Stasis

According to the episode Starlight was too powerful to ignore so they made her part of her support group. I'm guessing they were afraid of her asspull powers but that kinda sends unfortunate implications in regards to the other antagonists.

So Starlights resolution and arc is less important than filler? That sounds utterly ridiculous you could easily cut out every timeline except the wasteland one and you would've achieved the same effect. Instead of timelines we could've actually spent time actually getting positively emotionally involved in her character instead of what we got.

I'm not sure she could even get a Sunset arc. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have any investment in Glimmer at all seeing as how she's the most filler character we've had so far. Her reformation and redemption seemed to be in that montage and I wouldn't be surprised if they just decided to skip all of that. Quite frankly though I think her change of character is the worse sin to her redemption. She looks nothing like the Starlight Glimmer we've had before. Honestly if that's going to be her personality I hope we never see her again.

Pshhhhhhhhh no. Starlight has a ridiculous amount of flaws as a character and her character concept itself is too flawed to even take seriously. One of the reasons is what Nuke said. Starlight had zero reason to change whatsoever. Everything from those last poorly written 10 minutes gave her no reason to change and her personality shift is the biggest insult to our intelligence so far. They tried to pull a Moondancer with her last minute but her little weakness popping up doesn't work for one reason alone. Twilight shows zero empathy to Starlight. There is absolutely zero reason that she should listen to Twilight. Anyways what makes this worse is that her personality shift is never hinted at whatsoever in any of her appearances so instead of development it comes across as derailment. What doesn't help is that she's one of the most OCish ponies we've come across so far. Speaking of said backstory having a rushed backstory with more holes in it then swiss cheese, and completely leaves any logic behind her immense power in the wind, is often worse then having no backstory for a long time. She’s a normal unicorn, so she’s supposed to be more relatable then Discord, Tirek or Chrysalis, yet she wields a completely OC level of magic that is not only never explained and never attempted to explain, but also increases the lack of validation of her own backstory, while allowing her to be both a DIO classy villain one second and the nicest person ever the next. Her incredibly brief backstory and her uber powerful magic makes her one of the most OC ponies we’ve ever met. Its ridiculous how much so: her abilities come out of nowhere, she lords over the Mane 6 with both her abilities and her ideals, episodes during the season partially outline the problems in Equestria her extreme system fixes, she gets to outsmart and even outmagic Twilight in every possible way, due to a contrived plot twist she’s forced to reflect and completely abandon her beliefs for friendship without questioning anything, and she gets to be(what some people are worried about) a new main character. Do you know what kind of characters are written for the sake of having their cake and eating it too? OCs. Poorly written OCs. And the only times when such OCs seem to appeal to people is when every ill-fitting fact about her is something you want to relate to, ergo, she is your perfect blind spot. You can perfectly tell this is the case when not only do people only sympathize with the concept of her backstory and not the actual backstory. Most don't want to see a badly written OC in the show much less be a main character. It's ridiculous how much potential is sapped out in 10mins.

Starlight Glimmer if we're going by change of character is probably the most unrealistic up there with Shimmer honestly. She felt way too OOC in those minutes after the backstory and the worst part is it's not even entirely her fault. It's Twilight's with her completely unempathetic response to Starlight. This is way more painful because you can tell this redemption has shades of Moondancer and Twilight learned empathy in that episode but apparently just forgot it in The Cutie Remark.

Honestly besides what most people said already added in this thread. There's another point alot of people don't consider and are way too lenient on. If you consider the ramifications of the Wasteland scene for a bit. You'd realize that the entirety of Equestria is literally dead without the the Mane 6. That means that all the development of the background ponies and how non useless they were since the Season 4 premiere is now outright useless. Not only that but it's tied to Glimmers redemption and I don't know about any of you but I definitely don't want that on my redemption resume. Speaking of which Twilight's completely umempathetic response to Glimmer is probably the reason most find her change of character completely and utterly unbelievable combine it with how long she actually believed in it and well you got a really bad redemption on your hands.

1. Yeah to the audience Starlight was proven wrong but they never actually prove that her ideology was wrong. The only reason they called her was because of a hypocrisy they found within the system not because she was actually wrong. 2. No the way she was getting revenge would've lead to Equestria being destroyed and those are actions that affected the past. Her actions towards Twilight and her friends was revenge/recompence for them ruining her village. Her longterm ideology wasn’t changed just because the Mane 6 were necessary in the past, she still sees the same problems with the status quo and nothing Twilight said countered those views. All she had to do was take back her actions of revenge. I could possibly believe she would turn herself in for moralities sake, if she wasn’t a hardened schemer, but she still believes the status quo is wrong and she would have no interest in becoming best friends forever with the Mane 6. That’s just ridiculous.

Let me restate this since I worded that poorly. This idea she had has been implanted since she was a foal!! There is no way that she would give up that easily because of one reason alone. She was never proven her ideology was actually wrong or that her actions in the premiere wasn't wrong because they don't align in the slightest. Her goal in the premiere was equality for everypony and judging by that backstory wanting others not to feel the same pain she felt. Despite how stupid or apathetic ponies have to be in her backstory for it to reach adulthood. In the finale she wanted Twilight to feel that same pain she felt as a foal. Her want to spread her ideology is on hold so she can get her petty little revenge on Twilight. The thing is her way of doing her ideology was never proven wrong to her yet the episode treats her character at the end like it is despite having zero proof whatsoever that how she was planning to spread her ideology was wrong so her mind changed in ways guilt would never do. This is almost OOC or just bad writing or Starlight never believed in her ideology at all which is stupid because she had to care somewhat For her ideology.

