendship lazer hit her she was freed, and she realized exactly what she had been doing to people. I also don't think she walked away without some sort of damage, psychological or physical. Dark magic always consequences.

Running theory for me is actually kinda dark. That the Elements actually purge dark or corrupted thought processes from her mind and this is what happened to Luna as well. This would mean they are direct mind alteration by cutting away parts of the personality (not replacing those parts, assumes there is good in person, but still altering their mind by removal of traits). In that light, what the Elements did with both Luna and Sunset is kinda dark.

Honestly? I think the Elements Altered her, Changed her mind. I think they merged the Demon and Her in her mind and soul. I think before going through the Mirror Sunset achieved a Partial Ascension but something went wrong and thus the Demon was born and her mind and soul were put off balance in the process. So the Elements (stones not girls) did the only thing they thought would work and not kill her or turn her to stone in the process.

Edit: I also think the Elements showed her a possible Future where she succeeded and the Horrors that came about and it Broke her so the Elements could re-fuse the fracture of her mind and soul.

Rainbows seem to just solve everything in the MLP universe. Just go with it.

7434093 Mind rape 101 and when you take in account Cutie Marks? Grogar wasn't so much a bad guy as he was a anti-hero

I'm not sure the elements did change her. One detail which always interested me is that during Sunset's demonic transformation you can see a tear turning into steam before she transforms. I think that becoming a demon made her realize her mistakes, the elements simply purged the dark magic from her.

The demonic tranformatiom brought all her hatred, rage, contempt and so on to the surface - all the easier for the power of Harmony to wash them away. All she was left with was the guilt and sadness she had supressed... it's a good thing Princess Twilight told her to look out for her.

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I have to agree with this. This actual theory just happens to be the headcannon in one of my stories.

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My head canon is that Sunset went through what others felt because later in the show/movies she gets empathetic powers and can read others minds. The darkness taking over and turning her into a demon caused her to vulnerable psychological inputs. Add that on top of her physical pain she was on sensory overload. When she took control of the students and possibly staff, not sure I cant remember if she got Celestia or Luna, their memories were transferred over to Sunset due to her mental state being in tatters and those memories had all the memories of the students. The thing is that she now knows everything about everyone but all that information nearly drove her undemon self mad. This all stacked on top of not know what true friendship really is was damaging to her, but most of all she saw the Joy's of friendship and realized how much she fail and in a way wasted years of her life. It makes sense for her to change her ways if she realized that years of magic training, years of being queen bee, it all amounted to nothing. This is were I think she tips over the edge, but just as she was descending into madness shes freed from her demon form. The next part I'm unsure of when it happened maybe right after she was transformed back into a human or maybe that night when she fell asleep but I'm sure that she relived everything when she was a demon and she witnessed herself almost killing the girls, Twilight, and Spike. That is when she decides to rebuild herself with the help of the other girls. If you watch her a lot of her gestures look very similar to the girls, except for when she snaps because of her anger issues.

Also didnt realize how long this head canon is. Oops

My headcanon is that Equestrian magic resonates with concepts or aspects. When Sunset used the Element of Magic, she was overwhelmed with a magic that resonated with friendship and harmony, but Sunset had none; so the magic resonated with what she did have: her darkness. Just as love is not hate's opposite, friendship is just a thin line away from what the magic did bring out.

Instead of honest, she was delusional; instead of kind, she was cruel; instead of joyful, she was angry; instead of generous, she was selfish; and instead of loyal, she betrayed everyone. Even herself, the bright little filly she once was.

When all the other Elements of Harmony were united to blast Sunset, they forced the Element of Magic back into harmony, and dragged Sunset along for the ride, as she was still redeemable by the Elements, unlike Discord and the other petrified villains. Sunset needed to see herself as she was, honestly. And feel what her cruelty, anger, selfishness, and betrayal has wrought onto others. So I agree there :D

The Elements couldn't bring her to harmony with herself, which is why she's sobbing afterwards, but they could open her eyes to the road she must take to get there.

We only see Sunset's personality after she was basically dismissed from what she knew as 'home', ran away in her pain/anger to an entirely different realm, and survived on her own as a alien minor for like 2.5 years? Her anger and pride was all she had. She was obsessed with power and kept trying to make it work because surely it would make her happy, wouldn't it? Because if it didn't, then what did she do this all for? So Sunset didn't consider whether she, and her anger and pride, were wrong. Until the Elements proved her wrong, irrefutable and indelible.

I think Sunset deserves credit for actually working towards being good, not that the Elements magically turned her good. Impart knowledge and clarity? Yes. Change who someone is at the core? No.

at least in my headcanon :)

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When sunset was defeated by the rainbow laser she was possessed by her negative traits. Due to using dark or chaos magic and since the elements of harmony are white or light magic they are opposites. Due to this I believe that when suns got hit she felt all the pain she had caused but it had been double or even tripled. Sunset couldn’t even stand after being pulled out of the crater. It was after she started crying that she stood up. However I think that is the reason why she refused to use the rainbow on sci-twilight. She knew human twilight didn’t deserve to feel that pain.

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The Elements, while blasting her, showed her everything horrible she'd done, but from the perspective of her victims, making her feel every hurtful thing she'd ever said or done. That was why she was crying and seemed so beaten down when the blasting was done and the swift heel-turn between the first and second movie.

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Very mixed on what it does myself. I think it changes based on the power of the enemy, or if it feels their is some redeeming mark. Luna was filled with power, but going down the route of hate and violence, and it seems to have banished that power. I would say this is likely the case with Sunset, but that it also tears down the emotional walls she set up initially, at least for a time. It left her in a very vulnerable feeling state that she didn't really ever recover from in the show, so it definitely had some permanent affects, possibly mind altering.

Discord was turned to stone in part because the rainbow banishing was made him him would outright kill Discord. The elements seem to destroy evil so long as that evil is not a living thing, then it either removes said evil or contains the entity itself. Why Sunset goes through such a drastic change in comparison to others is debatable, but, to be fair, we don't spend nearly as much time with other characters effected by the rainbow in the show, so maybe it also altered them and we just don't see it.

I prefer to believe that the rainbow is not all-knowing or mind warping, it simply destroys objects of great evil, purges evil, or in the case of being targeted on a person like Discord that it cannot purge, stones them. If the Siren's gems/magic were also keeping them alive, well, I think it would still have destroyed them.

I got the impression the crown magnified her evil side (though not manifesting as its own entity like Luna's jealousy as Nightmare Moon) to turn her into the demon (she was clearly more evil in this form than for the rest of the film), then the Elements destroyed her evil side. (Probably still leaving the capacity for darkness to return (because Captain Kirk), but being horrified by the demon thing and remorseful for this and everything else prevents her from turning cruel and dishonest again)

Many also say she was restored completely to the way she was just before her demon transformation, but she was too horrified at what she was like and tried to do as a demon that she changed her ways immediately.

Kind of what the others said: the Rainbow causes to her to see what her actions did, the pain she caused, also I kept with the idea that she got bodyjacked by something when she went through the mirror with corrupted her.

By far the best explanation and exploration of this I've found is:

ETime

• Equestria Girls
• Drama
• Slice of Life

After her failed takeover, Sunset Shimmer and the Elements of Harmony have a conversation.

• Sunset Shimmer

Fallowsthorn · 6.6k words  ·  469  5 · 6.4k views

Honestly, I believe that the rainbow stripped away all of her self-made illusions. Essentially it gave her an existential crisis where she realized just what she had been doing with her life, the pain she caused, and how pointless it was in the end. At that point yo have two options: Accept the truth or go even further into delusion.