Starlight Glimmer - The Perspective Recap

So, I was commenting on
 

 
about Starlight’s character. I was editing a comment with more thoughts, and got carried away and made something so big it doesn’t belong in a comments section any more.
 
It’s basically a recap of Starlight Glimmer, with what I think is a fairly accurate look into her mind - conjecture, yes, largely, but conjecture based on what we’ve seen of her through the show. In other words, I’m playing connect-the-dots with her personality and experience, and trying to illustrate what’s happened through her eyes.
 
To start, a quick summary of her character now;
 
@Cirrus Light  

 
But she was originally a villain… the characters who suffer most seem to be the villains. The ones who aren’t reformed are either dead or in eternal prison, or were more “antagonists” than villains (ie, stole some fabric design, or wanted to compete for cider).
 
And the ones who are reformed and became good characters went through hell to get here. Trixie was just being a showpony ego, got possessed by an artifact so she was a real villain for a while but it’s questionable how much you can blame her for that - and she was like halfway suicidal at one point.
 
Starlight has suffered tremendously. For starters, her path into villainy was started with her misery, and ended with it, too (when the mane 6 overthrew her village). I mean, in “The Cutie Re-Mark”, when she showed her arch nemesis her fillyhood, what kind of villain does that?
 

 
She had to be incredibly lonely if she’d rather share her secrets with her nemesis than nopony.
 
She’s shaped her entire life around a crippling anxiety of being abandoned, and for a while she thought she’d actually found happiness for once by getting everypony to love her by lying,
 

 
but once again, she lost everything she held dear, fulfilling and reinforcing all of her anxieties.
 

 
It’s a “justifies evil” trope, but her later actions really proved that all along she just wanted to be loved, and to feel secure. She thought she could get that through power, but she lost it to Twilight, and then at the end of the season we had The Cutie Remark. And that’s where Starlight really stands out from other reformed villains in one way - Sunset Shimmer, Trixie, Nightmare Moon - every other reformed villain was overpowered and defeated before they reformed.
 
Even Discord first became attached to Fluttershy, and “the only real friendship I’ve ever had” became leverage on him - something he had that he didn’t want to lose, so he gave up the villainy ways to go that way.
 
Starlight, though, just gave up.
 

 
Sure she saw the bleak future, but she was in denial and had to overcome her own cognative dissonance to believe what she saw, and she didn’t surrender when Twilight reasoned that with her, she surrendered when Twilight told her she could try to make friends again. And when she was given that hope - she chose to trust Twilight despite all her fears and anxieties and submit to her and give up on the whole way she had been doing things.
 

 
Then what happens, after she’s given up her entire life to start anew with some trust and hope in this pony?
 
First, Twilight assigns her to meet Sunburst again. It’s great to see her here - she has literally just given up everything that she uses to derive a sense of self-worth, control over her life, confidence - she has just given everything up, sacrificed it on the alter of the hope that Twilight gave her that perhaps - just perhaps she can be loved again, and find some real self-worth again despite her anxiety and obsessive insecurities.
 
You see that in her defeated and broken attitude in The Crystalling, the leader who used to order everypony out in her village to sing and run prisons has willingly destroyed herself for the opportunity to find real friendship.
 

 
And, well, she feels vulnerable and scared. She can’t even tell Twilight she doesn’t want to. She absolutely terrified of talking to the one friend she ever had.
 
The mere mention of having to face him again gave her tinnitus like some vet with PTSD. That’s how bad her anxiety is.
 

 
(and yet again I want to mention that she had something that eased this crushing anxiety, and she willingly gave that up for a chance to start new, to maybe return the innocent bliss she once knew when she was tiny)
 
Then she actually met him, and, you saw the episode. She was afraid to open up, and when she finally bugged Sunburst again and again to help them because they needed him, he finally broke, and she broke open in reply, and they finally connected again.
 

 
What next?
 
>She failed to make friends in Ponyville and got yelled at for making a cake.
 

 

 
Then, she finally meets someone who she understands, and can understand her.
 
