Unpopular opinion time

Background Pony #3312
@Background Pony #2BCA
 
I mean, the episode also implies that Firelight didn’t understand why Starlight was ever miserable. You’d think if he did then he wouldn’t be trying to make her feel like a kid again, since being a kid was when the “Bad thing” happened to her. Why remind her of what must have been (in her mind) the most miserable time of her life?
 
Starlight is a whiny, entitled chronic overeactor, but it’s not like she had a perfect dad. The whole point of Parent Map was that her and Sunburst’s parents weren’t listening to them. It’s also true, and acknowledged by the episode, that she didn’t reach out to him as much as she probably should have either.
 
In some ways I like that Starlight doesn’t have a super angsty backstory. Her issues come from her flaws as a person.
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I don’t know, I still think Parent Map should have been an episode from season 5, because you’d have a reason to develop Starlight in the first place. The fact that came out in season 8 made the story kinda meaningless.
 
But you know what? It’s the thought that counts.
 
@Latecomer  
Oh, definitely. It can be really interesting to compare the last seasons and the leaks.
Mildgyth
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@Ring Team
 
The problem is that with Season 5, you’d have to cut the whole Sunburst subplot because there’d be no reason for Starlight to find him again just yet.
 
But 6, it would be serviceable, even though people would probably complain about there being too many Starlight episodes. unless you moved Hearth’s Warning Tale to S7 or something.
Vivace
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@Background Pony #3312  
Thinking about it now, while the backstory was childish and wanting, I might’ve disliked her significantly more had the show compounded the misstep by attempting to paint her as heroic/justified outside her own mind for it. As it is, my reaction in 2015 amounted to, “Hmm. I see,” and I pieced together a processible thought process. Even Twilight says her takeaway from the experience was flawed.
Background Pony #2BCA
@Background Pony #3312  
Not that any backstory would have softened opinions on her action or justified then. It’s just funny that the writers realised her backstory sucked so hard that rather than try to add to it or retcon it, They leaned into it, used it as a character trait and really painted her In a pathetic light.
 
She’s just spoiled rich girl prodigy from the valley trying to play revolutionary leader because she let one minor incident that anyone else would have got over in a week shape her entire outlook in life.
 
She was never deep or complex. Just a genuinely terrible person who did terrible things for no reason. And she got away with it because things always work out for her, even when she thinks she’s a victim.
 
And the funny thing is many of her fans like her because they think she’s relatable. Hahaha!
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@Latecomer  
Good question.
 
I think it depends on the episodes and how good these are. For example, I really enjoyed Parental Glideance to the point where I don’t care if it came out too late, even though it should have been an episode from season 4 or 5.
 
However, Frutter Brutter was not very good to me. It shows Fluttershy’s parents, but the episode isn’t about them, they were a bait, it’s about Fluttershy’s brother, and I really didn’t like it because of him. So, even if you show this episode in season 3, I’d still have the same impression.
 
If your episode is excellent, I think the “it came out too late” impression wouldn’t matter. If it’s not good enough, then no.
 
@Mildgyth  
I don’t know, I think you could have many episodes for Starlight and Sunburst in season 5, not just 2 (one for the opening and one for the ending). You could have 2 ponies from the Mane 6 trying to find Starlight. Then they could find her parents, some old friends, some old towns, probably a diary… There’s a lot of different ways to make her an interesting character. Not just ignoring her for 24 episodes.
 
About season 6, I don’t think the problem was that Starlight got too many episodes. I think she got enough episodes. The problem to me was the narrative approach. Back then I was a bit indifferent, like “ok, what are you gonna do now?”.
 
Now that you mentioned, Hearth’s Warming Tale is still the episode that I liked the most about Starlight. Keep in mind that was before Every little thing she does, so seeing that episode back then made me think “maybe Starlight would be an interesting character”.
Background Pony #3312
Se’s just spoiled rich girl prodigy from the valley trying to play revolutionary leader because she let one minor incident that anyone else would have got over in a week shape her entire outlook in life.
 
That’s been a consistant thing about Starlight from the moment her backstory was introduced. She overeacts. She overdoes. When pushed, she doesn’t react normally to her problems. That’s a trait of hers about as much as Flutters is shy or Rainbow has an ego. It wasn’t invented for Parent Map. I guess you could say it was reinforced there.
 
