Fellow Starlight haters: Could she ever be made likeable? How?

[KrazyDashie 1,847]

Update: In light of recent events (Finding out that Zamasu is an anti-brony troll) I have decided to add him to my ignore list.

 

Did you see what he said to make me spit out my drink? It's pretty mean, and dumb, and something I wasn't expecting to see here.

 

Also sure, you can post here. But only if you admit that this thread isn't supposed to start drama, Starlight fanboys I asked not to post are trying to start that drama and I'm shooting that drama down with every post #LIKEABOSS.

*facehooves* fighting drama doesn't help at all...

[Ninjaed 526]

you honestly could have ignored him instead of saying "I spat my drink over the table. come here and lick it up"

 

and whats wrong if im a staff member? I can post things too ya know

 

Poor KrazyDashie, unauthorised to post

 

I feel your pain. I made a suggestion to answer the topic of this thread earlier and it was completely ignored.

Does that mean I'm not allowed to post either?

[EmeraldStar04 250]

Poor KrazyDashie, unauthorised to post

 

I feel your pain. I made a suggestion to answer the topic of this thread earlier and it was completely ignored.

Does that mean I'm not allowed to post either?

Stop baiting and get that Fluttershy emoticon out of here. Wait your turn.

To whoever it was that insisted punishments are useless: No, only useless ones are. Starlight being forced to write a thesis paper on magic morality and going to Tartarus if she couldn't convince Celestia she's good deep down would be a good learning experience for her. Starlight being forced to go to the timelines she ruined and put her OP magic to use in wars and fighting Nightmare Moon would be awesome AND a good way to redeem her. And it'd show her what her actions did and drill in to be less horrible. Finally, Starlight didn't know mind control is bad because she wasn't punished last time she mind-controlled.

[Ninjaed 526]

Stop baiting and get that Fluttershy emoticon out of here. Wait your turn.

To whoever it was that insisted punishments are useless: No, only useless ones are. Starlight being forced to write a thesis paper on magic morality and going to Tartarus if she couldn't convince Celestia she's good deep down would be a good learning experience for her. Starlight being forced to go to the timelines she ruined and put her OP magic to use in wars and fighting Nightmare Moon would be awesome AND a good way to redeem her. And it'd show her what her actions did and drill in to be less horrible. Finally, Starlight didn't know mind control is bad because she wasn't punished last time she mind-controlled.

 

Why answer to Celestia when it's a friendship problem? No, she answers to the princess of friendship then - aka Twilight. Twilight has then decreed her punishment would be to learn friendship under her tutelage so as to understand and not repeat her mistakes. When during her lessons she does fail, she does get "punished" in your sense of the word, such as when she had to clean up her mess after brainwashing the Mane 5.

 

Hmm I don't think returning to the alternate timelines would be a good idea - if they even still exist in the first place. MLP is a light-hearted slice-of-life show, so that'd be a stark contrast and derail the show just for Starlight.

Instead, I think Starlight should be more like a real friend and not a pony in need, as I've mentioned earlier. Viewers need to view her like she belongs, not like the oddball trying to fit in she currently is. "One pony is not like the others". That needs to be addressed to make her more likeable, in my opinion.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Ninjaed

[Lil Pip 775]

Why do you assume things about me? Does it make it easier for you to hate me? I like new characters and I loved the new Rainbow Power forms. Except for Fluttershy's one, hers looks like garbage.

 

Now tell me, what kind of science do I need before you can grow up and respond maturely instead of lashing out and insisting I'm the problem because I disrespected your precious waifoo?

She is not my waifu and I wasn't assuming. I was giving an example your behavior was indicative of to let you know how irrational you are being.

I don't hate you, stop psychologically projecting, you are the one whom hates remember?

Oh so what new characters do you like?

I'm not the immature one, you are the one with an irrational authoritative punishment fantasy because Starlight challenged your waifu. So I guess you psychologically projected three times.

 

Either way you never addressed my Starlight counter-arguments, you are focusing on me. Which makes sense as I somewhat focused on you, but I was only doing it through you to address the Starlight hate. If you argued against me it'd have to be something like I dislike people who disagree with me or something, not jump to waifu. Perhaps you thought I made jumps in logic but I wasn't it was an example of the sort of rationality you were using I just took it one step further to demonstrate it more. And hate in general is immature regardless of who does it. 

