S6 E21 | Every Little Thing She Does

Discord was purely an antagonist at the time, though. We've seen leeway given to both Discord and Starlight Glimmer after their stints as baddies.

...Not that I cared for what she did. Neither am I keen on having a repeat of Lesson Zero, only taken to another level.

Overall, I thought the episode was, "Meh." The show still hasn't convinced me to care about Starlight Glimmer. While I'd like to, since that would enhance my experience, packing a lesson with all of Twilight Sparkle's friends was not the way to go about it. By this time in the season, if they really wanted to win me over with Starlight Glimmer, this episode would have been the last of five that focused on a lesson involving one of Twilight Sparkle's friends.

And why was Starlight Glimmer having magic lessons, anyway? If there was any area that didn't need to see any improvement, especially after giving more than one example for why advancing her knowledge and prowess should be discouraged, it would be this one. It's a really lame excuse for how Starlight Glimmer's friendship lessons got so arrested in development that it required stuffing separate interactions into one episode, near the end of the season. It's certainly not the treatment that I'd expect of a character that will serve as the finale's cornerstone character.

This episode, among many others, just brings back to mind a thought I shouldn't be having as often as I am: "They really need to get some better writers."

 

Two things in this thread I feel need a rebuttal...

Discord was trying to take over Equestria while Starlight had no evil intentions in what she did. Good picture though.

How is this a repeat of Lesson Zero? Twilight was trying to find a friendship lesson in LZ while this was about Starlight trying to get out of a friendship lesson. In both episodes, they use a spell to try to solve a problem and it ends up making things go nuts, yeah, but that's too broad of a comparison. That's just a trope in TV shows that have magical elements. Plus, if they didn't do that, it wouldn't be interesting.

Moving onto my opinion...

I really liked this episode and found it pretty funny. I liked the imagination that went into how the Mane 6 misunderstood Starlight's orders. The ending was nothing I wasn't expecting, but it was still satisfying.

 

That's just splitting hairs on a fraction of the details. In the greater context of things, it's different reactions to a situation that's virtually the same: someone expecting them to provide a friendship lesson, or perceiving that said friendship lesson is still expected, and following their initial response to the dilemma (Twilight Sparkle goes out of her way to seek out what she thinks she needs for her assignment, while Starlight Glimmer avoids her assignment with distractions) they both justify that resorting to using magic (via some form of mind control) is a proper means to an end. It's lemonade versus pink lemonade: it's still lemonade.

Calling what you believe to be "too broad of a comparison" a trope, in order to invalidate my statement, is a fallacious argument. What follows "plus" is irrelevant and I (personally, not necessarily logically, mind you) fail to see how it makes sense. For me, I'm seeing an effective repeat, and I can't say that I indulge myself in any tropes, so — if anything — I'm going to find it uninteresting. If you like the episode, that's fine; and be glad you got more out of this episode than I did.

To avoid an argument, you're welcome to believe that I'm delusional/wrong, because I highly doubt I'll change my mind. I'm not worth the effort, anyway, I'm sure.

 

It was okay.

meh/10

 

No thank you. I'm not so insecure in what I believe that I need to think others are mentally ill and need to change their beliefs to match mine. I acknowledge all opinions, both ones I agree with and ones I disagree with. You're welcome to believe that I'm...whatever you want to believe I am, because I highly doubt I'll change your mind no matter who I am to you. Only you can change your mind.

I kept my previous rebuttal short and sweet because I've been trying to avoid an argument from the start. I mean it, none of this is personal. I'm just looking at what I don't agree with and explaining why.

 

Remember Season One, back when all the characters were first being established? Remember how you learned to like or dislike certain characters over time, as you learned more about them, as they interacted with each other?
Remember how you celebrated their triumphs, and groaned at their mistakes?
Remember that?

So why, six seasons later, have people in this fandom become so stubborn and jaded that they're completely unwilling to give a new character a chance?
Starlight has the potential to be an interesting character.
All I'm saying is that people should give her the chance to develop before dismissing her offhand.

 

*sighs*

You really shouldn't read this. Seriously. You shouldn't. If you do... it's at your own risk.

Spoiler

So apparently... Starlight solves all her problems with magic. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START WITH THIS.

There are 3 things to keep in mind about how ridiculous this was.

First of all... YOU DON'T USE MAGIC TO SOLVE ALL YOUR PROBLEMS YOU ****ING DUMBASS.

Second of all... THAT SPELL WAS BASICALLY A MIND CONTROL SPELL YOU *****.

and Third of all... YOU DON'T USE MAGIC ON YOUR FRIENDS. BOY YOU REALLY DON'T HAVE ANY COMMON SENSE DO YOU?

This is... reminding me of something... I wonder what...?

THANK GOD Twilight was there to save the say from this idiot's stupidity AGAIN.

But... you know... we're just going to forgive her despite the MULTIPLE THINGS SHE DID WRONG YET AGAIN.