A bad thing happened to her a kid, she overeacted, she chose never to make another friend, she had a dad who obviously loved her but seemingly never went out of his way to learn why his only child was miserable, and she stewed away like that for goodness knows how long. Then she realizes she has powers. Vast, terrible powers. Powers fueled by her own anger no less, and she learns she’s capable of doing ANYTHING. She’ll never again have to live in a world where things can hurt her, because she has the power to get rid of all of that.
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@Mildgyth  
Really? That’s strange. I had some complaints, but it wasn’t about Starlight until I watched Every little thing she does. My main complaints were about the filler episodes. I only liked 4 episodes of that season because the rest was filler.
 
 
@Latecomer  
Quality is always important, but timing is a key factor in quality. Because, if a story has hundreds of episodes and it doesn’t get to the point, why would I watch it?
 
It’s one of the reasons why I don’t watch anime. Naruto has 1000 episodes. Dragon Ball has 1000 episodes. One Piece has 1000 episodes. Why would I watch a TV show that doesn’t get to the point? Even an anime with 26 episodes puts me off. And the reason why I finished Cowboy Bebop was because the first episode was really really good. I didn’t even need the “3 episodes” rule.
Latecomer

@Ring Team  
I don’t know if that is particularly relevant to watching FIM. It’s a rather different sort of show, and only questionably has a “point” of the sort you speak of.
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@Latecomer  
Yeah. I know this show has a status-quo thing. Many of the episodes can be watched without knowing the context. And, to be honest, I prefer to like MLP this way, because there’s lots of inconsistencies. xD
 
@Terminal Red  
I know Berserk, but I’m waiting for the author to finish it so I can start reading it. :P
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Music Connoisseur
Ah the Starlight argument, I haven’t seen one since the Summer of 2019. A very simple time, a great time. The biggest song in the world was “Old Town Road”, the most popular meme was about “Avengers Endgame”, Badumsquish was still in this thread and it repeated the same old arguments again and again. I yearn for those times again…
Applepie1973

Nostalgia Purist
Ah the Starlight argument, I haven’t seen one since the Summer of 2019. A very simple time, a great time. The biggest song in the world was “Old Town Road”, the most popular meme was about “Avengers Endgame”, Badumsquish was still in this thread and it repeated the same old arguments again and again. I yearn for those times again…
 
this
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I do kinda wonder how Starlight would be viewed in Ponyville if there wasn’t a status quo in the show. I think the fact that everything will be ok at the end of each episode despite the actions of a character kinda shows how nobody questions her attitude and her hipocrisy. And it’s not only her, Rainbow Dash and Applejack had that mean attitude in Non-Compete clause.
 
The more I think of it, the more outdated the status quo is in TV shows. The stories where nothing changes will keep existing (such as The Simpsons and The Big Bang Theory), but nowadays there’s no reason to not create stories that reward the audience for paying attention to little details (Steven Universe did that pretty well with that “are you my dad?” line).
 
Who was Badumsquish? Sounds like a TF2 nickname. xD
Background Pony #2BCA
@Ring Team  
Ponies are herd animals with tiny brains. Though they are prone to emotional outbursts and instability, They don’t usually hold grudges even when they rightly should. Any that do are considered weird.
 
I have no doubt that even if ponyville knew about Starlight, the majority would be extremely accommodating.
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…Maybe?
 
I don’t know, I think I would have liked Starlight if the show was more self-aware and more consequent to her actions. But even with this, I would have done things differently. Personally I’d go with this:
 
-Don’t make her an unicorn, just to avoid the power fantasy trope.  
-She would have another color palette, not too saturated colors. Maybe something like Luster Dawn.  
-She would appear as the sidekick of another menacing villain. They don’t get along, but she doesn’t know another way to live her life.  
-She’s not shy, but after her relationship with the villain, she is not into friendship because she’s afraid she would meet another disturbing pony like the villain.  
-Instead of two episodes, we get five or six episodes for her character development. It has to be intriguing, magnetic and curious.  
-The ending of season 5 is here: The villain is defeated. Twilight sees that poor pony. She’s really afraid. But Twilight says says “let me help you”. She becomes her new student.  
-For season 6, she would learn a lot about friendship (it doesn’t even need to be like Twilight from season 1 or the students from season 8, it could be a different approach) and herself.
 
That’s basically how I would write a seventh main character if I was the writer.
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