 

Oh I get it, you are acting like I'm being immature because I was being bold and frank, just like how you would paint Starlight as bad. When really its you.

[EmeraldStar04 250]

Why answer to Celestia when it's a friendship problem? No, she answers to the princess of friendship then - aka Twilight. Twilight has then decreed her punishment would be to learn friendship under her tutelage so as to understand and not repeat her mistakes. When during her lessons she does fail, she does get "punished" in your sense of the word, such as when she had to clean up her mess after brainwashing the Mane 5.

 

Hmm I don't think returning to the alternate timelines would be a good idea - if they even still exist in the first place. MLP is a light-hearted slice-of-life show, so that'd be a stark contrast and derail the show just for Starlight.

Instead, I think Starlight should be more like a real friend and not a pony in need, as I've mentioned earlier. Viewers need to view her like she belongs, not like the oddball trying to fit in she currently is. "One pony is not like the others". That needs to be addressed to make her more likeable, in my opinion.

Yeah, that should be addressed. You know what else should be addressed? How freakin' pathetic she is! She destroyed an untold number of lives all to annoy Twilight! And she turned evil only because her friend left her when they discovered his talent.

 

WHICH ALSO MAKES NO SENSE, because if she's the magic god, why wasn't she taken with him? Why was she left behind to dedicate her life to ruining the lives of others?

[Ninjaed 526]

Yeah, that should be addressed. You know what else should be addressed? How freakin' pathetic she is! She destroyed an untold number of lives all to annoy Twilight! And she turned evil only because her friend left her when they discovered his talent.

 

WHICH ALSO MAKES NO SENSE, because if she's the magic god, why wasn't she taken with him? Why was she left behind to dedicate her life to ruining the lives of others?

 

Good point, why wasn't she taken? Because at the time, she was bad at magic. Look at her as a filly. Sunburst did everything better than her, he was an idol to her. The reason she's so good at it now is because of how much she trained - was it out of spite, or to try and join Sunburst? Who knows. But fact is, she did...for years. She obsessed over it and I'm pretty sure she did almost exclusively that.

 

As for turning evil because her friend left her, let's take Applebloom as an example. She was afraid the CMC would disband with their cutie marks earned. She would be heartbroken, wouldn't she? Turning evil though? Nah, Applejack would be there for her. But now imagine Applebloom without support from her family nor Luna, and that the CMC did disband. Heartbroken and alone, she would fall into depression. Because she's older, she might be able to cope with the loss and slug through life, like Moondancer did.

For such a young filly though? She wasn't armed to deal with such loss so early in life, and has had to live with that. After a while, to deal with this loss, she blamed the cutie marks and became obsessed with it. Butterfly effect, she slowly turned evil.

 

If you want another example, look at Frozen. All alone, she became distant and cold, slowly growing self-obsessed and eventually evil as she stopped caring what happened to the others. Speaking of, what do you think makes Elsa likeable?

[Concerned Bystander 2,903]

 

 

If you want another example, look at Frozen. All alone, she became distant and cold, slowly growing self-obsessed and eventually evil as she stopped caring what happened to the others. Speaking of, what do you think makes Elsa likeable?

 

It's hard to compare Starlight to Elsa.  Elsa is likeable because she was never truly a villain, nothing that she did was done with malicious intent, she was as much a victim of her power as her victims were.  Starlight on the other hand did act with malicious intent, she may not have been aware of the full ramifications of her actions in TWaBA, but that didn't stop her from trying to kill Twilight and Spike.

[Lil Pip 775]

Don't see how that first part has anything to do with what I said, and we had just had an entire season where they could've given episodes with her building her friendships with the remane 5, but instead they wasted it on brainwashing. I want to see them portrayed as her friends instead of tools

Because 'pulling shit' could also mean deus ex machina. 

And that is her character development. If she tried to be friends with others they would probably be very put off when they realize how different she is, and they showed how she would behave, she was given tasks of friendship etc development etc. Agh. It'll happen in time, people don't become best of buds over night. She is basically trying to be less sociopathic, that'd take some effort. 

