S06E21: Every Little Thing She Does

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Re: S06E21: Every Little Thing She Does

Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:43 pm

Oh, and:

Image As you know, speed spells like Accelero are not easy. But if done correctly, they can allow you to be much more efficient with your day.

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(and I forgot to mark Las Pegasus off last week)
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Postby DerFurShur (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:50 pm

Sweet now Twilight's castle has its own creepy dungeon.
"Why does life have to be so IRONIC?" :milkshake:
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 3:29 pm

DerFurShur wrote:Sweet now Twilight's castle has its own creepy dungeon.

It makes perfect sense. I mean, pretty much any huge castle is required to have a dungeon to match.
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Postby DerFurShur (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 4:37 pm

And hey if Starlight ever did go evil for reals, we have the perfect place to put her.

Unless Twilight has the same taste in garden decor as Celestia.
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Postby Adelor Lyon (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 5:00 pm

DerFurShur wrote:Sweet now Twilight's castle has its own creepy dungeon.

Anyone who's stayed in the basement of my house knows all about spiders. Image
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Postby Niels Olof (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 5:25 pm

DerFurShur wrote:And hey if Starlight ever did go evil for reals, we have the perfect place to put her.

Unless Twilight has the same taste in garden decor as Celestia.


Starlight would make a lovely mantel piece. An added benefit would the marble improvement of her current colour scheme.

But I actually don't think that Starlight is evil. Evil for me signifies a character with a functioning moral compass that deliberately choses to do that which the character knows is wrong or harmful to others. In short, evil requires an moral stance. Starlight does not seem to possess any such internal guidance system – she is amoral – guided only (for now) by what she perceives as Princess Twilight Sparkle's approval. That is worrisome enough, but combined with her incredible power and ruthlessness, as well as her history of enjoying dominating others, she would be a better inpatient somewhere where she could not hurt anypony than as the outpatient she apparently now is.
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 6:09 pm

So, some thoughts.

Sociopath is certainly something you can argue Starlight fits the mold of. Not all sociopaths actively lie, cheat, and steal. It's one of the most complicated diagnoses in psychology because it's such an amorphous thing.

The bit about Starlight's behavior that can be seen as sociopathic is her 'I want to do right, but I literally don't understand what's right/wrong about my actions'. She's self-centered, but it's more lack of knowledge than genuine disregard - so I fully agree there is no malice in the vast majority of her actions. Rather, she's operating off a sort of odd Vulcan-style logic of 'Here is problem, here is hammer, hit problem with hammer' and then confused when that doesn't fix things.

In other words, she doesn't yet get the subtle nuances of pony on pony interaction. Everything to her is more like a math problem that should have an optimally defined answer; in some ways that is also why she is so good at magic, because it flows completely logically. (Which also makes her failing in this episode somewhat more funny, because it should have become obvious to her sooner she was dealing with the Incompetent Genie problem with her friends)

Actually in that regard, the Mane 5 became somewhat shallow facades of her - hearing things literally and completely missing the intent behind the statement. They're a foil to Starlight; her own actions brought to their most basic root.

The key question that really remains with her is 'Can she even learn this'; I believe so, because it did look like in Trixie's case she genuinely was forming a friendship there. Ditto with Sunburst in the end. And with Thorax, because she lacked the prejudice the others had against Changelings, it was much easier for Starlight to come around - notice in the song she's the one whose really on board with 'Yea, he seems fine' early on.

What makes her issues with the Mane 5 then? It's her lack of understanding in part, but the other is that a lot is being forced on her - these are Twilight's friends, not hers. Starlight and the Mane 5 don't really have bonds. It's not just a failing of Starlight here, but also of Twilight for failing to recognize it - we're seeing elements of clueless season 1 Twilight. 'Well, they're my friends, they can be your friends too!' without Twilight ever really asking 'Hey, uhm, do you even want this? Can you see what I see in them at all?' Twilight is, at this point, a pretty cruddy teacher in this and all the episodes focused on it are showing that - part of why Starlight is struggling so hard is Twilight keeps giving her 'Okay, do Y' and forgetting Starlight doesn't know the A, B, and C that lead to Y.

In that regard, I would argue sociopath is a misdiagnosis for Starlight - she has the capacity for empathy, but its being overrided by her own discomfort and feelings of being a fish out of water. She's being forced into social situations she has no idea how to handle and her behavior is thus deteriorating into her most basic reactions on how to get through it all.

Starlight's problem isn't sociopathy, it's that so much of her life has lacked basic pony on pony interaction and so she has no idea how to navigate the world of silent language that everypony else is flowing through - and Twilight, the one character who should be best able to know what that is like has thusfar failed to recognize it, demonstrating that Twilight still has the same issue (Albeit to a lesser degree).

At the same time, I don't think it's going to be beneficial to say 'Hey, lets not even bring the idea of sociopathy up' because like, that's sort of a valid thing to discuss, and there is a credible argument to be made on how her actions fit that mold.
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Postby Octavia (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 6:16 pm

Finally got around to watching the episode. I love Rarity's hangover outfit. :gotcha:
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Postby Bremen (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 6:24 pm

Diagnosing mental disorders on the internet is always a tricky thing, I admit.

