S06E21: Every Little Thing She Does

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Re: S06E21: Every Little Thing She Does

Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:15 am

Headless Horse wrote:
The way they're playing her I almost wonder whether they're actually going for an angle of the "friendship lessons" being meant to be read as a form of therapy. Most of Starlight's episodes, but this one in particular, paint her not just as a clueless weirdo with a traumatic thing that happened in her past, but as someone with some severe untreated mental scarring. In this episode she's a straight-up sociopath, in the "I don't understand why controlling others is wrong" and "I don't understand why you would want to do things with or for other people, rather than for your own self-interest" sense.

*Snipped*


I don't feel I want to address any specific part of this, but very interesting post as always.

SlateSlabrock wrote:
I think the dilemma is that Starlight is ultimately a supervillain. She's redeemed because it's necessary for the safety of Equestria, just like Discord or Nightmare Moon. Trixie was "redeemed" by taking away her magic "I win" button, and she's technically good now, but we didn't really get any clear indication of that until the end of her episode this season.

But Starlight just sort of switches sides because she sees the outcome of her actions is so blindingly terrible even she realizes it's self-defeating. And this season, it's been very clear she doesn't understand friendship or others' feelings or even why she would want companionship at all. I'm surprised she was so broken up over Sunburst because it's the only time she's wanted another pony around just for companionship's sake... or did she just feel insulted that he might have spurned her?

Anyway, Starlight is clearly as powerful as Twilight in a fight, which is a problem for the show if she isn't "good," and they've ignored that all season. This episode proves that she still needs to be handled like Discord -- a potential problem, but one you can't solve without forcing her into friendship situations so she can gradually understand the basic social graces she's missing.


I don't know how much support I have in this stance, but I've never thought of Starlight as a villain in traditional sense. She's more messed up than evil as far as I'm concerned, and so the idea that she was "bad" and turned "good" never really felt to me like an accurate description of what happened. She did bad things seemingly without understanding why they were bad (her first phase, in The Cutie Map) and then with nothing left to do with her life, she went on a reckless revenge trip (her second phase, The Cutie Remark). Once Twilight talked her down, she was completely back to square one. Her life had been reset.

There's never any sense that she has a lust for power or dominance, nor that she takes pleasure in the pain and suffering of others. Her primary problem seems to be, as Headless put it earlier, sociopathy. She's trying to live her life like anyone does, but with an uncommonly powerful skillset and a dangerous lack of empathy.

I guess what I'm saying is that Starlight isn't a really an active threat to Equestria, not because she lacks the power to be, but because she has no ambitions to be. Based on the comic prelude to the first Equestria Girls, I'd have said that Sunset Shimmer fit the bill far more neatly.

The Doctor wrote:Thing is though, Discord has had an actual redemption arc. We've seen him stumble along the way, and he was never instantly friends with any of the mane 6.


I feel like Discord is actually dangerous, though. He ruled Equestria once; we can't know for sure that he wouldn't like to again. We've actually seen him taking delight in the suffering of others. Starlight is, at the end of the day, just a strange horsie with a dark past.

Also, is she really friends with any of the Mane 6 besides Twilight? I mean, they're friendly towards her, but do they like, hang out? Or is it like "Oh I guess this is one of Twilight's lessons, better get over there and do some scrapbooking with her."
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Postby Aramek (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:18 am

She's our lovable sociopath, and we just need to keep her busy trying to do the friend thing before she does things we don't want her to do.

Because she's not evil, the things she does are because she knows it's a better way. (For her, and thus everyone else, naturally.) It's essentially an organic version of Rarity when she had the book powers.
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Postby Juju&Lulu (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:23 am

Starlight nearly broke history, and condemned Equestria to a worse fate than anything else we've seen. She is easily on part with Twilight and is potentially more powerful than her. I'm not gonna say she's a bigger threat than Discord but we can't just brush her aside and not accept that she herself is a very credible threat to their world.

As for her being friends with the Mane 6, she was instantly accepted into their lives as Twilight's pupil and they each had a moment with her in the season 5 finale song, gave her a parade, and whenever Twilight tells her to go make friends or learn to be a better friend she goes to each of them. Not saying their best friends but they certainly treat her better than Discord despite her doing comparable actions.
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Postby Aramek (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:28 am

Because, at the end of the day, she's still a pony.

