Is Sunset Shimmer the Worst Major Villain?

[PalletePuddle 7]

Well she at least had more of a part then Sombra  i mean she looked like she had even more powers then him  and his GAK!

 

Other then that i think the true villein would be trixie and the her unending quest for PEANUT BUTTER CRACKERS 

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

IMO Sombie's the better villain because his Evil Plan of Evilness came bloody close to working, while Sunset's never had a chance.

[Rappy0 338]

IMO Sombie's the better villain because his Evil Plan of Evilness came bloody close to working, while Sunset's never had a chance.

What do you mean he came close? He achieved his goal but was stopped by Luna and Celestia. He also scared all the crystal ponies for the rest of their lives. He came closer to almost re-achieving his goal.

[kirbyboi 587]

The movie was great, but yeah, I think that first of all Sunset Shimmer's punishment should've been worst...plus, what if she was lying about making friends (although that's pretty unlikey...I think)? And her evil form could've been a bit more...threatening It was more goofy-looking than scary, and I wanted to know more about her past. She could be a great source of new plots for MLP as well. 

 

Also, I know it's only an hour movie and there's only so much they can put....but I was kinda disapointed at how quickly Sunset Shimmer changed from bad to good. What they should've done was maybe have Sunset Shimmer still disagree with friendship, and maybe imprison her. This could be better told and would open up more appearances for her as well (such as Sunset Shimmer's coming back for revenge or something). 

 

But yeah, I expected more from her, but I think she can still be a great villian, and has lots more to shjow. Hopefully she gets more appearances...she could be a great villain and I think she could've done more!

Edited July 6, 2013 by Pixiesong

[TheSupremeLeaderOfChaos 1,189]

I'm still not entirely sure what I think of Sunset Shimmer. They had a really interesting backstory that they could have delved into, but instead turned her into the regular bully stereotype, with the exception that this bully turns into a demon monster and then immediately repents afterwards. Seeing as how they did a reference back to the first episodes, I think the Elements ripped the evil out of her like they did Luna.

 

I hope to see her at some point in MLP, because they had something really cool and they may never be able to expand on it. As for my opinion for her as a villain for the show overall, I don't really count her with the other villains (not that she could ever be more awesome than Discord), so she was the best villain in Canterlot High.

Edited July 6, 2013 by TheSupremeLeaderOfChaos

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

What do you mean he came close? He achieved his goal but was stopped by Luna and Celestia. He also scared all the crystal ponies for the rest of their lives. He came closer to almost re-achieving his goal.

 

It was "almost-re-achieving his goal" that I was referring to, not his past rule over the Crystal Empire. His regime in the past did not involve conflict with the protagonists (primarily the M6), which is one of the primary measures of a villain--how well they do against the heroes, and how much of a threat they present to the heroes' world and values.  Sunset could have killed Twilight if her human friends hadn't thrown themselves into the path of her attack, and if the magic of the Elements had required the actual presence of the Elements or otherwise turned out not to work the way it did.  Villainous yes, but she never really presented a threat to Equestria with her plan as stated in the movie.  Sombra, Chrysalis, and Discord did.

[iLegovideo 152]

Okay so I watched EGs and I was disappointed With sunset shimmer. she and Flash were the worst part of the film. NMN Discord Chrysalis and Sombra were all better than her. Now Lets see why:

 

1) Her Plan Was Stupid: Seriously. Wanting to take over equestria With a bunch of teenagers when Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Shining Armor and Freaking Discord where around. Even if she turns them all into demons Discord can still kick all of their asses.

 

2) Her Defeat Scene was Nothing new: Now all of the four Villains before her had different styles of defeats, Even If NMN and Discord were beaten by the same source But One was redeemed and the other was turned into stone. But Sunset on the other hand had a complete copy of NMNs Defeat Just with Humans.

 

3) She Does not bring anything into the group: NMN Had the Background Story. Discord had the Powers. Chrysalis Had Minions. Sombra Had Most Evil Mind. But she Had....

 

4) Her redeemtion was stupid: I was expection her to be Faking those tears and then jump into the portal Saying she will have her revenge. But noooo, She was really crying and she just wanted friends...Quite Pathetic compared to the other villains.

 

Thats all what I got. Now Before you say she had more lines than Sombra then that Would mean that the Old Hag In snow white was a better villain than Sauron.

