The Redemption of Former Villains
So . . .how do I start this? The redeeming of villains has been a divisive line in the fandom for a while now with many people hating that Starlight Glimmer was redeemed so quickly, that character's like Discord didn't deserve redemption, or that too many former villains had been redeemed into heroes and though I disagree with basically all of this there are some fair points to be made about how some redemptions were rushed or "finished" too soon. At this point however is the major point that I want to refute.
There is no such thing as an instant redemption. Redemption is not just something you can get or be declared. Redemption is not something that you can earn. Redemption is a constant work of struggling to improve yourself and be a better person. And what we get in the show is not redemption. What we get is a couple of characters being given a second chance, or in Discord's case. . .33 I think, and opening themselves up to trying to be a better person through the power of Friendship. Let's look at these evolutions shall we?
Nightmare Moon was a despot who kidnapped Princess Celestia, created an Eternal Night(that lasted like a single night) and nearly gored and murdered the Mane 6. However she is instantly accepted and forgiven by everypony. The only "redemption" she gets is when she literally flagellates herself every night with nightmares from a creature she created called the Tantabus. This is shown to be incredibly unhealthy and unnecessary.
Trixie. . .is perhaps the biggest "non redemption" story. She began as a boastful magician who tried to defend Ponyville from the Ursa Minor that Snips and Snails brought into town only to have her cart be destroyed and get laughed out of town. We see her later on when she get's the Alicorn amulet and takes over Ponyville only to be forgiven by Twilight, except not really . . .Twilight held a slight grudge over the years, and we see her years later (both in and out of the show) returning to Ponyville where we see her being ostrichsized and taunted by ponies who just look at her do to her reputation. She is there on a "Apology Tour" and ends up becoming best friends with Starlight Glimmer. Some minor conflict and then she selflessly helps save Equestria along side Starlight, Discord, and Thorax. Of all of the "redeemed" characters she is the one least qualifying for the category.
Next up is Discord the character whose "redemption" perhaps had the biggest and longest arc in the show. This mad Draconequus first showed up in Season 2 as an antagonist force that came to wreck Equestria after being freed from his imprisonment before being defeated by the Elements of Harmony. Come Season 3 and Princess Celestia decides that Twilight and her friends should try to redeem Discord so that he could use his magic for the greater good of Equestria. The girls agree and set out trying to redeem him. . .and none of it works except for when Fluttershy tries to, not to "redeem him" but, actually befriend Discord. Discord ultimately stops his tricks and malevolence because he has actually grown to CARE for Fluttershy. Though this is often declared as the point where he is redeemed we see throughout the seasons, all the way to the Season 6's finale that he still has a lot to grow as a person before one could consider him "redeemed". But that's just it. . .he doesn't change out of some desire to be redeemed. He changes because he is treated as a friend even when he betrayed and hurt his friends in the Season 4 finale. After this finale he slowly, slowly, opens up and becomes genuine friends with the rest of the Mane 6 as well as Spike and Big Macintosh. He grows more mischievous rather then malevolent and he too goes to save the day alongside Starlight, Trixie, and Thorax even without his reality warping powers. Now as a character with such a time scale Discord still has a LOT to learn and acclimate to treating people as people rather then toys that he can break and throw away.
Starlight Glimmer. . . Starlight Glimmer is perhaps THE most controversial character in this show. Not because people don't like her. But because people believe that she was not only better as a Villain but more interesting as a possible rival for Twilight as somepony who could match her wit for wit and power for power. Frankly however? . .I love Starlight Glimmer. So we first meet this pony in the Season 5 premiere where we see her as the Alderman in charge of her village where everypony has an equality cutie mark and it is revealed that they all had their cutie marks removed willingly because their cutie marks gave them trouble in the past one way or another. However her control over the town, her make believe safe place, when the Mane 6 walk into town on a friendship mission from the Cutie Mark Table. Long story short we learn that not only did Starlight lie about getting rid of her own Cutie Mark, but she tries convert Twilight to her cause as well. When this fails and Twilight reveals her charade instead of listening to Twilight and being instantly forgiven Starlight is ENRAGED, perhaps the angriest character we ever saw in the show, and flees into the tunnels beneath the caverns after being chased down by her friends in the village.
We don't see her for an entire season, except for spying on Twilight in the background of a couple of episodes, until the Season finale where she ambushes Twilight Sparkle and gets back at the Princess by making sure that she and the Mane 6 never became friends and thus unknowingly showing Twilight into worse, and worse, and worse alternative Equestrias where things get more and more hopeless. She is shown to be the absolute best villain we ever got in the show. Twilight eventually drags Starlight into one of the Alternative Equestrias and shows her rival just WHY she and her friends need to be friends, that THIS is the result of her actions in the past, and Starlight unbelieving that ONE group of friends could be so important shows Twilight just why she hates Cutie Marks and why she created her village. When she was young her best, and only, friend Starburst received his cutie mark in magic and ended up moving to Canterlot to attend Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns leaving her all alone in her village. This abandonment ate at her, boiled, and festered until she hated the very idea of cutie marks and decided to play pretend with a village full of friends whose cutie marks will never make them leave her.
