Why I Absolutely Love Starlight Glimmer
Oh buggery, I forgot what it was today and didn't really have anything planned out. Ah well, let's just roll with what I have; Endless praise.
Starlight Glimmer was a character introduced in Season 5 of MLP:FiM. Appearing in the two-parter "The Cutie Map", she was portrayed as the weird yet relatively sound leader of Our Town. This was until the Mane 6 found residents that desire butt tattoos cutie marks and generally things escalated from there.
Remember kids, if there's a philosophy different from your own, openly mock it rather than giving it a chance! After all, there's a 90% chance that they're a fucking magic deity that desires world domination.
This opener is weird, okay? We got a cult, some weird ass tattoos, this leader with vast magical power and overall sets a different tone that the previous ones.
Of course, being the bad guy means you are defeated and Starlight Glimmer gets just that. The ponies of Our Town are free to live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and be irrelevant for the rest of the series.
Of course, as Starlight managed to escape at the end of the two parter, this means she's still at large. In both Amending Fences and What About Discord, she can be seen watching Twilight go about her business.
What's particularly interesting about her second instance is that she appears right after Pinkie Pie's line about time travel. Did anyone else notice that? Subtle hint to the finale, like in Friendship Games?
So now we go onto The Cutie Remark. Starlight is understandably pissed that Purple Smart fucked up everything and so wants to go back in time to fuck up everything for Twinkle Sprinkle. Pretty simple "Stop the bad guy from changing time" plot.
What's interesting is how it goes about showing off Starlight's range of spells. People say she's "overpowered" simply because she can match an alicorn in a fight, when she uses a variety of spells in order to at the very least, be on even footing with Twilight. The crystal prison spell in particular is a definite highlight, along with handling self levitation and standard magic blasts. It's honestly all rather impressive for "just" a unicorn, but then you remember that Twilight was "just" a unicorn at one point too.
That segues nicely into the... Controversy surrounding Starlight. While her praise as a vilalin is near universal, over the last two and a half years (Fuck it's been so long.) I've noticed more flak being thrown her way than any other character, main or otherwise. Why is this?
Well, probably due to how the finale went down. Starlight was shown to be on a relatively equal (ha) level with Twilight in terms of spell variety. Time travel, self levitation, crystallisation, so on. But Starlight is probably the first pony outside of the Mane 6 to show this level of talent and that probably rubbed people the wrong way. Being one of the few naturally talented mages in Equestria will probably do that.
This along with her admittedly rushed Heel-Face turn has lead to a small, but very vocal hatedom for Starlight. And I'm sure there's reasonable people out there who dislike Starlight for legitimate reasons that ultimately don't come down to petty hangups, but it's mostly "She's OP!" "She's a Mary Sue!" without much elaboration. This is only a very small fraction of the fandom, but it's rather vocal and I wanted to at least point it out.
Their judgements are not without merit, however. A lot of Starlight's backstory remains unknown aside from her Freudian Excuse for disliking cutie marks (Which does come off as a bit meh, but it's a reason.) and a brief link to Maud in Season 7. Hopefully there'll be at least some light shed upon her past, because while she remains a very solid character, it's difficult to emphasize with her when you know so little.
Back onto positives, they reformed Starlight Glimmer. Not only did they use this magical thing called diplomacy to snap her out of destroying reality, they did it without any magical crutches. Ultimately, Twilight had to live up to her Princess role, drop whatever grudge she had and simply convince Starlight to give up. That's what makes Starlight's rehabilitation absolutely incredible. No magic, no artifacts that lead to a happy mare. Actual, honest to Celestia friendship wins the day.
While Discord did get this treatment as well, this was after he was imprisoned in stone by magic rocks once and even then, the Mane 6 (Sans Flutters) were suspicious of him before the Season 4 finale where he finally turned full Face... after betraying Equestria and nearly getting it destroyed by a power hungry centaur.
This becomes apparent when the Mane 6 accept Starlight after their meeting at the end of the two parter. It shows that the Mane 6 have learned how to accept someone they once saw as a villain and to give them the best chance possible. After all, it would be a lot harder to betray someone if they showed genuine interest in your well-being.
This goes into my next point which may be slightly controversial; Starlight was never truly evil. Now I'm not saying that what she did wasn't absolutely filled with malice.
What I am saying is that Starlight had genuine intentions for Our Town. Keep in mind that she had lost a friend, her only friend due to a cutie mark. She felt alone in the world due to it and had to carry that burden until she founded Our Town. She seemed very open and willing to let new ponies into Our Town during the Cutie Map and I honestly believe that her intentions were nothing short of at the very least, trying to be selfless.
That's just my interpritation of her villainous arc. Obviously the Cutie Remark was nothing but malicious intent towards Twilight in particular. Cutie marks for Cutie marks, as she said.
Now, I've already spent way too many words blabbering about how much her villainous actions were at the very least justifiable in some sense, so I won't spend too much time talking about her post-Season 5.
There's not really that much to say, honestly. She learns, she grows, she becomes a better pony and makes friends. She lives. Season 6 and 7 speak for themselves on developing Starlight and aside from her failed attempt at reforming Chrysalis by using the same method used on her, has ultimately succeeded in atoning for her past.
Yes, there has been bumps in the road, but as with any road, you take them as they come. Nopony's perfect and everyone has their weaknesses. Starlight's happen to be social due to her not really having friends during her formative years. It's why she hasn't really bonded with the Mane 6, opting for more loner characters like Trixie and Maud. Hell, even friends who were once on the path of darkness like Discord and Sunset Shimmer* can be argued as acquaintances at the very least.
Yeah, as much as I loved Mirror Magic, there's not really much *to talk about aside from her amazing character design as a human and their shared past. Sorry!
I want to end this off by going a little bit sappy. I love Starlight Glimmer. Ever since the Cutie Remark where you got to see her reasons for being the way she was, she's resonated with me in a way that no other character has. To say she's my favourite character in the show is the truth. She has been for over two years now and each episode I see with her in makes me care for her in ways I don't feel about the other characters. Some have come close, but ultimately Starlight wins out. Why? I honestly have no idea. By all rights, I should probably not be this passionate for a character who nearly destroyed space and time for the sake of a grudge.
But hey, we all make mistakes. I believe Starlight's arc in general not only represents making mistakes, but forgiveness as well. Think about it, the Mane 6 and the residents of Our Town forgave Starlight for removing their talents, Twilight forgave her for trying to destroy her entire livelihood...
And Starlight forgave herself for ultimately making such mistakes. Because if you can't forgive yourself, you end up being unable to move on, wracked in guilt. Experience is ultimately the name we give to our mistakes after all, and Starlight has made many.
So perhaps you should forgive and forget too. It's not easy, but you'll thank yourself later and be happier.
Thank you for listening to my absolute beast of an essay, I believe I have some grudges of my own to wipe away. Happy Starlight Glimmer day everyone.
Submitted March 23, 2018 at 06:34AM by Hclegend
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/mylittlepony/comments/86k9rz/why_i_absolutely_love_starlight_glimmer/?utm_source=ifttt
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