I say that she IS the worst villain because of the way she used her power, not the element power, but her social intimidation. She uses fear to get what she wants, namely, the crown, both the powerless crown and the Sixth Element. Every single year, it seems that she always wins and that is true. She uses her resources, namely Snips and Snails, to her full advantage and sabotage her competition. This is worse than Discord because Discord caused disharmony by physical changes to the environment and mental changes to the ponies. Sunset causes disharmony simply by taking advantage of people and throwing them down. This is just worse than Discord because he's a troll. Sunset is a beoch. (Sorry, laying off swearing) Beoches will be beoches and get what they want. Discord doesn't simply change everything. He waits and strikes to make everything effective. Sunset just bashes. She seems more like a blunt instrument than a precision tool. Discord plans his attacks accordingly. Take the Mane 6. He didn't make them their alternate selves immediately. He waited for them to make the wrong moves and then attacked. I could be terribly wrong, but Sunset is the worst in my opinion. 

[Mr. White 71]

I disliked her as a villain because they didn't really build up enough backstory for her to really explain why she was so Evil. It was just confusing.

[Metaright 76]

I see Shimmer's teary breakdown as less of a flank-pull and more of a subtle explanation of her past actions. Sure, she's a megalomaniac and horribly controlling, but when she realized that entire plan, and indeed her entire status within the human world, had crumbled, she just lost it. And if Twilight hadn't offered forgiveness immediately, perhaps Shimmer's defeat could have taken another direction. Say, fleeing a la Trixie, or seeking forgiveness from Celestia.

 

As for her status amongst the other villains, I'd place her above Sombra and Nightmare Moon but below Chrysalis and Discord. She had a fleshed-out enough backstory to not seem arbitrary (like Sombra), but at the same time her motivations were rather unclear. What was she planning to do with her small army of ordinary children? Take over Equestria? Not likely. Whereas the other villains had clear goals, intentions, and logical plans, Shimmer seems to be making it up as she goes.

Edited July 7, 2013 by Metaright

[Wardaddy 470]

The movie seemed to be under the impression that Sunset's problem was that she didn't know how to make friends. I must be really bad at reading characters, because I thought her problem was that she was a power-hungry wannabe dictator.

 

It's not so much that she was an inherently weak villain, because she actually has a really interesting backstory, what with being Celestia's former personal student, as well as possibly being considered for princesshood. But the movie expanded on none of that.

That was my biggest peeve about how Sunset has handled in the movie. Ok, it was a good start with stealing the crown, but after that the whole story just went plunging downhill fast. Come on like, this villain had a pretty solid backstory. Ex-student of Celestia, got impatient, turned bad and was replaced by Twilight. I expected her (after having stolen the crown) to threaten Twilight to give up her princesshood, or else she'd use the powers of the crown to terrorize Equestria. In fact, I'm starting to think that Equestria Girls shouldn't have existed in the first place, much less get tied in as the backdrop to the conflict between Twi and SS. The Sunset Shimmer story, from this point of view, was best reserved for the Season 4 opener. Sunset steals the crown and gives Twilight the ultimatum to either surrender her princesshood or risk Equestria getting razed to the ground. It would surely be enough material to take up the two-part opener that Larson had planned. What do you guys think?

[DITR 180]

Without a shred of a doubt I can confirm that Sunset Shimmer is one of the worst villains in the history of fiction. She was bland, underdeveloped, and cliched. Her reason for being that way just made me want to hurt her even more.

[Stoney Pony 100]

i just saw equestria girls and i did not like it does anypony else feel like me, it felt old even though it was new and they reused alot of the jokes. in short it was not the worst thing ever but it did piss me off a bit when it was not what i expected!

[RWB 229]

I can agree to there being quite some weird things about Sunset, but for all the things I've heard about "Her plan was stupid!"... no it wasn't.

 

1. "Zombified Teenagers are no match for Celestia and Luna".

 

Demonify. If they are anywhere close to her in destructive power, an army of these demons would lolstomp Chrysalis' Changeling Army. Secondly, Celestia's and Luna's combat abilities without Elements of Harmony nor Nightmare Moon is dubious(Sombra needed them both to be defeated). Heck, since we know that the Elements of Harmony>Even Discord, it feels pretty reasonable to consider that maybe the focal point of those artifacts is really freaking powerful(most likely beating out the Alicorn Duo).

