Posts

@Philweasel  
Yeah, if anything it’s Maud the one who stares.

@HJSDGCE  

 
You can argue the other, but this? Starlight had nothing to do with the climax, and doesn’t even appear until about seven minutes in. Is that your definition of ‘Staring’?

@kztxl7  
Also, all those times the Mane 6 are completely absent? All but one were CMC episodes IIRC.

@kztxl7
 
I’m judging by focus, not appearance. “All Bottled Up” was fairly clearly a Trixie and Starlight episode, the mane six’s appearances notwithstanding. “Dragon Quest” was a Spike episode, although other characters appeared and spoke. Starlight, Twilight and the rest all showing up in “It Isn’t The Mane Thing About You” didn’t make the episode any less about Rarity.
 
Different measurements for different people and different situations, but I personally prefer to look at whether or not an episode was about a character or characters rather than weather it was an episode with them in it.

@HJSDGCE  
I think “starring” is beginning to mean “Not actually the character the events of the episode predominantly revolve around, but I don’t like that this character appeared, and I need a snappy way to convey this.”

@HJSDGCE  
Definitely an unpopular opinion because the general feeling people who don’t throw hissy fits about Starlight’s existence loved the episode.
 
But it seems you’re going to be exaggerating Starlight on this.
 
 
@FrustrationInExcelsis  
Before Starlight Glimmer there was only 1 episode the none of the Mane 6 appeared in.
 
So that 80% definitely feels like a gross exaggeration.
 
In Season 7 there was I believe 6 episodes Mane 5 didn’t appear in which is 76%. If you add in Twilight then it’s still 23 of 26 which is 88%.
 
The characters are still featured over 3/4 of the time.  
They got a movie.
 
Complaining about their slightly decteased focused is making a mountain out of a molehill.
 
It is being unreasonable. When their appearances actually dtop to about half of the episodes and the episode where they aren’t in them are genuinely bad then we can talk but when you’ve had 5 to 6 years of Mane 6 basically dominating the show but then one year they decide to mix it up and slight decrease their appearance in the show, give them a movie and try to avoid stagnating the show then it being ridiculous to complain.

I feel once again my arguments have been swallowed by generalizations.
 
I don’t object to Starlight focused episodes (not anymore, S7 made the character finally click). I love that we get to see Trixie recurring through her. I like Starlight’s quirks and her dynamic with both Trix and Twi and Sunburst.
 
But for a character that has been introduced and positioned so prominently, the fact that she has no relationship whatsoever with five of our protagonists is not great.
 
Specially when some of them don’t get that great character focus to begin with.
 
 
And there are a lot of secondary characters with little focus that would’ve been nice to see being thrown a bone to shift focus and spread things out.
 
Starlight is fine for this, but she got shoved so hard that not everybody could get on board with her inclussion.
 
Some people are unreasonably harsh on the character, for sure.
 
Not everyone that has problem with our new mane character does for no reason, however.

@Philweasel
 
Oh, I’m not saying that Starlight getting focus is an issue by itself. Technically, the show started to edge away from focusing as much as it did back in Season 5, before Starlight entered the main character roster. I’m saying that I can see why some people don’t like this change, and Starlight is the most visible part of it, even if she’s not its cause.
 
I do agree that the show can’t keep doing what it did in the first few seasons. If nothing else, it can’t keep its focus on learning and teaching lessons without making some change. Most of its early plot types can’t work without making the Mane 6’s characters regress so that they have to relearn what they’ve already learned, which is never good.
 
That’s one thing I’ve personally liked about what it’s been doing recently. It still works in the types of morals it used to, which I would argue are the most important focus, and instead teaches them to characters who still need to learnt them – either the younger generation like Spike or the CMC, or by bringing in new characters. Starlight, for instance, Thorax, Discord, the rest.

@kztxl7
 
Well, technically they were averaging 80% or so per season pre-Starlight and around 60-70% now, but that’s not my point.
 
I am perfectly aware that not every episode of a show has to feature very major or main character. My point is simply that, over its first four or five seasons, MLP established a certain formula where you could expect three quarters or more of each season’s episodes to feature one or a couple or more of a certain group of characters. And yes, certainly you get episodes about other people – as far back as season one you got episodes centering on Spike or the CMC with the Mane 6 either playing supporting roles, bit parts or no parts at all. All fine and proper, and all other things aside there’s plenty of room in this pattern to fit in Starlight or whoever else.
 
Now, in Seasons 6 and 7 you get a pretty major shift in this formula where the show’s main characters get a noticeable – not necessarily major, but noticeable – decrease in focus, and a new character being introduced, being made apart of the major cast and becoming a main focus of this shift would and did highlight this change.
 