My understanding is that sociopaths are often hard to detect because they're very good at faking it; they know exactly what other people consider acceptable, and can pretend to fit that mold, they just don't care if they're hurting people. Starlight seems to have the opposite problem; she does care about whether she's doing the right thing, and she doesn't like hurting ponies, but she doesn't know what others would consider acceptable.

Somewhere I saw a post, and I wish I could find it now, that said something similar sometimes pops up in people who were exposed to extreme childhood trauma and have a warped sense of right and wrong. That they really do care about others, and try to do the right thing, but without someone around to show them what that right thing is they often end up hurting people they want to help. Of course, until I can find out where I saw that, it's very much in the category of "things I heard on the internet." It sounds reasonable, though, and is probably a closer match to what's up with Starlight than sociopathy, which would imply she doesn't care about hurting others.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 6:32 pm

Octavia wrote:Finally got around to watching the episode. I love Rarity's hangover outfit. :gotcha:

And even then her hair is still flawless. :vogue:
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Postby Niels Olof (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 6:37 pm

The foisting upon by Princess Twilight Sparkle goes both ways – Starlight has no reason to see Twilight's friends as her own, and they, her abused victims, have little incentive to regard her as theirs, save that she is a dear friend of theirs' latest pet project.

People may adopt vicious strays out of the goodness of their hearts, but they should neither expect nor require their own forbearance matched by their circle of friends.

She deliberately used mind control on innocents. That is a terrible thing to do, and while Twilight Sparkle also has erred in this fashion, she at least had the sense to quickly realise how badly she had screwed up, if not the ability to fix it.
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Postby Adelor Lyon (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 6:47 pm

Fizzbuzz wrote:And even then her hair is still flawless. :vogue:

Priorities, darling! :wink:
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Postby Mechanical Ape (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 7:20 pm

I hesitate to say full-on sociopathy, because that kinda implies Starlight can never truly get better and I don't think that's true, but I do think Dexanth hits the mark with how her mind works and, like Discord, it's not that empathy isn't there but more that it gets drowned out by other considerations. And yeah, it really doesn't help matters that her teacher is Princess Checklist, or that this week she was encouraged to view the Mane Five as assignments, not friends.

But her friendship with Trixie was perfectly organic and natural, which tells me that Starlight will probably do just fine once she has more friends of her own, in whose friendship and feelings she has a personal stake, and with whom she can just, you know, chillax without having the moment diluted because it's partly a Learning Experience. Which is a long way of saying, Trixie come back soon. :smug:

Twilight had an advantage in that she saved Equestria like a day after making her friends, with a big magical epiphany and everything. It's been a slower process for Starlight. She's spent the whole season basically in the place that Twilight was for 90% of the pilot: she gets, cerebrally, that friendship is important but hasn't had that bone-deep moment of understanding yet. I expect she'll have her moment sometime in the future, and when she does it will be with her own chosen friend(s) and not ones borrowed from Twilight.
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Postby Soft Snow (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 11:02 pm

All these posts are to long...
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Did read.
:fluttersmirk:

My thoughts reflects that of everyone else, but it has some mean words in it, so I'll hide it and you can read it if you really want too.
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I think I finally get the difference between Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer.

For a while I figured they were both basically "Evil unicorns who paralleled Twilight and showed what might've happened to her without Friendship, and now they're learning" with only pretty superficial differences in their characterization, but this latest episode clarified what's unique about Glimmer and the different arc she's on.

Glimmer's a sociopath.

Sunset Shimmer went down a bad road, but as she later told human Twilight during their fight, all the power she was after was a way to fill a sense of loneliness. What she really wanted was friendship and acceptance from the outset, and her turn as a Mean Girl was a negative reaction to not feeling that from Celestia or others. That's why she broke down, why Twilight as able to help her, and why she was eventually able to be accepted - the good Shimmer was pretty much always there under a tough front.

With Glimmer, there's none of that. Glimmer's core is more amoral. The big incident that set her off was someone being taken from her, but the way she talks about it and parses it was how unfair it was for her that she not get what she wants. Her solution was if Cutie Marks had wronged her, they needed to go, and if anyone got in her way they needed to go too. When Twilight foiled her, she became her new obsession, all filtered through an amoral worldview that sees social interactions as a zero-sum set of how things relate to her personally.

The new episode reinforced and clarified this. Even with all of Twilight's teaching so far, Glimmer only wants to game the Friendship Lessons so she can maximize her success. She's not actually absorbing what it means to be a friend, and even that last laugh line was a hint that she just wants to relax to finish the lesson, she's not actually relaxing. Twilight is misreading her issues as being like hers, when they actually run deeper.
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 11:21 pm

The thing that's weirdest for me about all this is that it seems like the writers are operating simultaneously on two different levels, one where they're doing some really intricate and nuanced character development, and another where they're kinda just slapping things together by accident.

