Talk:Shadow Play - Part 2/@comment-1031724-20180406010631

Another thing I disliked about this episode is that it made the Elements seem weak compared to what we saw before. They purified Nightmare Moon and Sunset Shimmer of all the evil in them, and they turned Discord, one of the most powerful characters in the show, to stone.

So, the Elements should have purified Stygian. We know the Pony of Shadows is a fusion of Stygian and the "Shadow", so it should have exorcised the Shadow and either destroyed him, banished him, or turned him to stone.

Instead they had to be combined with Starswirl's spell, which would have banished the whole Pony of Shadows to limbo. Starlight had to save Stygian herself before the Shadow was banished, and it's implied that the Elements would have been sacrificed from the effort had Stygian not been saved.