@Background Pony #0C96  
That is actually why she actually did reach out to the sirens and the shadowbolts in my headcannon. Still, even while she isn’t perfect. I think she still embodies the concept of redemption, being an element is not an ideal you live up to right away, it is something to strive towards, the element of friendship, Twilight Sparkle was after all once very antisocial and very resistant to the idea of making friends. Sunset is probably meant to be one who does have more sympathy for former villains because of her personal history and is therefore the most likely to forgive, at least that is the way I see her

@Background Pony #5AFE  
Geodes are element necklaces in human world so…

Well empathy is her element so if it’s geode of empathy isn’t it geode of magic, geode of kindness… Or like geode of telepathy if it’s powers since Sunset’s power is telepathy and her ELEMENT is empathy?

@DoomPony  
At best, it’s an informed trait; something the writers tell us is true whether the material demonstrates it or not. I wouldn’t even call her geode ‘empathy,’ because as you say, she never uses it for anything but exposition, and never seems to feel or understand anything the person she touches feels, just learns what they knew. Always without permission, at that.
 
No idea about Pinkie’s powers, though. Maybe it was just the most ‘lolrandom’ thing they could think of once everyone else had their powers?

@Background Pony #0C96  
I am mostly in agreement, but I feel it’s a writing issue. We’ve been told that she is the element of empathy; they’ve just done a very poor job of showing it. Outside of SciTwi, the only undeniable empathy element is her geode having exposition powers. Which would make it one of the two, with magic, that has an effect related to its stated element. I’m still trying to figure out why Pinkie was turned into Gambit.

@DoomPony  
Twilight is the only person she’s ever reached out to, and the fact that she happens to look just like someone Sunset is already close friends with and mirror Sunset’s own story doesn’t exactly take tons of empathy for Sunset to identify with.
 
Then there’s the sirens, Cinch, Juniper, pretty much every EQG villain since, not one of whom she reached out to on her own, treating pretty much all of them with nothing but smug satisfaction when they were beaten. She didn’t care about any of them until, at best someone else (Starlight, who at least tries to reach out to pretty much everyone so far) gave them a chance. Show me the empathy in that.
 
Finally, if you were paying attention, Trixie had to spell out the problem for her with Wallflower. TRIXIE understood and empathized with Wallflower first, and was the one to reach out to Sunset when she was at her lowest point in the special.
 
So no, showing empathy all on her own precisely one time doesn’t really make a case.

@Background Pony #0C96  
So what would you call her reaching out to SciTwi at the end of Friendship Games? Or making the effort with Wallflower in the faculty lot?
 
It is her element. Just saying that you don’t like how they’ve presented it, doesn’t remove that.

@DoomPony  
The difference is that those two actually live up to their element most of the time. Sunset doesn’t, because it’s not her element.

@Background Pony #045A  
I know this is debatable, but I always thought that Sunset Shimmer is the Element of Empathy while Starlight Glimmer could potentially become the Element of Forgivesness.

@Background Pony #0C96  
We’ve made plenty of jokes about Rainbow’s loyalty and Rarity’s generosity.

And yet, Sci-Twi (who happens to already resemble a close friend and whose story closely resembles her own) is the only person she’s ever reached out to on her own, Trixie having had to spell out the problem for her regarding Wallflower. The rest, she’s only shown arrogant smirks (the sirens, Cinch) or total indifference until someone else talked to them (Juniper, Gloriosa) once they were beaten. (Come to think of it, she only gave Juniper an arrogant smirk the first time, too.)
 
Doesn’t sound very empathetic to me, let alone like someone that cares about redeeming others. :/

i’ve never thought redemption fit the theme of the show at all. it would send the message: you can always redeem yourself, right? or you can always redeem others?
 
empathy works a lot better, but my headcanon has always been that she’s the element of forgiveness. she knows its value. she was redeemed, sure - but it was through the forgiveness of others.

So she shares the element of Kindness with Fluttershy, got it. Not a 7th element. You don’t get to abuse your thesaurus like that :P

@RunDevilRun007  
Yup, both Ishi and Meghan (in comic con.  

Also I’m pretty sure someone who works on EqG said that Sunset is basically the element of Empathy.

Is the website canon?

What you represent and what your powers are don’t always have to be the same thing. Rainbow Dash stands for loyalty, her power is “moves really fast”