It's the former level where they're building up Starlight Glimmer in a really remarkably consistent way, and consistently different from both Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle that we can break down the three of them into distinct flavors of "misfit" that are all quite superficially similar and yet if you dig down below the surface each character is extraordinarily internally consistent with the archetype they've assigned her. Twilight doesn't show signs of Starlight's amorality, nor Sunset's power-hunger. They're all differently conceived, and the writers continue to execute those carefully designed conceptions in a consistent way for each character, when it would be really easy for someone to just write Starlight as a retread of Twilight, and have her be simply awkward and inexperienced instead of amoral. It's like they've got a very detailed writer's bible for these characters that they're following to the letter, whether it was a good idea to bring them into the show or not.

And it's the latter level where they named those characters Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer to begin with. Like, what did they think they were pulling off with that? Are they ever planning on those Twilight-clone names paying off in any way? Even just with a teeny joke lampshading it?
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Postby Aramek (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 11:41 pm

Headless Horse wrote:And it's the latter level where they named those characters Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer to begin with. Like, what did they think they were pulling off with that? Are they ever planning on those Twilight-clone names paying off in any way? Even just with a teeny joke lampshading it?

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Postby The Doctor (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 12:46 am

Headless Horse wrote:And it's the latter level where they named those characters Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer to begin with. Like, what did they think they were pulling off with that? Are they ever planning on those Twilight-clone names paying off in any way? Even just with a teeny joke lampshading it?


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Postby Aramek (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 12:49 am

I dunno, man. Not only is Starlight way more powerful, she's less mopey. Sunset feels all ashamed and embarrassed and unsure of herself. Starlight doesn't have room for doubt, she's too busy accomplishing things, whereas Sunset is spending so much time trying to fit in.
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Your MRI results have shown total infection to now be approximately one fifth of the full mass of the tissue.

"So you're saying..."

Your brain is about 20% tumor.
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Postby DerFurShur (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 1:21 am

Aramek wrote:I dunno, man. Not only is Starlight way more powerful, she's less mopey. Sunset feels all ashamed and embarrassed and unsure of herself. Starlight doesn't have room for doubt, she's too busy accomplishing things, whereas Sunset is spending so much time trying to fit in.


Yeah this is like the exact opposite of who she is in EQG4.

Sunset is now pretty much out of "reformed villain trying to find her way in the world" and is now firmly in "keeps everyone in line" role
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Postby Aramek (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 1:35 am

Oh, groovy, looking forward to seeing that.
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Your MRI results have shown total infection to now be approximately one fifth of the full mass of the tissue.

"So you're saying..."

Your brain is about 20% tumor.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 1:44 am

Aramek wrote:I dunno, man. Not only is Starlight way more powerful, she's less mopey. Sunset feels all ashamed and embarrassed and unsure of herself. Starlight doesn't have room for doubt, she's too busy accomplishing things, whereas Sunset is spending so much time trying to fit in.


Because Sunset is actually trying to be friends with others. She doesn't see it as a chore, and doesn't have a "what can they do for ME?" attitude.
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Postby Angel Beat (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 1:45 am

She's the best team mom. :3:
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Postby Aramek (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 1:59 am

The Doctor wrote:
Because Sunset is actually trying to be friends with others. She doesn't see it as a chore, and doesn't have a "what can they do for ME?" attitude.

Yeah, you're not wrong, but, like, I get so much of that IRL and in the show already, so Starlight is an absolute breath of fresh air because of how great and different she is. She's so magic and powerful and confident without all that sappy stuff.

Like other than the famous "QUIET!", straight up the end of s5e2:



"Spare me!"

And that's why I love the character so much. She's gone so long without the magic of friendship, she's developed her power without it. She, for lack of a better term, stands on her own.
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Your MRI results have shown total infection to now be approximately one fifth of the full mass of the tissue.

"So you're saying..."

Your brain is about 20% tumor.
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 4:24 am

Image Image Image Image Image Image

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Postby The Ghost Of Ember (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 4:39 am

I watched this episode and it wasn't bad. Magical mind control doesn't bother me because there's nothing equivalent to it in reality.

I still don't forgive the series for whitewashing actual brainwashing and oppressive authoritarianism in season 5.

If there's a central flaw to how Glimmer is charactized post villiany, its that if she were really an amoral sociopath she shouldn't care about impressing Twilight, but she does, but she also keeps acting in an amoral sociopathic manner. The writers want to have their cake and eat it too. Glimmer the Twilight Sycophant has no relation to Glimmer the ruthless dictator.
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Postby UnintelGen (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 5:33 am

The Doctor wrote:
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I will... never understand this attitude. Like, ever. Look, I'll be upfront, the original Equestria Girls is trash (In my opinion) and and I will never have interest in the sequels or anything, and while I've gleaned over info naturally by pop-culture osmosis, I will NEVER have a full picture of the works I'm about to criticize. I understand that. I hope you respect that. But I will never believe that picture.

I have two critical issues concerning the whole Sunset v. Starlight-thing, and it's obvious the two are directly comparable and open to criticism for this fact alone. While I'm mostly going to be covering their introductions into their properties proper (e.g., the first movie and S6-premire and maybe finale), I am going to try a broad overview of the two characters as a whole. I am mostly going to be critical of Sunset, but I do not intend to downplay that Starlight has faults in terms of writing. I am just hoping you can see where I am coming from.

