Asking a daredevil who knowingly volunteered to do dangerous stunts to do a very dangerous stunt is uncaring, especially so when it’s a kid
And once again you’re ignoring the part where it’s made abundantly clear that the stunt in question was entirely untested and slapped together without a single safety guideline on the basis of “this ought to look cool”. As well as the fact that when Scootaloo recognized how unsafe the situation was and (not being an idiot) tried to back out, Lightning Dust guilt tripped and pressured her into performing the stunt anyway.
Lightning Dust has made it clear, time and again, that she doesn’t care who gets hurt if it brings
her some kind of acclaim. And that incident was no exception to that.
@Badumsquish
but it’s not even on the same planet as “I’m going to kidnap and imprison these ponies and make them suffer until they submit to me” or “I’m going to destroy someone’s life by destroying time because that person dared to resist me and freed themselves and their friends from said aforementioned kidnapping and imprisonment and suffering.” Lightning Dust’s an uncaring jerk, but her list of wrongdoing is pretty short and not very severe :P
No one is arguing that what Starlight was doing is right. But it’s equally important to remember that the motivation behind what she was doing stemmed not from some desire to conquer or rule, but a desire to create a place where friendships wouldn’t end. And while there is no question she went about it the wrong way, when you understand the warped worldview she formed from associating cutie marks with losing the only friendship she had ever known, and the reinforcement that point of view must have gotten when Twilight and her friends (having regained their marks) ruined the life and home Starlight had built, the path she took after the village, while still obviously not right, is at the very least more pitiable.
And as for her attempt to get revenge on Twilight, what reason did she have to think what she was doing would affect so much, or be any worse than what Twilight did to her? Yes, it’s not a healthy or sound way of thinking, but then what did losing a friend mean for Starlight? There was no calamity from her loss, no disaster that resulted from Sunburst no longer being around. The world remained, as far as she could see, unchanged, except for her. And with that perspective, taking Twilight’s friends as payback for the “friends” she had in her village must have seemed to her like a fair exchange. Certainly if you understand how Starlight might have viewed the situation, her mocking the importance Twilight places on her connection to her friends makes a great deal more sense. As does her legitimate disbelief when presented with evidence she could never have known about beforehand as to the extent she was wrong.
And in the end, Starlight is the better pony. She shows remorse. She apologizes for what she did wrong. She learns to recognize her flaws and, with a few missteps along the way, works to be better. At no point does Lightning Dust ever do that, or even seem to think she should.