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Postby Bremen (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:32 am

I don't think anyone's questioning that Starlight has the capability to be a threat to Equestria (though I think the implication is that she's not a match for Twilight, just incredibly powerful for a Unicorn). Rather, they're pointing out that she has no motivation to be a threat; she doesn't seem to desire domination, or wealth, or power for power's sake. She's generally trying to do what she considers the right thing, just with a sociopathic lack of empathy. And so it's not quite right to handle her like a dangerous threat; instead, they're trying to teach her to be a better pony through friendship lessons.
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:38 am

DerFurShur wrote:Starlight nearly broke history, and condemned Equestria to a worse fate than anything else we've seen. She is easily on part with Twilight and is potentially more powerful than her. I'm not gonna say she's a bigger threat than Discord but we can't just brush her aside and not accept that she herself is a very credible threat to their world.


Sure, but Starlight didn't know she was doing any of that stuff. Twilight herself has caused some potentially catastrophic blunders as the result of being careless with powerful magic.

DerFurShur wrote:As for her being friends with the Mane 6, she was instantly accepted into their lives as Twilight's pupil and they each had a moment with her in the season 5 finale song, gave her a parade, and whenever Twilight tells her to go make friends or learn to be a better friend she goes to each of them. Not saying their best friends but they certainly treat her better than Discord despite her doing comparable actions.


Ignoring the extremely sticky question of how musical numbers work in Equestria, I posted earlier about the distinction between Starlight and Discord; they're both powerful, but Discord's ambitions make him far more dangerous.

Bremen wrote:I don't think anyone's questioning that Starlight has the capability to be a threat to Equestria (though I think the implication is that she's not a match for Twilight, just incredibly powerful for a Unicorn). Rather, they're pointing out that she has no motivation to be a threat; she doesn't seem to desire domination, or wealth, or power for power's sake. She's generally trying to do what she considers the right thing, just with a sociopathic lack of empathy. And so it's not quite right to handle her like a dangerous threat; instead, they're trying to teach her to be a better pony through friendship lessons.


Very nicely put.
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Postby Aramek (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:45 am

Bremen wrote:I don't think anyone's questioning that Starlight has the capability to be a threat to Equestria (though I think the implication is that she's not a match for Twilight, just incredibly powerful for a Unicorn). Rather, they're pointing out that she has no motivation to be a threat; she doesn't seem to desire domination, or wealth, or power for power's sake. She's generally trying to do what she considers the right thing, just with a sociopathic lack of empathy. And so it's not quite right to handle her like a dangerous threat; instead, they're trying to teach her to be a better pony through friendship lessons.

10/10 she's the best.
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Postby Juju&Lulu (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:47 am

Twilight has never done anything close to worst things Starlight has done and she may have thought she was helping those ponies in the village but then her second appearance was just pure revenge.

As for Discord's ambitions he's pretty much given up any ambition besides not going back to stone prison. Even when he betrayed them for Tirek it was less that he wanted to rule Equestria and more that Tirek promised him the freedom to do whatever he wanted. I'm not saying he's innocent or that he's not a dick but Starlight seems to be getting a pass because "sh just doesn't know better".

Like it was posed earlier it'd be interesting if this ventually came up later but given how this episode went I don't think Starlight is ever going to improve all that much past where she is right now and no one else in the cast seems to really mind.
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Postby Bremen (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:56 am

Twilight's bungle in lesson zero was pretty equivalent to Starlight's bungle in this episode. And sure, her motivation in Cutie Remark was revenge, but that's all it was; she thought the Mane 6 took her friends away, so she wanted to take theirs. She was honestly shocked when shown that her changes did anything other than "hey, the mane 6 aren't friends anymore." Supervillain she isn't.

I'd be pretty shocked if Starlight doesn't change for the better, and soon.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:58 am

Headless Horse wrote:But at a higher level, I think the only really big problem I have with this episode is that Starlight just feels wrong as a character somehow. I don't mean she's a bad character, or that she isn't well developed or organic in her interactions with others; I just feel like there's something very cockeyed about her entire conception. She's Pony Stalin who has been assigned to take lessons in friendship from a 19-year-old grad student, someone she can for all intents and purposes equal in magical ability and whose only real advantage is that she got into Celestia's good graces first. Twilight assigning friendship lessons to her feels patronizing and infantilizing. Isn't Starlight supposed to be at least the same age as Twilight? And certainly more seasoned in real-world experience? She might not have saved Equestria a bunch of times, but she's been in charge of her own little city-state and run a planned economy and an empire of fear, and if nothing else that puts her squarely into a position in life where her rehabilitation ought to be less about remedial playground exercises and more about, like, community service or something.