 

2. "Discord"

Pray tell, when did she ever know that him now being released was even a possibility. He would indeed be able to stop her, but who knows, being Discord, his way of "being good" might simply be to not actively mess things up(essentially neutral). He's a wild card.

 

 

Her plan would have been a success if she managed to beat Twilight and this movie took place before "Keep Calm and Flutter On". And since she has no knowledge of Discord's face-heel turn(nor did she likely even consider it a possibility), that has to be considered pretty solid.

 

 

 

 

As for the "easily forgiven despite trying to murder Twilight"... Why halo thar Luna. I don't really think Sunset is a bad villain(or even the worst of the series)... she's just not that great either, since we have an awesome benchmark for villains to beat: Discord.

Edited July 7, 2013 by RWB

[Icy Wonderbolt 34]

Well I must agree with you on this on because when sunset shimmer puts on the crown, she basically becomes satin, and the other villains had a good back story telling how they came to power.

[Castle Bleck 19,167]

(EDIT: Please ignore this.)

Edited September 20, 2014 by A.V.

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

Her plan would have been a success if she managed to beat Twilight and this movie took place before "Keep Calm and Flutter On"

 

Why do you think this?  Twilight is an Alicorn in EG.  Since "Magical Mystery Cure" and her Alicorn transformation take place after "Keep Calm and Flutter On," wouldn't that mean EG also takes place after "Keep Calm and Flutter On?" 

 

Even if Sunset could match Celestia and Luna with the EoM, she would still have had to reckon with the other five Elements.  IIRC, the other Mane 5 were in the portal room with Celestia and Luna when Twilight came through.  If Sunset had killed Twilight, she would have had to face all of Equestria's heavy-hitters as soon as she tried to make her "beachhead" on the Equestrian side of the portal.  She would have had good reason to expect this, since she knew about the ceremony and its timing well enough to know when to try to steal Twilight's crown.

 

IMO the problem here is that the movie did not provide us with compelling evidence that: A) Sunset knew exactly what she would be up against (arguments that she couldn't have known about Discord, Cadence, Shining Armor, or Luna are arguments against this); B ) She would win if she got through the portal with the crown.  Compare with the climax of "Star Wars: A New Hope:" by the time we reach the climax, we know without a shadow of a doubt that the Death Star can blow up a planet, and that Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader will use it for that purpose.  There is no disputing that the Empire is far stronger than the Rebellion, and that if Luke does not manage to hit that exhaust port, the Rebellion will lose.

 

Even if a case can be made that Sunset might win if she can get her "army" to Equestria, the audience doesn't know that for sure, and neither does Sunset.  This produces the impression that Sunset doesn't really know what she's doing, hence: not a very good villain.

Edited July 7, 2013 by InvisiblePinkUnicorn

[Castle Bleck 19,167]

(EDIT: Please ignore this.)

Edited September 20, 2014 by A.V.

[Inactive01 5,298]

There were many stupid things about Sunset Shimmer that made her a pretty bad villain, but one particularly stood out to me. At the beginning of the movie, Princess Celestia stated that Sunset Shimmer could very well use Twilight's crown to instill chaos and terror in the real world. Nonetheless, she stupidly chooses to try and take over Equestria with teenage zombies... How exactly can you win any battle with just teenage zombies? To make matters worse, there's only like what? 800 of them? I'm sure Equestria has sufficient resources to defeat 800 zombies (well unless they resurrected). Nonetheless, you get a lot more power if you could take over the real world's military systems; I'm sure marines and snipers as zombies would be a lot more dangerous than teenagers.

[Saddle ~ Arabia 118]

I think its her greed, jealousy and hatred that made her really evil considering the fact she really wanted to win the crown. All of that eagerness made her transform into a monster so her actions and emotions made her an antagonist. I hope she forgets all of that and brings back her old side. Hopefully, go back to Equestria in her pony form.

[The Cynical Lone Wolf 614]

I have say Sunset had huge mmounts of good postional,but her defeat was NMN's mon copy and pasted human style. Her going demon was intersting to say the least,but using the crown to win Prom:*cough* desperate*cough*.If I were her I would ensalve all human kind that universe with that crown.She stole why not just wear it soon she enteerd the universe and just ensalve like thta and avoid all the stupid H.S stuff. I her mind set was stupid for a villian and she suppose to be Twilight's revevil,but no she resolved way too fast and her punishment didn't fit the crime.

