Unpopular opinion time

I was fine with the season 4-7 opening with the new picture including some background characters.

A Royal Problem is one of the most inconsistent episodes I’ve ever seen in the season 7, with Rock Solid Friendship and Bottled Up and Celestial Advice.
 
If the writers want to give too much importance to Starlight by changing the consistence of the show just to make her look good or feel powerful, they’re doing a great job.
 
16 episodes left to finish the season 7.

@Ring Team  
eye roll

@Ring Team
 
Rock Solid Friendship always annoyed me because Maud clearly tried way harder to be friends with Starlight than with any of the rest of the mane six, and incredibly, she all of a sudden gained an interest outside of rocks that Starlight could connect with her over.
 
And I don’t even want to get into A Royal Problem.

@Spinny  
>Maud  
>trying  
Crack up

@Vivace  
I still have no idea how someone can watch All Bottled Up and Royal Problem and come away thinking the showrunners primarily wanted Starlight to look good or powerful.
 
Starlight’s power brings her nothing but trouble, even when it works.

@gingerninja666  
But it still makes her look powerful and important.
 
If you can remember unicorn Twilight, you’ll know exactly what i mean.
 
Her magic fucked up all the time, but it was still a statement of the power she holds that she has the capacity to screw things up so far.

@WyrmSpawN
 
But even Unicorn!Twilight had stuff like the Ursa Minor incident, which was a completely positive depiction of her power. Same with something like the Breezie spell in It Ain’t Easy.
 
Starlight never really gets a moment like that. A victorious moment where her power saves the day in a completely sincere and awe inspiring way.

@gingerninja666
 
In season 1, Twilight took a huge effort to try to levitate the Ursa Minor and to create butterfly wings for Rarity.
 
Most of the magic that Starlight does is effortless, including creating dark magic everytime she gets annoyed (which, by the way, if Starlight can do that, why didn’t she create that dark magic back in season 5 whenever she felt annoyed?).

@Ring Team  
How are those episodes inconsistent?

@Ring Team
 
She said that she used to have an outlet for her emotional magic. It never used to reach the point where it could manifest because she was channeling it into stuff like her revenge quest against Twilight.
 

 
Starlight doing magic without much effort isn’t as big a deal because it’s so rarely treated like a good thing. Starlight’s magic is an extention of her flaws the vast majority of the time. At least, that’s how it always felt to me. If Starlight was effortlessly using magic to solve problems, then I’d get it. But that’s almost never how it’s written. In fact, Starlight has been easily beaten off-screen by villains TWICE. XD
 
Starlight easily being able to do magic feeds into one of her big flaws, which is impulsiveness. She often does things on a whim, and since she has the power to easily act on those whims, it reinforces it.

@gingerninja666  
Yeah - we do have to remember that the show is about personal issues and chracter building first, with the fantastic elements existing to facilitste and adorn that.

@Latecomer
 
Even in something where Starlight’s use of magic is pretty low key, like in Student COunsel, it’s a flaw. It’s what kicks off her issues with Trixie.

I think Rarity and Spike are similar to each other in a way. They both go after pretty out-of-their-league ponies. Rarity goes after Blueblood for instance. And Spike goes after Rarity. (Blueblood not as much, but let’s face it to a prince like him, a fashion designer is simply a commoner in fact maybe worse, a commoner who doesn’t know her place)
 
And people exaggerate how Rarity is a gold digger, when really she’s just doing what a lot of people not just women do, go after those they admire. And I think Rarity actually showed character development by going after Trenderhooves who at least would probably have the same interests as Rarity or Capper who actually shows a cool personality as opposed to Blueblood who she knows nothing about.
 
And Spike literally at first just liked Rarity because she was beautiful.
 
People like people for shallow reasons often without knowing the deeper personality traits. That’s just how we all are at first.
 
I actually say this as someone who likes Sparity but is not angry at the other Rarity ships like Capper x Rarity. At the very least both Spike and Rarity are simply people trying to find what they like.
 