You say that you expect Starlight would have more experience in the real world, but honestly I'm not so sure. Although she's smart, she doesn't come across as very wise or empathetic at all. She's... she's like a kid playing SimCity, forming a society according to her own ideals and with nearly unchecked power. Except here, she's actually affecting others instead of just simulated statistics in a game, but she doesn't get that. Maybe she has the brains to rule Equestria, but she most definitely lacks the heart.

I feel like Twilight and Starlight likely are around the same age, and I'd place them in their mid-20s now. Given that the social dynamics of Equestria aren't exactly the same as ours (remember, Twilight was the personal student of the immortal god-queen of the sun; that's not something that'll ever happen to us), I think it's fair to expect some oddities as compared to what we'd consider normal for socialization.
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Postby Juju&Lulu (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:01 am

Twilight made a town fight over a doll for like half an hour one time and then got dragged for it by her mentor. Starlight indoctrinated an entire town and whoever happened upon that town and ruked over every facet of their lives every day for an undisclosed amount of time but implied to be a significant length. The two are barely comparable.

Then nearly destroyed countless lives all for telling sake of personal vengeance.

She was a villain, and now shes not because eh the only way she wins is by destroying the world so shes not that far gone at least. But she's still an incredibly powerful character that should she ever decide to change her mind again she'd be a major threat to anyone around her.
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:07 am

Bremen wrote:Twilight's bungle in lesson zero was pretty equivalent to Starlight's bungle in this episode. And sure, her motivation in Cutie Remark was revenge, but that's all it was; she thought the Mane 6 took her friends away, so she wanted to take theirs. She was honestly shocked when shown that her changes did anything other than "hey, the mane 6 aren't friends anymore." Supervillain she isn't.

I'd be pretty shocked if Starlight doesn't change for the better, and soon.


I was actually thinking of Magical Mystery Cure, but Lesson Zero is a great example too.

DerFurShur wrote:Twilight has never done anything close to worst things Starlight has done and she may have thought she was helping those ponies in the village but then her second appearance was just pure revenge.

As for Discord's ambitions he's pretty much given up any ambition besides not going back to stone prison. Even when he betrayed them for Tirek it was less that he wanted to rule Equestria and more that Tirek promised him the freedom to do whatever he wanted. I'm not saying he's innocent or that he's not a dick but Starlight seems to be getting a pass because "sh just doesn't know better".

Like it was posed earlier it'd be interesting if this ventually came up later but given how this episode went I don't think Starlight is ever going to improve all that much past where she is right now and no one else in the cast seems to really mind.


I mean, Starlight has undoubtedly done worse stuff than Twilight has; it's pretty hard to argue against that. I think it does count for something though that neither she nor Twilight are immune to massive screw-ups.

As for Discord, you say that him siding with Tirek in exchange for "freedom to do whatever he wanted" isn't so bad, but we already know exactly the kind of crap Discord gets up to when he can do "whatever he wants".

If Starlight gets a pass, it's because... well, what's the alternative? Throw her in prison? Get mad at her a bunch? Toss her into a magic mirror and let some other universe deal with her?
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Postby PonyHag714 (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:09 am

And Starlight is about to take center stage in the season finale. It will be interesting to say the least.
:speakest: The fun has been doubled!
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:12 am

DerFurShur wrote:Twilight made a town fight over a doll for like half an hour one time and then got dragged for it by her mentor. Starlight indoctrinated an entire town and whoever happened upon that town and ruked over every facet of their lives every day for an undisclosed amount of time but implied to be a significant length. The two are barely comparable.

Then nearly destroyed countless lives all for telling sake of personal vengeance.

She was a villain, and now shes not because eh the only way she wins is by destroying the world so shes not that far gone at least. But she's still an incredibly powerful character that should she ever decide to change her mind again she'd be a major threat to anyone around her.
Well, if her merely being powerful is a problem, what is the solution? Is it not a good idea to at least try to teach her a sense of empathy and compassion? We know she is capable of having feelings, judging by how she regretted the path she took from childhood all the way up to the events of The Cutie Re-Mark, so it's not as if she's an utterly soulless monster or something. I mean, the only solution I can think of (short of killing her, which ain't gonna happen) would be to somehow steal or otherwise permanently disable her magic, but considering how powerful she is, it seems like the only one who could do that would be Tirek, and that's a bad idea if I ever heard one. :fluttershock:
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:13 am

PaulloDEC wrote:She's more messed up than evil as far as I'm concerned, and so the idea that she was "bad" and turned "good" never really felt to me like an accurate description of what happened. She did bad things seemingly without understanding why they were bad (her first phase, in The Cutie Map) and then with nothing left to do with her life, she went on a reckless revenge trip (her second phase, The Cutie Remark). Once Twilight talked her down, she was completely back to square one. Her life had been reset.


