Fixing Starlight Glimmer: An alternative idea for a character about redemption, empathy and compassion (rewriting the character, her motivations, her actions, etc)

[Ring Team 119]

Last year I finished watching the entire show of MLP:FiM. My overall impression of the show was positive, and I’m one of those who really liked The ending of the End and The last problem despite some flaws. However, I wanted to say a couple of things related to Starlight Glimmer, but, by the time I’ve finished, pretty much everything has already been said.

Starlight has always been a subject of debate since 2015, with very hot takes and a wealth of arguments from both sides. And sometimes in the middle. But, after reading everything I needed to know, it wouldn’t make sense to share my thoughts on her at this point. Besides, if you’ve read my thoughts on season 9, you can probably guess my stance anyway. So, instead of saying she was either good or bad, I want to take this topic from a different angle based on this thread. This is going to be about suggesting an alternative idea for Starlight in order for her to work as a character.

My goal with this is to write relatively small changes that:

a) Shake minor details up and…
b) Repurpose existing characters or elements from a narrative and dramatic point of view.

That way, it wouldn’t feel that I’m pitching an entirely different TV show. So, no Starlight still being a villain for example. All I'm gonna do is to suggest and write slightly different things.

Obviously, many people are happy with the show the way it is. And I am. But, considering how many people have written an alternative ending for the show (because The ending of the end wasn’t satisfying for many), I think this is also a chance to see other aspects of MLP:FiM, not to mention there’s always some layer of improvement in G4. So, let’s get our hands dirty.

First, I want to clarify that I like the idea of having a new main character that happened to be a villain. That’s why I like Sunset Shimmer and Tempest Shadow. I love Tempest Shadow because she ended up seeing value in friendship at the end of the film. And as a result, to save Twilight and her friends, she sacrificed herself. I also like Sunset Shimmer for the same reasons, even though I wish Rainbow Rocks was much more focused on her than the music concert, which is a pity.

My main problem with Starlight Glimmer is that, from a narrative and dramatic point of view, she’s painfully underwhelming. My first problem is that it was very weird that they wanted to show a unicorn that was for some unexplainable reason more powerful than an alicorn such as Twilight (to the point where she can take away the cutie marks). I think a scepter that would allow her to do that type of magic would have been more interesting, like the alicorn pendant of Trixie in season 3.

And now that I mention the cutie marks, I think it completely rewrote the established rules and lore about cutie marks. It severely invalidates the personal aspect and the point of having a cutie mark. When you have a talent, you perfected it and you make a living with your own talent and effort, that doesn’t matter anyway because Starlight is gonna take that away from you whenever she wants and however she wants. And I think it shouldn’t have been this way. It’s like painting the face of God. Better yet, it’s like playing God.

It also didn’t make sense that she only appeared in 2 episodes out of 26 in season 5. When “Make New Friends but Keep Discord” came out and it ended with the main characters in a party, I was one of the few people who asked “shouldn’t they be chasing Starlight? She might cause more problems”. Back then, a couple of people answered me (in a very condescending way, I must add) that “we can have other types of episodes, they can make later another episode of Starlight, this is a slice of life TV show”. And I’d agree if it wasn’t for the fact that we never got an episode about Starlight until the very end. I didn’t understand why people were hyped when we don’t know too much of her during the entire season 5 until the final episode.

After 7 or 8 months of lack of episodes about Starlight, we got Cutie Re-mark. Starlight got into Twilight’s castle (that has no security whatsoever for some reason) and uses a time spell because apparently she’s powerful enough to make a time travel spell. Twilight is struggling to find her. After 3 or 5 what ifs (including a scene of Chrysalis where she doesn’t have her altered voice from A Canterlot Wedding), we learned something about her: Her motivations, her goals, her intentions, why she does the things she does… After 7 or 8 months of absolute silence, we finally know her backstory.

Her best friend moved away when she was a foal and now she’s evil.

That’s it. The episode doesn’t share her motivations in detail, it doesn’t fully explore the relationship between Starlight and Sunburst, it doesn’t show any kind of progression, nothing. After 7 or 8 months, a reveal like this was underwhelming. And, out of nowhere, Twilight forgives her and, with no progression, she became a new main character.