WHICH ALSO MAKES NO SENSE, because if she's the magic god, why wasn't she taken with him? Why was she left behind to dedicate her life to ruining the lives of others?

Because no one taught her not to and it was in her power. And she isn't a magic god, she is weaker than discord.

[GrimGrimoire 4,973]

Aren't there enough discussions rolling around about how awesome or sucky Starlight is as a character? Why not take this overly dramatic pillow fight to one of those? This thread is supposed to be about ideas to improve her, not explore her issues... again.

 

 

Here, I'll help you get it back on track. You can improve Starlight by covering her in chocolate and giving her a tasty cookie crunch center.

 

Now see? She is irresistible. Anyone who disagrees knows nothing about good snacks.

 

Other than that, just have her actually interact with the main cast more instead of bury them in her melodrama while having a melt down and she'll be fine. Like I said, i can handle her being a part of the cast if she is made to feel like it. If not, have her go be a background character or something.

[Ninjaed 526]

It's hard to compare Starlight to Elsa.  Elsa is likeable because she was never truly a villain, nothing that she did was done with malicious intent, she was as much a victim of her power as her victims were.  Starlight on the other hand did act with malicious intent, she may not have been aware of the full ramifications of her actions in TWaBA, but that didn't stop her from trying to kill Twilight and Spike.

 

Neither was Starlight in fact...well, sort of. Let's recap real quick: she genuinely believed in her idealism and genuinely believed she'd brought those ponies happiness and harmony. After Twilight came, she starting breaking down as she was going to lose what she built over years (and thought was good) and did lose it in the end. That's when she becomes a villain by wanting revenge on Twilight.

 

Revenge how? By making Twilight feel the same suffering she has, in short by making her lose her friends. Never has she wanted to kill Twilight and Spike. When she managed to encase them in crystal, she could have. What did she do instead? Rant about why she's suffering and how Twilight ruined her life. It's still not good mind you, but not to the point of trying to kill. She goes into denial when shown the consequences because she never wanted that. It was merely a base desire to see Twilight suffer - much like some haters want to see her die a painful death. And that's a bad thing indeed. Twilight made her realise this.

 

So she's more similar to Elsa than you might think. Both are actually villains despite themselves, and behaved like that due to being hurt (at first) and then out of spite (afterwards). So what made Elsa likeable? That may shed some light on how to make Starlight more likeable.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Ninjaed

[cmarston1 5,959]

I don't even dislike Starlight anymore, but I still am not fond of how her reformation was handled at the end of the season 5 finale.

Episodes like No Second Prances and the Finale did help me to eventually warm up to her.

But I still feel like the writers could have done a lot more with her, than they did this season.

Going forward I just hope that she can have interesting/meaningful interactions with members of the mane 6 other than Twilight.

That's something her character is really lacking.

Edited October 29, 2016 by cmarston1

[Ninjaed 526]

Aren't there enough discussions rolling around about how awesome or sucky Starlight is as a character? Why not take this overly dramatic pillow fight to one of those? This thread is supposed to be about ideas to improve her, not explore her issues... again.

 

 

Here, I'll help you get it back on track. You can improve Starlight by covering her in chocolate and giving her a tasty cookie crunch center.

 

Now see? She is irresistible. Anyone who disagrees knows nothing about good snacks.

 

Other than that, just have her actually interact with the main cast more instead of bury them in her melodrama while having a melt down and she'll be fine. Like I said, i can handle her being a part of the cast if she is made to feel like it. If not, have her go be a background character or something.

 

^ This and...

 

I don't even dislike Starlight anymore, but I still am not fond of how her reformation was handled at the end of the season 5 finale.

Episodes like No Second Prances and the Finale did help me to eventually warm up to her.

But I still feel like the writers could have done a lot more with her, than they did this season.

Going forward I just hope that she can have interesting/meaningful interactions with members of the mane 6 other than Twilight.

That's something her character is really lacking.

 

^ ...that. I completely agree. Probably the most urgent issue to address in fact. If she felt more like she's a part of the group, that'd be a huge step forward imo. Angst only gets a character so far. Helps with introduction (or an arc) but that's it. Need more substance behind.