Question: How is she different from Discord in "Keep Calm and Flutter On" through the present? Discord isn't motivated (anymore) by a need to conquer, but he's had three or four episodes learning that his needs are not the only ones that matter, and that a minor inconvenience isn't enough to justify interfering with others.

Starlight's problem is very similar. She doesn't see any real value in others' opinions or needs, except that it's "the right thing to do" as defined by whatever mystical powers keep Equestria from getting crushed by monsters. It's still not clear that she really does, possibly unlike Discord.

There's never any sense that she has a lust for power or dominance, nor that she takes pleasure in the pain and suffering of others. Her primary problem seems to be, as Headless put it earlier, sociopathy. She's trying to live her life like anyone does, but with an uncommonly powerful skillset and a dangerous lack of empathy.

This doesn't make her behavior okay. In this episode, she mind-controls everyone because it's convenient. She can be trained, but she's not working for the greater good of the kingdom/the town/her friends, which is what sets her apart from Twilight (and Rainbow Rocks Sunset Shimmer). Discord has had limitless power but restrains himself because he genuinely enjoys his relationship with Fluttershy and maybe the others. What holds Starlight back? She is studying under Twilight because....? Like, look at the Christmas episode. Twilight convinces her to come down and sing some carols because if she doesn't, Equestria will literally be destroyed. That seems to be the only factor that motivates her to play nice.
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Postby Highbrow Dash (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:14 am

Aramek wrote:She's our lovable sociopath, and we just need to keep her busy trying to do the friend thing before she does things we don't want her to do.

Because she's not evil, the things she does are because she knows it's a better way. (For her, and thus everyone else, naturally.) It's essentially an organic version of Rarity when she had the book powers.


Oh my god, she's Aramek.
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Postby Bremen (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:20 am

SlateSlabrock wrote:This doesn't make her behavior okay. In this episode, she mind-controls everyone because it's convenient. She can be trained, but she's not working for the greater good of the kingdom/the town/her friends, which is what sets her apart from Twilight (and Rainbow Rocks Sunset Shimmer). Discord has had limitless power but restrains himself because he genuinely enjoys his relationship with Fluttershy and maybe the others. What holds Starlight back? She is studying under Twilight because....? Like, look at the Christmas episode. Twilight convinces her to come down and sing some carols because if she doesn't, Equestria will literally be destroyed. That seems to be the only factor that motivates her to play nice.


That's kind of the point; what holds Starlight back is she genuinely wants to be a good person, unlike, say, Discord. She doesn't need to be bribed or coerced into doing the right thing. In the Christmas episode she was playing a character, but her goal was still to help Equestria; it was only her means that was flawed. Twilight didn't defeat her in the Cutie Remark; she admitted that she couldn't stop Starlight, but convinced her that her methods were wrong and Starlight willingly surrendered. So rather than approaching her as a criminal that needs to be punished, the ponies seem to be approaching her as a decent pony who just needs to learn the difference between right and wrong.
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:25 am

Bremen wrote:That's kind of the point; what holds Starlight back is she genuinely wants to be a good person, unlike, say, Discord.

Does she? And why does she?

She doesn't need to be bribed or coerced into doing the right thing. In the Christmas episode she was playing a character, but her goal was still to help Equestria; it was only her means that was flawed.

I'm not talking about the character she played in the story. I'm talking about real Starlight Glimmer, who refused to attend a party until Twilight told her a story about how not going to the party would end the world.

Twilight didn't defeat her in the Cutie Remark; she admitted that she couldn't stop Starlight, but convinced her that her methods were wrong and Starlight willingly surrendered.

Because Twilight showed her that breaking up friendships will literally reduce the entire world to dust.

So rather than approaching her as a criminal that needs to be punished, the ponies seem to be approaching her as a decent pony who just needs to learn the difference between right and wrong.

