Unpopular Pony Opinions

[Leave a Whisper]

I think Tiramisu is a rather boring pony. No offense to those who like her.

[Taffeta]

I think Tiramisu is a rather boring pony. No offense to those who like her.

*covers pony's eyes* You didn't see that, Tira. Nope. Nothing to see here at all

She's sitting on my shelf looking at me in consternation

[Safflower]

... I had a Tiramisu, but I donated her.

[bright rabbit 1]

Groger is giving me nightmares again, someone help! He gave me nightmares when I first saw Return of Tambelon.

[Zapper]

You want to hear unpopular opinions?

Starlight Glimmer is the worst character any show has ever produced.

[snip]
Rey from Star Wars wasn't this bad.

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Rey and Starlight haters sustain my power

[Leave a Whisper]

You want to hear unpopular opinions?

Starlight Glimmer is the worst character any show has ever produced.

[snip]
Rey from Star Wars wasn't this bad.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


Rey and Starlight haters sustain my power

So you were a member of the Sith all along! I should have known.

Post Merge: September 08, 2018, 11:55:32 AM

I think Tiramisu is a rather boring pony. No offense to those who like her.

*covers pony's eyes* You didn't see that, Tira. Nope. Nothing to see here at all

She's sitting on my shelf looking at me in consternation

*Hands Taf and Tira cups of tiramisu coffee*

[Zapper]

You want to hear unpopular opinions?

Starlight Glimmer is the worst character any show has ever produced.

[snip]
Rey from Star Wars wasn't this bad.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


Rey and Starlight haters sustain my power

So you were a member of the Sith all along! I should have known.

Yep, t'was I - The Emperor!! Sadly the fandom fell in love with me and LucasFilm decided to ruin me in novels and prequels

[MJNSEIFER]

You don't love Starlight Glimmer, the way she is now, and you can't. Her fans love the idea of her far more than they actually love her, and while some are aware of this, most aren't.

While I doubt this is true for all of her fans... this is pretty much the case for me.  I put Starlight Glimmer on a pedestal for a while, but it then dawned on me that I didn't like the way she was being used or written by the time we got to season seven, and when I looked back, I saw that I wasn't pleased with how she was written since her first appearance, aside from the fact they redeemed her (more on that in a moment.)

I don't love Starlight as she is being written now - I may still love how she is designed and her voice, but that's pretty much it (other than the fact she is part of one of my OTPs), I love the idea of her, actually to be more honest, I love my idea of her.  I love the pony that I expected her to be after her first appearance, I love how I wanted the show to write her as a character/how I would have done it (and the really weird thing is, I don't even have a full idea of what that is!) 

I'll admit, I never really viewed her as a villain when she first appeared (I know this contradicts what you said, SilverStarApple), but more so as... an extremist, I guess.  Someone who really thinks they're doing the right thing, but their views on what is the right thing are wrong or corrupted. ("Well Intentioned Extremist" is the TV Tropes term.)  I realise that even then, I just projected my own idea of who Starlight could be onto the real Starlight, but I viewed it that she really did feel that ponies were better off equalised, and that she was making Equestria better (I even have a headcanon that if she had succeeded in equalising everyone, her final act would have been to equalise herself for real), and since she didn't seem evil enough for me (she just looked like an exaggerated version of that kid who wants everyone to share their opinions, but if the writers said is was communism, then I have to submit, at least with canon), and because she genuinely seemed sympathetic at the end, I not only assumed that she'd be redeemed, but I hoped she would be.

After that, the only thing the writers did "right" in my opinion (i.e. came close to what I wanted them to do - I am not really that kind of brony, I just sound like it here) was redeem her, and provide me with another OTP by creating Sunburst.  Other than that, it just didn't work for me how they were handling her, and it made no sense that she was suddenly acting more like an actual villain during the season 5 finale to me at the time, for the above reason (and it still seems like too much of a dramatic leap.)  I didn't even notice that she was supposedly more powerful than Princess Twilight Sparkle until Twilight said so, but it's true that she has no reason to be. 