This is going to be embarrassingly long, I'm warning you.
PROBLEM #1:
OK, my first issue with Sunset is the events of EqG1. As in, her plot as the antagonist and how it was resolved and (to some degree) how it moved forward. Obviously the character CAN become better and the premise CAN improve later on down the road, but this is a rocky start to say the least. Within the first ten minutes we run into a major hole in her evil plot- Here's the short version of the script: She somehow knows when the mirror portal opens, she somehow knows where it is at the time she enters, she somehow knows who Twilight is, that she has the Elements, which when she was in Equestria at the time they were considered a myth at best, SOMEHOW knows the interior of the Crystal Empire's castle (Which she wouldn't know that it exists), somehow brings a cloak with her even though no one knows who she is at this point (The cloak is obvs the most egregious example so far) and takes the one element for ... Some reason? Oh, yeah, the Element, which she wouldn't have knowledge of it existing or being brought back if she did. So yeah, she has it now, and apparently it just does whateverthehell you want it to do in Humanworld. Even though the whole point of them is to buy collect them all and then they do shit.
So, from a writing/lore consistency level- We're fucked. But wait! It gets worse.
So now she has it... But loses it somehow? Like most things that happen in EqG, we're told something happened, but never given reason for it happening other than 'the plot'.
So, from that perspective, all of which is supported by narrative, just not as negative sounding, Sunset seems pretty smart, right? Wrong. Sunset has the superpower of being able to read the script ahead of time and check Wikia articles (Guess a world with computers/Internet is OP) and without this power a fraction of a fraction of plan wouldn't be possible- Even disregarding the stupid stuff like 'element does what want' stuff.

Compare this to Starlight's introduction: Starlight grew up (At the time we didn't know how, but irrelevant) and either founded or took over a remote village (I'm betting former based on it's location, but dialogue between seasons muddies it) where she had her cult. Her community outwardly is slightly off and unnerving, but initially benign. Tsparks and crew descend upon town. Once greeted Starlight notes the significance of Twilight's alicorn status, but doesn't know anything about her because of their gated off community. Even if she wasn't an alicorn, Starlight still would've probably forced the whole thing, but being an alicorn clearly prioritizes things because in her eyes it legitimizes her operation which would allow it to spread world wide/and or be accepted. So she has her No. 2 discreetly spy on the mane 6, which they are privy to her spying because they are not idiots. (More on 'idiots' later)

That's their starts respectively from their point of view. Notice something? There's internal consistency in Starlight's version while Sunset's is doing everything it's power to justify her just existing, with plenty of really obvious holes.

But also notice that I didn't question that the mirror exists, or that the human world exists, or the Equal Mark spell, or the cult like behaviors? You can have unrealistic or contrary things in your story, but there needs to be some consistency to how these elements are introduced. And pretty big elements like the, well, Element doing shit needs a lot more explaining other than, "Guess you don't know what I know?"

OK, so what, the story sucks, it's the character you like I guess? I have to come back to that in problem #2 but suffice to say that High School bully and cliques... Don't really appeal to me. If Starlight is too far in her "evil" then Sunset's the opposite. Which is worse. Oh, and that High School bully didn't used to be a bully, but it just happened over time. Which is all the explanation you'll get! (Admittedly this could be a case of good showing and not telling... But the entire movie surrounding it kinda doesn't work. And it's displayed so prominently in the brief scene it was in that I'm honestly a little insulted)

OK, so, Sunset wants to be "evil" and get the Element back. After what could bravely be called this series' most ambitious fight scene she gets the thing and activates her demon powers. Cool. Then for SOME reason the Power of ~Freeeeiiinnnnnnnnnndddssss~ happens and her weird and completely unusable army of stoned teenagers comes undone. And we know she's sorry for it because she was crying.
This is how she changed. Magic beam, no more bad guy. Hmm, using your power to override someone else's mental faculties and reprogram them... That sounds... wrong, for some reason? I can't pin-point why, though. Oh well.

Alright. Starlight, your turn. ...Actually Starlight's is a lot more detailed because of the extended amount of time it takes to get there... So I am going to gloss over it a bit. I'm writing too much, dammit, over an image macro. So now I am going to explain how their 'crossing' events changes them.

[Here's where I'm going off the rails a bit- I have not seen the sequels so if anything is actually wrong here, correct me please. But do it in sarcastic text pls to match my writing]
Simply put, Sunset's character isn't changed. It's reset. There is literally nothing about post-reformation Sunset that exists in pre-reformation Sunset and vice-versa. She's been brainwashed to do friendship's bidding. And instead of seeking new friends, which most of the school hates her but also doesn't know why, she lapses to the only characters that remotely exist, Twilight's friends. Even if she can properly pay attention, I still don't understand how she makes such connections between Twilight and Twilight's friends and how they are actually significant- Other than marketing and playing it safe. (more on that later)
From here we've just got a villain who literally exists to make the idiots of Humanworld even stupider, and making Alt-Twi a villain and also there may be some anti-intellectual messages in there, I dunno? Learning and wanting to learn makes her evil, cool. (I am mostly joking I realize it's not staged that way)

But what does Sunset do? Is literally the straight woman to the eccentricities of the idiot alt-universe Twi-friends, day-saver, and occasionally remembers she's sad about stuff like not being in Equestria and did bad things, and she's sad guys, see? So empathetic and likeable.

