bad comparison, bro. :^y

@Background Pony #F6D1  
Its in my last reply.
 
Meghan, the head writer, is currently convinced its going to be empathy. Its not officialized yet, but that’s their stance so far.

@CronoM  
I looked up the whole “That’s what DHX calls Sunset btw. The Element of Empathy.”  
But I couldn’t find any reference to that. Do you have a link or something?

@Ultra64  
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2015/07/sdcc-pony-panel-major-news-points.html  
Here’s the Equestria Daily link.
 
Hopefully that’s what your looking for :)

@Fwelin  
*Do you really think so little of the other heroes to make such Twi-wanking claims? You even dub them ‘soldiers’. I’ll PM how little your accusations seem to add up and how little you think of the others, cause I don’t want to clutter this comment section over such extreme fan bias over the merits of the others.

@Fwelin
 
Actually, nothing regarding Sunset’s suppused element is truly official.
 
When asked about it, Meghan McCarthy mentioned that she thinks it would probably be Empathy. For the life of me I cannot find the source, but she did say something along those lines. I read it! It’s real! I’m not crazy!!!
 
Ishi Rudell actually mentions that it’s been a topic of much discussion among the staff. (https://mobile.twitter.com/ishiH3Art/status/650355519400488960)

@CronoM  
Twilight didn’t “will” herself as an alicorn, but she definitely caused it with the finished spell she cast, and she definitely earned it. Regardless of how you see Twilight, she has done far more than any of the other five when it has come to safeguarding Equestria. She figured out the threat of Nightmare Moon, found out about the elements, led her friends to the castle, and triggered the elements against Nightmare Moon. She was the one that led her friends in seeking the elements, found them in the library, and after Celestia helped her, was the one that freed all her friends and led them to petrify Discord again. She was the one that overcame Sombra’s traps and found the crystal heart. Then, she capped off all her friendship training by completing a spell that Starswirl couldn’t by using the lessons she had learned about friendship.
 
No, she couldn’t have done them alone, but that’s how friendship works, and there’s a reason why leaders get more credit than individual soldiers. Remove Twilight and replace her with any of the others, and Equestria would have been taken over by every single one of the major baddies.
 
Have you ever thought WHY Celestia wanted Twilight to become a princess? It’s because she thinks it will help Equestria. She hasn’t been trying to “control her into princesshood”, but has merely been giving her the training and tools to reach her destiny (and yes, based on her cutie mark on the tree of harmony, it’s very likely to be a destiny thing). Giving advice and helping out someone who is your junior is not the same as controlling them. In addition, regardless of how you feel it was presented, Twilight stated that she chose her role as Princess of Friendship, which was the capstone to her subplot of not knowing her purpose.
 
Citation needed on the DHX statement.
 
Twilight’s friends gave her their power in all of Twilight’s uses of the elements of harmony and related, as well. Twilight did not investigate and seek out ways to counter Nightmare Moon because it was an assignment, nor did she for Discord or Tirek. She did it because they were evil and needed to be stopped. Sombra was an assignment (but that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t also doing it for the good of Equestria), but Sunset Shimmer only started as an assignment (or rather, a mission), turning into her actually wanting to redeem Sunset into a better person and save her friends. Did you miss how Twilight was explicitly ready to sacrifice herself to keep the crown out of Equestria, so Sunset didn’t succeed? That would be failing the mission Celestia gave her, but she was willing to do it anyway. If you think being a dutiful student is Twilight’s main motivation for saving the world, or learning about friendship, you need to rewatch the series.
 
Twilight does live for herself. Just because her life coincides with organizing things for Equestria, or solving problems that arise there, doesn’t mean that isn’t the life she wants, because they’re one in the same.
 
Finally, there’s zero evidence that the element of magic is especially corrupting. Human Twilight’s device has literally nothing to do with the element of magic, and it shows that any source of uncontrolled magic has corrupting influences in the EGQ world. If Sunset had brought over the element of honesty and put it on, it would have turned her into a demon in exactly the same way. The element of magic isn’t special in ways that the others aren’t.

Twilight never willed herself to become an alicorn. If it had to do anything with will OR earning it, the other 5 earned alicornhood 5 times over by then.
 
Whenever Twilight found herself trying to find a purpose in alicornhood, she found herself more and more being used by it or pushed into it, with situations that unnecessarily risk the people in favor of testing Twilight. Twilight’s story has NEVER been about choice or need, at least overall and in big episodes. Celestia wants to control her student into the role of princesshood, but it will eventually backfire. The difference between controlling the situation and feeling the situation can be as different as Good and Evil; Yin and Yang. Magic isn’t Friendship, Friendship is Magic. Magic is the easy way, true power is earned through empathy.
 
That’s what DHX calls Sunset btw. The Element of Empathy.
 
Celestia has no knowledge of Sunset’s power, no knowledge of what power is unlocked with Sunset when her powers form with the team. Sunset’s story became a story of empathy, friendship, and choice. Not to mention actual need. Her friends willfully gave Sunset the power to transform, and she earned it through sheer heart and will. Whatever Sunset became was far more heroic a being then Twilight ever became by being a dutiful student.
 
Twilight is a guided, safety net protagonist. She has good potential, but only if she can learn to actually live for herself. Which makes Twilight a more dependent, Luna-type character in the long run.  