And that's how Fluttershy approached Discord and won him over. That was the key to convincing him to respect others -- by showing him how that respect felt.
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Postby Juju&Lulu (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:30 am

Clearly Twilight just needs to keep telling Starlight if she doesn't do something it will literally destroy the world. Like the dishes, or organizing the library.
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:32 am

SlateSlabrock wrote:Question: How is she different from Discord in "Keep Calm and Flutter On" through the present? Discord isn't motivated (anymore) by a need to conquer, but he's had three or four episodes learning that his needs are not the only ones that matter, and that a minor inconvenience isn't enough to justify interfering with others.

Starlight's problem is very similar. She doesn't see any real value in others' opinions or needs, except that it's "the right thing to do" as defined by whatever mystical powers keep Equestria from getting crushed by monsters. It's still not clear that she really does, possibly unlike Discord.


I think Discord's new circumstances are pretty interesting. He's learned to appreciate friendship and the value of living among others, but looming over the whole thing is the threat of being turned back into stone if he puts a hoof out of line. It's a weird combination of finding genuine satisfaction in a new lifestyle while basically being forced to intergrate.

As for the difference between Starlight and Discord, I'd have said there's a couple. Firstly, I don't think Discord is in the same place mentally as Starlight is. As weird as it might sound, I think he's a more emotionally balanced character than she is.

Secondly, I think while Discord is having to adapt to a new world or be removed from the game entirely, Starlight is starting over completely. I don't think she has any idea what to do with her life, and is basically going with the flow until she works it out.

SlateSlabrock wrote:This doesn't make her behavior okay. In this episode, she mind-controls everyone because it's convenient. She can be trained, but she's not working for the greater good of the kingdom/the town/her friends, which is what sets her apart from Twilight (and Rainbow Rocks Sunset Shimmer). Discord has had limitless power but restrains himself because he genuinely enjoys his relationship with Fluttershy and maybe the others. What holds Starlight back? She is studying under Twilight because....? Like, look at the Christmas episode. Twilight convinces her to come down and sing some carols because if she doesn't, Equestria will literally be destroyed. That seems to be the only factor that motivates her to play nice.


As I say, I don't think Starlight knows what to do besides following Twilight's lead.

SlateSlabrock wrote:Does she? And why does she?


Because she's just a pony, and deep down, (in the world of FiM anyway) ponies are fundamentally good.

SlateSlabrock wrote:Because Twilight showed her that breaking up friendships will literally reduce the entire world to dust.


Starlight never believed that, even at the very end. She stopped because she wanted what Twilight was offering her more than she wanted to hurt her.
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:39 am

EDIT: Double post.
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Postby Bremen (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:40 am

SlateSlabrock wrote:Does she? And why does she?


Yes. That's the entire point I think we're trying to argue. As to why, why does Twilight try to be a good person?

Starlight is a pony who believes in doing the right thing, but is very bad at knowing what that right thing is.
I'm not talking about the character she played in the story. I'm talking about real Starlight Glimmer, who refused to attend a party until Twilight told her a story about how not going to the party would end the world.


That's not how I read that episode at all.
Because Twilight showed her that breaking up friendships will literally reduce the entire world to dust.


Yes. Starlight wanted to destroy Twilight's friendships out of revenge. Wanting revenge isn't evil. But when confronted with the cost of that revenge, Starlight gave up, even knowing she might be facing substantial punishment for her crimes.
And that's how Fluttershy approached Discord and won him over. That was the key to convincing him to respect others -- by showing him how that respect felt.


Discord doesn't behave because he learned to respect others; he behaves because they created a situation where he benefits more from playing nice. Witness his actions in Dungeons and Discords; he had absolutely no respect for Spike or Big Mac in the beginning, but eventually realized hanging out with them was actually fun.
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Postby Juju&Lulu (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:43 am

How else can that episode be read? Starlight thinks Hearth's Warming is silly. Twilight decides to read her a story about another pony that thought it was silly. Snowfall Frost learns "no actually Wendigos are real and if you don't celebrate pony Christmas everyone will freeze to death" then after the story Starlight goes down and starts signing carols.

It's pretty straightforward
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Postby Bremen (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:48 am

DerFurShur wrote:How else can that episode be read? Starlight thinks Hearth's Warming is silly. Twilight decides to read her a story about another pony that thought it was silly. Snowfall Frost learns "no actually Wendigos are real and if you don't celebrate pony Christmas everyone will freeze to death" then after the story Starlight goes down and starts signing carols.