This character is now on a very thin leash with me. If this happens ONE MORE TIME she's back to 'NOT REDEEMED' Character.

The only thing this episode seemed to prove is that Starlight Glimmer is a ****ING DUMBASS.

Told you not to read it...

 

Personally, I'm still holding out on making a firm decision regarding Starlight Glimmer, but the writers have been dropping the ball left and right. First and foremost: they had enough time to endear us to six (but, technically, more) new characters in the first season, yet here is one new character whose presence is like a tumbleweed who just happens to be tumbling by. I think the only good episode that featured Starlight Glimmer — thus far — was No Second Prances. At least, for me, The Crystalling was muddied by the shoddy foundation she was given in the fifth season's finale, and — ultimately — she just served as a convenient connection to a character that could help resolve the situation. As for A Hearth's Warming Tail and The Times They Are a Changeling, she's pretty much just... there. Now, for this episode, they may have been aiming to win people over with something familiar, and not necessarily because it's something that can be attributed to Twilight Sparkle: making a situation worse by trying to solve a problem with magic. The potential (because some people may actually like it) problem here (among other things) is that Starlight Glimmer's actions reveal something disturbing about her personality, which — if it's glossed over or contradicted later — can become yet another bad piece of writing attached to her.

Aside from that, I'd say that she's already an interesting character, even with what little we've seen of her.

 

That "disturbing" thing about her personality is exactly why I find her so interesting.
Here we have a powerful Unicorn... magically talented and extremely smart, but also a perfectionist with a tendency to abuse magic.
Sound familiar?

Starlight, it seems to me, is basically the pony that Twilight would have become had she not had Celestia as a mentor, and then her friends to keep her grounded.

 

So basically, Starlight is a dumbass because she has actual flaws and makes mistakes?

But it's not like it's the first time a character in the show didn't get punished even though they did something wrong. For example, did Rainbow get punished for destroying the weather factory? Did Discord get punished for joining Tirek?

 

The disturbing part of her personality is what I find interesting as well, but — for me — that's somewhat offset by her similarities with Twilight Sparkle. I would have preferred a more unique character, relatively speaking, but what we have is being exacerbated by how little of her character we're being provided beyond the aforementioned similarities with Twilight Sparkle.

I'm fairly sure that a good portion of the scrutiny comes from at least two things: her crummy backstory and motivation as an antagonist, and all of the issues that can come with being introduced to something that's been cooking for four/five/six seasons.

For those that didn't drop her outright and want to find a reason to enjoy/tolerate her, since they're going to be stuck with her regardless, chances are they want to see an improvement over what they were initially given in the season five finale. Then, in the broader context, there's also the matter of people wanting her to fit reasonably well with what they know and like about the show already, both in the technical and subjective senses. Which isn't easy when we're not really getting much of a chance to get to know her better, and utilizing what's there well

This is a logical fallacy of the false equivalence kind. There's no double standard because there are different circumstances and thought processes for all three parties being mentioned. I'm not saying that there aren't people who have certain biases toward certain characters, but with some proper scrutiny we can better understand why someone should or shouldn't, or will or won't, be treated in a particular matter.

For instance, can you say that Twilight Sparkle was in her right mind when she finally made the decision to create a problem that she could solve and write a friendship report about? Can you say that she hadn't realized what she had done wrong by the time she was confronted by her mentor? Can you say that the focus of the episode's lesson was on Twilight Sparkle alone?

See, while Starlight Glimmer certainly had her insecurities, it was pretty much taken care of when she bolstered herself with her confidence in her magic skill. The equivalent for Twilight Sparkle would have been her friends taking her distress seriously, which might have prevented her scenario entirely. The main difference between these two (and even Discord), however, aside from their student-mentor relationships (which is different, dynamically, emotionally and by how long and well they know each other) was the personality driving their behavior: Starlight Glimmer not only missed the point after the fallout of her actions, but Twilight Sparkle had to spell out what she had done wrong before she even realized that what she had done had — in fact — been wrong.

And while that sort of behavior is a close parallel to some of Discord's behavior, there are definitely a number of aspects about his character that can redeem him. I wish that I — personally — could say that Starlight Glimmer had a strong aspect that could redeem her in certain situations as well, but ignorance/lack of common sense has very limited mileage, and you're probably better off not touching on the subject of sociopathy. The fact is, Discord and Twilight Sparkle are simply fleshed out better as characters, which helps immensely when it comes to relating to, understanding, and sympathizing/empathizing with what they do. Starlight Glimmer not only needs that, but she needed it yesterday; and the writers could have done that had they chosen to, which they hadn't. It's understanding that last part that has allowed me to be relatively patient with Starlight Glimmer, because she can't be blamed for something like that.

Taking all that into consideration, I can understand why she would be placed under a microscope, whether I agree with the reasoning for it or not.

I look forward to you providing more context in the future, then.

Just wanted to mentioned that I addressed this above, in some form/degree or another.

 

My favorite Starlight episode.