@soundtea
 
And again I say, if she was “never meant to be a fighter”, then Celestia would have to be a complete idiot, and arrogant in the bargain by presuming she knew for a fact that Twilight would never need to defend herself.
 
Not from any threats that just so happened to attack Twilight “on equal ground” or were otherwise resistant to the Elements of Harmony.
 
Not from any crazy people trying to assassinate her.
 
Not from ordinary threats in daily life that every unicorn would be taught to deal with, not just the future Princess of Magic.
 
That is absolutely ludicrous.

@soundtea  
It was an honor, good sir. As our opponent has admitted his ignorance, I bid you adieu.

@Lucky Shot  
She was never meant to be a fighter. If it was Luna teaching her, then yeah she’d def have to know some real combat experience.
 
And her fights are mainly the equivalent of canon fodder so she has little need for tactics. And anything before that was ancient evil she blasted with a friendship powered artifact set. She has jack all experience with a true one on one fight on roughly equal grounds.

@Mr grump
 
Once we get to the point where I start regularly repeating myself or there’s no further logic behind the point we’re disagreeing on, then I usually leave because there’s literally nothing new for me to say.

@soundtea
 

 
Read: Attacked by Timberwolves and bugbears on a daily basis, to the point that characters aren’t at all surprised when monsters appear.
 
It’s obvious that ponies see a need for conventional combat by virtue of it existing for ponies like Starlight and the military to learn. There’s absolutely no excuse for not one single person to consider that Twilight might want to learn it while she’s maintaining the single most dangerous job in the nation.
 
You do realize that most martial arts are not designed to kill people, right? They’re designed to end fights with the least damage to everyone possible; Twilight’s exact job, so why then was she never taught any?

@Lucky Shot  
I’d move on if I were you dude or you’re gonna be here all day. You’ve done pretty well articulating your points while being questioned by at least 4 differeant people and I for one look forward to seeing your next debate, whether I agree with your stance or not.

@Lucky Shot  
And you’re avoiding the point.
 
Look at the land Equestria is. Celestia wouldn’t be teaching Twilight pure combat spells. She’d be grooming her toward more peaceful approaches and encouraging magic use for the benefit of others. And she was counting on the elements, not Twilight murdering NMM.
 
All of the previous big villain fights were pretty much “Get elements and blast with rainbows”. Twilight doesn’t exactly grasp concepts like guile, dodging, quick attacking and such. The Tirek fight was pretty much her just shooting giant blast after giant blast with no control.

@DoomPony
 
@soundtea
 
All of my points still stand regardless of your strawman arguments.

@Exedrus  
Eh, It was a pretty entertaining and passionate debate for the most part and that’s about it.

@DoomPony
 
I’m glad we’re in apparent agreement that the map is overall a bad addition to the show, but that’s about the end of it.
 

 
I’m gonna have to stop right there; you’re already writing a bad OC.
 
You see, when this show was first brought to my attention, I immediately concluded that Twilight (the other prodigy of raw magic power) was a Mary Sue. After watching the show I amended this, and since then I have always been convinced that Twilight is a parody of a Mary Sue.
 
The thing is that a parody is a transformation or inversion of its source material, usually but not necessarily comical or otherwise Good Fun in nature. A common trope when parodying ridiculous things like Mary Sues is to add logical explanations for things normally inexplicable.
 
So, while Twilight has many traits consistent with a Mary Sue, she also has (or had) good excuses:  
– Twilight has a clear personality beyond Mary Sue  
– In a comedy show, being a bit Mary Sue doesn’t really ruin the story because there’s no serious story to ruin  
– Twilight deviates from Mary Sue whenever it’s funny. Notably, Mary Sues are always successful; Twilight very often screws up even simple tasks  
– The majority of her “straight” Mary Sue traits are justified by such things as her upbringing, social connections, and general opportunities, or are mitigated somehow. Yes, her magic is a good bit more powerful than you can easily explain, but her brother’s is nothing to sneeze at either, she can’t sheerly overpower the various GODS of the world, and her greatest powers require all six Element-Bearers to work anyway –implying that the Element itself is why she is so powerful, an excuse!
 