 
I could’ve put an animated clip here, but she’s so exuberantly happy she’s squeaking in an adorable unforgetable moment that’s made an awesome remix, but I chose this to reply to the description;  

How happy she is here says something. She hasn’t had any real self-confidence in herself, done or made anything that’s originally hers and good and that she can be genuinely happy and proud of since she was a young child. For the first time in her adult life and in years of strife and lies, she’s genuinely and truly happy about something good she’s done, and she is finally trusting and letting go of her fears enough to be herself and live.
 

 
So, she can finally let go of the anxiety that’s been crippling her and defining her entire life since she was a filly, right?…
 
Well, no, the train of torment isn’t over for her yet, and it won’t be for a long time. Twilight continuously warns her about Trixie and gets in-between them. But for the first time Starlight is gaining some real confidence based on herself, not some fake image, and she’s not going to let that go lightly. For the first time since all those years, she has a real friend again.
 
“Starlight, you will never be loved on your own and nothing you ever initiate will ever be a success and I don’t trust you to even try. Make friends with this random pony instead.”
 

 
So she chooses Trixie over Twilight! And stands Twilight up.
 

 
And Trixie immediately makes it look like their entire friendship was just a sham to get back at Twilight.
 

 
“You win? That sounds like you just made friends with me to beat Twilight.”
 

 
“I should’ve known. Nopony else in Ponyville wanted to be my friend. Why would you?”
 
Fortunately, Twilight had the presence of mind to go talk to Starlight and try to set things straight before Trixie kills herself.
 

 
Next Starlight episode where she has more than a background appearance…
 
Every Little Thing She Does.
 
(Previews fail to load I write so much! So this will come in multiple posts. Fortunately I have the first two right now, but it’s 4am and I should definitely wait to write the third and final post until after I sleep, at least…)

Every Little Thing She Does.
 
We start with an exhibition of her magic power, she teleports around Equestria, makes clones of herself;
 

 
and is generally magically amazing.
 
And then get a view at how horribly anxious she is about social interaction. What’s interesting is she has now so thoroughly demolished her old persona and adopted the new one, and with it, so thoroughly destroyed her old social ability and confidence, that we see her just sit in there, possibly even for hours just fidgeting with anxiety about what’s coming up.
 

 
She’s not even planning it because anxiety is ruining her ability to think straight, so when Spike comes in she just pulls some random cards up. And again, she’s too insecure and anxious to let anyone know just how anxious she is.
 

 
So, time for the lessons! How do I socialize again? I need to do 6 friendship lessons at once! I must! I don’t want to let anypony down or be a disappointment!
 
But wait, these take many hours?
 

 
It’s a few minutes (or at least it feels like it) of just constantly getting overwhelmed. Let’s do this but we can’t do that because of this and this and that and let’s go over here but we can’t go over there and do that but we can’t do this but how about - no - oh and we need to this - surprise this will take many hours - oh and we have to this and this and that! -
 

 
Let me be real with you - I’ve snapped at my parents for getting overwhelmed by a lot less than that. Overwhelming - that’s what it is. So she excuses herself and runs off -
 

 
and I’m not making this up - above, she’s actually hyperventilating a bit. She’s panicking, and the first thing the brain stops doing when it’s panicking, is thinking right.
 
So she takes the thing that gives her small panic attacks, and treats it with the thing she’s actually confident in - her magical abilities.
 
After all, every pony gets what they want, everybody wins, right? It’s not like they’ll mind her doing this at all… right? Well, to a mind in a state of distress/panic desperate to relieve the panic… (fun fact, if someone is drowning, they often end up lashing out to anyone who tries to save them enough that both of them drowning is a real threat - panicked minds do not think well. Even then, though, she’s always showed social ineptitude and hasn’t been honest and social since she was a child, so I can’t help but think she’s socially… a child).
 

 
And we know how that goes. The episode that convinced a lot of people she’s a psycho. She may not have been thinking of them very well, but very, very few people ever think of someone other than themselves when they panic. But it catches up to her…
 

 
After Twilight fixes things and catches up with her, she outright says how she’s “freaked out” by baking a cake, she’s anxious as heck because she “doesn’t want to disappoint anypony, but I ended up disappointing everypony…”
 

 
So to apologize for the huge, humiliating catastrophe she caused, she humiliates herself again,
 

 

 
Gets yelled at again
 

 
But despite it all, instead of getting defensive, she continues to submit and wants to try to make things right.
 
And implicitly spends at least hours on it.
 