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

WRT Sunset's Heel-Face Turn, the current Sunset Shimmer-themed Forum banner did make me reconsider my opinion.  The center of Sunset's cutie mark is a yin-yang, symbol of the dynamic balance of opposite polarities.  In a technically correct yin-yang, the greatest extent of one hue always contains a seed of the other.  So maybe her sudden return to the light isn't such a big plot-hole after all?  Of course, as with everything EG, more time to develop this sure would have been nice.

 

Another thing that just came to mind: When Sunset was Celestia's student, she was not directed to learn the Magic of Friendship (at least not in the practical sense of "go out and make some actual friends") as Twilight was.  The Elements of Harmony were not in play, so there was no apparent need for Celestia to send Sunset to find Bearers for them, or at least not yet.  Sunset left her whole world behind, with nopony there (family, friends) that she would regret losing.  There is no indication that Sunset had any pony friends. 

 

EG is full of references to S1E1.  In that episode we notice that on the cusp of her new student's growth into power, Celestia's highest priority is for her to make. friends.  Early in our introduction to Twilight, we see her galloping past friendly ponies who say 'hello' to her, but she doesn't even notice.  Could Sunset have had this kind of emotional distance too?  "Other ponies" as a kind of abstraction that don't quite matter as much as the abstractions in her books...  But with Sunset, Celestia does what the Yoda/Guru character usually does: trains her disciple in the use of arcane powers.  She teaches her about the Elements and grants her access to books about them in the Royal Library.  There she learns things about the Element of Magic that Twilight does not yet know, and becomes corrupted by the promise of limitless power. 

 

If her fillyhood was anything like Twilight's, she might have been harboring seeds of hate.  In "Lesson Zero," we see that Twilight was so traumatized by Magic Kindergarten that she goes completely bonkers at the possibility of a single "Tardy" assignment.  She is terrified of the prospect of being sent back.  So much so that she becomes dangerous, using a spell to take over the minds of other ponies (sound familiar?).

 

Twilight has friends.  She doesn't want to hurt the CMC's, she wants to "help" them, whether they need it or not.  But what if she'd never befriended the rest of the Mane 6, and learned what it is to be part of a web of close, caring relationships?  What if she saw young fillies like the CMC's as hateful little monsters, more versions of the enemies who made her early childhood so miserable?  Might her course have taken a darker turn?

 

So perhaps we could see Celestia's directive to Twilight to make friends as an example of subtle development in her character.  She's realized the error she made with Sunset, and wants to make sure that Twilight doesn't follow in her hoof-steps.  Another example of subtle character development in Celestia: in S1E1, we learn that she imprisoned her own sister in the Moon for a thousand years because she didn't know how to properly deal with Luna's anger and jealousy.  She could wield the Elements, but she didn't truly understand the Magic of Friendship herself.  But at the end of S1E2, she's learned, and she starts working to rebuild their relationship.  At the end of "Return of Harmony," Discord is returned to his stony imprisonment.  But Celestia doesn't leave him there for long.  Headcanon: maybe a conversation with Luna let her know just how horrible such an imprisonment can be?  /Headcanon.  Aside: we learn from Discord that he was conscious while turned to stone, able to hear what ponies around him were saying.  Imagine the horror.  Anyway, Celestia brings him to the M6 and risks the fate of Equestria so that she will not repeat the terrible mistakes of her past.

 

Thoughts?

[Bhending the Rules 697]

Is Sunset worst major villain?

 

No, no, heck no a thousand times. That title belongs, barring a re-appearance, to Sombra. Sometimes I forget his name and just call him "red cloud of smoke with teeth".

 

Sure, Sunset's plot was pointlessly convoluted and her personality was a tad flat. But at least she had something to her character beyond "Crystals om nom nom". 

[Orablanco Account 3,706]

Personally I never interpreted her defeat as being her just simply changing her mind suddenly of her own accord and deciding she wanted friends. The way I saw it, she was 'cleansed' of the evil that corrupted her by the Elements. I saw it the same way for Luna as well. Even if she would've been physically beaten, she still would've carried on being evil, but the Elements purged that hard shell out of her and instead left her as the sad lonely girl she was at her core. So it made sense to me that she suddenly went from megalomaniacal to lonely sad girl, because it was a resolution she could never have come to herself. She needed to be "exorcised".

 

I have no idea if this was the writers' actual intent or not, but it's how I saw it.