Now, I'm not going to get that technical about Starlight but the main thing that I want to highlight is that she doesn't change. She has to be convinced, and that convincing was portrayed in a way with enough depth that it generally works. It took time, and it took effort. But after she abandoned her revengance, did she, actually change? She did. But she didn't. She's still the same pony. As in, she's still the same pony. With all the complex issues that follow her, that suddenly don't disappear unless it's convenient. If Sunset's struggle is mostly an outer one because people hate her (For things they don't know about), then Starlight's is an inner struggle about understanding things she seems incapable of understanding on a fundamental level. Her personal struggle is waaaay more compelling, and it's a unique struggle that I can't think of a piece of media that's attempted what they're attempting with her. Even if it it's rough around the edges, I personally find it to be a compelling aspect of the show that I didn't think in a million years they would do. It's bizarrely logical (And admittedly unwise, as Headless said) for the show about Friendship to do- But hey, no going back now.
--------------------

I had other things I wanted to write here, but I'm starting beat a dead bush that's been thoroughly kicked for several years now, so:

PROBLEM #2:
My second problem is one is why people like Sunset, and the worlds Starlight and Sunset fit into. We already know Starlight's world, so, for brevity, glossing it over. Sunset's the real attraction here. I will give two things to Sunset upfront. She's got a cooler design (That goes mostly unused) and her name sucks less- Kinda just for being first. I know, a little back handed, but still, I do genuinely mean it.
As I said, consistency in Humanworld and Sunset's knowledge aren't particularly great. She just kind of knows things, and Humanworld operates as parallel Equestria is laughable- but there's more to it than that.
Here's the thing, outside of Humanworld, Sunset (And, if you count it, Flash) is the only thing introduced in the first movie, and there are a lot of particular oddities into how these elements (of Humanworld) are doled out.
OK, so, there's this thing in the show bible, I guess, in how certain communities are consistently treated and shown. Like, the Unicorns of Canterlot are snooty and trend-following. Or how Cloudsdale is predominantly pegasi and Manehattan is predominantly Earth ponies. That sort of thing. Well, if Unicorns are snooty, then humans are idiots. The only two non-human characters, Twilight and Sunset, are the only ones with actual agency and even they aren't that immune (mostly Twilight, who is understandable given the situation). So, in addition to shrinking the world massively by arbitrarily forcing every-fucking-thing to the school they've also shrunken the brains every character in the tri-state area.
This isn't just to the background characters, who are different shades of wood, but to the main-replacement cast. Is there anything to Rainbow Dash other than soccer football and saying "Awesome"? Is there more to Rarity than fashion? Does Pinkie Pie just exist to give lolrandum jokes and far more excessive forth wall breaks than she EVER did on the show? In this universe, no, no, and yes respectively. By condensing and removing complicated aspects like "personality" and "depth" we can focus on Sunset exclusively to an extent... Outside of horse humor courtesy to current horse Twilight Sparkle. (Legit redeeming aspect of movie and probably gone in sequels)
But... What is there to Sunset Shimmer, besides being former-horse taking Chem 102? Can you name even one thing? I thought not. (OK, Dr. Breen quote)
But, no, seriously, I can not name a single aspect about her than bully, and former bully.
My main problem with this, disregarding Sunset's lack of character, is that the only reason people like her is because she's standing on the shoulders of cardboard not-so-giant giants. The world literally bends to her whim to have a plot and the worst she can come up with is YouTube slander (Even though nobody likes her and is probably not subscribed) and the almost worked IRL photoshop. This is the best she's got?
OK, so, she got better in the later movies, I guess? Maybe? Again, having not seen but heard them, I'm making some leaps. But one thing I do notice is that while the first movie is entirely bland, seriously, no one is going to defend that, the later movies (particularly Rainbow Rocks) seem to amp things up a bit. And by that they make them wackier and more absurd and genre-ish-ing. I had a better way of describing it, but I want to say they tried to give it a distinct and different personality? I can appreciate that, even though I feel it undermines things. Like, I know the 2nd one is like Scott Pilgrim, and the 4th is apparently Scooby-Doo-ish? What I'm saying is that they did try to add some energy to things, to help balance out all the terrible shit I've just described and most of which is probably still in the movies. I can appreciate that. I just don't like it.
The larger point I am trying to make here is a simple one. They took the easy way out. Rather than a complex and interesting character amidst other interesting characters, they made a shallow character propped against 40 to 50 pieces of cardboard to give the illusion of depth. Oh, hey, she regrets something she did and feels bad about it. Character depth FTW! And when that doesn't work they simply exaggerate and stretch and start taking member berries ('Member Scott Pilgrim? I 'member). Look, pony's done genre too, but shit, it didn't rely on it.