In contrast, Starlight is not a comical parody of anything and has no explanations for her power level or talent at all, let alone good excuses. Her being a magical prodigy is just accepted by itself, a transparent shoehorn so that somebody can take Twilight on. She’s basically a pop-up villain or monster of the week.
 
If her episode had been a silly comedy episode, not making any sense wouldn’t have mattered; but when you expect me to take a story seriously you can be sure I won’t be accepting anything at face value like I would in a cartoon skit. =/

@Mr grump  
I’m kinda surprised this wasn’t already there.

Welp, looks like the insults have started. Good enough reason for a “drama in the comments” tag as any other I guess.

@Lucky Shot  
I meant actual finesse you twit. Look at all of Twi’s major one on one fights that are duels and she’s mainly fought giant monsters like Tirek. Trixie was just a silly contest. Starlight is the first ever pony she’s fought in a straight up 1 to 1 magic fight. She telegraphs the shit out of her attacks (which is how Starlight yanked her mark in the first place and how she dodges every damn shot) and her older villain fights boiled down to “get elements and blast with magic team laser”. S5 finale marks the first time Twilight has had to legit fight another pony.
 
And thanks for admitting you never even watched the finale. Way to make your arguments even less credible when you don’t know what you’re talking about.

@Lucky Shot  
Your defense is that you don’t actually know what you’re arguing over? What an illogical move.
 
You should actually watch the show. Twilight does actually fight Starlight at one point (and copy her spells) in the finale. Long story short, fighting wouldn’t solve the problem.

Ok. Even if you don’t like epic stories, answer me this. How many of the episodes post-s2 have been epic stories? I can only count 10 (or 16 if you count the 2 parters as 1 separate episodes) out of 67. Seems like a pretty small amount to me, and doesn’t seem like something to blame entire seasons for.

@Lucky Shot  
Technically, all characters created for the show are OCs. Besides, the rending of time was done by using a previously established spell (albeit altered) in conjunction with the vaguely omniscient map (the existence of which I will not defend) that was born from the same source as the almost “Deus ex Machina” Elements of Harmony* and the far less clear Rainbow Power.
 
EoH are not truly DeM because they where established as the solution to the problems they solved in advance.
 
Anyway, Glimmer’s backstory is more like this:  
A prodigy of raw magic power, Starlight always looked up to her more studious friend Sunburst, but when he got his cutie mark in magic and left her behind, she blamed cutie marks. (We don’t what her cutie mark actually means or how she got it yet.) So she began to focus her effort on removing them and furthermore on creating a utopian society based on equality. She gathered and indoctrinated a group of followers, but when the Mane Six showed up and turned her town against her, she vowed revenge, no matter the cost. She stalked and studied Twilight until she knew what her revenge should be and how to do it. Then it turned out that Twilight is basically the center of the universe and was still willing to give Starlight a chance; Starlight is exactly the kind of crazy person that needs a lesson about friendship (and basic morality). But hey, all the ponies in this town are crazy, she’ll fit right in!
 
*“He got over it and I didn’t!” is the truest damn sentence she ever said.

@soundtea
 
I can’t “conveniently” leave out what I don’t know / forget about courtesy of not having watched the finale.
 
I do recall now that Twilight sucking at fighting is the official story, but guess what? Twilight being a crappy fighter is absolutely not believable for several reasons.
 
– Celestia groomed Twilight as a defender of Equestria. In particular, she groomed her to fight Nightmare Moon, who was due to arrive within about ten years of taking Twilight in. Celestia’s apparent failure to teach Twilight even basic combat tactics (e.g. self-defense), even against a known enemy, would mean that Celestia is a complete idiot.
 
