Hauntings of the Past
Starlight Glimmer frowned as she looked over the old lesson plans.
She sat in the Head Mare’s office at the School of Friendship. Her office. It was the culmination of a long personal journey. It didn’t seem like so long ago that she was leading a small commune, a village of ponies whom she had convinced, no, brainwashed, to give up their uniqueness in the pursuit of living in harmony.
She had told them that individuality was a weakness, that celebrating their special talents would lead only to division and unhappiness. And yet here she was, in charge of a school whose mission was to teach students as varied as the world itself to embrace those differences and grow together as friends.
It would be a daunting task for anypony, but especially so for one with her background. Or so she thought.
I wish Twilight were here.
Starlight found herself longing for the presence of her mentor and friend as she pondered how to prepare the school curriculum. Like Starlight, Twilight had been through a journey to learn the value of friendship, but Twilight possessed a gift for teaching it. Starlight knew first hoof; it had been Twilight that had reached her when she herself thought that she had been too far gone. She wasn’t sure she could live up to the standard Twilight had set.
Starlight caught herself lost in her thoughts, and started to return her focus to the lesson plans, but was startled by the rap of a hoof on her door.
“Who is it?” she called, looking up toward the door.
A familiar voice came from the opposite side. “A ghost from your past,” it replied.
A sudden sense of anxiety came over Starlight as she slid from her chair and settled onto her hooves. She trotted toward the door, horn glowing as she reached out with her magic to pull it open.
An Earth Pony stallion, with a white coat, mane, and tail, stood before her. At an angle, Starlight could just see a glimpse of his cutie mark, three blue snowflakes.
“Oh, Double Diamond!” she greeted him nervously.
“Uh, hi Starlight,” Double Diamond responded, sounding a little nervous himself.
Double Diamond was one of the first ponies Starlight had convinced to join her village. He possessed a great talent for skiing, slalom in particular. He would have almost certainly taken gold at the Equestria Games, if he hadn’t met Starlight. Starlight had convinced him to leave it behind, and he allowed her to take from him his cutie mark, and his special talent.
Starlight felt regret for everypony that she had stripped of their individuality, but it was worse with Double Diamond. There’s only a certain stretch of a pony’s life where they can excel at athletics, before the skills begin to deteriorate with age. In the prime of his career, Starlight had ripped his destiny from him, and she would never be able to give that back.
“Why don’t you come inside?” she asked, motioning toward a chair that sat in front of her desk. Double Diamond seemed hesitant, but he nodded and entered the office. Starlight circled back around the desk and took a seat in her own chair as Double Diamond shuffled over. “So… how have you been?” she asked.
Double Diamond sighed. “Not very well, Starlight,” he started. He remained standing. “Look, I came because I felt like I needed to get something off my chest with you.”
“Okay…” Starlight started in reply. Her gut began to tighten with anxiety again. “I’m… I’ll be happy to listen to what you have to say.”
“Will you?” Double Diamond asked rhetorically before continuing. “I’ve started seeing this therapist in Canterlot.”
“Oh,” said Starlight. She hesitated for a moment. “Is there a problem?”
“Yeah,” Double Diamond answered. “It started a few months ago. I just started feeling really wiped out, you know? Going to bed early, sleeping late, not having energy during the day.”
“Did you see a doctor?” Starlight asked.
“Not at first. But then the anxiety started. Panic attacks during the day, and nightmares when I was asleep. That’s when I decided something was wrong.” Double Diamond explained. “The doctor said it was depression. He referred me to the guy I’m seeing in Canterlot.”
Starlight looked at the floor for a moment, starting to feel a pang of guilt. She knew from her time as student counselor that what Double Diamond was describing didn’t just happen for no reason. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” she expressed quietly as she looked back up at him.
“Are you?” inquired Double Diamond. “Here you are, the Head Mare of Princess Twilight’s school. The School of Friendship. But when was the last time you checked in on your old friends in the village?”
The question hit Starlight hard. She hadn’t been to the village since she had returned for the Sunset Festival a few years before then, just after the defeat of Queen Chrysalis. She was the head of the School of Friendship, and she was suddenly embarrassed that she hadn’t shown the compassion that the ponies she had harmed the most needed. She looked back to the floor.
“You want to know what I dreamed about?” Double Diamond continued. “Being locked in the cottage. Alone. Nothing to keep me company but the droning of your propaganda over the speakers. Constantly being told that I wasn’t special, that I should be ashamed of the things that made me who I was.” His voice began to rise. “One thing the therapist said is that it’s okay for me to be angry. I had something, Starlight! A special talent! And you made me hide it from the world!”
Starlight looked back up toward Double Diamond, reaching up to her face with a hoof to wipe away tears. “But… you invited me to the Sunset Festival! You came to my graduation! I thought we’d put that in the past!” she exclaimed.
Double Diamond sighed. “I thought we did too. But I guess some wounds go too deep,” he said.
Starlight sat silently for a moment before speaking. “Did your therapist tell you to come here?”
“No, I came on my own. I thought maybe I would feel better if I told you how I felt,” Double Diamond explained.
“Do you?” Starlight asked.
“Not really,” Double Diamond replied. He started to turn toward the door.
“Wait,” Starlight called. Double Diamond stopped and turned his head back toward her. “I know I’ve said it before. I meant it, but I see now that I haven’t done enough to show you that. I’m so, so sorry. I did take something from you and I can’t give it back. I want you to get well. I’ll do whatever it takes.” She wiped away another tear.
“I don’t think there’s anything you can do, Starlight,” Double Diamond told her. “Maybe with time I’ll forgive you, or maybe I won’t. I just don’t know.” He turned and began to trudge back toward the door, then turned his head once more. “Take care,” he voiced just above a whisper, then walked out.