[Concerned Bystander 2,903]

 

 

Neither was Starlight in fact...well, sort of. Let's recap real quick: she genuinely believed in her idealism and genuinely believed she'd brought those ponies happiness and harmony.

 

If she truly believed that, she would have joined them in blissful equality instead of lying to them and keeping her own cutie mark.  Also, her response to gaining the cutie mark of an Alicorn princess clearly showed that she had some deeper intent with the magic she was collecting from her slaves.  And that is without taking into account the pleasure that she clearly took in inflicting the pain that the cutie mark removal procedure involved.

 

 

 

Never has she wanted to kill Twilight and Spike. When she managed to encase them in crystal, she could have. What did she do instead?

 

She left them to plummet a very considerable distance towards the ground.  I'm sure you know what happens when a person (or pony) hits the ground at terminal velocity?  Of course you do, and I'm sure Starlight does as well.  So yes, she did try to kill Twilight and Spike.  It was too much of an assumption to make that Twilight would escape from the crystal before being smashed into oblivion on the ground below.

[Cleverclover 1,526]

There are several ways Starlight can be made likable: 

 

- The most obvious, naturally, is to MAKE HER REALIZE THAT SHE CANNOT SIMPLY EXERT POWER OVER OTHERS FOR HER OWN BENEFIT. I sincerely doubt she still understands this. 

 

- Have her build a relationship with the mane five individually, because she clearly does not respect or care about any of them. 

 

- Additionally, give the mane five a reason to want to be friends with her beyond the notion that it's what Twilight wants for them. Starlight offers the mane five nothing. Have her offer them something worthwhile. 

 

- Have her stop hovering around Twilight exclusively, especially if she's just going to snub her for Trixie at the end of the day. 

 

- Stop having her make jokes about her past actions, because it's really just salt in the wound for the fact that she got away with them with a tiny slap on the wrist, and she clearly didn't learn anything from them anyway. 

 

- Stop having her jump directly to magic as a solution to everything. 

 

- Stop justifying her reckless magic usage with the notion that she lacks confidence in herself. Because it DOES NOT justify it, just like Zephyr's self-doubt did not justify him being an asshole to his family. 

 

- Stop having Twilight and the rest of the cast bend over backwards to shove her plainly obvious mental instabilities under the rug. Because they're certainly in need of addressing. 

 

- Alternatively, stop passing off her lack of empathy or regard for the feelings of others as just one of her flaws. It's not just some ordinary flaw. It's evidence that she desperately needs to be locked up. 

 

I'd say that would about cover it...

Edited October 29, 2016 by Cleverclover

[BastementSparkle 20,328]

If she truly believed that, she would have joined them in blissful equality instead of lying to them and keeping her own cutie mark.

 

Just gonna point out, she kind of did need her magic to remove the marks, so if she gave up her mark herself she wouldn't be able to do the same to others. We don't see what she would have done if she had successfully removed all the other marks in Equestria.

 

 As for the lying...Yep, Starlight was a dirty dishonest liar. She could have been honest about not being able to give up her mark yet, but probably figured that would have made her less convincing, so she might as well lie to them.

 

Element of Honesty she is not.

Edited October 29, 2016 by BasementGlimmer

[Ninjaed 526]

If she truly believed that, she would have joined them in blissful equality instead of lying to them and keeping her own cutie mark.  Also, her response to gaining the cutie mark of an Alicorn princess clearly showed that she had some deeper intent with the magic she was collecting from her slaves.  And that is without taking into account the pleasure that she clearly took in inflicting the pain that the cutie mark removal procedure involved.

 

She left them to plummet a very considerable distance towards the ground.  I'm sure you know what happens when a person (or pony) hits the ground at terminal velocity?  Of course you do, and I'm sure Starlight does as well.  So yes, she did try to kill Twilight and Spike.  It was too much of an assumption to make that Twilight would escape from the crystal before being smashed into oblivion on the ground below.

