Is Celestia's & Twilight's relationship comparable to Twilight's & Starlight's?

[Music Chart Fan 818]

So far in Season 6, we've seen Spike, Starlight, and Twilight compare the teacher-student relationship between Princess Celestia and Twilight to the teacher-student relationship between Princess Twilight and Starlight, and suggest that Celestia's and Twilight's relationship be used as a model for the relationship between Twilight and Starlight. Twilight sums up this line of thinking in the episode "No Second Prances" (S06E06) when she tells Starlight "When I first came to Ponyville, Princess Celestia gave me room to make my own decisions and my own friends. I need to give you the same freedom.".

 

However, is it really appropriate to compare how Celestia treated Twilight as a student to how Twilight should treat Starlight as a student, or to use the former as a model for the latter? Considering what we've seen so far, I'm not convinced that this is an accurate or useful comparison. Below, I'll try to summarize why I don't think these two relationships are comparable.

 

When Princess Celestia gave Twilight room to make her own decisions and her own friends in Ponyville, Celestia had been Twilight's teacher for years and presumably gotten to know Twilight well as her most faithful student. At the end of the very first two episodes, Twilight had just used the power of friendship and the Elements of Harmony to defeat Nightmare Moon and transform her back to Princess Luna, and in the process demonstrated an initial understanding of the power of friendship and a desire to cultivate it. Additionally, from what we've seen, the worst that could be said of Twilight prior to the very first two episodes might be that she was a bit antisocial and was losing out on the potential of friendship. If Twilight "relapsed" in the process of making her own friends and decisions without always having Celestia's guidance, Celestia might have reasonably expected that nothing too catastrophic would occur (even though that did arguably happen in a few later episodes).

 

On the other hand, Princess Twilight (and Spike and the rest of the Mane Six) haven't yet had much time or opportunity to get to know Starlight very well post-"reformation". Twilight and Spike went on a brief flashback to Starlight's past, narrated by present Starlight, and talked with her about that afterward, but that hardly seems comparable to Celestia's years of mentoring Twilight as she grew up. Starlight obviously has serious transgressions and misjudgments in her past, and I don't think we've seen her demonstrate an understanding that her past transgressions and misjudgments were wrong, and why they were wrong. Consequently, if Starlight "relapses" in the process of making her own friends and decisions without Twilight's guidance, then there's a legitimate possibility of her manipulative and even psychopathic tendencies coming out. The worst example of this we've seen so far is in the "No Second Prances" episode, when Starlight uses her magic to force Big Mac to talk against his will, and subsequently doesn't seem to realize that what she did was wrong. There have been some less serious incidents in "No Second Prances" and "The Crystalling", as well - using the Cakes' ingredients and utensils to make a cake without their permission, trying to manipulate Spike to avoid going to Sunburst's house, and her bitter outburst at Sunburst when confessing her past evil actions. These latter incidents may not have resulted in any serious harm, but still demonstrate that Starlight still has some questionable tendencies.

 

In short, considering what we've seen so far, it seems like Twilight had demonstrated to Celestia her ability to be trustworthy and responsible, and her willingness to learn about friendship, significantly more so than Starlight has done to Twilight (and Spike and the rest of the Mane Six). Therefore, I think that Twilight would be justified in taking a different, more cautious approach to teaching Starlight than Celestia took to teaching Twilight.

 

What do you think? Is it appropriate to compare Celestia's and Twilight's teacher-student relationship to Twilight's and Starlight's? Is it appropriate to use Celestia's and Twilight's teacher-student relationship as a model for Twilight's and Starlight's?

 

Thanks for reading!

[MLPFanatic34 3,234]

I don't believe it's an easy comparison between Twilight and Celestia and Twilight and Starlight, Celestia has known Twilight for years and Starlight and Twilight don't really know each other as well as that. Still I do like the interaction between Twilight and Starlight.

[Truffles 2,033]

Before reading this, I would have said Spike's original statement of allowing Starlight room to learn was appropriate, but you make a lot of good points about Twilight never being evil like Starlight. (The worst you could say about Twi besides her antisocial behavior is she's OCD when it comes to not wanting to disappoint her mentor, Celestia, and it leads to bad choices.)