– Even if Celestia was unwilling or unable to personally teach her, Twilight must have known she was in danger as long as she was protecting Equestria, and could have, should have, would have sought out combat training on her own accord at any time. Failing to arm herself with this knowledge would be not only endangering herself, but risking failing everyone else, i.e. Twilight’s single largest phobia. Twilight has absolutely no barrier preventing her from acquiring such training; she’s from a noble / well-off family, prestigious student of Celestia, knows every detail of modern magic and its most influential figures, etc…
 
– Twilight has been in five seasons’ worth of fights protecting Equestria. She was even wielded as a weapon by Pinkie Pie to fight an invasion of changelings in Canterlot. It’s true that not a one of these battles was finished with “normal” fighting, and that Twilight lost the changeling war, but this is irrelevant. The fight against Tirek was particularly long-winded.
 
– Twilight’s ability to catch onto new vaguely-magically-related concepts borders on psychic. Starlight should have had a couple of minutes (realtime, not screentime / accelerated cartoon time) of whooping Twilight’s ass before the Princess caught on to her technique and, if nothing else, made an Absolutely Safe Shield like she did with Discord (a far more threatening and slippery opponent than Starlight.)
 
– Twilight is a sage. A smart mage. A mage obsessed with books and knowledge. These are the most dangerous kind of mage because their knowledge of magic’s innate workings (“metagame”) is unparalleled. Twilight should not only have been able to devise a counter to Starlight’s spells, but even seize control of them and turn them against her if she so desired.
 
There is no excuse for Twilight not being able to fight. She ought to have known how the entire time and picked up experience from all the fights she was in over five seasons.
 
For all intents and purposes, Starlight should not have stood a chance.

Also, I gotta say that, for Canterlot Wedding, out of all the flaws he could have picked (especially since he could have easily picked “brother out of nowhere” or “hey, remember that one aesop where you take concerns seriously?” to help fit his rant), he picked “LAWL, CELESTIA GOT WORFED!”

@Lucky Shot  
Bullshit.

@Lucky Shot  
Also, in Brave and the Bold, one of the characters joked about cancelling the show to make the next Batman edgier.

@Lucky Shot  
You conveniently left out that Twilight is not a fighter. She’s more concerned with turning random things into oranges for experiments, not honing spells specifically for a fight. Power != combat effectiveness.
 
Starlight can match against her because even if Twilight is a bit ahead power wise, she’s terrible at actually fighting. Also lets not forget the crazy strong powers Unitwi had.

@DoomPony
 
Very well, I will amend my use of the term Mary Sue, since I applied it very liberally. (i.e. as a character whose sheer power is just not believable or justifiable, even with special rules for the show setting.)
 
Starlight Glimmer is an official OC.
 
Here’s her backstory (as I understand it; haven’t actually watched) as you might see it on DeviantArt:
 
Starlight Glimmer  
– Sex: female  
– Race: alicorn unicorn  
– Special Talent: remofing cutie marks (also strong enough two rival an allicorn)  
– Backstory: she wasan ordinary fily until her best friend got his cutie mark an went away……. left al alone w/ broken heart she swore 2 destroy all cutie marks and was trained by ninnjas so she can remoove cute marks and rend time itsself  
– p.s. she iss strong enough to fight twilight sparrkle.

@Lucky Shot  
How is Starlight a Mary Sue? Starlight is explicitly set up as an evil counterpart for Twilight, that necessitates that she have on-par power (but without Twilight’s instant spell-copying), and in this, she is not even the first. Yes, her reformation was rushed. Yes, her motivation is petty as hell. But her actions do make sense in context. She’s a very realistic portrayal of lunatic with a cause. Her obsession over equality and then revenge are so cemented that it takes the literal end of the world to make her even have second thoughts or even consider that she was wrong. Which ties into the most important of being a Mary Sue: the character be treated as always right and always important, but Starlight (and her philosophy) are consistently treated as wrong and the rest of the cast pretty much forgot her until she came back into Twilight’s life.

@Lucky Shot  

 
@Nittany Discord