This is what I love about Starlight. She's compelling, not easy. She doesn't do obvious things, she's alien in her interactions with most anyone. She's hard to understand and has a lot of facets about more than "is crazy" or "was evil". You might not see it, I do. Much as I don't see what others see in Sunset. Actually explaining what's wrong with Starlight would be an incredibly dense (Star Wars Dense quote here) essay that I cannot describe fully... And I have tried. They've made a character that's trying, but hard to sympathise with.

OK, to put it another way... Sunset is an American Blockbuster making bank after it gets released in China where as Starlight is an awkward, possibly badly acted European indie film that gained a cult following after the director uploaded the movie to Vimeo for exposure. A smaller group of people get something more out of the latter (Even if half of it is probably in their own heads) than the larger amount of people enjoying the former.


...Does that make sense? No, seriously, it sounded better in my head. I think I'm starting to lose the plot here.
----------------------------------

I've lost an irreplaceable amount time trying to figure out how to say this. I hope I've communicated my point without being too rude.(This has nothing to do with the episode at hand but I am unsure where else this would go so... uh. Loved the ep! It was funny. And things.)

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Because Sunset is actually trying to be friends with others. She doesn't see it as a chore, and doesn't have a "what can they do for ME?" attitude.


Just going to point out the ironic nature of not being empathetic to someone who has shown excessive difficulties being empathetic.

The Ghost Of Ember wrote:If there's a central flaw to how Glimmer is charactized post villiany, its that if she were really an amoral sociopath she shouldn't care about impressing Twilight, but she does, but she also keeps acting in an amoral sociopathic manner. The writers want to have their cake and eat it too. Glimmer the Twilight Sycophant has no relation to Glimmer the ruthless dictator.


I will give you this... That is a damn good point even if I don't fully agree with it, but do understand it fully. It's... Something I hadn't thought of, to be honest.
But I will say this, characters are not fully arbitrary defined by their character traits. OK, Starlight's sociopathic. When a person who is sociopathic wants help or was finally convinced of their wrongness, do they suddenly stop being sociopathic? I'm not a doctor, but I have to imagine that mental health is a bit more complicated than an on/off switch. Which is part of my complaint accompanied in the above rant.
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Postby Captain Rufus (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 5:44 am

Remember folks this is primarily a show for little kids.

Y'all might be overthinking it. By a metric buttload. Smoke a blunt/have some hot cocoa with marshmallows, and step back a bit.
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 5:50 am

Bremen wrote:Diagnosing mental disorders on the internet is always a tricky thing, I admit.

My understanding is that sociopaths are often hard to detect because they're very good at faking it; they know exactly what other people consider acceptable, and can pretend to fit that mold, they just don't care if they're hurting people. Starlight seems to have the opposite problem; she does care about whether she's doing the right thing, and she doesn't like hurting ponies, but she doesn't know what others would consider acceptable.

Somewhere I saw a post, and I wish I could find it now, that said something similar sometimes pops up in people who were exposed to extreme childhood trauma and have a warped sense of right and wrong. That they really do care about others, and try to do the right thing, but without someone around to show them what that right thing is they often end up hurting people they want to help. Of course, until I can find out where I saw that, it's very much in the category of "things I heard on the internet." It sounds reasonable, though, and is probably a closer match to what's up with Starlight than sociopathy, which would imply she doesn't care about hurting others.


It's a very murky subject. Generally speaking, the really bad ones - aka the ones that end up in prison for say, multiple homicides - tend to test low on intelligence tests.

Basically, the takeaway I got from it was that sociopathy interacts heavily with intelligence; a smarter sociopath, while they lack empathy, becomes better able to read/manipulate people because they are smart enough to learn to interpret others emotions.

I guess, for me, Starlight hits somewhat close to home because I get her; I had enough years of shutting down internally and being socially maladjusted that, honestly, it wasn't really till Ponies that I began breaking free of that shell.

The thing is, even then? It's still there. I have to police myself constantly to avoid falling into the state where...it's complicated.

Like, I guess when I think of it myself, it's like there's a part of me that's operating under a constant analytical analysis of everyone I meet - watching and weighing them, forming judgements and executing small test inputs to get a better understanding of how someone ticks.

And then it becomes a balance of light and shadow; the shade whispers 'Okay, now you can make them dance to your fiddle', while the light says 'You understand them now; use this to help them blossom'. It's manipulation versus empathy at heart, and I constantly agonize over that internal dilemma.

And to me, Starlight is someone whose also making that journey, which is why I like her - right now she's at the stage still where she simply doesn't get interactions, which in some ways is its own comfort because you aren't yet aware. But when she's come from that place of shutting herself down and making the world about her superficial needs? At some point - well, if this were a show that delved that deep - I think she's going to hit the point where she goes from 'I don't understand' to 'I understand, but how do I not mess up?'

