Sunset Shimmer's Character- how does it compare to Starlight Glimmer's?

[CypherHoof 26,479]

I suspect there is more planned for Starlight and Sunset

Spoiler

The symbol on Sunset's new communication book looks suspiciously like a combo of both her and Starlight's cutie marks....

 

[Fluttercordxx 12]

At first, Sunset was my favorite character and I hated Starlight. But as the time grew on she became boring and while at the other hoof, Starlight grew as a character. Back then she hate making decisions but you can see clearly in A Royal Problem that she changed. And now, my favorite character of all time is Fluttershy!!!

[Thrond 3,257]

Starlight is a better developed character than Sunset. She has relatable anxieties, meaningful flaws, and clear interests. We don't even know what Sunset does in her spare time, which is admittedly just because Equestria Girls is allergic to fleshing out its characters' lives, but it still makes Sunset a really uninteresting character. There's just not a lot to her anymore.

I don't find Starlight very compelling either, however, and that's mainly because the stories she's given are rather limited. Too often, she resorts to self-pity, which I just don't find very interesting, and her constant misdeeds are starting to make me impatient, if only because nobody around her seems to acknowledge how dangerous she still is. Especially in season 7, I find her difficult to sympathize with, and she's not nearly funny enough to compensate. 

At their best, both suffer from insecurity about how they're perceived, but Sunset is proactive in trying to fix her image, proving how much she's changed, whereas Starlight often avoids the problem, terrified of failure and rejection. Sunset is more admirable and Starlight is more relatable, but they suffer from many of the same insecurities, and it's when they're reacting to those insecurities that I think both characters are at their best.

Which is why it frustrates me that Sunset's main anxiety has shifted to existential dread, which ties in more to external conflicts and is therefore not very sympathetic or relatable. In "Mirror Magic," this was paired with a weirdly chipper and wholly confident Starlight, and my problem with confident Starlight is that she feels profoundly generic, like an amalgamation of others' traits with few distinguishing qualities of her own.

Putting two very bland characters together doesn't amount to much, and that's a large part of why I couldn't stand "Mirror Magic." When they're confident, Sunset has slightly more edge whereas Starlight is slightly more quirky, but neither feels substantial to me. I want to like both of them more than I do.

Edited July 31, 2017 by AlexanderThrond

[Philweasel 139]

On 7/26/2017 at 7:00 AM, AlexanderThrond said:

Starlight is a better developed character than Sunset. She has relatable anxieties, meaningful flaws, and clear interests. We don't even know what Sunset does in her spare time, which is admittedly just because Equestria Girls is allergic to fleshing out its characters' lives, but it still makes Sunset a really uninteresting character. There's just not a lot to her anymore.

I don't find Starlight very compelling either, however, and that's mainly because the stories she's given are rather limited. Too often, she resorts to self-pity, which I just don't find very interesting, and her constant misdeeds are starting to make me impatient, if only because nobody around her seems to acknowledge how dangerous she still is. Especially in season 7, I find her difficult to sympathize with, and she's not nearly funny enough to compensate. 

At their best, both suffer from insecurity about how they're perceived, but Sunset is proactive in trying to fix her image, proving how much she's changed, whereas Starlight often avoids the problem, terrified of failure and rejection. Sunset is more admirable and Starlight is more relatable, but they suffer from many of the same insecurities, and it's when they're reacting to those insecurities that I think both characters are at their best.

Which is why it frustrates me that Sunset's main anxiety has shifted to existential dread, which ties in more to external conflicts and is therefore not very sympathetic or relatable. In "Mirror Magic," this was paired with avweordly chipper and wholly confident Starlight, and my problem with confident Starlight is that she feels profoundly generic, like an amalgamation of others' traits with few distinguishing qualities of her own.

Putting two very bland characters together doesn't amount to much, and that's a large part of why I couldn't stand "Mirror Magic." When they're confident, Sunset has slightly more edge whereas Starlight is slightly more quirky, but neither feels substantial to me. I want to like both of them more than I do.

Despite the fact that I react totally differently to the both of them, your analysis is spot on.

I do like confident Starlight though, and it's often a nice character check for her time as a villain. She's just so oblivious and quirky when she's in a good mood, still profoundly awkward and unnatural in her mannerisms but wonderfully unaware how odd she comes across. The ice cream was just perfect, both the dropping it all over the floor and being totally unaware it was all over her face.

Sunset isn't particularly interesting as a character to explore for drama, agreed. Still she is a mountain of coolness, and I think works best when she's doing stuff, and supporting other characters. Her relationship with both Twilight's is great, as is her relationship with Starlight. Like Applejack she makes a great character for others to play off, even if she struggles to have relatable, story driving flaws.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Philweasel

[Thrond 3,257]

7 minutes ago, Philweasel said:

I do like confident Starlight though, and it's often a nice character check for her time as a villain. She's just so oblivious and quirky when she's in a good mood, still profoundly awkward and unnatural in her mannerisms but wonderfully unaware how odd she comes across. The ice cream was just perfect, both the dropping it all over the floor and being totally unaware it was all over her face.

I feel the show downplays that a lot, so when that characteristic appeared in "Mirror Magic," it didn't feel very much like Starlight's prior appearances to me. It makes it hard for me to get a feel for the character, which only enhances my feeling that she's not adding anything unique to the show. Personally, I didn't find her antics all that amusing either, which doesn't help. 