 
And I like the implication that it still isn’t all so easy;
 

 
And even after facing her fears, panicking, completely failing, messing up horribly, being humiliated twice over when facing her fears, spend hours to try to apologize and getting rejected along the way, she’s still humble enough to laugh at herself.
 

 
What’s really interesting about her character is she really, truly, does not want power, or even respect, so much as to be loved. And this really shows that. How many of you can get yelled at about something you’re humiliated about and instead of getting defensive, continue to be apologetic? Especially when it’s something you’re terribly insecure about?

@Mildgyth  
Here’s the last notes I have already written down:
 
>Maud left her  

 
Originally it was just going to be an edit to a comment about how much her life sucks, but I started getting deeper and deeper and when the edited comment was too long to load a preview, that’s when I decided to make it a post…

You sir, are wonderful. You’ve pretty much pointed out every singe reason why I love Starlight so much. And what’s more you’re proving that all the hate she gets SOOOO overblown.
 
I guess some people just can’t (or outright refuse to) look past the surface. It’s sad really…..

The six Elements of Earmony:
 
Element of Loyalty: Constantly torn between her friends and the Wonderbolts.  
Element of Laughter: Gets depressed on a regular basis from slight disappointments.  
Element of Generosity: Fancy businesspony who hoards gems and wants to social climb.  
Element of Honesty: Massive liar who’s not even honest with herself about her own abilities.  
Element of Kindness: Gets downright vicious if she lets her guard down.  
Element of Magic (and magic = friendship): Lived most of her life as a friendless shut-in who couldn’t even remember the names of most of her classmates, and had to be dragged into having friends at all by a world-ending crisis. Even after that she regularly misunderstood them, brainwashed ponies, etc.
 
They all naturally suck at their elements. But they’re always consciously trying to live up to them. And really, it’s the thought that counts. A pony who was naturally good at something wouldn’t have to try or give it any thought. A pony who sometimes makes mistakes and cares that she’s made them is really a better element. Starlight Glimmer would fit in very well as the Element of Redemption or something like that.

I think Starlight would be the element of forgiveness.

@Cirrus Light  
That was a great summation of things, thank you for writing it!
 
@Ferrotter  
Yeah, all of the Mane Six are flawed when it comes to their elements… but they actively pursue those things, like you said. Which, if I remember correctly, is the difference between being innocent and virtuous, too. :)

Most people actually understand she’s introverted. That’s the gist of the entire post. When introverts try to make friends, there’s a lot of anxiety. Putting your heart out there on the line is scary as fuck.
 
I loved her in S5 as a villain and loved her in S6 trying to find her own style in making friends. But in S7, I’m not entirely sure where they’re going with her character arc. At least not yet. The theme of the season is family and legacy and as it stands, Starlight has neither (unless you count Sunburst as family) so who knows.

Other than the magic shenanigans that happen every once in a while, I like how Starlight’s anxiety issues are written.
 
I get the feeling that she’s always afraid to say straight up what she feels. She couldn’t say she was at unease about meeting Sunburst again and tried to stall it. She couldn’t admit she was falling behind in her friendship lessons, and made a rushed decision to do them all at once. She at first didn’t want to admit doing something like baking with Pinkie scared her because she wasn’t good at it. She couldn’t be blunt about Pinkie driving Maud away until Pinkie herself came to ask her what went wrong.
 
Although she did initially try to make excuses when she did something rash, like casting the “talking spell” on BigMac and relented when Applejack got angry, the whole Every Little Thing She Does magic incident or when she at first tried assure Twilight that switching the princesses cutie marks was “the right call” (though she certainly looked like she was in doubt about it herself) she has become humble enough to admit when she’s done a mistake.
 
I overall agree that she isn’t as defensive anymore as she was in the begining, at least if someone first explains her why something she did was wrong. She didn’t get defensive about the Mane 5 yelling at her because Twilight basically told her she got the whole idea wrong and made a mistake.
 
And I think that it’s actually Twilight’s constant micromanagement that frustrates her and contributes highly to her anxiety, which leads to bad decisions. It’s definitely something I can relate to. You do point out that she’s socially almost child like - which means they do need supervision, especially if they are that strong with magic - but I think Twilight needs cut back just a little bit with her control freak tendencies.
 
