Unpopular opinion time

@ILoveMyoozik
 
The former was mostly Hasbro’s pressure, although that pressure was their response to certain criticisms.
 
And the latter was quite the opposite. it was replying to criticism with a episode instead of letting it stop them from doing what they planned.

@Mildgyth  
You know what I mean

@ILoveMyoozik
 
Hmm, yeah. I see your point.

@Commune  
many “scientists” from axis countries were considered “redeemed” by both the Americans and Soviets to the point that they didn’t get punished

@Broken Adam
 
That’s actually pretty disturbing.

@Broken Adam  
Operation Paperclip, where America started bringing in Nazi scientists after World War 2 to develop better technology for the military and for the space race.

@ILoveMyoozik  
it’s very clear they listen to a lot of what the fanbase says. it’s not to say they’re going to necessarily do what these fans are saying, because attempting to keep everyone in a massive group of diverse people happy would just be… inane. fame and misfortune was petty and really outdated, but none of the criticisms it addressed were inaccurate. i even wonder if things like pharynx keeping dark coloring and cozy glow being thrown into hell instead of getting a weak excuse and redemption are meant to address complaints about the douchelings and starlight, respectively, or if gilda and trixie becoming protagonists were meant to address the vocal majority that felt they weren’t nearly as “villainous” as their introductory episodes wanted to imply.
 
@Broken Adam  
@Twi_Clown  
you mean operation paperclip. lol, it’s actually uncomfortably similar to what twilight and co did with characters like discord and starlight when you think about it.

@DanielTepesKraus  
Cozy seems very much like a response to a lot of the criticism Starlight received

@DanielTepesKraus  
Oh I’m not saying that they’re gonna bend over backwards to give the fans what they want, all I’m saying is that whatever they do with Chrysalis, someone out there in the fandom will throw a hissy fit.

@EotD  
That’s more of a coincidence than anything.

@EotD  
i think it wasn’t specifically starlight so much as the vast majority of villains who were getting off way too easy for the shit they pulled. for a while now it’s seemed that all any villain has to do is say “sorry” and they get off with no punishment or even consequences. they probably want to shake off that stereotype and have villains actually being treated as villains again. hell, i think chrysalis being offered such free easy pass after all the evil shit she’s done, and her basically telling starlight to fuck right off, might have even been a little self-deprecating.
 
@ILoveMyoozik  
chrysalis is a fan-favorite, and for every person who wants her to be redeemed there’s someone who wants her to stay a villain. they’ll never make everyone happy with what they do with her. personally i never want her to be redeemed, even if it doesn’t mean her being neutered like the rest of the changelings.

@DanielTepesKraus
 
What if they redeem her, but do so through a heroic sacrifice?

@ILoveMyoozik  
I doubt that given the writer and time frame it was written in.
 
 
@DanielTepesKraus  
Oh yeah I’m not saying she’s a response solely to Starlight but by in large moreso to her more than other villains is the point I want to make.

@DanielTepesKraus  
EGGZACTLY!!!

@EotD  
Still, I doubt that that was the writer’s intention

I feel like Cozy is a response to Starlight, a counterpoint to her and other villains, but I really hope they don’t thik they completely messed up with Starlight. Her being one of my fav ponies.

@Jarkes  
that’s sort of the route i thought they were going to go with starlight originally. see for yourself.
 
they might go the route they did with lightning dust, where she’s not redeemed but she ends up on top in a way. sure lightning dust’s mediocre ex-boss and rainbow dash hold grudges, but lightning dust is in charge of a famous, beloved, and successful stunt team, which probably means she has a good amount of money to her name, and has an entire squadron under her command. basically, they might put her in some sort of end-game scenario where she’s clearly not the loser or in a bad way but she was never redeemed or forgiven either.
 
@gingerninja666  
i don’t think they think they messed up. they clearly like the character.

@gingerninja666  
No at no point do I think the writers think they did that, I think it was more a “Oh here are some things they were looking for, let’s use them in this new villain character we have here”

The issue with redeeming Chrysalis now is that they’ve dug themselves too deep a hole with how redemption work now. Either she’s a black pit of tar without a single good thing about her, doing things only because she is pure unfiltered evil, or a misguided soul who just didn’t get friendship and just needed hugs and love and would have been a near saint of good if she only had truly understood.
 
Discord’s redemption works because at the end of the day, He’s still a massive asshole that half of the cast can’t stand. Yeah he’s on the side of good and will do good things but usually for all the wrong reasons but the show wouldn’t condeem him as a black hearted monster but neither will it portray him as a good role model.

@EotD  
i very much think starlight was meant to be a “middle-ground” kind of replacement for sunset shimmer. i think they liked the kind of ex-villain turned good guy “green ranger” kind of thing in eqg, but knew it would be controversial to bring sunset shimmer into the main show. so they took the only genuine pony villain they had, gave her a similar kind of personality, and sort of put her into that role. i do know that they didn’t know they were going to reform starlight when they first introduced her (which probably explains why they had her so such outright evil and fucked up stuff in her town).
 
@EotD  
the problem is the show kind of has a black and white “pure good or pure evil” mentality that all seems to revolve around whether a character wants friends or not, rather than the character’s actual motives or actions. if they could shake that they would have way less difficulty with morality i think.

@DanielTepesKraus
 
See, I’m not convinced of that. It felt to me like they were always going to reform her (even in the season 5 premiere it feels like they were hinting at it, like how she briefly looks sad when Double Diamond says that she never even tried to truly give them a chance), they just hadn’t worked out the actual details as to how to do it at first.

@DanielTepesKraus  
Yeah the show tend to have a sort of moral absolutism about it, a very black and white way of thinking.
 
As for Starlight and also reply to Jarkes a bit, I feel that she was indeed very much inspired by Sunset. Haber more than likely, given it’s length and production time, wrote Friendship Games before the Cutie Remark (that end bit could be added really quick given the movie seemed to have a lot of script changes, what with the deleted scenes and what not) and Haber like writing for her, and wanted something similar in the show and so proposed doing something similar with Starlight.

@Jarkes  
possibly, but this seems fairly cut and dry in terms of it:  

 
i still think they wouldn’t have had her do things like outright cold-blooded torture and abuse if they at that point intended to have her turn good so quickly and easily. she was just cruel in her first appearance.
 
@EotD  
it’s a lot of the reason it feels like there’s a double-standard, like the “villains” get condemned for doing stuff the “good guys” do all the time.

@DanielTepesKraus
 
See, that tweet response is worded in such a way that either of us could be correct. The specific question was “if the end of Starlight’s arc” was planned from the start. Because of the wording, the response could just as easily mean “We were going to reform her but hadn’t worked out the full details initially,” or it could mean, “We weren’t planning to reform her initially and decided to later.”

I was also one of those people who thought she was pegged for redemption in Cutie Map. This was before I really loved Starlight too, I just couldn’t imagine them introducing a pony villain who thought she was doing the right thing and not turning her good.
 
My mind was too hung up on her believing her intentions to be good and not what she did.