 

Yeah, her deeper intent was to extend it to all of Equestria. For the plummetting thing, she let Twilight plenty of time to realise her situation and knew that, with her powers, she'd easily make it out. She was hardly surprised when Twilight came back to try and stop her from teaching not to bully, because Twilight coming back had always been a certainty to her. She set all of this up so that Twilight could despair and suffer like she did. Not a good thing ofc. But I'm fairly sure she'd have freaked out had she accidentaly badly wounded or even outright killed Twilight. She was ready to keep that little "game" going for eternity after all, when killing RD or Twilight would have been so much simpler, but what'd have been the point for her??

 

There are several ways Starlight can be made likable: 

 

- The most obvious, naturally, is to MAKE HER REALIZE THAT SHE CANNOT SIMPLY EXERT POWER OVER OTHERS FOR HER OWN BENEFIT. I sincerely doubt she still understands this. 

 

- Have her build a relationship with the mane five individually, because she clearly does not respect or care about any of them. 

 

- Additionally, give the mane five a reason to want to be friends with her beyond the notion that it's what Twilight wants for them. Starlight offers the mane five nothing. Have her offer them something worthwhile. 

 

- Have her stop hovering around Twilight exclusively, especially if she's just going to snub her for Trixie at the end of the day. 

 

- Stop having her make jokes about her past actions, because it's really just salt in the wound for the fact that she got away with them with a tiny slap on the wrist, and she clearly didn't learn anything from them anyway. 

 

- Stop having her jump directly to magic as a solution to everything. 

 

- Stop justifying her reckless magic usage with the notion that she lacks confidence in herself. Because it DOES NOT justify it, just like Zephyr's self-doubt did not justify him being an asshole to his family. 

 

- Stop having Twilight and the rest of the cast bend over backwards to shove her plainly obvious mental instabilities under the rug. Because they're certainly in need of addressing. 

 

- Alternatively, stop passing off her lack of empathy or regard for the feelings of others as just one of her flaws. It's not just some ordinary flaw. It's evidence that she desperately needs to be locked up. 

 

I'd say that would about cover it...

 

Eh, let's go over it all!

 

- Yes, fully agree here. I think it's starting to sink in though. Slowly...but surely?

- That's what she lacks the most, you're right. Crossing my fingers for some of that in season 7.

- Kinda joins the previous point, so yeah.

- Once in a while doesn't hurt. Too often and it gets old real fast, if not outright annoying. We've seen her anxiety, so hopefully it'll be emphasized less. Not that she won't be anxious anymore, but we know of it.

- When you have a hammer, eh? Not to everything indeed, though I suspect she'll become a wizard or a magic researcher or something eventually, so still lots of magic. Just, not for everything yeah.

- It explains, it doesn't justify. And she got punished for that - had to clean up the mess she made.

- Slight disagreement here. They are, that's mostly why Twilight took her as her student. To slowly cure her of them instead of unleashing a powerful deranged pony in the wild.

- Hmm it's not really alternatively since it's pretty much included in the above. She actually always wanted happiness for others, just in a really twisted way. And failed to understand the implications of what she'd done

 

So...good suggestions overall

[Concerned Bystander 2,903]

 

 

But I'm fairly sure she'd have freaked out had she accidentaly badly wounded or even outright killed Twilight.

 

I very much doubt it, given that this;

 

 

Was her expression while doing this;

 

 

To Twilight.

 

She isn't doing this reluctantly for 'the greater good', she is quite clearly taking a great deal of pleasure in the pain that she is inflicting.  This is not her her being a misunderstood little angel, this is her being malicious and downright evil.  Had Twilight died falling from the cloud she wouldn't have batted an eyelid, let alone shed a tear.

 

She isn't unsalavageable as a character, it's just a shame that given the nature of the cartoon, she was allowed to get away with such malignant evil scott free because friendship.  At the end of the day the cartoon is what it is, so I'm not going to get bent out of shape over it.  She was a really good villain though *sigh*.

[Ninjaed 526]

I very much doubt it, given that this;

 

 

Was her expression while doing this;

 

 

To Twilight.

 

She isn't doing this reluctantly for 'the greater good', she is quite clearly taking a great deal of pleasure in the pain that she is inflicting.  This is not her her being a misunderstood little angel, this is her being malicious and downright evil.  Had Twilight died falling from the cloud she wouldn't have batted an eyelid, let alone shed a tear.