A pretty good idea, and one that fits into the core theme of the show. However, I don't think the writers were even thinking about that at all. They were probably just like "She just wanted to be love" and called it a day.

 

Plus, the weird, vague way they wrote her arc wouldn't fit your much better idea. At least with Nightmare Moon it made sense: feeling lonely and under appreciated leads to hatred towards the perceived source of neglect (Celestia) and wanting to force people to respect her. In Sunset's case, not knowing how to make friends leads to becoming power hungry and turning into a demon that raises a zombie army to kill all the ponies.

 

Kung Fu Panda featured what would probably would have been the better route to take with her: bad guy is raised by the mentor to become a princess, mentor realizes too late that she neglected the darker side of pupil's psyche, bad guy returns to seek revenge on mentor and new pupil out of jealousy and rage.

 

At the very least, this would have really been a great chance to really look at Celestia's mindset and how the mistakes she may have made in the past have forced her to better herself. Or something, I don't know, at least try, DHX! This had so much potential, but it was wasted more than the money spent on The Lone Ranger.

Edited July 9, 2013 by CITRUS KING46

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

 

 

At the very least, this would have really been a great chance to really look at Celestia's mindset and how the mistakes she may have made in the past have forced her to better herself. Or something, I don't know, at least try, DHX! This had so much potential, but it was wasted more than the money spent on The Lone Ranger.

 

I agree with what you say here, except I think that DHX really did try, given the massive failure-bomb they were handed.

 

"We want to market some creepy therianthropic dolls to compete with the 'Bratz' franchise, and we want to do it as a My Little Pony tie-in."

 

"Uh...what."

 

"The purple one's the main character right?  Didn't you guys just turn her into a princess?  So just write up something where she gets turned human, goes to high school, and has to become the Prom Queen.  Kinda like Pretty in Pink meets Mean Girls or something like that.  But there's got to be a scene where the girl characters are turned into catgirls with pointy ears and furry tails.  That's the key scene.  Oh, and we don't want to put feet on the dolls, so they all have to wear knee-boots with platform heels like go-go dancers."

 

"But...go-go dancers..." *shakes head, derpy-rattle SFX*  "...Twilight isn't a solo protagonist in MLP.  The theme of the show is how she and her friends, especially the ones we call the 'Mane 6' relate to each other.  See?" *displays the image of the rest of the M6 gathered with Twilight*

 

"There's six of them?  Great!  That means that instead of buying just one Barbie, our market will need to buy all six!  And they're different colors, so we can use the same molds for all of them, just put different dyes into the plastic!  What, why are you looking at me like that?  You'll think of something.  Oh, and we want Twilight to have a love interest.  It wouldn't hurt if he looked a bit like the sparkly vampire in the other Twilight.  And see if you can turn all the kids into zombies.  Zombies are big right now." 

 

"The bronies'll kill us."

 

"'Bronies?'"   

 

"Adult fans of the show, most of them male.  Think of the fandom for Star Trek or Star Wars, except that they like ponies."

 

"Do they buy any product?"

 

"Yeah, actually.  A lot of them do."

 

"Then they'll like that the dolls are sexy!  This is great!"

 

"Uh...look, bronies don't just watch the show and buy toys, they analyze it.  They post on forums and make YouTube videos...  Remember that fan-made Fighting is Magic game awhile back?  Did you see what a quality product that was?  Bronies.  They're that engaged with the show.  They're gonna kill us."

 

"We're clearing you for about 70 minutes of screen time.  I'm sure you guys will make it all work."

 

O.O

 

---

Remember all the hue and cry when the concept dolls came out and the first EG trailer was released?  People had good reason to expect bad things because it really was a recipe for failure.  EG had a lot of potential to be horrible, too.  It's saddening because EG could have been in the top tier of animated films (better than, say, Brave), but instead was relegated to being better than the direct-to-video CGI Tinkerbell movies and others of that ilk.

[SunsetDemon 31]

She is not! She's cute! She was also very funny at times, like the anti-Twilight commercial (Believe me, everyone in the theater was laughing at that) and when her demon form said "Spoiler alert! I was bluffing when I said I would destroy the portal!" She was really creepy sometimes, like the third photo in the previous Fall Formal Princess picture shown, and HER CRYING FACE! I hope we see more of her if there is a spinoff series!

 

Spoiler alert, I was bluffing when I said her crying face was scary! It was a mix between funny and a bit creepy!

Edited July 9, 2013 by SunsetShimmerFan