Unpopular opinion time

@CronoM  
It’s pretty obvious Magic is a special Element compared to the others. I think, more than any of of them, it’s a power not meant to be used alone. It can unite the power of the other 5, give them direction, even amplify them - but if there are no other 5… if all you give it is yourself… and especially if your self is not in Harmony… well, you can see the results.
 
 
@Background Pony #833  
It’s true that Sunset does seem a bit lacking in chracter of her own sometime. Starlight has some similar issues, but she is at least allowed to keep toned-down versions of her villanous traits. Sunset is not really allowed to be a mauipulatie bitch, and her replacement personality is a touch generic leadery when put next to the other girls. Still, I like her anyway - I just wish she had a bit more too her.
 
 
@Background Pony #833  
I could swear I just had this arguement, but no, Trixie is not just some victim - she makes plenty of poor decisions and recieves not-always-fair consequences. I think Boast Busters was a pretty good showing of her (better than was likely intended) and i don’t think her attitude was ever just a front - or at least, not one outside her own head.

@AC97  
Oh right, that line. But either way, I prefer her apology in Student Counsel than in this one.

@WyrmSpawN  
Yeah, I guess you’re right. Maybe I’ll give it a chance.

@AC97  
Since her reformation, she always has been craving validation from Twilight. It’s like she’s eternally in debt to Twilight for giving her a second chance. I’m not sure I should find this sweet or sad. bittersweet maybe? I kind of want to think that she was only happy for being a principal of the school because Twilight chose her and that’s like earning ultimate trust from her.

@Latecomer  
Problem with Starlight is that she wasn’t allowed to keep her cleverness or genre savviness or her silver tongued attitude. Most of what was kept was ignorance to do doing a lot of semi awful things, while Villain Starlight was not SO much ignorant to what she was doing morally, she was just committed and spiteful.
 
In that sense, they sort of reintroduced Starlight’s villainous traits as a reformed protagonist…backwards. Like the lack of good nice judgement is still there, but the personality behind has more naivete and less intelligence then the villain, the person herself, would have. Lot of disconnect.
 
Sunset went through several months of being looked down upon by everyone except the Humane 5 who slowly gave her tepid friendship, so its only natural the idea of EVIL themed schemes would be weakened after she saw her current inner self as a true demon instead of a predestined successor. She still comes up with innocent or neutral schemes when she really wants something and shares her villain’s temper when things make her really angry, like her memetic tongue lashing of Sci Twi. She isn’t an angel. She still ambitiously confident in her own abilities, bold, and is used to taking care of things alone with a bunch of attitude like when she confronted the Dazzlings in the hallway.
 
I honestly never saw anything wrong with Sunset’s reformed personality, she was someone confident enough in the world to be seen as someone like the 1000 year old Celestia chose as her first, and after her fall and redemption, its only natural she has an exceedingly healthy intelligence and charisma, even though her temper and frustration still gets out of control.
 
 
@Latecomer  
Seems to me that having one element with such danger was a massive oversight from the originals. Not having anything to balance it easily leads to chaos, and it may be Twilight’s own subservient nature that makes it less likely to happen to her when wielding it. Its like the Triforce having Wisdom and Courage being vague powers, but having the Triforce of Power be almost instant corruption. Seems that Sunset’s existence was a way for harmony to balance things out, which is why many have theorized her element as either “balance” or “empathy”.

@Latecomer  
I never understood how someone can be a bully their entire life then immediately become a talented goddess that’s loved by everyone. Is it realistic to actually make such a sharp turn in life like that?

@Background Pony #2394  
I eventually became friends with some of my bullies.
 
I don’t know if me clotheslining them had anything to do with it though.

@Background Pony #2394  
Well ‘entire life’ might be pushing things.
 
And at least in my personal view, so is ‘bully’.

@CronoM  

 
 
 

 
What are you even on about…?

@Background Pony #2394  
I’m not sure these moments contradict him.
 
Hell, the second one might actually be evidence he has a point.

@Background Pony #2394  
I always found it odd that Starlight was sometimes a Twilight fangirl. As a villain she realized she took things too far but AS a villain she was always Twilight’s mental and clever-wise superior, as Twilight was always so predictable to villain Starlight. Maybe its because Twilight allowed her to reform with no repercussions at all, but that’s a little odd since that thing seemed to bother her when she went back to her village.
 
I honestly thought that when she was reformed she would try to engage Twilight more about the things she saw in pony society that she still saw a problematic. Remember about how that Rodeo Clown horse was miserable for most of his life? That kind of angle.
 
To be completely frank, if someone introduced me to villain Starlight and asked me to give her an estimated mental age, and if in another timeline someone introduced me to reformed Starlight and asked me to giver her an estimated mental age, my guesses would be WAY different.
 