 

OTOH, we've only had two episodes to sample Starlight's behavior - one where she acted fairly reasonable (aside from trying to trick Spike) and another where messing with another pony's anatomy and mind is OK as long as it makes her happy. (The latter being an example of her for all intents and purposes acting like a sociopath.)

 

But the first example where she acted mostly normal can't even be judged accurately because she did have someone keeping her on the correct path - Spike. If Spike had been tagging along in "No Second Prances" he might have been a positive influence on her, but it's hard to say. Certainly those of the Mane 6 that did try to help her couldn't control her. But even that is muddled by the fact that you're right in your review - they were poor helpers when it came to finding her a friend - basically falling back on their "Castle, Sweet Castle" selves and were only indulging their own self-interests. So one could argue she acted poorly in "Prances" because she was given poor choices of friends to try to relate to. (Well, I guess she did relate to Angel, but that doesn't say good things about Starlight IMO, lol.)

 

I guess after hashing it all out here I have to say Spike's advice still stands, but maybe she needs a closer eye kept on her than what Celestia did for Twilight: Allow Starlight to do her own thing, make her own friends, and make her own mistakes. When she does, be there for her to admonish her and make her fix it while the mistake is small before things get out of hoof.

 

Though Starlight wasn't too happy when she found Twilight spying on her in the bush. I guess it would be up to Spike to tag along with her as a friend instead of trying to do it secretly since he seems to work better with her. (He's probably a better voice of reason than Twilight, anyway...)

[PacificGreen 1,163]

I think it might be growing to that point, with the sort of mentor-student dynamic between them.

 

Now we just gotta wait for when Starlight starts sending Twilight some friendship letters.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,198]

MLPFanatic makes a really good point here. Twilight and Starlight's bond has been far more short lived at this point compared to Twilight and Celestia, whom Twilight was a student of for years. Yeah, that's a long time in comparison. Twilight and Starlight haven't known each other for, probably less than a year? So I think they are working towards that dynamic. This could also explain why Twilight is still getting the hang of this teacher thing, as she hasn't had much time to do it. Celestia had thousands of years to get the hang of it. 

[Phanact 333]

I think so

 

They might be trying to weed out Celestia, but who knows? But I definitely think that Starlight has become Twilight's understudy. 

[silvadel 1,393]

Nope -- Celestia was a good teacher and Twilight has been kind of a poor one.

[pony.colin 156]

What do you think? Is it appropriate to compare Celestia's and Twilight's teacher-student relationship to Twilight's and Starlight's? Is it appropriate to use Celestia's and Twilight's teacher-student relationship as a model for Twilight's and Starlight's?

 

There's two things to address in my reply, but I'll answer your first questions that are related to your OP.

 

The short answer, yes I agree. Twilight using Celestia's model of teaching might not be the best approach for teaching Starlight. That being said, Twilight would have to try and reinvent a new model of teaching to substitute Celestia's methods. The thing is this, Twi using Celestia's methods seems like normal heuristics that any other person pony would've basically tried. I.E. - the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it method."  If we were successful with Celestia's method, then generally, one would try it again. And yes, to address the other error about this.  This can also be a bad approach as well, because it makes the pre-assumption that every pony is the exact same and does not have differentiating characteristics between each other that needs to be specifically attended.  I.E. - the one shoe size fits all approach which can be completely wrong because it does not pay attention to the deeper complexities of teaching a wide variety of individuals coming from different backgrounds.

 

In retrospect, Twilight actually took two episodes to finally follow Spike's advice to trying Celestia's teaching methods.  Twilight had actually planned her teaching model differently in comparison to Celestia's (re-orientated to lists, multiple approaches, and in this episode, forced upon options).  It just happened to be in this situation (this episode) though, that trying out Celestia's method of giving room for your student to learn seems like it would be good approach for this situation. (the blunt criticism of this episode from some though, is that Twilight needed to be "dumbed down for the plot to move forward" syndrome).  Should Twilight go back to her old method re-oriented to lists and multiple approaches and forced options ? (that was her original method). I'm not sure, we'll have to see where we go from here for the next set of episodes involving Glimmer.  But I assume she's not going to be given complete free reign without Twilight's guidance, just room to do a few things on her own.