And yea, there's some projection there - but it's why I disagree with the sociopath label. I can see myself in Starlight, and in the phase she is at now, it wasn't that I wanted to hurt anybody, it was that I simply didn't know enough yet; that much of it was automatic, defensive, trying to keep myself safe because the wounds still felt fresh and above all else I didn't want to get hurt again.

It's a long journey to get out of that. She's still early on it - and one of the problems is that Starlight is extremely capable for a pony, which makes it harder, because she can unconsciously bluff her way out of stuff. Oh, sure, on the show we see it dumbed down a bit so it's more transparent for the audience - but one of the best gifts I ever received was meeting someone who wanted to help me who could cut through my defensive bullshit and force me to keep struggling to move forward. I will be always grateful to her for that.

With Glimmer, there's none of that. Glimmer's core is more amoral. The big incident that set her off was someone being taken from her, but the way she talks about it and parses it was how unfair it was for her that she not get what she wants. Her solution was if Cutie Marks had wronged her, they needed to go, and if anyone got in her way they needed to go too. When Twilight foiled her, she became her new obsession, all filtered through an amoral worldview that sees social interactions as a zero-sum set of how things relate to her personally.

The new episode reinforced and clarified this. Even with all of Twilight's teaching so far, Glimmer only wants to game the Friendship Lessons so she can maximize her success. She's not actually absorbing what it means to be a friend, and even that last laugh line was a hint that she just wants to relax to finish the lesson, she's not actually relaxing. Twilight is misreading her issues as being like hers, when they actually run deeper.


Following off the above - yea, she wants to game it. But it's not sociopathy; it's because it's the only thing she /knows/. It's the framework she can relate to the world in still; it's known. To her, 'Pass Lessons = Success'; to me, it was 'Get through school, graduate college', and in each case, afterwards, well, step 3? It's '????'. I didn't go to school to learn - I went because it was expected of me. I squandered much of it because I was going through the motions without understanding the deeper value there, and Starlight I would contend is in the same place.

Yea - she still doesn't really get it. But something like this? It's not a short journey.

Twilight took multiple seasons to go there - and we see (Think Amending Fences) that she still is stumbling. Luna stumbles constantly. Discord struggles; his dilemma, for example, is he is still a child in many ways, and like a child still doesn't fully understand that part of being an adult is genuine feeling for others. He's starting to get there, but if you look at his journey - it's one of growing up.

Friendship is magic, really, has four characters who are showcasing different journeys towards a place of emotional maturity and healthy relationships.

With Discord, it is that of child to adult - blind selfishness becoming an understanding that the world is bigger than only you.

With Luna, it is the journey of forgiveness - someone who has done wrong, and though the world is ready to forgive, she does not know how to move past her own past sinsmisdeeds.

Twilight? She's the eternal student - for her, she simply didn't understand why this mattered, and hers is the journey of self-discovery. She missed the forest for the trees, and when she finally began to understand the greater picture, she blossomed - but that old weakness is still there, from time to time.

And Starlight? Starlight is the wounded animal. Her genesis, as we see, is the loss of Sunburst. She suffered a trauma, and never moved past it - her whole life was bound up in trying to avoid being hurt again. It was only recently she was finally forced to confront that hurt, to identify it, to dredge forth something she had buried as deeply as possible.

But a hurt like that doesn't heal overnight, and it had a very long time to worm its roots through her. We've only seen the beginnings of her journey, and while I expect the finale will be the end of one phase, her path as a pony has a long way to trot.
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 5:51 am

Captain Rufus wrote:Remember folks this is primarily a show for little kids.

Y'all might be overthinking it. By a metric buttload. Smoke a blunt/have some hot cocoa with marshmallows, and step back a bit.


But if I can't perform DEEP ANALYSIS :twonk: on my children's cartoon, what do I have left in life? :-I
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Postby The Ghost Of Ember (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 6:00 am

Captain Rufus wrote:Remember folks this is primarily a show for little kids.

Y'all might be overthinking it. By a metric buttload. Smoke a blunt/have some hot cocoa with marshmallows, and step back a bit.

When a kids show makes the argument that Jim Jones just really needed friendship it deserves, no, demands to be viewed in a critical light, because we're teaching this crap to children.
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Postby Discord (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 6:00 am

Captain Rufus wrote:Remember folks this is primarily a show for little kids.

Y'all might be overthinking it. By a metric buttload. Smoke a blunt/have some hot cocoa with marshmallows, and step back a bit.


Hey, I've aced university essays with pony analysis, it's totally a good and cool thing to do(tm). :twiright:

Personally, I really enjoyed this episode and find Starlight Glimmer a compelling terrible person. Also, I might argue the robust and superb discussion on this one is indicative of this episode being good, thought-provoking stuff.
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Postby Highbrow Dash (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 6:07 am

Captain Rufus wrote:Remember folks this is primarily a show for little kids.

Y'all might be overthinking it. By a metric buttload. Smoke a blunt/have some hot cocoa with marshmallows, and step back a bit.


