Removed cutie marks were returned easily by locating them and freeing them from their confines. No special talent was needed to put them back on the right ponies. The ponies who’d had their marks removed didn’t have any mystical force preventing them from seeking out their marks, either.
 
This means that Starlight could easily have removed her own mark, since she could have put it back on when she went to “get the staff” to remove someone else’s mark, and then taken it back off pretty much whenever she had a free moment.
 
Of course, if simple reflexivity made it impossible for Starlight to remove her own mark (like trying to cut off both your own hands), then none of this really matters.

@CronoM  
exactly!
 
And it’s annoying just because of how much I loved her and the S5 opener before the finale and now this new opener happened
 
like they are trying to discard all the traits that made people like her first, so they can redeem her and make her “good”
 
they are literately trying to force her into the show and force us all to accept that they either want a mane 7 or a new mane 6 - Twilight
 
@Lucky Shot  
The Finale is what made many people hate her as a character, by refusing to watch it you don’t see why we say the things we do xD

@CronoM
 
Ah, that explains it. I refuse to watch the finale, so I wouldn’t know any of the dialogue from it.
 
However, considering that Starlight clearly no longer believes in it, it’s entirely possible she was still lying and keeping up a self-righteous farce during the finale.

@Lucky Shot  
You forgot to add that everything you just said was merely one interpretation of Starlight’s premier motivations, one that was shot down when Starlight complained to Twilight about her taking away the town and its system she believed in during their finale fight.
 
Here’s the simpler answer…Starlight couldn’t cast the spell for people who wanted their cutie marks removed while her own cutie mark was removed. It was impossible, the staff was a fake. She was okay with being a hypocrite and secret exception so long as she didn’t abuse it. In her mind, it was better then doing nothing.
 
Heck, if the staff wasn’t fake, what would of happened then? Besides the three deserters, Twilight would of had no ammo to overturn Starlight’s belief system.
 
She only used her high tier magic for the staff spell, so its an easy possibility. Her having her cutie mark was a loophole so Twilight didn’t have address their actual issues, all she had to do was get Starlight’s believers angry at her inconvenient but unabused hypocrisy. (Sure she abused it when she stole the Mane 6’s cutie marks, but that’s a separate kind of ‘abuse’)

@Lucky Shot  
It seemed like she believed it. Since she kept insisting that she had created Harmony. When being challenged by the village she responded with how she had created “Harmony and Equality and True Happyness.”
 
Or at the end when being confronted by Twilight and the village ponies before escaping: “I gave them real friendships they never would have had otherwise!”
 
And during the S5 Finale she was explaining to Twilight how she had “created a peaceful place where no pony would feel different because of their Cutie Marks.”
 
Which to me implies she did believe she was doing the right thing. And believed she was creating a peaceful friendly place for ponies to live.

If everyone offered their cutiemarks before the procedure then why was there a gulag already set up?  
Some ponies of the village clearly needed some encouragement to understand what was best for them.

@Zebasiz
 
It was pretty transparent to me. It was played out exactly the same as the myriad other “fake utopia where the villain doesn’t believe the lies they put out to manipulate the masses” stories from the last fifty years or so.

@Lucky Shot  
What do you mean? She did believe it. I don’t recall there being anywhere showing that she didn’t feel it was true.

@CronoM
 
Did you miss the part where Starlight obviously never believed any of that crap regardless of whether any of her followers or you do? This was clear even in her first episode and this one merely cements a pre-existing fact.
 
She never believed in equality. She was simply stealing their marks. The equality was just her excuse.

@Lucky Shot  
The ponies of Starlight’s village drank the kool-aid because the alternative was worse for them at the time. Back in their original hometowns, they’re cutie marks caused them misery. It wasn’t because they were ultra gullible Nigerian Prince believers or brainwashed from birth cult worshipers. It IS a cult, obviously, but at least it addressed actual issues for ponies. That’s a farcry from your comparison no matter how you look at it.
 
Starlight wasn’t wrong for defying the system for those it didn’t work out for, Starlight was wrong because her methed was the OTHER extreme.
 
But now the show wants to write off Starlight’s convictions completely. Possibly the biggest chunk of her character and personality not utilized in a different way, but discarded.
 
Again…What a complete waste.

@CronoM
 
Yeah. Offered their cutie marks. Kind of like how people offer money so Nigerian princes will give them a reward that they end up not getting, and kind of like how people offer their lives to cults like the Westboro Baptist Church and the KKK.

Wait, steal cutie marks from an entire village? I thought the people in the village OFFERED to have their cutie marks removed. The first people she directly stole from were the Mane 6.
 
Sure she was still a villain. She was squashing any opinions for getting cutie marks back and routed out the few dissenters. No denying that. But her unique beliefs that DID initially fit for others was what made her character unique. Having her say she stole from the entire village makes it sound like the show wants to denounce and forget everything she did without learning a thing from her side…what an insane waste.
 
I know she was summarizing here, but the rest if the episode seemed to fall into that rut as well.

@Goremise
 
I wouldn’t go that far…
 

It’s funny how she know’s she’s the worst pony the writers have ever created XD

@Background Pony #51E0
 
If you can explain what you think “pathetic” means and justify why you’re trying to troll me then you can call me whatever you want.

@Background Pony #51E0
 
Enough, i wont have a shit slinging in here. Drop it.

Starlight, it’s okay, you were pathetic enough without summarizing your character arc.

“ THEY TAUGHT ME ABOUT FRIENDSHIP! =( “

And Glimmy Glue wonders why she can’t make friends. :P

What is it with ponys tearing up?

There’s nothing quite as cathartic as exposition.

I wouldn’t worry, Star.
 
Nobody who knows cares.
 
Just don’t blurt out stuff like this and you should be fine on your side of the wall.

@Master Fox  

 
Ponies make mistakes, even huge ones, all the time. Almost nopony ever travels through time!

@Celestia’s Servant  
Oh yeah that XD