Talk:Starlight Glimmer/@comment-26313058-20160307002807/@comment-25559529-20160312020515

"Exactly, except Starlight's progression isn't even being given a chance by some people. Would you rather have Sunset Shimmer as a cliche, boring, stupid villain, or what she is now? That's what I'm talking about."

When Sunset Shimmer ran away from Celestia, she wanted to be a leader. By the end of the third film, she's worked to become exactly that.

Starlight Glimmer wanted friends and then gets given exactly that. No, seriously, she walks up, looks sad, and the ponies from her village immediately forgive her.

"So why can't Starlight? My problem with people's criticism of characters such as Moon Dancer and Starlight Glimmer above is that it's based on an argument that makes no sense. All of MLP's characters are exaggerated because they need to be in order to be recognised, otherwise they'd all look and sound the same."

Okay, look at Starlight's philosophy. She thought that "equality" is about equal talents and that differing talents lead to differences in opinion, and that leads to lost friendships? This is why Starlight is not interesting. Fights between friends are a common thing, and the friendship isn't "ruined" just because of that. Starlight's philosophy is not logical or a cause for being invested. And if you're not invested in the villain, then the whole thing becomes boring because you know that Starlight's not going to win, and her one defining trait at the time (her philosophy) is not going to have any lasting effect on any of the main characters.

So, she had the equality thing, and that was stopped. So then she had the revenge thing.

Well, this comes across as disturbing. She stalks Twilight all the way to Canterlot (and doesn't think of seeing Sunburst for some reason while she's there). So when she returns in the finale, and her revenge scheme is foiled... basically, seeing what her actions would cause has no effect on her. There is a point after which you can just simply not excuse that anymore. People need to grow up and learn how to deal with that kind of thing on their own. Not to do so is a character failure, and the whole redemption thing mostly amounts to simply one speech.

So the revenge thing ended. What's left? She had a backstory from which she drew the equality ideology from, but she's forgone that entirely now. And there's no forgiveness to seek like Sunset because the townsponies immediately accept her back. So she's pretty talented with magic... which was basically just Plot Armor... There's the upcoming "failed reunion" between her and Sunburst, but that hasn't happened yet... she's basically a blank slate now, and from what we've seen of her previous actions, not a very likable one.

As for Moon Dancer, I can't speak for everyone, but she didn't feel like much of a character to me. Her personality is essentially limited to just being academic, which she outright says is just for the sake of studying. She's not studying for a job or anything. She's just... studying. She doesn't have a major drive to study, which makes her reaction to Twilight butting in seem caricatural. Moon Dancer seems more like a derivative of Twilight and less like a character in that regard, since she's essentially just "Twilight, only without friends". Heck, Moon Dancer's breakdown seemed more like she was giving exposition than talking like an actual character.

The time between now and when the incident takes place being longer doesn't invoke more emotion. The episode's essentially telling us that over a year later, Moon Dancer is still hung up on it.

I could explain further about how Twilight's OCD isn't her sole defining trait, but I don't think that's needed.