MAXIMUM CUTE

@MorphinBrony  
Actually, it’s a pic for ants. They’re just meant to look up at it and go “WOOOOOOOOOOOOW!”

>4551x4000
 
IS THIS A PIC FOR ELEPHANTS?!?

I just got back from taking my family to see Rainbow Rocks.
 
Yup, it’s confirmed now. Sunset is best human. Now and always.

@TheUltimateAvenger  
Your entire first paragraph was just a desperate attempt to villainize Sunset while just assuming outloud that everything should be put on her completely and she did had no capacity for morality. In other words, bullcrap.
 
Twilight, for example, has plenty of immoral blank spots, but since the show never lets her reach rock bottom and see the mistakes, were just supposed to accept them. So what if she values Celestia’s lessons over other’s lives? SO what if she treats Spike like a servant half the time? So what if she has a cultish(as confirmed in Ponyville Confidential) dependency on Celestia in the show?
 
You don’t understand a character, and a character doesn’t understand themselves, until they have truly met REAL misfortune due to their actions. Twilight was originally no different from Sunset in terms of friendly demeanor, and she was eased into friendship, but unlike Twilight, Sunset shows an emotional attachment to them. No ‘My time in Ponyville…My advanded STUDIES!’ Even in the trailers we can tell Sunset is an open-hearted person now, and she even had a moral limit before she was turned into a demon in the first movie. You don’t need to tell anyone the movie was rushed, everyone knew that. But it was still establishing character.
 
“And i’m sorry @CronoM but i think you’re trying to find a good excuse, but you’re creating depth for a character, that has very little.”
 
Considering that your the kind of person that stops looking for depth in people you objectively label as simply ‘jerks’, that means absolutely nothing to me.
 
Sorry dude, but I have a lot more faith in humanity then you do. And its served me well :)

@Background Pony #18AC  
I hate to sound like a dick but… yes. I’m sorry, but some people shouldn’t be forgiven so easily, even if she showed remorse, that doesn’t excuse the thing’s she did and tried to do. She still tried to steal the crown to use it to try to take over Equestria, she read about it’s power and had some understanding of what it was doing, she wasn’t possessed, she wasn’t pushed to do it because of childhood trauma, she did it because she was a jerk. That’s it. She was made to the a typical High School Mean Girl for the sake of the plot, but because “friendship is magic” they rushed that “she wasn’t totally evil mcbadguy because she wouldn’t hurt Spike” in last 10 Minutes to try to add some sort of depth. It’s not clever, it’s lazy, lazy writing. And putting depth like that at the end is the biggest slap in the face for anyone who actually cares about character development and pacing.
 
Some people are jerks because they are jerks, and sometimes they don’t deserve forgiveness. That’s life, it’s harsh, but it’s true. And i’m sorry @CronoM but i think you’re trying to find a good excuse, but you’re creating depth for a character, that has very little.

@Background Pony #871A  
That’d be so depressing, though… like, this would be HER afterlife: “You have a great smile. It’ll be much easier for people to handle death if it’s told by someone with a great smile.”

Please god, let this be what greets me in the afterlife–heaven, hell, purgatory, don’t matter.

@PonyPon  
Actually that’s probably exactly what DID happened. At least at first. It has been several months or so after all.
 
Discord was older, more deceitful, and was openly two faced about all his gestures of ‘friendship.’ Scorn and suspicion is earned by those who your intelligence and instincts tell you can’t trust.
 
When we first saw the movie, and Twilight suggested in front of Sunset that the Human Mane 5 be her friend, a lot of us guessed it would be them to make the first gesture.
 
I don’t think that was the case anymore.
 
I think it was Sunset.
 
Of course they would be wary of her at first. But one of the biggest failings of the last movie was not reinforcing a few very important scenes that showed her she was capable of empathy and even morality for morality’s sake. Sunset had gone through an experience that made her see her worst traits enhanced 10-fold. Then suddenly she had nothing, so she had nothing else important in her life, no secondary motives. Her ambitions, life and identity were left in shatters, leaving only the little filly that Celestia chose as her apprentice…
 
…but here’s the kicker. Instead of beating herself up simply over how much she messed up, she hated WHO she had become, thus wanting to become a better person and being a good friend FOR THE SAKE OF BEING A GOOD FRIEND. With someone who was becoming so completely open-hearted about wanting to change, is it that startling that they all became SUCH good friends? Not really. The Mane 5 TREASURE each other, and Sunset treasures them, Celestia or even her own ambitions be damned.