 

She isn't unsalavageable as a character, it's just a shame that given the nature of the cartoon, she was allowed to get away with such malignant evil scott free because friendship.  At the end of the day the cartoon is what it is, so I'm not going to get bent out of shape over it.  She was a really good villain though *sigh*.

 

I take that as cartoon code to tell the viewers 'this pony here be evil, beware' more than anything else, really. Trixie, Discord and Sunset weren't exactly unhappy to inflict suffering upon poor Twilight and others. It's convenient. Just like when she brainwashed in Every Little Thing She Does, there was the music and the facial expression indicating this was a TERRIBLE idea. I guess YMMV there though, since you took it another way.

 

As for going away scott-free, this is actually untrue. She became Twilight' student. Not a punishment? It actually is, just not the kind we're used to. Punishment allows someone to realise their mistakes and improve themselves. Our world is plagued from inflicting suffering as punishment at every turn for quite litterally everything. I sincerely approve of the show trying to tell us "there is another way!".

 

Now repairing the mess one has caused is another thing! That's why Twilight forced Starlight to go back to her village right after and apologise. Given the pony nature though (more forgiving than the human), they agreed to forgive her and let her follow those lessons to become a better pony. Those ponies are heroes of friendship, give them a cookie cupcake!

Edited October 29, 2016 by Ninjaed

[Sidral Mundet 1,666]

Well an interesting question. Here's my take on it:

 

Make her less special.  Starlight is overemphasized for lack of a better word. The show goes out of it's way to treat her as special and above many of the other characters. I mean if I took half of what the writers have given Starlight, you'd all be calling me out for creating a bad self-insert OC. She needs to be made normal, less emphasize place on her. Have her appear less and treat her far more like a normal pony instead of a coddled special bundle the show seems to be doing a lot of the times. That will help mitigate the dislike I have for her.  

 

 

There are several ways Starlight can be made likable: 

 

- The most obvious, naturally, is to MAKE HER REALIZE THAT SHE CANNOT SIMPLY EXERT POWER OVER OTHERS FOR HER OWN BENEFIT. I sincerely doubt she still understands this. 

 

- Have her build a relationship with the mane five individually, because she clearly does not respect or care about any of them. 

 

- Additionally, give the mane five a reason to want to be friends with her beyond the notion that it's what Twilight wants for them. Starlight offers the mane five nothing. Have her offer them something worthwhile. 

 

- Have her stop hovering around Twilight exclusively, especially if she's just going to snub her for Trixie at the end of the day. 

 

- Stop having her make jokes about her past actions, because it's really just salt in the wound for the fact that she got away with them with a tiny slap on the wrist, and she clearly didn't learn anything from them anyway. 

 

- Stop having her jump directly to magic as a solution to everything. 

 

- Stop justifying her reckless magic usage with the notion that she lacks confidence in herself. Because it DOES NOT justify it, just like Zephyr's self-doubt did not justify him being an asshole to his family. 

 

- Stop having Twilight and the rest of the cast bend over backwards to shove her plainly obvious mental instabilities under the rug. Because they're certainly in need of addressing. 

 

- Alternatively, stop passing off her lack of empathy or regard for the feelings of others as just one of her flaws. It's not just some ordinary flaw. It's evidence that she desperately needs to be locked up. 

 

I'd say that would about cover it...

All of this too would help. 

[Concerned Bystander 2,903]

 

 

I take that as cartoon code to tell the viewers 'this pony here be evil, beware' more than anything else, really.

 

That may have been the case but it can't be used as an argument when discussing 'in-universe' matters or morality.

 

 

 

As for going away scott-free, this is actually untrue. She became Twilight' student. Not a punishment?

 

No, that's rehabilitation, not punishment.  The two can be used side-by-side, as we see regularly in the real world, but in this instance it's purely rehabilitation with no penal element.  She had no restrictions placed on her freedom and beyond saying 'sorry about the slavery and brainwashing' she wasn't required to make any restitution for her actions.  But again, this (as you pointed out) is the nature of the cartoon.  I may gripe about things, but I keep on watching it because I enjoy it, despite (or more likely because of) its lack of realism.  Isn't that what fantasy is all about after all?