They had a chance of developing her. But I’d assume they would do it in season 6. What we essentially got was Starlight being socilly awkward while she’s learning friendship, like Twilight in the early seasons (which doesn’t make sense because she managed to convince the filly Rainbow Dash to not trust Twilight back in Cutie Re-mark). It doesn’t make sense for a unicorn that was able to manipulate an entire town and to get respect from everyone in Cutie Map. It’s hard to like her when she has moments like forcing Big Macintosh to talk to her with quotes like “I can’t be friends with somepony who doesn’t talk”. Why would you love a character that says things like this?

Then we got Every little thing she does. After seeing some episodes in season 6 that suggested a change for the better in Starlight (like A Hearth’s Warming tail), we got an episode where Starlight, for no reason, decided to go back manipulating Twilight’s friends, even after she was forgiven back in Cutie Remark. Her will to finish her friendship homework as quick as possible doesn’t fit with her desire of redemption. And now that I mention it, it doesn’t make sense that a unicorn that was able to manipulate an entire town now is clumsy at doing that.

You could argue that she ended up redeeming herself in the season 6 finale, but I didn’t think that episode was satisfying. I don’t think the Mane 6 would be so defenseless at a point where they can defend themselves, especially after fighting against the changelings in season 2.

After that ending, I watched a little bit of Celestial Advice. After some exhaustion, fatigue and disappointment with the season 6, especially with Starlight Glimmer, some flanderized characters, the redesign of the changelings and how Chrysalis was treated as a joke, I stopped watching the show. 3 years and a half later, in the pandemic era, I decided to give it another chance, but even after season 6 I had many problems with Starlight in her episodes, specifically three common problems:

1. Like Every little thing she does, Starlight uses her magic to manipulate everyone or swapping cutie marks without any consent to achieve her goals, including getting stressed to create dark magic and manipulate more ponies, like All bottled up, A royal problem and Uncommon bond.

2. In episodes like Rock solid friendship, she says she doesn’t like to be judged even though she has no right to say it considering the events of Cutie Map, Uncommon bond and Every little thing she does. You can't manipulate someone and pretend you don't like to be judged.

3. Unlike Rainbow Rocks and the 2017 MLP film, no one (absolutely no one) questions Starlight’s intentions despite the fact that she’s obviously dangerous. The show clearly questions Discord because he was evil. That makes sense. But the entire Ponyville and Canterlot don’t give the same treatment for Starlight.

She seems to be mostly selfish and possesive, which are features I don’t associate with a character who is supposed to have a redemption arc. In Road of Friendship, she traded Trixie’s home and she gets angry at her because she cried for what Starlight did, which makes it incredibly hard to like her. The show has lots of moments like this with Starlight, including the short where she manipulates Twilight that was made in 2019.

Basically, Starlight using her magic to manipulate ponies and swap cutie marks in an abusive way to achieve her goals and being a jerk with her new friends is really bad. Not to mention her constant negligence and lack of discipline, which makes her even less relatable, less tolerable, less likeable and less empathetic. I mean, even TV Tropes describes Starlight as “the biggest Base-Breaking Character in the show”.

So, what could fix these issues?

The most common suggestion I’ve read in some threads was to still maintain Starlight a villain. And, while it’s a good idea, I think it would be too major to be considered a relatively small change. I agree she’s dangerous enough to still be a villain, you just have to see what she can do. But I think making her a villain with no mercy would be a bit senseless judging from her very simplistic backstory, and also the fact that I don’t want to pitch a different TV show. I still think it’s very irrational for her to be against the world just because “her friend moved away”. Again, this is the type of content you would write in one day, maybe less time.

I’ve read a comment that says that “Twilight manipulated Ponyville in Lesson Zero” and because of that, people shouldn’t be that hard on Starlight. And that’s true. However, Twilight only did that at the end of the episode and it was only for 2 minutes. It’s not like it’s the entire premise of Lesson Zero. There’s much more stuff going on. However, I think Starlight should have been more critiziced because:

1. She was a villain in the first place.

2. Considering the first point, she’s supposed to learn friendship instead of keep manipulating everyone with magic as she did in Cutie map.