I also don't like how they forced new friendships onto her with random characters, when she already has the Mane Six, Sunburst, and those four ponies - I actually thought that she could go on adventures with those four, and essentially be the "Twilight" of that group, since they kind of looked like an "Alternate Mane Six" even though there were four of them (five with Starlight) or stay with Sunburst (if it ended up being the former, I'd still have her spend a lot of time with Sunburst - also why make such a song and dance about how their friendship ending made her the way she was, when they're hardly going to interact once they reunite?), so most of the time, Starlight is having her own, off screen storylines, or appearing in the background, but showing up when needed - not being forced into the Mane Six.

[Leave a Whisper]

You want to hear unpopular opinions?

Starlight Glimmer is the worst character any show has ever produced.

[snip]
Rey from Star Wars wasn't this bad.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


Rey and Starlight haters sustain my power

So you were a member of the Sith all along! I should have known.

Yep, t'was I - The Emperor!! Sadly the fandom fell in love with me and LucasFilm decided to ruin me in novels and prequels

Curse them! *shakes force fist*

[Lady Frostbite]

Here's my unpopular opinion. Twilight Sparkle is a bland, sucky, annoying character, with an okayish design.

This! I made a post about how annoying I found Twilight but not sure I can really repeat it.

I wish Queen Chrysalis didn't go down the 'bullying boss abusing lackies' route. I really liked the idea of a Queen who was 'evil' but doing what she needed to do for her people. I liked an illustration I saw in the comics of the Changlings all sleeping in cocoons in a hive with Chrysalis the only one not sealed away guarding them. That I really liked! I would love it if the Changlings needed to eat, and their food needs them to be antagonistic, and Chrysalis CARES for her brood and the hive know it! Them all suddenly turning really felt rushed :c

I love how calm and cool Tempest was in dealing with the Storm King. Like, no matter how stupid or ridiculous or evil he was being, she was always professional and respectful. That's really hard to pull off! Plus I like the heavy iron sounds her hooves make.

[Minty_Magic]

You don't love Starlight Glimmer, the way she is now, and you can't. Her fans love the idea of her far more than they actually love her, and while some are aware of this, most aren't.

Hm, yeah I actually love Starlight Glimmer the way she is now.

You're allowed to dislike her, of course but are you and me even watching the same show? Starlight isn't a murderer. No idea where you're even getting that concept? She was an extremist. To be fair, I never even saw her as "evil" in her opening episode. Like okay...she stole ponies cutie marks to try and put them on the same playing field. Maybe I don't remember the episode right. but all her villagers were there on their own accord? She didn't kidnap anyone or force them into her ideology. The closest thing Starlight's village could be compared to is a cult, but again, unlike most cult leaders she wasn't trying to scam or harm these ponies. She honestly and truly believed in her vision of equality, even if it was extreme and misguided.

I do agree her redemption was incredibly swift, even by FiM standards, and at first I was hesitant about the idea of a "7th member". Over the course of the show though Starlight has really taken her own role and frankly given extra life to a show that had been going stale for a while. Although she has a light friendship with the mane 6, I think her firnedships outside of the main cast really shine. Her and Trixie especially feel like an actual real life friendship. They're both flawed and get on each others nerves sometimes, but they have a really strong bond and truly love each other through it all. Their friendship reminds me of so many of my own! She's also been a great voice of reason to Twilight when she gets swept up in her own thoughts and character flaws. She has provided much more to the show than other reformed villains. Especially a character like Discord who is still a menace and a bigger threat to the mane 6 and Equestria than Starlight is. He would have been much better off as a recurring villain.

You mention the mane 6 being believable friends, but honestly I've never really bought their friendship. They feel much more like a group of close co-workers than they do close friends.

The reason I love Starlight so much is because I see so much of myself in her. She's passionate about her views, she's stubborn, she's impulsive, she makes bad decisions on a whim! That's human nature, we all make bad calls! And I think it's really important to show that to kids so they can learn to deal with a bad mistake that has consequences! All throughout Starlight has also proven that she wants to be better and is constantly striving toward being a better friend.

You're allowed to dislike Starlight Glimmer for whatever reasons you please, and you're more than welcome to debate your views. But please do not imply that I don't know why I like a character or that I only like them because I'm a bad person like how you view that character and I'm living vicariously through them somehow.

