@Meh brony  

Equality is crap, plain and simple.

@Antonyourknee  
 
Like you said some of the worst atrocities committed in human history were in the name of the greater good, nowadays whenever somebody says that they want to do something for the greater good I tend to get concerned.

We’ve seen that years ago. What’s the point of this?

Communism is bad, mmmkay.

It is canon.  
Starlight doesn’t support LGBT rights.

@Jarkes  
I think we can compare it to a RL cults,where many of the cult leaders and/or gurus claim to be figures of good,who help their followers achieve a higher state of enlightenment or some great spiritual state or something. Due to the supposedly good beliefs they spiel many followers do come willingly believing they can get something here they can’t get anywhere else in society and often give up their material possessions,often to the head of the cult who tends to enrich themselves on their followers wealth. While its seems clear that Starlight seems to genuinely believe in her “equality” beliefs,its also clear that in that genuine belief lay a determination to spread that belief by any means necessary.
 
She tried to proselytize her ideology on the mane six and when that failed she held them against her will and sought to brainwash them ,claiming that it was for the best as the gain of the main six would be tremendous for her commune and that they would come around to seeing it was right on their own eventually. Something that many cults do in real life and use as an excuse for claiming that follower are “willing”. Regardless of what you may feel for the concept of equality,the show implies that her ideology was based off of a misguided and warped version of the world. Actually exposed to higher society,she regrets her past actions and see how limited and negative they were. The trauma of the loss of starburst that she never got over.
 
Her facade of benevolence based around equality was also implied to hide a sociopathic streak that she struggles still to keep down. She tried to run away with the main six cutie mark out of spite and when she was defeated,she tried to destroy the lives of the mane six out out petty hate,uncaring of the consequences and still believed that the reason her commune failed was because of the mane six and not because her followers rose up when they saw how hypocritical and false Starlight was.
 
A lot of this can be compared to real cults who after a while,the leaders feel the need to express their power or fight the “evils” of the world and so send their followers to bomb places or kill people in the name of some “greater good”. Here’s a link https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43395483 to a cult in japan who executed a cult leader who ordered his followers to do a gas attack on a subway in a “holy attempt to elevate the doomed souls of this world to a higher spiritual stage”.
 

 
Well intentioned extremist are often the best kind of villains as their villainy is more complex or even see as “good” and thus some may be confused as to why they need to emphasis just how bad their villiany was.  
Here’s a quote by C.S. Lewis that I think sums it up well.
 
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth.”

@Background Pony #1735
 
Then why is it that every time her past comes up they go on and on about how evil she was and how she “enslaved” the town even though she was a well-intentioned extremist and most of the ponies there came there willingly?

Maybe she hates equations.

She also has a life-sized Ponk in her room…
 
And a picture of whatever the top left thing is.

@Jarkes  
It’s really not. If it was “equality bad” she wouldn’t have gotten a second chance and we would not have the student six. You’re looking for issues that don’t exist.

That’s been there since we saw it in that episode in S6 where Glimmy brainwashed Dashie, Ponk, Butterball, AJ and Rarity so she could hurry through her friendship lessons.

@Background Pony #1735
 
You can be equal without making everyone the same. That would be an interesting growth for her character. But instead, it’s just “equality bad”.

@Jarkes  
Her beliefs WERE the problem. By making everyone exactly the same she was removing free will and individuality.

The anti-equal sign still bothers me. There was nothing wrong with her beliefs in equality in and of themselves, it was just her methods that were the problem. But since the season 5 finale the show has gone out of its way to act like she was 100% evil and that her old beliefs themselves were the problem.

Oh Confalone

She tends to put things from accomplishments and friendships on her wall. Nothing new.

The Trixie picture is better

@Ereiam  
Yes

Didn’t she have this since season 6?

@orbsah  
Unless she’s still struggling to move beyond her old self, and it serves as a reminder for her. Like Richard Castle keeping a framed rejection letter in his office to motivate him to strive to be better.

slowpoke.jpg

≠

@orbsah  
Probably she needed a daily reminder.

Kind of creepy thing to hang in your room.