[Ninjaed 526]

That may have been the case but it can't be used as an argument when discussing 'in-universe' matters or morality.

 

 

 

 

No, that's rehabilitation, not punishment.  The two can be used side-by-side, as we see regularly in the real world, but in this instance it's purely rehabilitation with no penal element.  She had no restrictions placed on her freedom and beyond saying 'sorry about the slavery and brainwashing' she wasn't required to make any restitution for her actions.  But again, this (as you pointed out) is the nature of the cartoon.  I may gripe about things, but I keep on watching it because I enjoy it, despite (or more likely because of) its lack of realism.  Isn't that what fantasy is all about after all?

 

Sadly it cannot, can it? That's why I'll be giving it a rest, just wanted to let you know of my interpretation

 

Rehabilitation actually is a form of punishment. Utilitarian punishment to be precise, or one of its forms. Do give this thread a read, I find it quite...eye-opening.

 

https://mlpforums.com/topic/151938-why-starlight-glimmer-and-villain-reform-is-genius-a-criminal-justice-view/

 

She may not have any "restrictions", but she is still under Twilight's supervision. When Starlight made a mistake, she had to answer to Twilight. She has to live in the castle, even though she actually takes it as a gift or whatever. That way, she's always close to Twilight and Twilight can keep a close eye on her. It's not restrictive but it's effective and serves as a deterrent.

 

Truly glad this doesn't prevent you from enjoying the cartoon though

Edited November 5, 2016 by Ninjaed

[Concerned Bystander 2,903]

Rehabilitation actually is a form of punishment. Utilitarian punishment to be precise, or one of its forms.

 

It is indeed a method of dealing with wrongdoing, one of many as you point out.  Whether or not it is punishment is starting to get into arguing semantics, which is a whole other topic.  As for the thread you linked, I do believe I actually posted on that topic previously (lots of good points in favour of rehab, still not convinced though).

 

but she is still under Twilight's supervision. When Starlight made a mistake, she had to answer to Twilight.

 

Either Twilight is a poor teacher, or Starlight is a poor pupil.  As recently as 'Every little thing she does' Starlight still didn't have even the most rudimentary understanding of the difference between right and wrong, Twilight should really restructure her curriculum and put that lesson in week one, day one.

 

Truly glad this doesn't prevent you from enjoying the cartoon though

 

I do enjoy some of the debates that come up on this forum, but I'm not the sort of person to take things too seriously, it's all just meant to be a bit of light hearted fun and it's not worth throwing a track over.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Concerned Bystander

[Ninjaed 526]

It is indeed a method of dealing with wrongdoing, one of many as you point out.  Whether or not it is punishment is starting to get into arguing semantics, which is a whole other topic.  As for the thread you linked, I do believe I actually posted on that topic previously (lots of good points in favour of rehab, still not convinced though).

 

 

Either Twilight is a poor teacher, or Starlight is a poor pupil.  As recently as 'Every little thing she does' Starlight still didn't have even the most rudimentary understanding of the difference between right and wrong, Twilight should really restructure her curriculum and put that lesson in week one, day one.

 

 

I do enjoy some of the debates that come up on this forum, but I'm not the sort of person to take things too seriously, it's all just meant to be a bit of light hearted fun and it's not worth throwing a track over.

 

I think you did now that you mention it. Oh well. You're somewhat right it's getting into semantics though, so let's not.

 

I think it's a mix of both. Twilight failing at teaching, Starlight failing at learning. Thankfully Starlight already had "my friends are precious" values, or we wouldn't have had this finale. Still, Twilight...do a better job at teaching your student please

 

Same as you there. I enjoy those debates as well so long as people respect each other. I find it saddening when they don't. Like you said, it should be light-hearted fun about a show preaching love, friendship, tolerance or forgiveness among others.

[Goat-kun 2,529]

I actually rather like Sunburst, truth be told

Kind of sad, in that I HATE starlight and the two are kind of a package deal >.< so I can't get him without her as well.

I like him too. He’s one of a few good things that crawled out of S06. Perhaps one day, my fellow hater