What Starlight's Nightmare Reveals About Her
In the episode Royal Problems, Starlight has a terrible nightmare about bungling her mission so badly that the royal sisters hatred for one another grows to the point that they both assume eviler aspects and attempt to destroy one another. While this underlines Starlight's already well documented anxiety problems and self doubt, it also reveals an inherent distrust of authority figures.
It may not come as a surprise to many fans that Starlight Glimmer has issues with authority. Indeed it is her rebellion against the 'tyranny of cutie marks', the perception that they make ponies inherently unequal and unhappy, that drove her to take away others cutie marks to begin with. But there may be deeper issues at play here than just the resentment of fate.
There are several reasons for this we can speculate about.
Perhaps Starlight doesn't trust authority figures because she was one herself at one time. When she was in charge of Our Town sge was selfish, manipulative, and out to achieve her own ends despite saying it was to create real friendships and harmony. It's possible this leads her to inherently harbor doubts about the intentions of other leaders, despite their stated goals and outward benevolent appearances.
It's also possible that Starlight is a natural pessimist trying and failing to be part of an optimistic world. It wouldn't take much for most ponies to see the worst in Princess Lin, but for Starlight to dream up an equally horrible, possibly eviler version of Celestia, that seems to speak to the idea that Starlight subscribes to the idea that the brighter a person shines then the darker their secrets. Many fans have crafted theories that Celestia is more manipulative and less benevolent than she may appear, but for a pony in the show to subconsciously have such doubts about her is actually very telling about Starlight.
Of course, the explaination for this distrust could be as simple as some buried trauma. This is pure speculation, but Starlight reacted extremely agitated when the Princesses were fighting with one another. Yes there was the added pressure that this was the problem Starlight was there to fix, and it would be fairly unsettling to watch two entities as powerful as the Princesses quarrel, even as siblings are know to do... Even so, Starlight seems truly upset, and seems to cast her spell to switch the sisters cutie marks before she even realizes what she's doing.
It's not hard to imagine a filly Starlight cowering as, perhaps, her own parents fought one another. If you grew up in a household where such fights were common, you might have some idea how terrifying such clashes between the people who are supposed to be your care givers, who are supposed to love you and live each other, might be to a young and impressionable mind that just wants all the yelling to stop. It's not hard to imagine Starlight blaming herself, some perceived flaw, for why her parents might fight if she didn't know the true cause. It wouldn't be hard to imagine her trying to externalize that self hatred in order to keep herself sane either.
It's possible Starlight's underlying distrust of authority may stem from an outright fear of authority figures, especially when they are fighting one another, and a lack of understanding of how to deal with such situations that are in truth beyond your control.
While some have floated over Starlight crying her eyes out while the phantoms of Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker fight around her, I think this Nightmare may have cut to the very core of many of Starlight's problems. She is a pony that feels very much out of control and that any attempts she makes to try and get a better grip on things will inevitably only make things worse. She fears the intentions of those things in her life that have power over her, but she also fears doing anything to face or disrupt that status quo.
I don't think Luna was speaking lightly when she said that if nothing was done then Starlight's Nightmare might do lasting damage to her psyche. As it stands, I'm at the point where I think the damage was already done some time ago, and Starlight is only just now starting to heal with the help of the Princess's.
Submitted June 15, 2017 at 09:21AM by TheKnackerman
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