@Background Pony #3DC4  
Exactly.
 
Like I said, something less intense than that.

@PonyPon  
Most of the mane six showed nothing but scorn for Discord even after Fluttershy befriended him. I’m quite glad they’re not doing that to Sunset.

@Background Pony #18AC  
Suspicion and caution, maybe?
 
Not like what Discord was under, but just below that?

@TheUltimateAvenger  
You’re not being very clear. With what exactly would you replace the forgiving attitude of the protagonists? The same disdain the other students demonstrate? That would achieve no good end, and would be indicative of an unhealthy approval of bitterness and vindictiveness.
 
If you mean that Sunset should be punished by the law, that’s just silly. There’s no legal position on illicit use of magic artifacts in the human worl.

@Background Pony #3DC4  
When did i even say that in my comment? I said that a person shouldn’t be forgiven so easily for something so evil, i don’t believe that Sunset should have been killed or banished or anything, i just believe she deserved a better and more reasonable punishment for all the crap she pulled. You don’t have to put word’s in my mouth just because you disagree with me.
 
@CronoM  
Ahh i was just shooting the shit, and making jokes. Im not actually trying to compare her to Hitler, that’s stupid. Just making a over the top comparison for the sake of it. Again, should’ve used a better comparison like Discord instead of Hitler.

@Background Pony #3DC4  
Agreed. Neither is @TheUltimateAvenger using Godwin’s law on a human/unicorn girl who couldn’t even hold a dog hostage to complete her ambition.

Absurd Res… approved.

@TheUltimateAvenger  
“Do unto others as they did to you”, in other words. Not a very hopeful philosophy to live by.

@Background Pony #5BD4  
Again i’m not against a person showing passion and understanding to someone who’s done something wrong… but there’s a difference between compassion and “let’s just blindly be nice to the person who’s treated us like crap for most of our lives, and just assume that she’s a good person because… friendship idunfkinknow.”
 
Trust me, according to stuff Hitler put in his journal’s and how he acted out at his meetings, he always had a sick delusional outlook on morality. He believed everything he did was for the good of the Aryan Race and for Germany. He was a great leader, but a total psycho.

Now, I’m just waiting for people to make more images of Sunset being cute, as her original unicorn self.

I love this!

@Background Pony #5BD4  
That is a VERY good point. I had forgotten about that.
 
Had the movie not been so rushed, we likely would of seen more scenes and dialogue that expressed that she wasn’t embracing ‘evil’, she was just looking out for herself in her own head. Her methods were infinitely less acceptable and social then Lightning Dust’s were, but Sunset WAS capable of empathy, a trait LD lacked.
 
One also has to consider 1) The idea of actually becoming like Celestia intrigued her, and 2) how much the transition from living in Equestria to living on Earth had changed her. Yes she was still a bitch when she was a young teen in Equestria, but I would say she only had the combined worst qualities of really early RD, (who’s boastful mask still allowed her to prank or endanger a few people), and episode 1 Twilight, (who was not only not taught to have friends until late like Twi, but looked down upon others like when she laughed at RD becoming a wonderbolt).
 
Sunset found the spell, the REAL spell that could make her as powerful an alicorn as Celestia or Luna, not Cadense or Twilight…and she felt that Celestia wanted to keep her in her shadow forever by not revealing it, even though the mirror showed her a vision of her becoming an alicorn like her.
 
The idea that who’s the Element of Magic is fickle and not completely set in stone, something many already guessed, has put a new spin on Sunset’s life and importance now that their dealing with her character more seriously in Rainbow Rocks. Initially she felt like a throw-away nemesis but now were not so sure. Was she always supposed to become a more thematic main-esque character then Twi?
 