Now, I am not saying this is my viewpoint, because by and large it’s not – my reservations with Starlight aside, I am more than fine with what the show’s been doing over this past season if nothing else. But the point remains that a) the show had a specific formula of character focus and interactions it followed for its first five seasons, b) this was a big part of what people liked about it, c) there was a pretty noticeable shift in this formula between seasons, and d) agree or disagree with it, it’s not unreasonable to expect people to be put off by this shift.

@kztxl7  
That Celestia and Luna episode was a disappointment.
 
It was actually “Celestia and Luna episode: starring Starlight”.
 
Just like “Pinkie and Maud episode: starring Starlight”.

@HJSDGCE  
Not sure if serious.
 
We’ve had 2 Luna Episodes already.
 
Season 7 gave us a Luna and Celestia episode and a Celestia and Twilight Episode.

@Philweasel  
Can it at least be someone else other that Starlight?
 
Still waiting for that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna episode!

@FrustrationInExcelsis  
The thing is, most shows that have been running for seven years either change up their cast a little, or die. The reason everyone thinks Starlight was all over season 6 (instead of having a significant role in six episodes) is because the mane six episodes were so generic and dull that almost everyone forgets about them.
 
Allowing secondary characters to have their own episodes and adding Starlight to the mix allows the writers to only use the Mane 6 when they have something interesting to do with them, rather than delivering a load of repetitive, done far better before mush because they need to fill 26 episodes with very, very well explored main cast.

@FrustrationInExcelsis  
Being the main character does not mean you need to be apart of literally everything in your series.
 
Saitama doesn’t need to be in every single chapter of One Punch Man or Luffy need to be apart of every single event or fight that happens in One Piece. Doing so is in fact shoehorning them in.
 
There is no need for Starlight to have this interaction with the rest of the Mane 5 instead of her own set of friends that people are clamoring for other for the sake of showing up.
 
When the characters you love are still showing up over 80% of the time (and get a movie in that same season) it does become unreasonable to complain about the decrease in their focus. Because they’re still there. An overwhelming amount of the time. Not only that but the episode they’re not in aren’t even bad so it’s not like you’re losing out.

@kztxl7
 
I’m… not sure how having the main characters of a work have central roles in the episodes of their own show counts as shoehorning or shoving them down our throats.
 
Even if it does, as you said, they had central roles in most episodes of Seasons 1-5. That was one of the base premises of the show – it is about a cast of central characters, the main six, and then a cast of secondary but still major characters: Spike, the CMC and now Starlight. The main six’s characters and stories are objectively a big part of the show’s draw and what people started following it for. General speaking, the major characters that a work focuses on, being a major part of what the work is, tend to be a big part of why the work’s fans follow it. I don’t see how it’s unreasonable for people not be happy that the characters they started following the show for are getting decreased focus.

“Spotlight Stealing” should be added alongside “Mary Sue”, “OOC”, and “Idiot Ball” for misused terms.
 
In Season 6, any episode she had was either her own episodes in the first place, (No Second Prances and Every Little Thing She Does) or she shared properly with other characters (opener and the finale).
 
Spotlight Stealing is closer to what Spike does during the Season 3 opening. Twilight does all the work but Spike get all the glory for being a delivery boy.
 
 
Sunset after her redemption is nothing more than a cardboard cutout that’s to stand in for Twilight until Twilight (either one) comes because they’re infinitely more interesting. Any thing that was interesting about her was removed when she got replaced with another character who just happens to share her name and looks.
 
The complaint about Starlight not being friends with the Mane 5 just seems like an excuse to shoehorn those 5 girls in and have them being shoved down our throat 99% of the episodes again like Seasons 15 rather than 8085% of the time like now.

I see his point and have expressed similar opinions in the past.
 
Season 7 largely fixed the character for me because she was allowed to play protagonist and support roles, and several episodes had her be there and plots and solutions not revolve around her.
 
But during the sixth season she was basically a black hole whenever she appeared, everything becoming about her struggles. It makes sense to an extent, because they were trying so hard to show her redemption.
 
But that’s the issue. If you didn’t approve of her spotlight stealing qualities, then her attempted redemption just flat out doesn’t work.
 
I got over it once they showed she could be a fine support character. But many did not. And I can’t blame them.
 
The combo of her acts in the season five finale and the way her redemption played out in season six were extremely hard pills to swallow.
 
Ultimately, her curse I feel is her status as main character, except not.
 
She is nominally the mane seven, and a lot of plots attempt to showcase this.
 
But at the same time they are dead set on having her develop her own set of friends separate of the mane six.
 
This is a problem, because what results is that she has the same status as the characters we’ve been following for seven seasons despite only having two under her belt, and she hasn’t formed any meaningful relationships with any of the mane five.
 