It's pretty straightforward


I read it as Starlight learning that holidays are about enjoying yourself with friends. Just because Windigoes were real in the story doesn't tell her they were real, any more than the existence of spirits in The Christmas Carol means spirits are real in our world.
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Postby Juju&Lulu (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:58 am

I guess this is up to personal interpretation but I've always seen the Ponies fully accepting that windegos are real and the story of Hearths Warming really happened. They live in a world of dragons, changelings, wolves made of sticks, and immortal princesses that control celestial bodies so winter spirits who freeze everything if you don't sing these songs once a year seems just as plausible as anything else.
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Postby Gloomy Rube (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 3:08 am

Aramek wrote:She's our lovable sociopath, and we just need to keep her busy trying to do the friend thing before she does things we don't want her to do.

Because she's not evil, the things she does are because she knows it's a better way. (For her, and thus everyone else, naturally.) It's essentially an organic version of Rarity when she had the book powers.


It's weird, but on the subject of Starlight, I'm always 100% with whatever Aramek says

it's unusual to say the least
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Postby Adelor Lyon (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 3:26 am

Given the life Starlight's lived, the experiences she's had with others (at their expense), the magic she so casually (and destructively) wields, and the sophistication and complexity of her mind where she comes up with these weird-ass courses of action that are totally logical to her until someone outside her sphere of reality calls out on how anti-social and/or bat-shit-bonkers she's being and then realizes that she's acting kind of nuts but still can't learn why she needs to change, I'd be absolutely overjoyed if the writers tasked with turning her around could be given both a two-parter (finale?) and be allowed a TV-Y7 rating.

I've been saying for a while that I think the show either needs to move forward and give these characters the more mature stories they deserve: Everyone's spent six years growing up, the show's staff, the viewers, and the characters that both previous parties know and love. Either stop bothering to do crazy, excellent, wonderful episodes featuring fantasy-universe setups like Starlight's village and all the stuff going on there, and then feel the need to revisit those stories yet not being able to write more mature "growing up and I fixed things and learned stuff" lessons when the moral doesn't fit into what "they" think the show's staff can do and teach with a TV-Y rating. I still can't believe they wrote the S5 Premiere as serious as they did and kept it TV-Y.

Let's be honest: Starlight's functionally-batshit crazy. That partially what makes her awesome: Who does what she does? Who comes up with those justifications? She's a fucking sociopath. Either she needs a quart of horse-pills, or she's going to need a real serious life-lesson to shock her out of her little world she's built around herself, and if the Season 5 finale hadn't taught her how to not be a self-centered psycho, something even more serious and personal needs to be written in a way that can bring both her and the audience along on her crazy learning experience.

What's a "G" rated movie contain nowadays? Back in the 90's a G-rated animated movie could show murder (Lion King, 1994) and human execution (Pocahontas, 1995) on the screen because it was integral to the story; heck think about basically everything Claude Frollo did that made it into Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). Disney probably gets a lot of slack on acceptable content because they're Disney, but one of the best animated movies I've ever seen is Dreamworks's Prince of Egypt (1998), and with its PG rating it was able to fully tell the story it needed to tell and have the emotional impact it had without having to worry about fitting into a constraining narrative of either "G" or "TV-Y." No, seriously: Go see Prince of Egypt. It's incredible.

I'm not saying MLP needs to contain characters embracing murder or lust, but Ren and Stimpy had a disclaimer at the beginning of episodes that said there's "grossness and silly slapping," justifying a TV-Y7 rating. Shit and farts are one thing, but a TV-Y7 can be for things that you'd need to be 7 years old with 7 years of experience to understand and what you're watching and draw logical conclusions about. Starlight's story and redemption could be serious enough to tread upon that mental territory. She's seriously, seriously fucked up three times now:
  • She enslaved a whole village of ponies. Why? Because blaming her filly-friend's new cutie mark was the most logical course of action. She correlated abandonment with his getting a cutie mark, and therefore she figured the most logical course of action to right this wrong was to prevent anyone else from having a cutie mark. Ever.
  • She got beat by Twilight and her friends. FRIENDS. Next logical course of action: Change the course of all of Equestrian history to prevent any possibility of this horrible friendship malarkey from happening (and now it's personal!); the multiple wars and cumulation of the complete death of Equestrian society is just collateral damage. They're acceptable losses to the sociopathic Starlight!
  • Even after she's finally starting to find her shit and figure her new life out, her first instinct to "hang out with the ponies you already know" is to fucking mind-control them to fit a template of how you think they all should complete a set of tasks.

