Starlight Glimmer- What is the opinion of her still?

Aurora Glimmer

Wow! Glimmer
@Anonycat  
In hindsight, I think Starlight Glimmer and Sunset Shimmer should’ve been one character instead of two separate ones: imagine a character with Starlight’s onscreen villainy, but Sunset’s backstory. She’d have been the best villain in the series. That’s essentially what I’m doing in an RP with a friend, but that’s neither here nor there.
DanielTepesKraus
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as a whole it’s really divisive. you either love her or you hate her. hear me out.
 
i think it all stems from her start of villainy: sunburst dumping her. what i think they wanted to do was give her a very identifiable start. everyone’s lost a friend at least once, so it’s something we can all relate to. it’s a double-edged sword though. because it’s so identifiable, it comes off as a very piss-poor reason to become a villain. a lot of people look down on her as a spoiled rotten self-centered brat and feel that it doesn’t justify all the very horrific and evil shit she pulled (even if you don’t count all the alternate timeline death and suffering, remember that trying to rewrite time in and of itself is still an unforgivably evil act).
 
i honestly think if they just hadn’t had the sob story to begin with and had just had her begrudgingly realize she’s destroying the world and gone on to accept twilight’s offer of friendship, it would have made for a much stronger character. the knowledge that a pony who is good at heart but has done such extreme things would have implied a start of darkness or series of events to make her that way, allowing a lot more people to accept it as reasoning for her evil behavior. before you say it’s too subtle for kids or whatever, remember they did that for discord too.
 
what really doesn’t help her case either is other similar characters were done a lot better. she’s essentially the worst qualities of both sunset shimmer and moondancer cobbled into one. sunset shimmer had a weak transition from villain to “reformed” but her having to earn everyone’s trust and friendship and prove she really was good now was done very well. moondancer had the same weak “lost a friend boo hoo” backstory but her characterization was done much better. she wasn’t evil, or even a bad pony: just anti-social and angry with others. that’s a much more sympathetic and believable outcome ton “loosing a friend” than “i’m a world-destroying monster now hear me roar”.
 
also not helping is how she was a brilliant villain. probably the best the show has produced in terms of depth, motive, etc. a lot of fans simply hated to see that replaced with (let’s be honest here) basically just sunset shimmer with a combover. she’s also a villain who was already much more likely to reform, being an extremist who’s methods were evil but possibly had altruistic goals rather than just “imma darken/chaos/devour/destroy all the ponies because we need a villain for 44 minutes” and they ignored that in favor of giving her a very cheap “i’m evil because i got dumped boo hoo hoo).
 
finally, is they are severely flubbing how they’ve integrated her as a character. she’s entirely absent in episodes that don’t center around her, and the episodes she is in have characters dumbed down, acting out of character, weakened, shoved aside, and/or painted in a negative light in order to shill starlight as a character. they’ve never let her just be a character alongside other characters. they’ve never given her character-based humor and interactions alongside the cast while they do their things.
 
all in all, if you’re able to buy her backstory (or see it as reasonable), her characterization, and how she’s given the spotlight in every appearance, then she’s easy to like. if not, she’s easy to hate. now these are just all my opinions cobbled together alongside observations i’ve made. i’m not trying to pass this as fact or change minds or anything, just give what i at least think is an accurate answer to op.
Aurora Glimmer

Wow! Glimmer
i honestly think if they just hadn’t had the sob story to begin with and had just had her begrudgingly realize she’s destroying the world and gone on to accept twilight’s offer of friendship, it would have made for a much stronger character.
 
IMHO, they should’ve left her backstory a mystery or saved it for a future episode.
 
@DanielTepesKraus  
the knowledge that a pony who is good at heart but has done such extreme things would have implied a start of darkness or series of events to make her that way, allowing a lot more people to accept it as reasoning for her evil behavior. before you say it’s too subtle for kids or whatever, remember they did that for discord too.
 
I think if Starlight’s redemption had played out more like Discord’s, she’d have been a stronger character. Discord’s redemption felt a whole lot more plausible than Starlight’s, whether it was having him gradually earn the trust of the M6 over the course of two seasons, having him butt heads with the M6 or reverting back to his old ways on occasion.
Aurora Glimmer

Wow! Glimmer
@thatguy  
Discord occasionally reverting back to his old ways feels “natural” to me. He spent his life as a villain: it’s only natural he’d behave in an ignoble way on occasion. I think that’s part of the reason I wasn’t as hard on Every Little Thing She Does as some people were. I don’t have a problem with Starlight and Discord occasionally reverting to their villainous ways, if only because it provides a form of continuity between their pre-redemption and post-redemption selves. If anything, I wish Starlight retained more of her pre-redemption persona.
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@DanielTepesKraus  
Well said, I pretty much agree with most of what you said. But aren’t you suppose to be away until Christmas?
 