The mane five don’t benefit at all from her inclusion into the mane cast.
 
The only one that does is Twilight, who has a tendency to steal the spotlight herself.
 
 
This is, imo, the thing that Sunset has over Starlight that has made her so much more well recieved.
 
Although she is the nominal protagonist when Twi is not around, and her status as pony from another world with magic experience puts her well above the rookie humane five (not unlike Twilight and Starlight compared to the mane five), the movies make it a point that show her relationship with each of the girls.
 
Not once I doubt she is friends with any of them, and she is fully integrated into the group dynamics, making her status as humane seven feel genuine.
 
A recurring issue whenever detractors and even some supporters bring up when talking about Starlight in this thread (and something I’ve discussed at length at TVTropes) is that Starlight doesn’t have much of a relationship with anyone but Twilight or her own group of pals.

@DanielTepesKraus  

 
That’s not been true for a long time though. Even her primary episodes in season 7 were heavily about other characters as well, and for the most part she was a supporting character in the majority of her appearances. And she was no more important in the finale than Starswirl or Twilight.

@gingerninja666  
that’s just it though. she’s not the kind of character that should get “automatic acceptance”. especially in a series where characters who have done way less didn’t get such acceptance (trixie being a huge example of that). she should have been held at an unsure distance by everyone, and her arc should have been changing that. in my opinion, that solves a ton of issues i have with her. she hasn’t skirted consequences for her actions and now there are genuine stakes: when she does bad things said characters don’t warm up to her.
 
what baffles me too, is that they set the stakes so unbelievably high for her to ever reasonably redeem herself, and then seem to have no real interest in an actual redemption story. why would they turn her from an extremist who may or may not have had altruistic intentions into such a petty irredeemably evil monster, and then redeem her in a two-minute montage, and then just write her as a quirky socially-inept but largely implied-to-be-good person?
 
honestly i wouldn’t waste the time because i really have zero interest in her arc. not hate, but pure disinterest. it’s a 50/50 case of not caring if she bonds with him or not and knowing there’s zero stakes to it. nothing in the episode will mean anything to me, so i might as well spend that 22 minutes playing nintendo or browsing the site or something.
 
another thing too, this isn’t really related to anything but it’s a third perspective on her. to quote a buddy of mine from irc the other night, he’s not a fan of her because, in his own words, she sort of “exists” on a different plane than the rest of the characters, if that makes any sense. when she shows up in an episode suddenly almost everything is focused entirely on her. she’s the cause of and solution to the events of the episode, and everything is for and about her. that’s his theory to why she’s such a divisive character too: if you like her character then that’s a good thing, but if you don’t then her episodes have absolutely nothing to offer you.
 
@hakirayleigh  
please don’t go around calling people dicks for disagreeing with you. it’s a bad habit.

@DanielTepesKraus  
I like Trixie and Starlight interactions cause we can watch a bit about trickery with ponies and not only Discord. But obviously I only see you were a dick with your answer. But relac, cause I saw worst back-ups at different Starlight threads.

@Jarkes  

 

@gingerninja666  
She was kinda convinced she already had.
 
It was actually a good example of how far she’s come. It was kinda her original motivation and past trauma thrown in her face, and she reacted with grumpy self pity, some tears and… acceptance.
 
It’s straight out proof that this isn’t the emotionally unstable Starlight of old.
 
@gingerninja666  

 
Fully agreed. I’m bored to tears of debating Starlight, but I really enjoyed talking about her yesterday.

I don’t care if you dislike Starlight or not, as long as you’re not a dick about it.

@Dustcan
 
Amazingly, it actually looked like she had accepted potentially LOSING Sunburst as a friend.

@DanielTepesKraus
 
I’d say it’s less automatic “love” and more automatic acceptance. She’s accepted. Automatic love to me implies a level of active positivity that goes beyond them just treating her pleasantly. Characters don’t go up to Starlight and start gushing about about how awesome or nice she is, or go out of their way to be nice to her.
 
I’d say that characters not treating her badly gives her a different type of stakes for her arc. Where her desire to be good and her regret are a lot more self-motivated rather than her becoming good because she fears punishment. Although, actually, Starlight still DOES fear punishment in several cases. Like, in All Bottled Up, she feared that Twilight wouldn’t trust her ever again if she lost the Cutie Map. This being the same Twilight who lets her off easy. She fears Twilight because she’s cogniscient of the fact that she gets a lot of chances and she doesn’t want to push her luck because Starlight’s not a dick. She doesn’t want to take advantage of Twilight’s niceness.
 
I do tentatively want you to watch Uncommon Bond. Just to see if you like what they do with Sunburst and Starlight at all. I don’t have much hope obviously, but some people like that Sunburst makes Starlight act kinda possessive.