Another popular comment I’ve read that defends her was that Starlight making mistakes is essentially her character, that this is the point of her. But I think it’s senseless. Using magic to solve friendship problems and/or learning about friendship not only is a boring solution (especially considering that she creates powerful magical spells with worrying ease), but it also shouldn’t be a solution for a character who was previously a villain. As we saw in episodes such as Every little thing she does, A royal Problem and Uncommon Bond, she uses her magic as the main method to solve a problem. Not only it’s creepy, but it also reveals a possesive nature in Starlight that is disturbing. Not to mention that I've read a Starlight fan complaining about Sprout in the movie because "he needs to earn redemption", which doesn't make sense after parising a manipulative character. So the "mistakes argument" didn't make any sense in the first place.

The idea of Starlight having to manipulate everyone after Cutie Remark just because “that’s the point of her” defeats the purpose of her redemption arc. When you have a character like this, I have a hard time believing the “accepting the character the way she is” argument, especially when she can do dangerous things. You can’t act like her redemption arc is meaningless for the sake of keeping her manipulating everyone and ending the discussion like nothing happened. That contradicts the whole idea of what Friendship is Magic is about.

So, instead of using magic to manipulate everyone to achieve her goals, I think the best approach for Starlight Glimmer would be to give her a reason to redeem herself.

My proposed solution would be this: Instead of being an overpowered unicorn, I think her magic should be dependable on a scepter or a magic amulet, kinda like Magic Duel. Without it, she wouldn’t harm anyone, she wouldn’t create dark magic whenever she gets stressed and she wouldn’t be that dangerous on her own. This type of horrific spells would make sense in an ancient scepter.

Instead of 2 episodes, she should get 6 episodes that are distributed in season 5, kinda like the elements of harmony episodes in season 4. In those episodes we would get to know who Starlight is by having Twilight and some of her friends go in a quest. With Starlight running away in Cutie Map, it would make sense that they would go after her, since that she’s dangerous. With 6 episodes, Twilight would get to know her past, where she came from, who her best friend is, who her parents are, what type of pony she was, etc.

Instead of becoming a manipulative villain because her friend moved away, Starlight had a manipulative mother who, since her childhood, taught her that this is how she would succeed in life and that’s how the world works. That severely affected her view of the world. As for Sunburst, he would have the same experience and the same type of mother, but with the difference that he solved his family issues. That way you can talk about empathy as a central part of the show later.

In the season 5 finale, Twilight takes a huge effort to help her, that it’s not her fault, it’s because of her mother. She can be whoever she wants, she doesn’t have to be manipulative with everyone, she can be like Sunburst. By knowing what happened to him, Starlight finally listens to her, she says “I’m sorry”, Twilight says “let me help you” and we will get a new character properly introduced.

In season 6, instead of manipulating anyone, Starlight would have a reason to be better. Knowing that Sunburst solved his personal problems to get better, she desires to be like her best friend, but there’s a twist: In The Crystalling, when Sunburst discovers what she has previously done, he decides not to see her, because, to him, she’s dangerous. He will say: “If you really have changed, then prove it”. Like Sunset Shimmer in Rainbow Rocks, the show should be consequent to Starlight’s actions, it should show a cause and an effect. By considering Sunburst her best friend, Starlight would do her best to be a better pony.

So, most of her episodes would be her learning about friendship, but they shouldn’t feel like Twilight from season 1, it should be like her own episodes. So, not socially awkward, no book obssesions, just a character that slowly opens up herself with her new friends. When it comes to the villains, she would overcome them by ingenuity, not an excessive use of magic. And, in the season 6 finale, when Sunburst realizes that Starlight has got better, he will consider her as a friend. And the next seasons will have these two going into adventures together. And now that they’re together, Starlight would see the benefits of her growth and her change.

Having an approach like this would allow Starlight to actually learn friendship, learn from her mistakes, fighting against her inner demons and, overall, be better without affecting the flow of the show and splitting the fans.