 
@MegaAnimationFan  
Oh, don’t start that critic smearing act again. Everytime someone gets condescending towards anyone who doesn’t agree with them, they are basically asking for people to come and contest that claim. And that just feeds these people’s mutual contempt for one another and starts fights.
 
I’d rather want the atmosphere in this thread stays more positive, compared to the other opinion thread.

@Hateot  
Sorry. I actually didn’t mean to come off that way. It’s just a breath of fresh air when I see stuff like this after dealing with constant hate for damn near two years.
 
Also, what “other opinion thread”?

@MegaAnimationFan  
Gotcha. I also shouldn’t have been that accusing with my tone.
 
The thread in question is “Starlight Glimmer- What is the opinion of her still?” on the “Pony Discussion” tab. There’s occasionally some good thoughts there, but if you wanna avoid the fighting I’m not sure you should risk going there, when there’s this thread.

@Hateot  
Yeeeeeah, I’m avoiding that thread like the Goddamn plague.
 
Wait, there are only occasionally some good thoughts there? I thought the haters were just a vocal minority at this point.

@MegaAnimationFan
 
What I meant was more in line with “there’s occasionally stuff like this or people gauging what they like and don’t like about her and discussing how they see her overall, and then there’s people expressing dislike towards her, her fans or her not-fans, which gets you all kinds of in-fighting that I talked about earlier.”
 
I didn’t want to ramble.

Starlight is pure and must be protected  
There is still a long way to go for her as she literally had no friends till Twilight and co
 
I’m still holding out for Starlight x Sunburst tho  
at least give me a Trixie and Sunburst episode ffs

@Hateot  

 
I get it now. Sorry for my slowness.

I like Starlight and all, but does she need more threads?
 
Unless you want to feel special for your long sentiment towards her then sure go on ahead.
 
I will say though, people react certain ways towards her for a reason, whether positive, negative or indifferent.

@MegaAnimationFan
 
Nah, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to sound like that.

@Hateot  
No it’s ok. I misunderstand things and things and sometimes take it to extremes. You should know this by now. lol
 
@Josh103  

 
If they are positive threads, then yes. ^^
 

 
Ok, you’ve kinda got a point there.

As someone who doesn’t like Starlight, I must admit that this is a pretty solid defense for her.
 
Man, I hope Anonycat stays out of this one.

@Spinny  
I was going to say you jinxed it, but no, he won’t anyway :p

@Spinny  
You’re tempting fate there mate.

@Josh103  
@MegaAnimationFan  
Actually, as I said, this originally started as a comment, then I edited it, then got carried away recapping in great detail.
 
When I stay up late I tend to get sort of ADD and either not focus on anything or hyperfocus on one thing, so that one comment edit got really long :I
 
I actually had no idea if there even were threads about Starlight Glimmer in the forums. And I knew if I didn’t make my own thread then hours of work, thought, and carefully arranging a post and illustrations to paint her story in a consistent “inside her heart” way that takes everything we’ve learned about her in every episode and have all those revelations illuminate her every action so as to paint a more-complete picture of her feelings would literally be forgotten and gone forever in like 10 minutes while other people argue about her hair or how Twilight treated her and the page changes, and that’s kinda like hell so I didn’t want that to happen…
 
Seriously. That’s one of the reasons it’s hard to do much art. Focus and motivation aside, you spend 7 hours on something only for some numbers to appear and like 2 or 3 comments and overall it feels like you’ve just spent 7 hours painstakingly working on something you thought was beautiful only to get a
 
>>1114772t (deleted)
 
Anyways, I’ll finish this some time I don’t feel weird and groggy and foggy in the head. It’s just one of those days or something.
 
@Ferrotter  
One thing I will say, though, AJ doesn’t lie all the time. I mean, almost every one of those “vice” descriptions really blow the character’s negative attribute out of proportion, but AJ really isn’t anywhere near a constant liar. Unless you’re talking about when she was younger :q

@Cirrus Light  
I never recommend writing big posts like those. It’s mostly a waste of time, unless you want to feel good about yourself.
 
Which I hope you do.
 
If anything it’s a decent defense of Starlight’s character but not necessarily her role; which I’m still waiting for, Art of Equestria.

Nice summary, it actually helps me understand a little better why I love Starlight so much.