Twilight sympathises with Starlight and offers her a hoof in friendship. Starlight Glimmer tearfully takes Twilight's hoof in friendship and they both arrive back in their Equestria. Twilight discusses what happened with her friends and all of them decide to give Starlight a second chance. Not to redeem herself. . but to learn about friendship. We see a montage of her acclimating to the Mane 6 and eventually heading back to her village to get down on her hooves and knees to apologize to her friends. . .and she is immediately accepted. They weren't angry that she betrayed them. She only hurt them by lying to them. And they forgave her. This begins Starlight's tutelage under Twilight as her pupil. Cut to Season 6 where Starlight's first official Friendship lesson is to make up with the friend that caused her complexes in the first place. . .Sunburst who is living in the Crystal Empire. Things go incredibly awkward as they both lie to each other about how they have been and what they had been up to in their lives, Sunburst apparently no recognizing her at first, but eventually Starlight manages to encourage the "Master Wizard" into using his knowledge to help save the Crystal Empire and restore the Crystal Heart. Twilight learns that Starlight works best when not working from a heavily stringent list and learns well on her own. She also learns to open up and celebrate the holidays with her friends. Her next Friendship lesson that we see, "Every Little Thing She Does", has her spar with Twilight and eventually Twilight leaves to Canterlot and gives her a task to spend the day with Twilight's friends. Starlight freaks out in her own, very Twilight way, and ends up mind controlling the rest of the Mane 6 and ends up setting the Castle basically on fire. Twilight demands that she explain what is going on and Starlight apologizes to her and the rest of the Mane 6, who are nursing HEAVY hangovers, who though grumpy end up forgiving her as they montage and do what she was supposed to do with them in the first place. She is one of the first ponies to accept Thorax for who, and what, he is during Spike's little diddy right behind Twilight. And finally we see her have night terrors regarding seeing her old friends again at the Village and even running away in fear and shame, with the help of Trixie, when she arrives there and they ask her to lead them again. She heads back home with Trixie and so leads up the events of Starlight leading this group of former villains to save all of Equestria all without their magic. She is forced to take the leadership role of the group and ends up saving the day when she tells Thorax to SHARE his love while it is being drained by Chrysalis. This leads to his transformation and the rest of the Changelings following suit when they see that he is sated and no longer starving. After all this what does Starlight do?. . . . She sympathises with Chrysalis and offers her her hoof in friendship. She gives Chrysalis the same chance that was given to Discord and herself only to be rejected. Starlight had learned the lessons of empathy that Twilight herself had learned and so the next episode has to do with her "graduating" from being Twilight's pupil, even if both of them admit that neither of them are ready for Starlight to move out of Ponyville or leave the castle.
Y'all notice something there right? Twilight never set out to "redeem" Starlight. That was never the goal. She wanted to show Starlight that friendships were worth having, that it was WORTH opening your heart up to others, and Starlight took to these lessons like fish to water. Starlight is NOT redeemed, nothing can redeem you instantly or otherwise, but Starlight is a changed character. She has grown.
One can say the same thing for Sunset Shimmer but she had to WORK to earn the forgiveness of the school. Turns out that Humans are less forgiving then Equestrian Society but even despite that when everybody saw her as she used to be all it took was a little bit of empathy on Trixie's part for the two of them to become friends and better people. Sunset Shimmer forgives Wallflower Blush, just as she did Sci-Twi and Juniper Montage, and offers her hand in friendship rather then taking revenge or punishing the girl. It would be damned hypocritical if she hadn't, this is even pointed out by Sci-Twi and Sunset Shimmer themselves.
Tempest Shadow, or Fizziepop Berrytwist, is forgiven for her efforts in taking control of Equestria, capturing the Princesses, and chasing Twilight across the barren ends of the world and she too is offered a hoof in friendship after Twilight saves her life despite everything she had done.
So if I had to do a tldr, I will never understand why that is a thing, I would say that the gist of my message is this regarding the show. clears throat
There is no such thing as a instant redemption. Nor is redemption a status that can be given to you. Redemption is something that you strive for, an ideal to live up to, and each and every one of these examples have made mistakes in their pasts r some kind of hardship that led them to conflict with Twilight Sparkle and her friends. After fierce battles Twilight would offer them forgiveness, kindness, and an open hoof in friendship that each of them takes and strive to learn and be better. To be better friends. To be better people. They are not redeemed. For there is no such thing as redemption. There is only learning empathy and being better people. Which ALL of these characters have done over the course of the show/movies.
I greatly understand that this is a controversial topic so. . . .dig in I guess. This is basically my full opinion, typed out at 3 AM because I am an awful awful procrastinator, so forgive me if my thought seem to be a bit wild. I look forward to questions on my view and your own reasonings below so long as it is not just bile or bad faith criticism.
Look I'll have a few more threads made up later today but I am tired and want to go to bed now.
Submitted March 07, 2019 at 06:15AM by NewWillinium
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/mylittlepony/comments/ayci87/the_redemption_of_former_villains/?utm_source=ifttt
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