Totally, but she can still be poorly written for a children's cartoon :twiright:

I'm gonna wait till the finale before I make up my mind though. I think they can handle this right, but they might just ignore it ever happened, make her sing a friendship song and be done with it :v:
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 6:19 am

The Ghost Of Ember wrote:When a kids show makes the argument that Jim Jones just really needed friendship it deserves, no, demands to be viewed in a critical light, because we're teaching this crap to children.


If there's a message to be taken away from that Starlight saga, it's that having friends will enrich your life and make you a better, more balanced person. I doubt too many children are going to walk away from it as apologists for real-world (i.e. non-magical equine) cult leaders.

Captain Rufus wrote:Remember folks this is primarily a show for little kids.

Y'all might be overthinking it. By a metric buttload. Smoke a blunt/have some hot cocoa with marshmallows, and step back a bit.


Why not both? We can overthink ponies now and do the weed/cocoa later.
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Postby Highbrow Dash (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 6:35 am

What I take from it is that ponies are super forgiving and understanding, far beyond what's reasonable.

The Ghost Of Ember wrote:When a kids show makes the argument that Jim Jones just really needed friendship it deserves, no, demands to be viewed in a critical light, because we're teaching this crap to children.


The fact that they're doing this stuff actually means they're not just ignoring what she did. It would have been easier to handwave that, instantly reform her and turn her into s1 Twilight. That appeared to be the plan at the end of last season and the start of this one, but instead they're acknowledging the elephant in the room and that's a good thing.

That's not to say they're doing it the right way, but at least they seem to realize they can't just Sunset Shimmer her since what she did is fucked up in a whole different level.
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Postby Niels Olof (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 7:32 am

Soft Snow wrote:I think I finally get the difference between Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer.

For a while I figured they were both basically "Evil unicorns who paralleled Twilight and showed what might've happened to her without Friendship, and now they're learning" with only pretty superficial differences in their characterization, but this latest episode clarified what's unique about Glimmer and the different arc she's on.

Glimmer's a sociopath.

Sunset Shimmer went down a bad road, but as she later told human Twilight during their fight, all the power she was after was a way to fill a sense of loneliness. What she really wanted was friendship and acceptance from the outset, and her turn as a Mean Girl was a negative reaction to not feeling that from Celestia or others. That's why she broke down, why Twilight as able to help her, and why she was eventually able to be accepted - the good Shimmer was pretty much always there under a tough front.

With Glimmer, there's none of that. Glimmer's core is more amoral. The big incident that set her off was someone being taken from her, but the way she talks about it and parses it was how unfair it was for her that she not get what she wants. Her solution was if Cutie Marks had wronged her, they needed to go, and if anyone got in her way they needed to go too. When Twilight foiled her, she became her new obsession, all filtered through an amoral worldview that sees social interactions as a zero-sum set of how things relate to her personally.

The new episode reinforced and clarified this. Even with all of Twilight's teaching so far, Glimmer only wants to game the Friendship Lessons so she can maximize her success. She's not actually absorbing what it means to be a friend, and even that last laugh line was a hint that she just wants to relax to finish the lesson, she's not actually relaxing. Twilight is misreading her issues as being like hers, when they actually run deeper.


This board needs a favourite button, because that was well put. QFT (Quoted for Truth).

Starlight might well be on a journey of self-discovery (it certainly seems the intention of the writers, if not the effect), but I'm having a real hard time accepting the hurt she inflicts on others in the process. Princess Twilight Sparkle's friends have now twice been forcibly mind controlled by her. Gilda did far, far less back in the day, and had to wait several seasons before redemption, whereas this one seems to be on the narrative fast track to fame and fortune.

She hasn't even had to work on a rock farm. A rock farm!
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Postby DerFurShur (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 10:13 am

They can't just Sunset Shimmer her because they don't have any of the Elements any longer, and apparently they can only go Rainbow Power in Luna's dreams.

So hey Luna if you've ever wanted to relapse for a day, now might be fair game.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 11:48 am

I would also hope that Twilight and the others would do their best to change Starlight through feelings and socialization instead of just zapping her with something or other. Which, y'know, is kind of what Starlight did to them!
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Postby Highbrow Dash (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 11:58 am

DerFurShur wrote:They can't just Sunset Shimmer her because they don't have any of the Elements any longer, and apparently they can only go Rainbow Power in Luna's dreams.


:-I I meant she can't just become 100% reformed and good for no real reason, only cause they're friendly to her. Which Sunset Shimmer (as good as her character is) totally did.
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Postby DerFurShur (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 12:13 pm

Well unlike Starlight, Sunset was completely defeated and really left with no other option other than that accept Twilight beat her because of *friendship magic*. So her being super eager to get forgiven makes sense, and Sunset has had bursts of her old anger come out, she's just never relapsed like Discord did.
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Postby Aramek (?) » Mon Sep 26, 2016 12:58 pm

You're all acting like her enslaving that village wasn't also magic? Like, her removing the cutie marks made them all boring and easy to boss around, like some sort of "stat penalty" debuff that she put on the whole town, making them weaker overall and thus easier to suggestion.

For these five, she didn't weaken them, so she needed extra magic to make the suggestion work, so it was fully a Will Defense debuff. All magic all the time in both occasions.
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