Is it time to give Starlight the boot?

[Brainstorm 4,123]

I'm willing to give Starlight another chance.

[KatonRyu 1,036]

There's no denying that mind raping your friends might not be the best thing to do if you want to learn a friendship lesson. That said, Twilight mind raped the whole town once as well. Yes, she was disciplined for it and Starlight seems to have gotten off easily, but Starlight reminds me of Twilight in earlier seasons, only with more pride in her own skill, and a drive to show that to others. Since she's socially inept as hell and also a former evil dictator, I really think it's only natural for her to act the way she does.

 

In the end, though, I'm only defending her because she's really the one character this season I truly like. Despite her fuck-ups, she still actually seems to be learning and developing herself, while sadly the others seem to have stagnated. They get hit by the idiot ball once in a while in order to generate conflict, or they get sent out to find a friendship problem which they really should be able to solve in three seconds. Viva Las Pegasus is one of the few episodes that did this right, IMO. If Starlight gets kicked out, there isn't much left at this point.

 

Aside from this, I also think Starlight is too powerful to send out on her own. Being where she is now, at least Twilight can keep her in check somewhat.

[Admin 0]

She had good intentions.

[pony.colin 156]

It would be premature to give Starlight the boot at this stage of the game, which is pretty late.

 

The most problematic thing to me about Starlight Glimmer is how it feels like she's been an under-utilized character and the writers kept missing opportunities to expand upon with her.   She ended up being this poster child for antagonist reformation ever since the season 5 finale and I'm disappointed at how the writers followed up upon this post reformation rather poorly with her character.

 

Starlight worked as a fantastic antagonist in season 5 and I was actually anticipating she'd have a good backstory because you could tell she would have depth to her. But of course the backstory was rather rushed and shallow for Starlight, sigh.

 

I figured then if Starlight was going for the reformation process (because it was the only smart move that Twilight could pull out at the time), then I was expecting season 6 to deliver on that.  And inevitably it didn't. Which is disappointing because in order to make Starlight a better character and to build on her progression from season 5's finale then they completely missed this opportunity. We could've had a more fleshed out character with Starlight to see her really try and transition through this process of reforming and trying to make amends, but it's been shallow throughout season 6.  Only 4 episodes, and her final appearance of the season 6 - 2 parter leaves me dejected about the current state of her character.

 

To get to the point, Starlight's character has felt relatively inconsistent for the whole of season 6 and has become less believable. From the end of season 5, Starlight was a lonesome yet capable unicorn who had outsmarted Twilight in their duel. However, given the situation of mutually assured destruction, Starlight, feeling betrayed by cutie marks and abandonment from her first Sunburst, was offered both a second chance and another attempt and trying to socialize.  Yes Twilight forgave her rather easily (but given said situation, this was best move Twilight could make since she wasn't going to win against Starlight in the duel, but could offer her genuine friendship to help ease her pain and hopefully get Starlight to come to her senses to try again). 

 

(que season 5 post-montage of forgiveness)

 

So from there, we have a Starlight, going into season 6's two part opener, who actually feels bad and traumatized thinking about what she's done in the past. Look at this face when she starts thinking back about her actions in Season 6 Part 1 of the crystalling --> Starlight's Face

 

Throughout this episode she is scared to confront her past with well, her new future. She's scared to try and make up for lost time with Sunburst because she's ashamed about what she recently did and scared of being judged on it.

 

Seriously, she sums it so well in her own words when she's arguing with Sunburst:

 

"Well, you don't know what it was like to be left behind! And then getting so bitter that you steal the cutie marks from an entire village and then get defeated by Twilight and her friends, so you travel through time to get back at them, but they beat you again and teach you about friendship, but you're so terrified ponies will find out what you did that you can't make any friends!"

 

She has some thing to be scared about, and that's about trying to make a new future for yourself, but being scared that your dark past will catch up with you and ruin things for you. And I was thinking this was a good start for Starlight's character.... back at the beginning of season 6.

 

The follow-up episodes with Starlight from there don't feel exactly great follow-ups for her character.  From no second prances, it's kind of a bit of snarky comedy episode, which is kind of funny to expect from mlp:fim. I was laughing, but all those who were expecting Starlight to proceed in greater depth with her progress to overcome those interesting fears that she had from the season 6 opener.  They kind of felt a bit swept under the rug, but at least no second prances does hint at it a bit.  It's just that you'd figure Starlight would've had a basic lesson from Twilight on how it is unethical to use magic on your friends, especially if it's the type of magic that does something against their will - i.e. making Big Mac talk against his will (which was hilarious for all the wrong reasons and I laughed, shush).  You'd figure, that Twilight would've explained this to her after she had brought her back to the town to make amends with them.... then again, this is the same alicorn which caused ponyville to fall under the want it need it spell fiasco that even Celestia had to clean up.... you'd figure somepony would've taught these unicorns about the ethics of using magic on other ponies.  Anyways that episode also has Starlight delaying her help with Trixie until the last minute (also hilarious) so it's not exactly a great episode for her.  Starlight kind of comes off as jerkwad in this episode a bit. You could maybe excuse her and say she's never had any real social interactivity before and is "just learning how to do it now" after making up with Sunburst from the previous episode.  Still... you'd figure Twilight would've explained to her at least basic etiquette and social common sense a bit before trying to find her new best friend....

 

Hearth's warming tale, kind of just teachs her, hey don't be a grump ... or a snow Apocalypse will happen.

 

And the most recent episode (every little thing she does), I'll actually forgive her for using for the second time, the whole 'using possession magic on your friends is totally okay... until you learn that it's not' situation.  Like it was the same thing with Big Mac earlier, except times 10. Hilarious again because Starlight still hasn't learned that using magic on friends is bad because it's considered abusive, aggressive, hostile and manipulative (apparently she learned nothing from AJ giving her that angry scowl the first time around).  But finally Twilight has to come and fix everything in the end. 

 

After this episode, I'd like to believe that Starlight has finally learned the lesson that to start again with making new friends, is to first try and socialize with other ponies in a friendly manner (and to not try to control them with magic).  Though at least with 'everything little thing she does' she is growing after this episode. Now what I would've liked to have seen, is more episodes actually focused on Starlight growing and progressing to try and overcome these fears (she's overcome some of them) and to further develop her character and I feel she hasn't been utilized very well. A few more episodes with Twilight mentoring her would've been nice and would've made her progress seem more naturally compared to the 5 (later to be 7) episodes so far. So yeah, it's a bit pre-mature to kick her out now, but the next set of episodes featuring show really focusing on her trying to make an effort with the mane cast and trying things out with Trixie and going over her other fears that she needs to overcome. And realizing ahead of time, that she might doing things the wrong way with interacting with other ponies now.

Edited September 28, 2016 by pony.colin