Starlights was garbage. Besides her listening to Twilight for no good reason I literally have to ignore how her character was portrayed before the last 10mins for it to even work. The fact they established this was implanted in her head since she's was a child just makes it even worse honestly.

It's not even just his backstory though. Sombra at the very least had some sort of setup. Starlight doesn't have any setup whatsoever until literally the last 10mins of the finale. Those last 10mins also managed to flat out make her OOC as she never had a reason to change. Sombra was presented with evidence that shattered his worldview with Hope not following her destiny as he thought destiny was an absolute and he was destined to be evil. Due to Hope actually defying her destiny and not becoming an Alicorn. Ergo he had reason to doubt. Hope still gave him a choice and he finally believed he had one. Starlight.... The more I think about her redemption the worst it actually is. First off she had no reason to change. She was actually never presented with evidence that her ideology was wrong. That wastelands scent doesn't prove shit since all it did was prove her ideology wrong. They proved that separating the Mane 6 was wrong but that was never what her ideology was about either. Her ideology was about equalizing ponies or creatures whatever by forcing everyone's talents to be equal. Twilight never challenges this belief ever. She just tells her to make friends again despite the fact nothing has changed. Basically Sombras redemption was rushed this was somewhat true but Starlight was flat out unrealistic to her character entirely and if anything turns everything about her before those last 10mis into filler.

So I just reread this arc again fully and I gotta say I've seen people say this redemption is worst than Glimmers but if anything Sombras redemption is Starlights done right.

Actually Mary Sues can have flaws. They just don't affect or mean anything to the character or benefit them in some stupid way.

The same reason Twilight never told anyone about Starlight in the first place despite the fact she can take marks. Plot Armor pretty much.

Actually it doesn't contradict it at all since in the arc it was stated that Sombra didn't release them due to him fearing they were good. Only reason he released them was because they hurt his waifu.

The problem with Starlight's redemption isn't that she was redeemed. It's that she was forgiven. Almost literally every antagonist/villain that has been redeemed has been accepted not forgiven. They accepted that they repented from their ways but no one forgave them yet. Starlight's is not the same. Everyone literally forgives her on the spot. There is no attempt at her earning it whatsoever though I question why they decided to base her redemption off of Time Travel of all things. That's the major difference between Starlight and the other redeemed antagonist but you didn't see them forgiven by everybody on the spot. The only way to make this redemption work is by just flat out ignoring the ending. Even then the ending will then become sort of a spoiler.

Some hate this reasoning because it's really weak but I don't like it because it doesn't make much sense and mesh with the Starlight from premiere. It's how they frame it. The way they frame it in her backstory it doesn't seem like the problem was that someone thought they were superior to you because of your Cutie Mark. It felt like the problem was she couldn't get hers at the same time and it doesn't match up with the premiere because if her backstory is to be believed then with her hatred of Cutie Marks then there shouldn't be a reason the equal mark exists at all. Basically her utopia should not be a village where everyone is equal through a Cutie Mark. It should be a village where they don't have Cutie Marks at all.

I didn't say it was OOC. I said it felt OOC because there's no good reason for Starlight to listen to Twilight whatsoever. That's my problem on how she gave up so quickly. Her anger towards Twilight is the reason she came close to destroying the future not her ideology. Her ideology is kinda inconsistent with her backstory anyways.

That's another huge problem with her redemption. The show seems to think that that's the only two options but she could've easily have not doomed and still hate Twilight. The moment she started listening to Starlight's it felt massively OOC and it kinda kills how much faith she has in her ideology.

Actually that doesn't make sense at all. She states how she detests the mere possibility of Twilight's friends even being that important so if anything she should've stopped on her own and stilled hated Twilight not actually listen to her.

Well I guess you could say they pulled a Starlight Glimmer with Hope. Surprisingly though I hate Hope much less than Starlight though.

Huh so I saw the issue and I honestly don't agree with it being as bad as Starlight. At the very least he had some sort of basis for his reformation.

He's like every other villain he's as powerful as the plot demands!!! No but seriously he's at least strong enough to curse an empire into nonexistent or whatever it was and the Royal Sisters couldn't do anything about it.

Actually when I think about it I think the biggest problem with this test is Celestia herself. The way she had to teach this test was completely self serving and backwards. The episode is basically saying Twilight learns a lesson about self sacrifice by giving herself something that makes her egotiscal and self serving in the first place. Not only that but the fact that Celestia is delivering this moral makes it come off a hollow and superfluous due to the conditions she had to set up for Twilight. I'm also not a big fan that Twilight due to her over reliance of this test was the only reason that place was even in danger in the first place.

I keep having thoughts about the episode the Crystal Empire and where it screwed up at but the more I keep thinking about it the more this test starts to sound ridiculously immoral and stupid. I don't know but everytime I see discussion about this episode it's usually how Sombra was the worst thing about it but this test plot point the more I think about it the more I realize how completely botched this test angle is. I don't know but am I the only one who feels this way?