With all this said, I’m not saying that the Starlight fans (either vocal or calm fans) are wrong or anything like that (from my experience, My Little Pony is important for very different reasons for very different people, and that’s great). I’m saying that, in order for her to learn from her mistakes, redeem herself and be relevant, the writers (especially Josh Haber) needed to take away features from her such as being negligent, being possesive, having powerful magic and swapping cutie marks like nothing, which is kinda where the problem is here.

I don’t think this is too relevant right now. If I finished the show back in 2019, the story would have been different. And, even though she’s my least favourite character in the show, I liked her in The beginning of the end, The ending of the End and A Hearth’s Warming Tail. It’s only 3 episodes, but it’s more than enough for me. Now that I’ve watched MLP A new generation and I liked it, I see this as a text about what we can learn from Starlight Glimmer going foward.

If I have time, I'll illustrate the problem with some sketches and change the images for these sketches.

Take care

[EpicEnergy 22,098]

You have an excellent proposition for fixing Starlight's character! I approve.

I would still like to make a few comments, however.

Before I begin though, I want to say that I used to hate Starlight when she was a villain. It took some time after her reformation for me to love her, but eventually I did love her. Presently, I have no interest in her, likely due to the fact that I haven't watched a FiM episode in months, but that is subject to change. So, one can say that I was a Starlight hater that turned into Starlight fan, and now I would just say that I like her instead of calling myself a fan.

11 hours ago, Ring Team said:

My first problem is that it was very weird that they wanted to show a unicorn that was for some unexplainable reason more powerful than an alicorn such as Twilight (to the point where she can take away the cutie marks). I think a scepter that would allow her to do that type of magic would have been more interesting, like the alicorn pendant of Trixie in season 3.

That's actually what I thought of initially when I first watched the episode, that Starlight was using a powerful artifact to remove cutie marks, not that there is a learnable magic out there that a unicorn could naturally attain to remove cutie marks at will. My point is, I agree with you in that it would have been better for Starlight to have used a powerful artifact rather than a spell.

12 hours ago, Ring Team said:

And now that I mention the cutie marks, I think it completely rewrote the established rules and lore about cutie marks. It severely invalidates the personal aspect and the point of having a cutie mark. When you have a talent, you perfected it and you make a living with your own talent and effort, that doesn’t matter anyway because Starlight is gonna take that away from you whenever she wants and however she wants. And I think it shouldn’t have been this way. It’s like painting the face of God. Better yet, it’s like playing God.

I agree with you, and I think that not only did it rewrite the rules and lore of cutie marks, but it rewrote them in a way that conflicted with the previously established rules of cutie marks. I say that because the previously established rules are that a pony should have a natural talent with cutie marks as a symbol of that talent, not as some form of containment that the talent is stored in which could be removed at Starlight's will.

12 hours ago, Ring Team said:

It also didn’t make sense that she only appeared in 2 episodes out of 26 in season 5. When “Make New Friends but Keep Discord” came out and it ended with the main characters in a party, I was one of the few people who asked “shouldn’t they be chasing Starlight? She might cause more problems”. Back then, a couple of people answered me (in a very condescending way, I must add) that “we can have other types of episodes, they can make later another episode of Starlight, this is a slice of life TV show”. And I’d agree if it wasn’t for the fact that we never got an episode about Starlight until the very end. I didn’t understand why people were hyped when we don’t know too much of her during the entire season 5 until the final episode.

I don't have an issue with the mane six partying rather than pursuing Starlight. The reason is because her location was entirely unknown, and no pony had no clue where she would go. I'm fine with your view though, because while I think that it is logical for the mane six not to pursue Starlight, I also see logic in criticizing the mane six for not preparing for Starlight's return. I mean, they could have at least had wanted posters out for a dangerous pony seeking revenge.

12 hours ago, Ring Team said:

After 7 or 8 months of lack of episodes about Starlight, we got Cutie Re-mark. Starlight got into Twilight’s castle (that has no security whatsoever for some reason) and uses a time spell because apparently she’s powerful enough to make a time travel spell.

To be fair, Starswirl wrote the spell and all Starlight had to do was cast it. I'm sure even unicorn Twilight wouldn't have had an issue with casting it either.

12 hours ago, Ring Team said:

After 7 or 8 months of absolute silence, we finally know her backstory.