Starlight sat silently for what seemed like an eternity. She had tried so hard to put her past behind her. She had embraced the power of friendship. She’d grown. She’d changed. But she could see now that even that didn’t erase the consequences of what she had done.
She put her face into her forelegs on the desk and wept.
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IMO, this story captures one of the most important differences between Sunset and Starlight's redemption arcs; Sunset stared her past down and tried to make up for it, while Starlight just locked it away. Sunset tore her old self down and rebuilt herself, Starlight simply acted like the old her was a nightmare, something to look away from as fast as you can. Now, she had legitimate reasons for doing so, (How exactly do you face up to omnicide?) but it does mean that her redemption was legitimately different than Sunset's. Sunset was forced to see what she'd done wrong and tried to fix it; Starlight just closed her eyes to her past, refusing to repeat her mistakes as well as refusing to really examine them. The reason she regressed in Every Little Thing She Does, IMO, was that she was never really reformed; she was shown what the consequences of her time-traveling were, pardoned, and learned some of the finer points of friendship from Twilight, but she never really looked back on her actions, asked herself if they were wrong, and, if they were, tried to fix them. The core of her character, achieving her goals by any means necessary, remained unchanged.
Starlight, as written, works fantastically as a redeemed character, but as a critique, not a compliment. "This is what instant forgiveness looks like," her actions say. "Do you like it? Does it make you feel happy, or good at all?" Instant redemption doesn't work; like Sunset showed, redemption's hard. It takes a lot of time and effort, and, as her still-present temper shows, it's never really complete. Starlight tries to redeem herself by saying sorry for her past and closing her eyes to it: Double Diamond here forces them open, forces her to realize that redemption takes more than a click of the hooves and a wave of a magic wand. She still took time away from Double Diamond (which, by the way, nice insight into how much worse the impact was on him) and the others, and no amount of "Sorry"s will change that.
11008616
Problem here. Sunset had no choice but to be around the people she hurt. She had no choice but to face what she was because she had everyone she hurt there to constantly remind her. Most likely if she had a choice she would have gone somewhere else and avoided the whole thing. Not to mention she was forced to by the Rainbow beam.. Starlight had the option to go somewhere else and rebuild who she is. She chose, on her own volition to become a better pony, even though she was winning against Twilight, unlike Sunset, who was forced into it. That's why Starlights redemption always felt better then Sunsets and it felt she earned it more than Sunset.
Choosing to > Having your ass kicked and forced into it by a Rainbow beam because there is more then a little bit of hints that the beam does use brainwashing in the process. ( Cruel. Then blast. Then out of nowhere they regret everything they did and their personality is vastly different. Sorry, don't buy it. Definite brainwashing involved.)
So you can't really compare the two situations because both are entirely different from each other.
11008757
I don’t think Sunset was brainwashed but yeah I prefer the Starlight redemption. I still like Sunset’s though.
11008757
Following that rule, then Discord, the Dazzlings, Tirek, Cozy Glow and Chrysalis were brainwashed into NOT reforming (yes, Discord is technically not evil anymore, but he needed two Rainbow Beams and a bit of Serious Fluttershy for that).
As for the Dazzlings: at least they're not as evil as the first time we saw them, but do they ever regret their past actions? Nope.
And finally, we have the last three villains I mentioned. I think you already know the answer to that.
11008757
You make some good points, especially about Starlight choosing to go with Twilight as opposed to being forced into it. However, I disagree regarding Starlight earning her redemption more than Sunset. Yes, Starlight, like you said, freely chose to surrender to Twilight in her hour of triumph, and she apologizes for her actions, and then she's... instantly accepted again, even by the Our Townites. There's nothing for her to "earn" here; it's simply forgiveness, freely given upon acknowledgement of the wrongdoing. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, and her sins are forgiven.
Sunset, though, like you said was forced to stay near those she hurt, those who hated her, and try to earn their trust back. She was forced to look upon her works, to stare into the ashes of what she'd done, and she did not turn away, she did not run away. She worked to rebuild herself, to rebuild Canterlot High's trust in her, to become better than what her fellows saw her as. "I firmly resolve... to confess my sins, to do my penance, and to amend my life." Sunset worked to prove that she'd changed to her fellows (and the audience), worked to show that she deserved their forgiveness, that she regretted what she'd done and would do it no more. She tore down what she used to be, acknowledged and apologized for the wrongdoings that had gone into it, and built something better in its place.
Starlight received forgiveness; Sunset redeemed herself. As Double Diamond showed, this is an important difference; he's Starlight's Wallflower, a reminder that just saying "my past is not today" without trying to help those you hurt in the past doesn't fix everything. Starlight hurt Double Diamond, and just saying "sorry" doesn't heal those wounds. For Starlight to be truly redeemed, she has to help bind up Double Diamond's wounds, try to make up for what she did in action as well as speech.
Really. This is something that needed to happen from somepony, anypony from the show, but no writer ever did. It’s almost like nobody in the staff could tell any interesting or non-redundant stories with Starlight. Even her becoming the new headmare seems half-assed when you consider what the Mane 6 all achieved by the end. Really she’s such an underwhelming bore of a character.
I'll say this: this may very well be the reason why she wasn't at Big Mac and Sugarbelle's wedding.
This story definitely feels realistic but given the Our Town ponies didn’t seem very affected by Starlight, it’s not exactly something that fits with canon.
This premise definitely would have been a fun episode, a way better one than Every Little Thing She Does, but I’m alright with the redemption we got.
This seems like a total MLP Episode, and it would be one of my favorites if it was! I love this story, because it shows how much Starlight really does care for her villagers and how she never did much with them. I just didn't expect to see Double Diamond in this condition, that was probably the most shocking part of the story for me.