spoiler The (still) mysterious Starlight Glimmer

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,561]

Another season, another season finale. Despite having a time travel concept, I ended up liking this finale far more than I was thinking I would. Let's just say I was dreading this one for a good while. Overall the finale was pretty good, handling its time travel idea in a way I did not expect and this was for the better and now we have good ol' Starlight actually being a good ol' Starlight. While some hate that idea, I like it. I like seeing Starlight as a good character, but this leads me to my point, one thing I really did not like about the finale was the many, many unanswered questions about Starlight herself. 

 

Whether it be due to time constraints or whatever, we still do not know much about this pony. All we got out of the finale is that she had a friend, friend go bye-bye, Starlight angry. That's...pretty much it. We still don't know why she is so powerful. I mean, she is so powerful that she can yank Cutie Marks off of pony bums and fly without wings of any sort. What exactly makes her so powerful in magic? Her abilities make the whole 'Twilight is a Mary Sue' thing seem trivial at best and even Twilight herself admitted that she had never seen another pony with such a grasp for magic as Starlight, but...WHY? 

 

Then we did not get other details such as where her home even was, or her family, or perhaps what kind of training she had, or who trained her. I do still like her at this point, but I really wish we had more info on her as she still seems is incredibly vague and that makes it harder to connect with her. Plus, I just don't think Starlight is deserving of such powerful magic, only because I just don't know enough about her. Perhaps we will see more answers in season 6 but I am assuming that we won't get many. 

 

Also, we can now officially conclude that Twilight's castle has no guard ponies whatsoever. Not sure how Starlight got into the castle without anyone else taking notice. Another question there.

 

[Shanks 10,811]

We could see her character get expanded in season 6. there has been a trend with Sunset Shimmer in the Equestria Girls movies where she is dealing with the consequences as well as guilt from her actions. Perhaps Starlight Glimmer could play a similar role as it is very likely that the consequences of her actions could be experienced well beyond just the season finale as time travel can be rather messy and complicated like that.

[Hazy Skies 1,010]

I agree.. It's pretty interesting about how Starlight became so powerful, even if her talent was magic.. and not Twi..

 

What puzzles me is how she know the location of Star Swirl's library to find that scroll..

 

I know that the "time spells" are in the Canterlot archives as stated in "It's about time" and stuff but I'm certain

that this scroll would have been kept hidden in one of Star Swirl's original libraries.. But would that scroll really have been there?

 

I mean, one of the original libraries she found the scroll in may have been in the one deep in the Canterlot mountains, (According to MLP:FiM comic #17)
But then she'd have to get though the labyrinth of caves to find that one.. Did she get it from there? Maybe.. maybe not..

 

Starlight Glimmer still remains to this day.. a mysterious and powerful pony..

Edited November 29, 2015 by AURAequine

[Justin_Case001 4,861]

Okay, well about her flight, let me just knock that one out straight away.  She flies by lifting herself with telekinesis, something Twilight could EASILY do, and has always been able to do, if she'd only get the idea to try.  And Starlight didn't really "fly" so much as float.  ...heh....falling with style...lol.

 

Anyway, she is indeed a mysterious and powerful pony, for sure, which I think is kind of cool.  Makes her very interesting.  As for why she's so powerful, I think the answer is simply "why not?"  She's just naturally gifted with magic, even more so, it would seem, than our beloved purple princess.  Nothing wrong with that, imo.  It's interesting and unexpected.  I don't think there really needs to be a reason why she's so powerful.  Some more backstory about how she learned her spells would be nice, though.  But she's powerful because she is.  I like it.  And also, there seems to be a fandom headcanon quickly building that Starlight is the (X)great-granddaughter of Starswirl.  I love it.

[Radiance64 7,052]

There's definitely gonna be a lot more about Ms. Starlight Glimmer in season 6. I find myself wondering about her as well, and hope we get some of those answers asap.

To speculate though, I'm guessing she had to do a lot of reading like Twilight to be able to do magic like that, unless she really is that terribly gifted. I'm guessing she might have an episode with the CMC as well, since their thing now seems to be helping other ponies rethink what their cutie marks mean and she's probably gonna need that- if we don't get some major backstory in an episode like that, I dunno where we'll get it from.

[Yufery 205]

I don't really see that as a problem - I actually see that as a positive. They're leaving room for mystery and speculation, so we can ponder what exactly Season 6 may have in store for us, at least in terms of Starlight. I'm certain they'll address why she's so powerful, as there seems to be a sort of prophecy going on that's more important than it seems.