@thatguy  
I like that Discord is still a bit of a jerk. This show tends to have very morally black and white characters. Discord is a nice shade of gray that stands apart from the world.
Aurora Glimmer

Wow! Glimmer
I like that Discord is still a bit of a jerk. This show tends to have very morally black and white characters. Discord is a nice shade of gray that stands apart from the world.
 
Agreed. Imagine how entertaining it would be if Starlight was still every bit as overconfident and catty as she was back when she was a villain.
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Okay, I guess.
@thatguy  
Personally I like Discord still being an asshole.
 
Also, while he used to be an asshole who didn’t care at all about what he did to others, current Discord is an asshole who now cares about others, or at least cares enough as to try bonding with them or to try considering how other people feels when he’s on asshat mode: a subtele but definitely important change.
 
Like Majin Boo/Mr. Satan’s relationship from Dragon ball, eh.
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@Jarkes  
I never really considered her all that snarky, more petulant than anything.
 
 
@Crystal Neighybánya  
Eh hypothetical question. I could equal say how great it would be to have Celestia as a main character but without any real backing or proof it’s just as possible that it could go upside down. Not saying it’s bad just that we’d have no real way of knowing how it would turn out.
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Strongly dislike her, but I think I have the potential to like her if the writers handle her well. In general, these are the things that need to happen before I can find Starlight likable:
 
  1. 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.
     
  2. Have her build a relationship with the mane five individually, because she clearly does not respect or care about any of them.
     
  3. 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.
     
  4. Have her stop hovering around Twilight exclusively, especially if she’s just going to snub her for Trixie at the end of the day.
     
  5. 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.
     
  6. Stop having her jump directly to magic as a solution to everything.
     
  7. 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.
     
  8. 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.
     
  9. 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.
     
    That would about cover it.
Thrond

I like her. The two-partners especially managed to make her an endearing character with sympathetic issues, but I also appreciate how she still quite clearly has challenges with ethics and consideration for others. That said, I have problems.
 
First is that, despite it being obvious that she doesn’t really consider how her actions affect others, the show isn’t really willing to dive into that. She didn’t consider that she did anything wrong by hypnotizing the mane six until Twilight outright told her that she did, and even then she never clearly expressed an understanding of what she did wrong. I can’t pretend the show’s avoidance of that doesn’t bother me.
 
What also gets to me is that she has no unique traits aside from those ethical challenges. Her only clear interest is magic, but that really doesn’t set her apart from Twilight, and her apparent social awkwardness isn’t all that different either, except as it relates to her unethical behaviour. So she’s Twilight but somehow even more mentally unbalanced, and as much as the two-partners make lemonade of that, I’m just not entirely sure what I’m supposed to like about her besides the fact that she’s “getting better,” which I’m not sure is enough for a main character.
 
But she’s complex, and when she’s good, she’S very likeable. It’s just that the show’s current approach bring a lot of baggage and might not be entirely sustainable. Still, I’d rather defend her than not.
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U mad?
She was one of the best villains yet when she appeared. That smug grin in Crystal’s avi, that evil grin, and of course that sarcastic clap (during the S5 finale there was several times I wanted to punch her XD).
 
Now she’s a pretty cute character. And I think with a little more work she can become a great one.
 
full  
Is it safe to come out or are people still mad at me?
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She’s another bad idea that Hasbro is going to keep shoving down our throats until we like it, same as Princess Twily, Eq Girls and the others.
 
Fortunately my soul is strong in the knowledge that nothing can possibly be as bad as two whole seasons of unjustified privileged protagonist angst, ever again.
Aurora Glimmer

Wow! Glimmer
She’s another bad idea that Hasbro is going to keep shoving down our throats until we like it, same as Princess Twily, Eq Girls and the others.
 
But I thought you liked Starlight Glimmer?
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I unfollowed the absolutely adorable Sciset daily blog because they advertised a friends trixie x starlight blog and don’t consider the sciset daily worth having that PoS show up on my dash when they start inevitibly doing crossovers or just re-blogging their friends art, so that should make my feelings on her clear,
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@Spinny  
No, that bridge has been crossed. They can’t possibly fix this, you can’t have a building without a solid foundation.
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Starlight a best. 10/10 pony :D
 
@Vree  
She’s another bad idea that Hasbro is going to keep shoving down our throats until we like it, same as Princess Twily, Eq Girls and the others.
Fortunately my soul is strong in the knowledge that nothing can possibly be as bad as two whole seasons of unjustified privileged protagonist angst, ever again.
 
You’re talking about Twilight Sparkle in this example, right? :3
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