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, Princess Twilight (and Spike and the rest of the Mane Six) haven't yet had much time or opportunity to get to know Starlight very well post-"reformation". Twilight and Spike went on a brief flashback to Starlight's past, narrated by present Starlight, and talked with her about that afterward, but that hardly seems comparable to Celestia's years of mentoring Twilight as she grew up. Starlight obviously has serious transgressions and misjudgments in her past, and I don't think we've seen her demonstrate an understanding that her past transgressions and misjudgments were wrong, and why they were wrong. Consequently, if Starlight "relapses" in the process of making her own friends and decisions without Twilight's guidance, then there's a legitimate possibility of her manipulative and even psychopathic tendencies coming out. The worst example of this we've seen so far is in the "No Second Prances" episode, when Starlight uses her magic to force Big Mac to talk against his will, and subsequently doesn't seem to realize that what she did was wrong. There have been some less serious incidents in "No Second Prances" and "The Crystalling", as well - using the Cakes' ingredients and utensils to make a cake without their permission, trying to manipulate Spike to avoid going to Sunburst's house, and her bitter outburst at Sunburst when confessing her past evil actions. These latter incidents may not have resulted in any serious harm, but still demonstrate that Starlight still has some questionable tendencies.

 

The other thing, this is pretty much it.  You're spot on I would say.  FIM's has been known for pulling out the instant-heel-face turn card and having this process so annoyingly rushed and forced.  I've been really trying to reserve not looking over Glimmer's character as the flaws for her being pushed into this position have been problematic since the get-go.  Hey backstory was skint, but passable and the insta-forgiveness montage at the end of S5 was cringy.  Like Sunset Shimmer, I found her her heel-face turn happen too quickly and instantaneous, but unlike Sunset, at least Glimmer had feasible backstory to uphold her character. Glimmer from the last few episodes that have had her so far, feel actually inconsistent to me.

 

Like in the 2 episode opener for S6, Glimmer shows at times when she is deeply regretful about her past actions and understands the levels of the moral and ethical boundaries she completely over-stepped when she built up her town and tried to get revenge on Twilight.  She was embarrassed about admitting her past to Sunburst and she had moments of remembering those past grievances she committed with regret and fear. And that's from the two episode opener.

 

Her actions in this episode, specifically what she did to Big Mac, was hilarious awful on all the social levels previously mentioned. I would actually expect her to have done something like this earlier in season openers rather than after because it makes it seem like she's inconsistent with her character. 

 

(I'm terrible for having laughed at how she tried justifying her reason for putting BM under the spell). 

 

This is the part of the larger problem though I think. She was pushed too quickly into that heel-face turn predicament that we haven't really gotten an idea of how to assess how she's interpreting what is socially permitted and appropriate interaction between others and what is considered aggressive and manipulative behaviour.  Like she seemed to inconsistently display that she had some base understanding of why her actions were ethically and morally wrong because she was ashamed about revealing any secrets to Sunburst.  Like her self-awareness is also pretty inconsistent too.

 

It's even funnier later in "Prances" when Trixie reveals part of her reason for befriending Glimmer was to spite Twilight, and Glimmer feels hurt and manipulated by Trixie's actions. Ah cruel writing irony befell on Glimmer. But the upside to this is that hopefully she learned what empathy is now.

 

For now though, I feel it's still early to get an assessment on Glimmer's current state on learning the basics of friendships, and we need more episodes to see where we go from here.

Edited May 2, 2016 by pony.colin

[Ziggy + Angel + Rain 11,298]

I don't think they are comparable.  Twilight presumably received training in magic from Celestia right up until the point where the series begins; Starlight, being a more-than-competent magic user, doesn't need any of that.  In the latest episode, Twilight was actually trying to teach Starlight something while deliberately avoiding the use of magic.  Also, it wasn't Celestia that was even teaching Twi friendship lessons; those lessons came from interacting with the ponies of Ponyville (and primarily the Mane Five).  Twilight, as a teacher and the princess of friendship, has focused specifically on "friendship lessons."  Though I prefer to think of them as "make some damn friends to discourage you from fudging multiple timelines again" lessons.