She's obviously not getting this whole "living in normal society" thing, and she just proved to this day it's not coming naturally to her. Even worse than Trixie was, she's damaged goods, and had some serious problems and needs some serious help adjusting to civilized life. She still hadn't learned her lesson via trial by fire, making mistakes, realizing how badly she's fucked up, or making good not only for those she's wronged but also for herself.

Ending here, I really don't think she's changed because she learned what "chillaxing" is. She's been built into a complex character and ending this story with a Scooby-Doo laugh track is fine as long as this isn't her "fix" episode. For someone as completely psychotic, sociopathic, insane, and fucked-up as Starlight Glimmer is, as far as I'm concerned she's only going to have a believable redemption story if it's done in a TV-Y7 environment. And since I know everyone stopped reading after the first paragraph I think Sunset Shimmer should be the one to teach her because Sunset's a cooler pony than Starlight.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 3:34 am

Don't forget how she just casually zapped Big Mac.

She want's a conversation, and she'll GET her conversation.



And then she gets all pissed that she has to change him back.
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Postby Juju&Lulu (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 3:40 am

See if Twilight had just told her if Big Mac talks too much it'll blow up the world then we wouldn't have this problem.
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Postby RudeCyrus (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 4:37 am

Not to be a downer, but can y'all stop throwing around words like "sociopathic?" Is Starlight self-centered? Sure. Does she have impaired empathy? Definitely. Is she messed-up in her head? Absolutely. But sociopathic? No, and it makes me uncomfortable that people keep resorting to that word.

Adelor Lyon wrote:words

As much as I'd like to see the show tackle topics in a more mature way, the chances of that happening are close to nil. Perhaps if there were someone with creative drive in charge (like Lauren Faust for the first two seasons), then it would be different, but most of the writers are newbies and won't try to stray from formula, and I don't see Hasbro, like all big corporations, is incredibly risk-averse and concerned with selling a product, not providing quality entertainment.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 4:44 am

It's a strong word, but I think it's fair. She regards others as tools. Things to entertain her. She has absolutely no regard for others as living, breathing beings.
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Postby Bremen (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 4:46 am

The Doctor wrote:It's a strong word, but I think it's fair. She regards others as tools. Things to entertain her. She has absolutely no regard for others as living, breathing beings.


I think that's overstating it. It isn't that she doesn't care that she hurts ponies, it's that she doesn't realize that she's hurting ponies. Nor does she seem to be driven by entertainment, but by an honest though misguided desire to make the world better.
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Postby Aramek (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 4:48 am

The Doctor wrote:It's a strong word, but I think it's fair. She regards others as tools. Things to entertain her. She has absolutely no regard for others as living, breathing beings.

That's too far, see sees them as people, but, like, sometimes you need people to do what you want because you know what's best, so you remove a little bit of their agency because that'll make things easier. We do this IRL all the time a bunch of different ways.

It's really no functionally different from being super bossy/scary or super persuasive/charismatic. Starlight just sees it as saving a few steps. She's not making them do evil things so why should it matter how she gets them to do what she needs?
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 4:51 am

Because what she does is evil. She's a morally bankrupt character.
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 5:41 am

rudecyrus wrote:Not to be a downer, but can y'all stop throwing around words like "sociopathic?" Is Starlight self-centered? Sure. Does she have impaired empathy? Definitely. Is she messed-up in her head? Absolutely. But sociopathic? No, and it makes me uncomfortable that people keep resorting to that word.


I wasn't sure if it was the right word to begin with, so I checked the definition before I used it:

a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

Not sure about the "psychopathic personality", but all the other bits seemed to fit to me. :pinkieshrug:

If it helps, I don't dislike the character at all, and you'll often find me defending her from those calling her a monster or a villain (in this very thread, for example).
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Postby Niels Olof (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 10:28 am

While I have been a devoted fan for these past handful of years, admiring the general course of the show, I believe that writing team seriously erred when they decided to first introduce, and later attempt a redemption of this dangerous sociopath (I do not use the term lightly, but it is absolutely apt here). She is the piece that Does Not Belong in this set, and I would suggest that there should be a plinth with her name on it in the Canterlot Gardens that ideally would have welcomed its permanent occupant last season.