 
 
@PonyPon  
@Background Pony #A26C  
@atalarikt  
Exactly.

@Fwelin  
Your kidding right? In comparison to Sunset’s ascension, absolutely nothing in the story of Twilight’s ascension suggests it was fated instead of arranged.
 
Celestia will outright ignore the efforts of ponies like Pinkie and give credit only to Twilight. The foundations of the book was built upon altering fate in dangerous and harmful ways, and the first part of her ‘transformation’ left a smoldering crater.
 
Not only that, but from that point on that ‘element of magic’ became a terribly corruptive object that enhances whatever corruption is within a person, and transforms then PAINFULLY into a demon. Even with the element of magic locked with the tree, Human Twilight’s device emulated that same destructive nature. Gaining friendship without understanding is simply taking power.

@Fwelin  

 
The white whirl is also a huge remain of Cellie “Dumbledore/Architect” scene about Twilie, IMO. I think the way DHX staff going to choice is the next gen of rulers for the new “zooastrian” duo.

@PonyPon  

@Fwelin  

@Background Pony #A26C  
Also, lol at Twilight being “handed wings” when she gave them to herself. Celestia didn’t do anything in MMC other than send her the book, and mentally prepare Twilight for the next stage of her life.

@Background Pony #A26C  
Sunset didn’t have an ascension, she had a temporary super form given by the incomplete versions of the elements. It’s not any different (other than the purity of the magic) that Midnight Sparkle got, and SciTwi certainly didn’t turn into an alicorn either.
 
It’s completely different situation.

@sw_french-pony  
Twilight is a book learner. She understands and comprehends. She uses her intellect and her knowledge.
 
Sunset, on the other hand, does everything by ear. Up to and including “I’ll smash the magical thingy and pray that doesn’t just instantly kill me I guesS?”
 
 
tl;dr Twilight is Alice to Sunset’s Marisa.

@Background Pony #A26C  
Yes, well said. I really need to learn to sum up what I want to say in a more direct fashion like that rather than rambling as I’m given to doing.

@Ebonysdagger  
Twilight achieved power because she’s earned it.  
Sunset came to that same kind of power because she needed it.
 
I think it’s amusing that Sunset finally accomplished what she originally set out to achieve not through becoming popular or being powerful, but by being willing to do the right thing regardless of what might happen.

I bet Sunset is naturally more talented than Twilight about comprehension of use of equestrian magic power. Her first line in Friendship Games proves she already had a strong magical power. Sunset is more badass about fighting than our dear Twilie, because she’s more impulsive, Twilie needs to force herself; these things was under-textually done in the RR’s fridge scene, IMO .

@Background Pony #A26C  
Heh, that is amusing. Twilght ascended thanks to her actions throughout the series up to that point. That fixing messed up fate at the end of Season 3, while a very rushed episode, was simply the capstone of her trials. Sunset better than Twilight? That like all things of this nature is a matter of taste.
 
Sunset ascending so easily I think came partially from the fact that she understood friendship on a level Twilight had to work to get to thanks to being a more social person and her redemption trial.

@atalarikt  
Actually, I think they fit more the other way around. Sunset is very much a flawed but sympathetic character who feels a lot more grounded, much like Luna, whereas Twilight is more of the idealized archetype.
 
That said, I don’t feel that Sunset is strictly speaking a better protagonist than Twilight, because Twilight’s whole character arc through the show has been fleshed out very nicely and she works as an examination of the reclusive anti-social type growing into a much more rounded individual. But Sunset definitely makes for a better magical girl heroine underdog sort of thing, what with the troubled origins and the very strong personality.
 
And at least to me, that makes her a lot more fun to watch.

@Background Pony #A26C  
I also think Sunset Shimmer is a better protagonist than Twilight Sparkle (even though I like both actually). Twilight Sparkle obviously isn’t naturally made to be the Princess of Friendship, given how reclusive she is actually, therefore making herself her biggest obstacle (hence why the writers feel like playing it safe with Twilight being the protagonist of FiM, e.g. by not making her do something bigger than learn and/or re-learn friendship values). Sunset Shimmer, on the other hand, is far more open towards the environment towards her, and can actually improvise, therefore giving the writers more chance to make something that is interesting and makes more sense than when they use Twilight as the protagonist.
 
In the other words, TS is Luna Jr. and SS is Celestia Jr.. _{Ironically, Luna is actually more beloved than Celestia…}

@Ebonysdagger  
Except Sunset’s ascension feels way more satisfying in terms of balancing the build-up and payoff.
 
Twilight just gets handed wings and a fancy crown because she fixed a thingy. Sunset had no mentor to help her, no safety net, no warning, no idea what the hell she was doing. She just did whatever she could to save the world with no regard for her own safety.
 
….am I saying that Sunset is actually a better protagonist than Twilight? I think I am.

Twilight gets zapped and becomes an Alicorn princess. Sunset gets zapped and goes Super Saiyan God.

Eh, I’m fine with that. It was the elements that ascended Twilight so it would make sense their energy could do the same to Sunset in the alternate world.

@Masem
 
Bwahahaha!
 
“I’M TAKING YOU WITH ME, TWILIGHT. IF I CANNOT BE THE MAIN CHARACTER OF THE FRANSCHISE, NO ONE WILL BE!!”