@Background Pony #2394  
Are you talking about Sunset? According to Celestia, when she met Sunset, she came across as a compassionate and sincere pony, and talented beyond measure. And she was for quite some time growing up. But as she taught Sunset more and more exclusively and she approached her teens, Sunset got an ambition complex from all that attention and the two, neither mature enough to see the others side, had a falling out, and Sunset in her young foolishness took an opportunity and a secret guide to become an alicorn via the portal, (Again, stuff we’ll never find out about Celestia and Luna now that the series is over), and decided to go over to the human world. And Celestia, who thought to herself that if she could lose Luna, she could survive losing Sunset, didn’t go afterward.
 
While its unclear whether she’s been working at a sushi shop and a low rent apartment since her early teens, Flash did confirm in the 4th movie that in her early years of High School when she was still trying to figure things out, she was awkward and troubled a lot, and Flash often gave her a lot of attention during the time he became her boyfriend. However after she felt she got things figured out she started bullying others, believing from that complex of hers that she could be just as powerful as Celestia once the time was right, and to suit her ego and needs she bullied her way to the top of the food chain.
 
 
@WyrmSpawN  
Exactly. None of those moments are even remotely Machiavellian-villain Starlight style, and the second one wasn’t exactly a shining moment in Starlight’s cleverness.

@WyrmSpawN  
How so? her speech itself was clever and charismatic. it only failed for the sake of comedy.

@CronoM  
Back then, she NEEDS TO be the leader figure of the village thus act more mature than she actually is. she HAD to wear that mask. did she ever talk about how she started to hate cutie marks or how she’s anxious around ponies or how she’s afraid of failiures to the villagers? No, becausae that would be showing her weakness as a leader. and she resorts to violence and run away from her responsibility when they peeled off of her mask.(showed her immaturity) but under Twilight’s wings, she never needs to wear that mask. of course, she acts more immature, without that mask, that’s her trueself, a pony who isolated herself for years and developed unhealthy, big lie of an ideology.

@Background Pony #833  
Because they only brought her back as fanservice and never had any intentions of doing her character justice

@Background Pony #2394  
Giving a very stock speech with the complete inability to read the room does not come across as Machiavellian or silver tongued. Whether you fell for the speech and thought it was clever is a separate topic altogether.
 
@Background Pony #2394  
“Back then, she NEEDS TO be the leader figure of the village thus act more mature than she actually is. she HAD to wear that mask.”
 
There was no mask. She actually did feel in charge and felt very confident in that fact, enough to capture a princess.
 
“and she resorts to violence and run away from her responsibility when they peeled off of her mask.”
 
She ran away because she knew if the flaw of her ideology that prevented her from casting the spell with it being used on herself was exposed, she would get an angry mob, which she did. Avoiding an angry mob is something both mature and immature people do genius. She used violence because she admitted that she was very well versed in violent spells and was surprised even an alicorn could block it.
 
Your baseless headcanon version of her character is so overly dramatic and so unportrayed in the actual canon, its very hard to take seriously. She wasn’t even the slightest bit anxious in her premier episode, ask any fan and they will tell you she came across as a very self assured cult leader.
 
 
@Background Pony #833  
Your diatribe sounded kind of jealous tbh. Both of Sunset and her writers and how they managed to pull off everything your trying to deny and exaggerate.
 
I really, truly don’t think we can have a decent, calm discussion about Sunset until you tone down your bitterness on the topic nearly a hundredfold. I am dead serious. I really can’t take you seriously right now.

@CronoM  
I can’t take your argument seriously either when you simply just dismiss my argument with “baseless headcanon”. even though I cleary provideded an evidence of connection between villain-reformed Starlight.

Trixie was better than both Sunset and Starlight, Though I’m not sure that’s an unpopular opinion.
 
It helps that Trixie was originally meant to be a one shot character and was allowed to be herself and develop a bit more organically rather than being created specicifically to fill a Twilight like role.

I feel Sunset and especially starlight were suppose to be percieved as complex people with layers of personality and backstory to explain the context of their actions, most of which was never really explored anyway.
 
I like the Trixie approach better. Take a character who starts out shallow, superficial and uncomplicated and have her gain layers and depth over time as she goes through more shit and is forced to adapt.

@WyrmSpawN
 
I thought the speech actually did end up working. It was just a delayed reaction.
 
This is probably a subjective thing, but I think people overstate how good of an actress Starlight originally was. In Cutie Map she’s pretty clearly supposed to be unsettling. She puts everyone on edge when she talks to them, including the mane 6, who don’t initially know that she’s up to something bad, and I don’t think she’s trying to intimidate them until she captures them. She’s creepy and unnatural in her demeanour. We only see her brain washing techniques work against people who’ve already lost their cutie marks. So, she can break the minds of people who have literally had their senses of self stolen away by magic. Other than that we see her manipulating children.
 
She does have charisma, and I think she does do some clever things while reformed (like utilizing Trixie, Thorax and Discord’s inate abilities to make their way deeper into Chrysalis’ lair, or using Spike’s ego over being a celebrity in the Crystal Empire to waste time and avoid talking to Sunburst, or distracting Twilight by overselling her magic progression), but I don’t quite think she’s machiavelian. It’s harder to be like that when you’re a reactive main character, anyway. As a protagonist, especially in a show like this, you react to things and generally have to respond under time pressure. As a villain you have the initiative. You can spend time formulating a comprehensive game plan.
 