[Jora 164]

twi is not some "be all end all marry sue" she is new to alicorn-ism and there for is not on the same level as luna, cadance, tia, so on so forth so being up to and in this case past twi in ability in what i deem 6 months to a year for all the mane 6 to go about their "field trips" twi was not training she was "bored" and lets not forget that starlight had took 50-100 *lets say" cutie marks IN cluding the all powerful mane 6 and the alicorn twi herself with ease, you would think there would be some fail safe either studied or granted to alicorns for such a defense. or this is a secret unknown magic that starlight created on her own, seeing as even twi had no record of this type of magic.

 

but in regards to how she acquired said i'm pretty sure she is able to conceal her existence entirely sneak into the castle of the two sisters or the main starswirl library and take it with ease and put her own very unique twist on a spell that could only take twi back a week.

 

all in all StarLight is one of my favorite villains just from her shear knowledge, how dangerous/cunning she is. 25-10 GG starlight i love you lol   

[Moved to Elsewhere 11,330]

Starlight is that one character where my thoughts on her keep bouncing around a lot. There is not that much detail given about her. I feel like the writers are gonna go with the typical way they go about with redemption stories where they rush the actual redemption and flesh it out later. Like, the reason she might seem vauge now because they will flesh her out in season 6. Considering that these writers have been shown tl be insane geniuses, that just might be the case. My biggest question if anything is how much of a main character she will be. I'm leaning more towards sixth ranger status but I don't know. It could be Discord status or it could be mane 7 status.

[MLPFanatic34 3,234]

They'll probably expand on her in Season 6, I do wonder what the name of the village she came from was called? I don't think it was the same village that she founded in The Cutie Map, also I think she probably obtained the spell during Amending Fences when she was in Canterlot spying on Twilight.

[NavelColt 22,877]

And also, there seems to be a fandom headcanon quickly building that Starlight is the (X)great-granddaughter of Starswirl.  I love it.

 

Yeah, I don't pay attention to other people's headcanons, and this is still essentially what I formed myself to think as well after seeing this finale. Really, after this finale, and all the mentions to Starswirl, it'd almost not make sense for her to not being somehow related to him. It explains everything about her so well.

 

Let's compare them:

• Both have names that begin with 'Star'
• Both didn't have a good understanding of friendship
• Both are unicorns with so much magical prowess that they rivaled alicorns
• Both are capable of very unique forms of magic unseen by any other
• Both end up having a great positive impact on the world of pony magic

Plus, if Starlight is revealed to be a great grandaughter of Starswirl, that'd be a direct move by DHX to do some serious backstory about Starswirl and de-mystify him a bit for the fans. All they've used the poor bastard for lately is fodder for 'ancient tale' explanations.

 

'Tirek came, oh and he had a brother...ummm...oh, he befriended Starswirl!'

 

'Uhhh, there were some Sirens, oh, then Starswirl banished them!'

 

RIP Starswirl 2012

 

Yeah, let's make that shit canon in S6, DHX.

[Wind Chaser 4,768]

The one thing I'll give this episode is that it did show she was motivated by having been shown up at a younger age, although it didn't flesh out more of her backstory. I personally would have liked the episode better if it had explored Starlight's character more, purely because of how much more identifiable Starlight's backstory would have been than the style-over-substance entertainment value of the alternate "villains win" scenarios, and it also would have been a welcome change of direction to have a story revolve more around a villain than the heroes for once.

 

The ending really raised more questions than it answered regarding whether or not Starlight would actually become a full member of the main cast, to be a recurring support like Discord, or in worst case scenario, dropped completely without any further closure.

 

Makes me wonder of an alternate scenario, if instead of trying to stop Starlight from halting the Sonic Rainboom, what if Twilight countered by tracking down a young Starlight at the time she came up with her "equal" mentality by finding another friend for her that could dissuade her from doing the evil she did?

 

Overall, Starlight's character progression from here on may parallel that of Sunset Shimmer from the EqG movies, and in that case, all of the questions have been answered beforehand.

Edited November 30, 2015 by Oshkonoggin Cheese

[Partialgeek514 4,925]

Seeing what the writers did in S5, I actually wouldn't be surprised to see some more of Starlight's history in S6. I agree that we still know very little about her. I don't think there's any way that losing a childhood friend could have been the only factor in making her who she is in S5. I'm guessing that it just sparked a chain reaction combined with other events in her life to make her decide to learn high level magic and create that sameness town. I also think she will be a very interesting addition to the main cast as her personality and background open up a lot more episode ideas.