>She is the heir to Celestia’s teachings AND her cutie mark.  
>She is a thinker AND a very open-minded individual.  
>She has a dark past and she acknowledges ALL her moral mistakes, something the show Luna for just her first big episode and then gave up on it and gave it to the comics.  
>She actually gets blamed for mistakes she makes.  
>The unique spin on her Sun cutie mark
 
The more I look at it, the more Sunset Shimmer’s mark holds more meaning in concern of being Celestia’s heir. Twilight’s OWN desire is more connected to Starswirled the Bearded and being a wizard, even though Celestia gave her a one-way path to ‘Princess of Friendship’, which they’ve failed to really define as anything she didn’t already do before. Sunset’s own desire is more connected to Celestia herself. Her mark represents the balance between good and evil in regards to her potential to succeed Celestia. She chose the dark path, and she became a demon using the method. Once she chooses the right path, will she finally BECOME the real heir to Celestia? Not by constant studying, always following orders and friendship lessons, but TRULY wanting to have friends and live up to Celestia’s image after failing and regretting it so much it causes her to better herself.

@TheUltimateAvenger  
Maybe I should of worded myself better. I was agreeing with you that her actions were still inexcusable, but I felt that stating her actions were still relatable was somewhat a bit of a stretch.
 
My definition of ‘relatable’ is within a given margin of moral fiber and will, given their actual experiences. Bonnie’s life was unfortunate, but given how much it didn’t effect her social life, she could of easily rejected the family bitchiness if she was a bit more open-minded to others.  
Shego felt far more relatable cause she lived a life of moral extremes. She was the organizer, not leader, of a super hero team INCLUDING the leader, but she had to wrangle and care for her egocentric(Me-go), needy(The twins), downright hopeless(He-go), and ungrateful brothers. Heck she even had to help her older brother, and had to balance all that to get a degree in child care to legally care for the twins and me-go when they were younger. Even for a super hero, her life was hell, and not the kind of hell that drives you to continue fighting for good. In the end she decided to criminal intentionally under a mostly ineffectual. Only on rare occasions did she ever hold stock in any of their villainous schemes, and eventually friendly conversation between Kim during fights became a thing.
 
Back to EG, I totally agree with the fact the first movie had the wrong message. Heck in so many ways other then that one. Then again, the did the exact same thing for Nightmare Moon/Luna under percievably worse circumstances. 1) Luna wasn’t a minor, 2) Sunset didn’t start doing the damage to the school until after the element of magic enhanced the corruption that was already there. And not only was it enhancing it, it was noticeably painful for her during the transformation.
 
As @Background Pony #5BD4 just mentioned, Human Sunset refused to use a living hostage to get what she wanted. She had moral boundaries. As shallow as she acted, she already was kind of Zuko character, but the movie was so rushed we never really got to see other examples of her moral boundries. Luna got a pass because most reasoned ‘time-served’, but unlike Sunset, Luna’s corruption was more based on the concept of ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’, the same reasoning star wars emphasizes the danger of the dark side for people with the force. The crown had at least a somewhat similar effect as the alicorn amulet…Human Sunset refused to do the things Demon Sunset was willing to do even if it would of benefited her.

@TheUltimateAvenger  
Actually, I happen to believe that showing genuine forgiveness to anyone for anything is the zenith of goodness and nobility. Real character is exemplified by extending graciousness to the undeserving. This doesn’t mean that people should always get a free pass and not have to make reparations for their misbehavior in some way, but holding grudges and nurturing hatred and notions of revenge is never a right response.
 
For the record, I think Hitler did what he did out of malice, not because he actually thought he was in any way morally justifiable. Also, hi there Godwin.

@CronoM  
Remember, i did include the line that there was no excuse, but there was something still there, yes she was shallow, but she grew up a lot over the series and you could tell as bad as she was, she eventually grew out of a lot of her bitchiness.
 
And to be fair, i also feel a little bit of sympathy for her in a way, she was always outclassed by her sisters and her parents barely even acknowledged her existence, i can see why that would drive someone to be so shallow and selfish, because its all she knows. But again, she was never fully forgiven, because even though there where some reasons behind her bitchiness… it doesn’t excuse the stuff she pulled, and it didn’t get her a free pass on a lot of the situations she was put in.
 
The problem with all of that back-story is that it’s all head-canon, sure maybe it happened, but from what we’ve seen from the comic’s and the movie’s so far. And like i said earlier, even if there was a logical reason for her being the way she is, that doesnt mean she deserved such a free pass at the end of the movie (fixing the front of the school doesnt count, because i’ve seen people do far less get far worse). I think the movie gives the wrong message in that you should forgive everyone for everything as long as they are sincere about their intentions… because a lot of the worst atrocities in history, have been done with the best intentions.
 
Hitler did everything he did because he thought he was right as well, doesn’t mean he wasn’t a psychopath.

well, there goes my heart