Talk:The Cutie Map - Part 1/@comment-4531340-20150413230955

Y'know, upon re-watching this episode, Starlight's victory doesn't seem arbitrary in that it's the point that firmly establishes her as the villain, in it for personal gain or otherwise.

It reminds me a lot of the moment when Light Yagami (from Death Note) kills (the person he thinks is) L - before that point, it could be argued with a certain degree of legitimacy that he was just an idealistic young man who wanted to clean up the world, and make it a better place, but he was going about it the wrong way (so he was doing bad things, but they were well-intentioned), but then when he killed that guy, who wasn't (or at least, he didn't know was) a criminal, for challenging his right to judge the people of the world as a god would, there's no doubt he's the villain of the work, and rather than an idealistic young man, he's become a psychopath suffering from a severe god complex.

Similarly, Starlight comes off in the beginning as someone who, while doing something bad (stripping ponies of their cutie marks), is doing it for good reasons (the ponies seemed to have all come to her of their own free will, at least, at first, and given up their cutie marks because they were too weak to deal with their individuality), but clearly becomes the villain when she strips the Mane Six of their cutie marks, and then later in part 2 it's reinforced when she mentions that having a princess without a cutie mark will help her cause greatly. It becomes clear that she's not helping out with the ponies' weakness, allowing them to live without the pain of individuality (because while it allows for greater pleasure, it also allows for greater pain), but rather, has some selfish, ulterior motives.