@CronoM
 
Starlight’s feelings towards Twilight differ from Twilight’s feelings towards Celestia in a particular way that I find interesting. Twilight thinks that Celestia is naturally virtuous and sees her that way basically all the time. She looks at Tia and loves her unquestioningly.
 
Starlight loves Twilight, but she’s capable of noticing when Twilight isn’t acting like her “best self” . She has an idea in her head of what Twilight should be like, probably built out of Twi’s teachings along with a massive amount of gratitude towards her for being willing to take her in and give her hope, and Star will sometimes expect better of Twilight if she thinks Twi is starting to stray. She can criticize Twilight. It’s most prominently shown in School Daze and Shadow Play. In the former she chides Twilight for giving up too easily and reminds her of her duty as a princess. In the latter it’s a clear concern about how oddly Twilight is acting that inspires Starlight to take action. She noticed Twi was being a lot more thoughtless because the idea of getting to meet and impress Starswirl was clouding her judgement.
 
I just find that interesting. It’s like after Twilight showed Star’s beliefs to be wrong, Starlight allowed herself to become philosophically subservient to Twilight, and the ability to critique Twilight that she displayed as a villain was channeled into pointing out when Twilight should be better. She still has the ability to give it to Twilight, she just doesn’t because she believes in what Twilight is selling now. Which makes sense since Twi’s mercy ended up giving her everything she ever wanted.

@CronoM  

 
Ooooh, boy, where do I even begin with that?
 
Let’s start with how, from the first EG to Rainbow Rocks, Sunset lost every single last negative trait she ever had, ever. Just like that. Her conflict in Rainbow Rocks had absolutely nothing to do with her struggling to become a better, more trustworthy person. It was merely in trying to convince everyone else that she had become that person already. What’s more, she practically treats her old self as if it were a different persona entirely, because that’s what it honestly may as well have been. As if the rainbow blast she took at the end of the first movie straight up exorcised the demon that was living within her, and now what’s left is the real Sunset who, as it turns out, was never mean or a bully at all. And that’s really the only valid explanation as to how someone could do a complete personality change as rapidly as she did.
 
Oh, and uh, by the way, did we mention that she was great guitar-player? Could do motocross? Is a thoroughly impressive painter and artist in general? Does street art under a pseudonym? Is an avid gamer? Is able to live on only a part-time worker’s salary with no roommate? Yeah, because all of that came in addition to the loss of any and all negative traits: a slew of talents and hobbies, most of which would hardly make any sense for her previous self, and all of which were introduced on whim with the writers suddenly deciding that she was good at something or interested in something. The most jarring of these, in my opinion, was her being an artist, because that one didn’t surface until 2016, long after we already had an idea as to who even the reformed Sunset was. And of course, that was doubled down on with her “Flanksy” persona, because evidently, Sunset just yearns oh so dearly to share her art with the world without anyone knowing who she is…even though she never really alluded to that at all. Nor has it ever been brought up since because of course it hasn’t. It was just another thing that needed to happen just to serve the sole purpose of making the fandom fall that much deeper in love with her.
 
She long ago stopped being a character in her own right to me and instead became an active experiment on the writers’ part to create the perfect fandom waifu, which they succeeded at, make no friggin’ mistake about that. Sunset is by far the most beloved character of G4 MLP, perhaps aside from some other fandom darlings like Derpy or Maud. Hell, some of the early hate Starlight got was a direct result of the love for Sunset, from people who felt that Starlight “stole” her place as the mane seventh. This experiment clearly started with Rainbow Rocks when the fandom at large suddenly loved her pieces (because of course they would, given how much she was victimized), and it had its most recent development a few months ago with the “revelation” that Sunset is bi. Are you a total nerd who does little more than play Fortnite all day long? Well, guess what?! Sunset’s a gamer, too!!! Are you a girl and upset that you’ll never have a chance with Sunset because she’s apparently only into guys?! Oh, ho, ho, DO I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU!!!!
 
The end result is that she appeals to absolutely everybody. On paper, there’s absolutely nothing to not like about her, and this is why I find her to be so unappealing (that, and how I generally find her more zealous fans to be obnoxious). Hell, this isn’t even to mention just how flat-out perfect she was for the longest time before some of the more recent EG content gave her the ability to actually get angry or not be utterly adept at absolutely everything she does. Suffice to say, I definitely find a whole lot wrong with her reformed personality.

@Spinny  
>she appeals to absolutely everybody.
 
ok zoomer.

@Terminal Red  
Trixie was considered for an arc revolving about negative emotions and negative elements. That alone makes her grrreat.

@Spinny  
That’s rather ironic to me because I remember there being a user here ( that seems to have left 2 years ago) who hated Starlight (and everything involving seasons 4-7) and labeled them as bad writing ( including a lot of spite for certain writers) but loved EG and Sunset. And they were… Rather vocal about it.