Starlight Glimmer- What is the opinion of her still?

@Pause  
We know that Luna was jealous of Celestia which is what allowed the “darkness” to take over but It still is a possession to a degree so it isn’t completely her fault, starlight is completely at fault for what she did. Thats the difference

I don’t know, I think Luna’s insecurities are more real than Starlight’s desire of manipulating everyone just because his bets friend got a cutie mark and moved away. I think her insecurities, mixed with the fact that she was the little sister of Celestia, made her more so impulsive that she became Nightmare Moon. That made Luna relatable.
 
In Luna Eclipsed, she was finding hard to fit in Ponyville. She was in the moon for 1000 years, so it makes sense that she speaks in an ancient english, which makes her even more relatable. And the only pony who trusted Luna was Twilight, because she was so obsessed to books and homework that she becase lonely, so if anyone can help Luna, is the pony who understood loneliness the most.
 
In the case of Starlight, her desire of using magic for swapping cutie marks and manipulating everyone doesn’t fit to her desire of redemption. In It Isn’t the Mane Thing About You, Starlight tells Rarity that time travel spells are not an option, but in Uncommon bond she decides to use a teleportation spell and an age regression spell to Sunburst without his consent to recreate that past from season 5, which is… basically time travel with extra steps.
 
If I have to be positive with Starlight after finishing the season 9 a couple of months ago, I’d say that I liked watching her teleporting Chrysalis to a mountain in The ending of the end, so she couldn’t destroy the school. That’s a really nice plan done by Starlight. I espected something worse, I expected a Man of Steel scenario.
 
So, yeah, you did it, Starlight. You did something heroic for once.

I’m not taking the word of the fandom.
 
I’m taking the word the very series gave us. You know, the backstory the very show gave us in the opening of Season 1.
 
Every time people mention things like dark magic or possession by some spirit, which is not mentioned in the series, you’re feeding into the point I’m making in how people add their own assumptions and theories to make it more “acceptable” rather than what was given to us in the opening. Because Luna can’t just be stupidly irrational over a silly problem.
 
Any possible way to justify her but when it comes to Starlight people just look at what we saw at the end of Season 5 and just say, “nah we’re not going to try”.

@CORDZ2000  
That’s great and all that the wiki said that… but where does it actually say or show this is what happened, in the show itself (the comics sometimes contradict each other, let alone the show)? We don’t even get a clear implication in the actual S4 flashback it happened in.
 
For that matter, nobody mentions any mitigating factor in that Tantabus episode, it’s narratively treated as if Luna had agency back then. You’d think she’d feel a bit less need to literally beat herself up over it, dream after dream, if it wasn’t something she had more agency over than no agency.

@AC97  
Like how Trixie’s behavior is blamed more on the alicorn amulet than on her even though she made the willful choice to use it. What, are people not responsible for their actions when they get themselves intoxicated?

@Ring Team  
Yeah thats the thing too, i had forgot about Luna facing rejecting, starlight was the only reformed character instantly trusted and beloved.

@Vivace  
I get what your trying to go for but being drunk and literal magic making u act as a different individual aren’t really the same.

@CORDZ2000  
Trixie, Luna, Starlight, Discord were lucky they met Twilight before EEA was introduced, Cozy was unlucky for that, while Tirek was too dirty on Discord that Twilight decides to not reform him, Chrysalis got a chance, but she consciously rejected redemption.

@CORDZ2000  
No, but they’re analogous.

@CORDZ2000  
Luna got instated as a princess literally right after hit with magical friendship beam.
 
Luna Eclipsed is also a notably bad example of “acceptance” because people really take a lot of out context with the episode.
 
But this isn’t really about the character’s themselves but moreso the hypocrisy in how the fandom approached each character.
 
One we’re willing to make headcanons and assumptions for days to make her backstory “better” but the other people will just call bad and not even try.

@CORDZ2000  
Yeah, I remember that.
 

 
This show never liked logic. xD

@Pause  
We see little of Starlight before her turn to villany, but we see pretty much nothing of Luna. So everyone fills in the space with what makes sense to them.

@Latecomer  
Wait, what about Discord’s flashback in Season 4 EP 1-2??? Luna was there against Discord while fighting alongside her sister Tia.

@Background Pony #CC23  
True, but we don’t see any sign of her discontent there, or even much of her persobality.

I thought she made a decent villain. I thought her redemption arc was a mess. That said once she took her place as their friend I started to appreciate her more. Not a lot-not at first-but then I realized one of the reasons I didn’t like her at first was because I was 1. forgetting Twilight’s teachings about friendship and forgiveness and 2. seeing within Starlight things about myself I didn’t like. I’ve made some pretty big mistakes in my life (maybe not destroying worlds but still) and have been through times where making up for doing something wrong has been a difficult task. She reminds me that with enough hard work there’s always a chance to make amends and become a better person.
 
So while she’s not one of my favorite characters or one I identify with to a large degree (that would be Ranibow), she’s definitely I pony I understand and respect. I think that more than anything makes her one of the most human-like (and realistic) characters on the show.
 
Lke, if you ignored her past and redemption arc and just had her in the show as a regular character it’d be like someone just took a regular human and dropped them into the show lol. She ends up this kind of awkward, confused by ponies but doing her best to roll with it pony-person. I think that’s kind of why I like her. That and she’s really great when teamed up with Trixie. I went from hating her, to being eh-she’s not so bad to enjoying seeing her and Trixie’s adventures together.
 
I honestly wish we’d gotten one more road trip episode with them. The Bob Hope/Bing Crosby-style interaction was gold.

@zidders  
Glad to see her light, comrade!

Am I the only one who disliked Starlight more when she was a villain? (Probably)

@Megalobronia  
You might be.
 
I found her at least interesting back then.

@Megalobronia  
depends on what u mean by that, i hated her but in a love to hate way, not in the way of thinking she was a bad character. She was such a realistic, dark and effective antagonist. Her being akin to real life dictators is the reason why i feel like she should have never reformed as she was so complex before her backstory that is. I feel she should have kept more of her edge when she reformed and didn’t become as nice as she did at the very least not so quickly.

@CORDZ2000  
Ironically, my reason for disliking her as a villain is one of the reasons why some people dislike Starlight’s character as a whole. The reason for her actions in Season 5 was rather shallow and petty, and what’s worse is that instead of trying do anything to remedy her problem, she just lets it bother her to the point of depriving a whole village of their unique qualities. I’m with the crowd that thinks Starlight’s redemption in the Season 5 finale felt rushed/forced.
 
HOWEVER!
 
Watching her various spotlight episodes throughout Season 6 (even the commonly hated Every Little Thing She Does) has gradually diminished my disdain for her and it was pretty much gone after watching To Where and Back Again. The season has done pretty okay (in my opinion anyway, I KNOW people will disagree) to portray her in a sympathetic light, and not just because Twilight has been influencing her.

@Megalobronia  
I feel like a lot of starlight episodes were making others look bad to make her look good to try to force sympathy but that’s just me, no hate just saying. But yeah her episodes got a bit better overtime.

@Megalobronia  
I think she was more interesting as a villain than a reformed character, but I keep thinking that her magic of swapping cutie marks should have been made by a magical scepter, not by herself. I think that skill invalidates the personal aspect and the point of having a cutie mark.

@Ring Team  
I don’t really see how.

@Latecomer  
When you have a talent, you perfected it and you make a living with your own talent and effort, that doesn’t matter because Starlight is gonna take that away from you.
 
That’s just fanfiction level crap.

@Ring Team  
Well, that’s what makes her dangerous and scary. And I don’t see how it doesn’t fit in the show. Twilight had already done something similar by accident, after all.