Everything about her from her colour scheme to her personality is IMO profoundly unpleasant. That could work in an antagonist, but she is a toxic person, and does not belong in the main cast. One powerful reformed maniac is enough for the show, and Discord at least has the good grace to be both entertaining and witty. She might have been able to work as a recurring foil for the Princess of Friendship, requiring Twilight to go hither and yon across Equestria to help ponies unite against this anti-pony, but as a resident patient, she has not been a good case for the newly graduated princess to work on. (What might have been, if Celestia's words " but we're all your students now, too" had been borne out? A thousand times I would have preferred to see the student become the master with Twilight helping Celestia personally come to grips with some situation requiring friendship (and not just, you know, the world ending as per usual) rather than Twilight trying to deal with Starlight, and her friends suffering in the attempt).

I believe it likely that MLP:FiM may be winding down – perhaps we'll see a seventh season, but what lies beyond the movie? I would have much preferred to see each of the original cast's arcs play out rather than have a newly introduced, grossly overpowered character attempt the center stage at so late a point (the season finale synopsis does not fill me with anticipation). It was IMO a botched attempt at an unneeded repair job on the overall trajectory of MLP:FiM. If there is no seventh season, and the synopses are accurate, I fear that this wonderful show will end on a bum note.
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Postby Juju&Lulu (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 11:00 am

I don't think this will necessarily be the last season, I just think this will be the last one before the movie. This season has been a real mixed bag so far but it's not over yet so I'm waiting before I judge it, but it does have this feeling the show is operating on inertia.

As for the others arcs, we saw Dash become a Wonderbolt, Rarity now has 3 stores open so she went beyond her original dream of just Canterlot, and Fluttershy has changed the most I think. Pinkie and AJ have never had any greater ambition to pursue which is fine, they don't all need a One Piece goal. Oh and the CMCs have their Cutie Marks.

So yeah they're isn't really anything the show needs to do anymore, now it's just stuff it does and will do until it stops being profitable.

Unless they plan to finally go back and finish fixing that old castle, though honestly I kinda love how the girls started this home improvement project and just out of nowhere dropped it and no one wants to finish. It's just like real life.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 12:33 pm

The Doctor wrote:It's a strong word, but I think it's fair. She regards others as tools. Things to entertain her. She has absolutely no regard for others as living, breathing beings.

Eh, I don't think this is quite the case. It's not that she's incapable of having compassion or sharing any feelings with others, but rather I think she actively suppressed those feelings for so long that she's now merely stuck in those habits and needs help getting out of them. After all, remember that her main reason for inventing a mind control spell and using it on the other five was so as to impress Twilight. If she had no consideration for others then she would've done that for her own sake, and likely would've said as much.
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:02 pm

Fizzbuzz wrote:Eh, I don't think this is quite the case. It's not that she's incapable of having compassion or sharing any feelings with others, but rather I think she actively suppressed those feelings for so long that she's now merely stuck in those habits and needs help getting out of them. After all, remember that her main reason for inventing a mind control spell and using it on the other five was so as to impress Twilight. If she had no consideration for others then she would've done that for her own sake, and likely would've said as much.


It's complicated, and from what I've read, it can stem from trauma during youth that forces them to shut down emotionally. A sociopath would certainly worry that presenting the appearance of doing well because they would know they're missing some sort of connection everyone else makes. But a lot of the other symptoms seem different: She isn't actively trying to steal/cheat/lie for no reason, she isn't willfully avoiding learning from her mistakes, and she does seem to feel guilty after the fact about her behavior.
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:27 pm

:amazing:
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Oh, glowy ball of evil! Everyone will just love you to pieces!
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:eep: :waugh: :heehaw: :terrified:
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Ever had one of those days?
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NO EQUALS
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Nightmare Night photo
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Animals! :awesomedash:
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Captain A-mare-ica!
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Pinkie's noodle arms really stole the episode.
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"Granny Smith knew she was gonna need a bigger boat, so Goldie Delicious says, 'If you can't say anything nice, come sit next to me!' "
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"Big Mac knew if he covered himself in mud, the creature wouldn't be able to see him!"
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Sorry, mouse. No dress today.
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Nature is so fascinating...
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It was at that moment Starlight Glimmer knew she fucked up.
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Maybe Twilight won't notice...?
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Cree-ee-eepy Crawlers!
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Chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all cool
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