17 minutes ago, Philweasel said:

Sunset isn't particularly interesting as a character to explore for drama, agreed. Still she is a mountain of coolness, and I think works best when she's doing stuff, and supporting other characters. Her relationship with both Twilight's is great, as is her relationship with Starlight. Like Applejack she makes a great character for others to play off, even if she struggles to have relatable, story driving flaws.

I like it when Sunset's cool, but like Starlight's awkward obliviousness, I feel the series downplays that. She seems sort of confident sometimes, but lately I feel like she's just sort of been worrying about things all of the time without being very exciting otherwise. To me, those traits I think she lacks don't just hurt her as a dramatic character. They also prevent her from being very funny. Plus, Sunset's protective relationship with Sci-Twi annoys me because I still don't really enjoy Sci-Twi being so much more insecure than pony Twi ever was. 

Mostly, I think my issue with both of these characters is that I find them difficult to relate to. Starlight wallows in self-pity despite everyone around her being very forgiving, and keeps doing things I find alienating. Meanwhile, Sunset only struggles with weird magical issues which seem to have zero metaphorical weight, so she can feel really distant, like she doesn't have human problems. I swear, I used to enjoy both of them, but I disagree with the directions they've been taken in. 

[heavens-champion 1,893]

All I can see is... Compared to Sunset, Starlight got off easy, because Sunset took a whole movie to prove she changed.

[Rawzy 1,302]

They were both evil at one point.

[CypherHoof 26,479]

2 hours ago, heavens-champion said:

All I can see is... Compared to Sunset, Starlight got off easy, because Sunset took a whole movie to prove she changed.

I think it is more that Starlight took an entire season to work on actually changing - however, the people she most had to make it up to were the equality villagers, and we really only saw that part of it in montage - we have no idea what that actually took, although they seem to have forgiven her more than she has forgiven herself by the S6 finale.

But other side of the same coin - we have the horrible trainwreck that was ELTSD which was late in S6 (pinkie's quote about being a REAAAAAALY forgiving group springs to mind here, anger about burnt cakes notwithstanding) and the angry red mist from All Bottled Up which took over three random ponys' minds without them giving her a hard time about it afterwards, which again seems suspiciously forgiving. I have to wonder what is actually going on here, given the easy ride Starlight seems to be getting (although I imagine getting a medal from Celestia may have earned her some goodwill "benefit of the doubt" in the latter case)

I do wish however we just had more BACKGROUND Starlight - her helping AJ at the farm, or Fluttershy with her animals, or generally just not being the focus of the show whenever she was onscreen, but acting as a supporting character for a change.

[heavens-champion 1,893]

11 minutes ago, CypherHoof said:

I think it is more that Starlight took an entire season to work on actually changing - however, the people she most had to make it up to were the equality villagers, and we really only saw that part of it in montage - we have no idea what that actually took, although they seem to have forgiven her more than she has forgiven herself by the S6 finale.

But other side of the same coin - we have the horrible trainwreck that was ELTSD which was late in S6 (pinkie's quote about being a REAAAAAALY forgiving group springs to mind here, anger about burnt cakes notwithstanding) and the angry red mist from All Bottled Up which took over three random ponys' minds without them giving her a hard time about it afterwards, which again seems suspiciously forgiving. I have to wonder what is actually going on here, given the easy ride Starlight seems to be getting (although I imagine getting a medal from Celestia may have earned her some goodwill "benefit of the doubt" in the latter case)

I do wish however we just had more BACKGROUND Starlight - her helping AJ at the farm, or Fluttershy with her animals, or generally just not being the focus of the show whenever she was onscreen, but acting as a supporting character for a change.

I see what you mean. This was especially apparent in the Season 6 two-parters, where it felt like a completely different show. The season 6 finale can be forgiven, since she was technically supposed to be the hero in it (still poorly paced, though).

Edited July 31, 2017 by heavens-champion

[Tilgoreth 1,915]

I prefer Starlight. I mean GlimGlam is just to adorable not to love. And besides that the writers had a season to flesh out Starlight instead of just one movie. 

[Hierok 11,829]

I prefer Sunset, just due to her reformation. The rest is pretty much the same for me. 

[Skytower 71]

They had one thing in common: they both sought emotional security and fulfillment through power.

[lua 105]

I like sunset more, but i also like starlight a bit.

[Hierok 11,829]

16 hours ago, Skytower said:

They had one thing in common: they both sought emotional security and fulfillment through power.

And they fell pretty hard and got their big moments to shine later in the show. 

Edited August 9, 2017 by Hierok

[Skytower 71]

I think it might help if we knew more about Sunset's childhood in Equestria.  We know about Starlight's childhood, but not Sunset's.

[ShootingStar159 2,155]

11 hours ago, Skytower said:

I think it might help if we knew more about Sunset's childhood in Equestria.  We know about Starlight's childhood, but not Sunset's.

We kinda know about her childhood, we only saw the one big defining moment for her. I'd like to see how she got her Cutie mark, (maybe an idea for a CMC episode?) was she bullied, stuff like that. There's a lot of ideological elements from her equal towns philosophy, like why the town freaks out over the slight disagreement the main six had that haven't ever really been explained, and I'd like it to.

But yes, we also need to see some Sunset backstory as well.