Characters in tv shows or movies are nothing more than ideas and imagination. My views and ideas on a character's personality are just as valid as yours or anyone else's.

[Taffeta]

You mention the mane 6 being believable friends, but honestly I've never really bought their friendship. They feel much more like a group of close co-workers than they do close friends.

I agree with this. I am venturing into really unpopular opinion territory now, but one of the reasons why I couldn't get into FIM is that they felt like they were forced together. There are numerous other issues that I have, not least the tendency to force their concept of friendship on other populations and Dash's animal cruelty episode which probably just finished any real ability within me to even respect her as a character...but I can't believe the friendship among the characters who claim to be promoting it and now teaching it. But weirdly I can believe it in EQG. EQG is far from perfect and follows the same plot over and over in terms of end villain...and it's frankly ridiculous in all regards to have ponies turning human and humans turning pony and stuff...but all that aside, the character interaction really works for me so I can forgive all the other issues. I am pretty sure though Sunset Shimmer is the reason it works in EQG where I can't stand it in FIM. I still can't stand Dash, she's really annoying, but it's tempered slightly by the dynamic in EQG which doesn't exist in FIM for me.

(quick caveat, while I didn't like her animated character, either, I have a special fondness for G3 Dash and I can't quite accept what Hasbro turned her into. She also doesn't resemble Firefly's animated character in the slightest, although she is almost as annoying as comic Firefly tended to be...just in a different way...)

Actually, reading all this debate on Starlight, I find myself considering watching her series, because she sounds much more interesting than any of the main characters, bad or good. And if she adds that dynamic to FIM that Sunset adds in EQG, then maybe it's worth my doing that. It's worth saying in the one episode Starlight is in EQG, I like her there.

I have a tendency to find more that's appealing in flawed and bad guy characters than in the 'heroes' because they're not saddled with the moral message of the show (and if they transgress, its not hypocritical).

So this may make me actually go back and watch FIM again. Which seasons is Starlight in?

Summarised:
Unpopular opinions -FIM girls aren't friends
EQG is better than FIM at character dynamic
G3 Dash > G4 Dash.
Starlight sounds more interesting for being a villain than any of the other FIM characters put together.

[Goanna]

Ooh I agree with so much of what you've said, Minty_Magic!
I definitely think that Starlight has added a breath of fresh air to the show and truly, I believe she is my favourite character at this point. She feels so much more 'real' than many of the other characters with the way she reacts to things. She gets anxious, she doubts herself, she messes up. That speaks to me a lot!

Taffeta- I think she appears for the first time in Season 5? And then she is added as a recurring cast member from Season 6 onwards

[LadyMoondancer]

I saw Starlight Glimmer's about-face as totally natural . . . for a cartoon.  At 22 minutes per episode, you want the heel-turn to just HAPPEN, because it's the least exciting part of the episode compare to adventure and derring-do. 

It was the same in G1.  Someone might try to freeze everyone in Ponyland to death, or turn them all to glass, but at the end of the day it was:  "Oh, you're sorry now?  WE'RE FRIENDS!"

I like Twilight Sparkle quite a bit, but more when she was still an insecure student.  The "princess" plotline dragged her down for quite a while.  The other princesses are political heads-of-state, but Twilight isn't, soooo what exactly was she supposed to do?

I think this is the main reason Starlight Glimmer was introduced, so Twilight could DO something (be a mentor and a teacher).  I always did say I thought the ideal job for her was being a teacher, just sayin'. 

[Ponyfan]

We’re supposed to believe that Twilight is the ultimate friendship pony because she is the Princess of Friendship yet she judged Thorax immediately based on the fact that he was a Changeling and not for who he truly was.

She was also willing to endanger the entire Hippogriff population to save Equestria. I’m not saying Twilight shouldn’t have character flaws but she still has a lot to learn about friendship.

Going back to Starlight, the only marks she took by force were the Mane 6’s

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jve2iIjyRrs

She did try to take revenge on Twilight but I don’t think Starlight realized that stopping the 6 ponies from becoming friends would lead to the destruction of Equestria. Double Diamond, Party Favor and Sugar Belle invited Starlight back to the villiage for the Sunset Festival. I don’t think they would have done that if they thought Starlight was completely evil.


Ponyfan