And maybe Spike will grow up to date Rarity. Or maybe they’ll go their seperate paths. I’m fine either way.
 
I prefer to think of Rarity crush on Blueblood as just her beginning her quest to maturity.

@Cosmas-the-Explorer  
Yeah, one of the arguements for the ship are their similarities. (And another is their differences - Spike is happy to be a supporter and let others take the lead.)

@gingerninja666  

 
And Pharynx kinda one-upped her with that sack, she failed to do anything meaningful to a Maulwurf, and Discord being affected by her magic was just for show on his part; he effortlessly circumvented it, and he was smug the very next time she talked to him.
 
She seemed scared shitless of Celestia and Luna after the fact as well, after resorting to it in panic, had to practically appeal to their egos, easily read as her fearing their retaliation, and it’d already been established in her debut episode that her power can affect alicorns, which does not seem to be because she’s stronger than them like losing offscreen to Dark Archmage King Sombra.
 
She’s never gotten locked down into a beam struggle with an alicorn and won, at least not without backup (a brief instance of Cozy Glow vs her being on the losing side being a noticeable example of that), and it also never comes down to her getting through their shields. I strongly suspect she’s able to be defeated by some named unicorns, including the guy who can cover an entire city (Shining Armor).  

 
She’s a pony that has less restraint than Twilight does; she might be more skilled at combat, but she’s more prone to letting her emotions get the better of her judgement, whether it involves magic or not, because she didn’t have a mentor or the life experience to teach her discipline in that way, for a long time.

Here’s an unpopular opinion (kind of a hot take, read at your own risk): still arguing over Starlight, even after the show is over for a year, is stupid and pointless and a clear sign of nitpicking because 90% of the complaints can, and HAVE been explained away in one way or another. You just gotta read in between the lines and the implications, or, oh I dunno……PAY ATTENTION.
 
Just sayin’

The JonTron comment section derails were never funny, they were annoying.
 
 
@gingerninja666  
Been ages since you’ve posted something on the site.

@Ring Team  
I don’t think that’s what “inconsistent” means in that context.
 
@Spinny  
Makes sense after her debut episode shows that she and the mane 6 can’t get along.

@AC97
 
Speaking of Discord, there’s one moment in TWABA that always stuck in my head.
 
Discord goes to snap his fingers and Starlight wraps his hand in telekinesis to stop it. Discord then blows her magic away like it was dust.

@Myoozik  

 
If the intent was actual dark magic, then it would’ve had the signature colors for it ala Sombra, or the green coloration of the Inspiration Manifestation. Her drawing strength from emotions (like the explicitly mentioned case of fighting Twilight) and being seriously weakened after bottling them up also lined up with Shining Armor’s strength being sapped when Chrysalis grew strong off his love.
 
I haven’t seen a reason to believe that Starlight isn’t older than Twilight, more seasoned at general casting, which partially accounts for her keeping her head together while casting more often, aside from “better reflexes and situational awareness.”
 
So long story short I’m at a loss for “actually inconsistent,” and say, “an old character not explored in thorough detail has another interest” is not inconsistent.

@gingerninja666  
Ah yes, I loved that gag/demonstration. It also reinforced how it seemed to be treated by the episode that while Starlight would be formidable if she had her magic, Discord per Starlight’s admission could beat them effortlessly, which is not something she claimed to be able to do.  

 
So the narrative wasn’t really treating her as invincible, if she’s treating it as if she’d need him with her magic, which lines up with how she ran away in her debut despite having the power to blow up a stone bridge; outnumbered, not inherently stronger than everyone.

I like Snips and Snails.

@Sadrai  
They’re ok. Honestly they got more tolerable (and even a little entertaining) in the later seasons

@MegaAnimationFan  
Tbh I never found them as bad as everybody made them out to be but your right they got better in buckball episodes.