[Truffles 2,033]

Twilight using Celestia's model of teaching might not be the best approach for teaching Starlight. That being said, Twilight would have to try and reinvent a new model of teaching to substitute Celestia's methods.

 

This is a great insight, and you lit a light bulb over my head - which pony has already demonstrated her ability to come with a unique teaching method to help another pony learn? Twilight!

 

She should dig through her notes on how she helped Rainbow Dash in "Testing, Testing, 1,2,3" and try and find a novel method that allows Starlight to learn without her wreaking havoc in Ponyville.

[That Guy with the CMB 5,869]

This is interesting...I think it is in a general comparison, but if you want to go in-depth, it isn't too similar.

 

 

First off, Twilight is obviously extremely intelligent, but she's still a nervous wreck when something doesn't go right. She breaks down and gets very drastic - and her spying on Starlight was a minor reaction for her, compared to her usual meltdowns.

 

Second, Starlight (even though she's apparently very good at the drop of a hat) has some very...scary tendencies. She still exhibits manipulative behavior and a bit of mental illness, apparently. She's also supposedly stronger than Twilight?...

 

 

This relationship, in reality, would be about as safe and stable as toothpicks held together by some very old school-grade glue.

[Lil Pip 775]

Technically all things are comparable, doesn't mean they are equally comparable though, and unless its a direct parallel its going to be flawed. I would say if they had a history repeating trope then sure it'd be parallel. But comparisons are finicky. In this Twilight might be assuming its her job to ya know do as she tried to do. Which may be how she thinks of Celestia a little, but from Starlight's perspective its nothing like Celestia and Celestia wasn't that overbearing. And tbh we don't see how Celestia even raised Twilight much to compare. It'd be assumptions based on past interactions. The only real thing in common is student alicorn relationship. So there might be from Starlight a sense of inferiority which could have been cultivated to try and make Twilight proud of her progress like how Twi and Celestias seems to go. But they are a similar age and Twilight is still learning, doesn't have a thousand plus years of experience managing everything. So the odds of Glimmer trying to make Twilight proud when Twi didn't really earn that sort of admiration. But how Twilight admires Celest is a problem too because of the trying to make her proud thing she valued more than her student. I think its a good way to show that when you learn from people it might be from people who are still learning, and no one is flawless. We like to assume ponies are pure and innocent and flawless and such, but that's just not true.

[MLPFanatic34 3,234]

MLPFanatic makes a really good point here. Twilight and Starlight's bond has been far more short lived at this point compared to Twilight and Celestia, whom Twilight was a student of for years. Yeah, that's a long time in comparison. Twilight and Starlight haven't known each other for, probably less than a year? So I think they are working towards that dynamic. This could also explain why Twilight is still getting the hang of this teacher thing, as she hasn't had much time to do it. Celestia had thousands of years to get the hang of it. 

Oh well thank you lol, but yeah Twilight is also still getting the hang of being a teacher, not that she's an awful teacher, she's just fairly knew at it.

Edited May 2, 2016 by MLPFanatic34

[pony.colin 156]

 

This is a great insight, and you lit a light bulb over my head - which pony has already demonstrated her ability to come with a unique teaching method to help another pony learn? Twilight!

 

She should dig through her notes on how she helped Rainbow Dash in "Testing, Testing, 1,2,3" and try and find a novel method that allows Starlight to learn without her wreaking havoc in Ponyville.

 

Good point.  I completely forgot about that episode. Thinking back on this, inconsideration of Twilight's previous approach with Rainbow Dash, then Twilight should re-examine her own previous teaching models with Dash and see how well it could work with Starlight.  Overall, Twi's teaching relationship with Glimmer should be an expansion of what was demonstrated in 'Testing, Testing, 1,2, 3' with Dash.

 

(The only way I could chalk up this inconsistency with present S6 is due to various different writers on the show and accidentally forgetting about these previous details).

Edited May 3, 2016 by pony.colin