Her best friend moved away when she was a foal and now she’s evil.

That’s it. The episode doesn’t share her motivations in detail, it doesn’t fully explore the relationship between Starlight and Sunburst, it doesn’t show any kind of progression, nothing. After 7 or 8 months, a reveal like this was underwhelming. And, out of nowhere, Twilight forgives her and, with no progression, she became a new main character.

 I personally didn't find it underwhelming because the details (relationship between Starlight and Sunburst, Starlight's motivations, etc.) weren't necessary for me to understand Starlight's backstory, but I can see how others like you would want and expect more out of Starlight's backstory because it is annoying whenever details are left out and things are rushed. It also doesn't help that it doesn't make sense that Starlight became evil just because her best friend moved away. I think it would have been better if the writers put in that Starlight became hopeless and lost, or at least some form of strong and negative emotion overcame her and caused her to fall down a path that led to evil.

Also, I do have issues with Twilight just forgiving Starlight as if her actions weren't bad enough to justify punishing her. Enslave an entire village, force ponies against their will, ruin lives in favor of equality, and almost obliterate all of Equestria isn't enough to justify punishing a pony? Not only did Twilight make a mistake there, but so did the rest of the mane six who had no issue with Starlight and just forgave her.

12 hours ago, Ring Team said:

It’s hard to like her when she has moments like forcing Big Macintosh to talk to her with quotes like “I can’t be friends with somepony who doesn’t talk”. Why would you love a character that says things like this?

Because those are flaws, and while they are also essential parts of characters, flaws are not the entire character. There are weaknesses, strengths, flaws, personalities, morals, and more. While it was extremely rude for Starlight to say that to Big Mac, it is a flaw. Also, Starlight became friends with Trixie, who had a bad reputation in Ponyville, and it was Starlight who tried to reform Chrysalis. It is true that Starlight didn't want to be friends with anypony who didn't talk, but to ignore the ones she wanted to be friends with is unfair.

13 hours ago, Ring Team said:

Then we got Every little thing she does. After seeing some episodes in season 6 that suggested a change for the better in Starlight (like A Hearth’s Warming tail), we got an episode where Starlight, for no reason, decided to go back manipulating Twilight’s friends, even after she was forgiven back in Cutie Remark. Her will to finish her friendship homework as quick as possible doesn’t fit with her desire of redemption. And now that I mention it, it doesn’t make sense that a unicorn that was able to manipulate an entire town now is clumsy at doing that.

I really disliked that episode, haven't watched it in ages though. Anyways, that episode goes to show that Starlight needs to be punished, and yet again Twilight and the mane six just forgive her??? The only in-universe way to explain that is to say that Twilight and the mane six either favor Starlight exceptionally or they were still suffering from headaches and just wanted to relax rather than deal with Starlight. Either way, it's poor writing.

13 hours ago, Ring Team said:

You could argue that she ended up redeeming herself in the season 6 finale, but I didn’t think that episode was satisfying. I don’t think the Mane 6 would be so defenseless at a point where they can defend themselves, especially after fighting against the changelings in season 2.

I disagree, but to each their own is what I say.

13 hours ago, Ring Team said:

I’ve read a comment that says that “Twilight manipulated Ponyville in Lesson Zero” and because of that, people shouldn’t be that hard on Starlight. And that’s true. However, Twilight only did that at the end of the episode and it was only for 2 minutes. It’s not like it’s the entire premise of Lesson Zero. There’s much more stuff going on. However, I think Starlight should have been more critiziced because:

The argument that justifies Starlight's manipulative behavior with the fact that Twilight manipulated Ponyville in Lesson Zero could be refuted by saying that it was an "out of character" moment, and Twilight learned from her mistakes while Starlight repeated them.

[altoeclipse 0]

Honestly making Starlight a villain in the first place probably wasn't the right move, nor making her unicorn magic top-tier. Her being unable to make friends could still be part of her past however.

[Crash_xox 56]

I totally agree with you. Her emotions are connected to her magic ( like her cutie mark), and her emotions are kinda... unstable? her attitude and the way she copes with her past must be fixed. and I think Trixie can help with that.