You know, one of the basic premises behind this show is that you'll never know how dumb you're acting in many situations, unless somepony tells you. In which case, considering Starlight was alone for all that time, I think her backstory makes far more sense...

In regards to Starlight’s backstory, I completely get it because I can almost directly relate to it. As a very young kid, about 7 or 8. My BEST FRIEND moved away. We did everything together. I cannot over emphasize how much of a best friend to me he was at the time. And leading up to the move, all he cared about was playing with the bubble wrap and packing stuff.(as I literally helped him pack) All conversation around the move was about how excited he was to get a different room and backyard, etc. Not a single time was any sentiment that he might miss me or be sad that he was moving away uttered. And he never even said goodbye either. Just gone one day. No phone number given for contact, no new address given to meet up, nothing. My best friend was gone with not even as much as a wave goodbye and as far as I know he went smiling ear to ear. It made me pretty sad and made me feel like we were never really friends.

If he was so excited to move on that he couldn’t even be bothered to give a goodbye or show that he might miss me then how little esteem did he actually hold for me? Did he really care more about moving away than me? And other similar thoughts occupied my mind for months. (In a much more fuzzy and childish way, as I didn’t have the mental faculties to truly reflect and realize these thoughts at the time 😃)

I’m not sure if one of the writers experienced something like this themselves or if it’s just coincidence. But the scenario is not wholly unrealistic. As a child, my experience that rings very close to Starlight’s hurt for months. It may have even had deeper, further reaching mental effects. So it makes sense, to me at least, that an incident where your best friend just up and leaves in the blink of an eye with seemingly no care for you, would eat Starlight up from the inside. And that’s not even to take into account the importance of cutie marks in Equestria. The CMC are perfect evidence that cutie marks are extremely important to at least a decent chunk of foals and hold a lot of mental weight. That in combination with the immediate abandonment is what I see as a mine’s worth of salt to rub into the wound that is Starlight’s worst day of her fillyhood.

Others say that it’s not a substantial enough reason for Starlight to go on and do “X Y Z.” But there’s a couple important points to be aware of.

1.) The severity of events on someone’s psyche is not determined by outside observers. It is determined by the one who experienced them. It is not how hard an experience was objectively that matters, it is how hard THEY took it. And Starlight clearly took it hard. I took my experience hard, despite it appearing from the outside to simply be someone moving away.

I understand that fiction is fiction and writing is not meant to be perfectly realistic. So I can see how some would find it just lazy writing not to give a villain a good backstory that matches their actions. But I’d also remind them that starlight was written TO BE reformed.

2.) Starlight’s actions and their consequences were not envisioned by her to be as bad as they were. Yes to US they are massive and put her on level with the other antagonists out to rule the world. Whereas Starlight felt she was completely in the right and didn’t even set out to forcibly conquer the world.(forcibly as in with physical violence or combat) Twilight and friends showed up at her village unrequested and it’s implied everyone there found their way to her village of their own accord. Starlight was not foal-napping anypony or walking into other villages to recruit. She merely acted opportunistically when a literal princess came to her village. Starlight never set out to directly attack Equestria or one of it’s leaders, it seems her plan was simply to slowly let ponies “learn” about her “enlightened” lifestyle of their own accord as they traveled to her village.

Unlike every other main villain, Starlight did not set out to attack Equestria and take it over by force. At least not in a way she herself considered “force.”

We as the audience are aware of the immense dangers of the “lifestyle” she wanted to spread. But Starlight was a genuine believer and in some weird way her wounded mind thought that she was helping. All the other villains held no such delusions. They were fully aware that their goal was taking Equestria by force so that they could live better at the expense of others.

Actions taken after Twilight liberated the village were wholly reactionary. And Starlight herself proved she set out ONLY to get back at Twilight. She didn’t think her actions would doom the world. Her responses when challenged by Twilight and her denial show that she believed only twilight and her friends would be effected.

Once again, while the results of Starlight’s actions were massive and far reaching, the impetus for said actions was not nearly as malicious as any other villain of the series. From Starlight’s perspective, delusional as it might be, she believed that she was just getting back at somepony who wronged her; somepony who showed up at her village unsolicited and ruined everything she built. Not destroying Equestria.

3.) Due to the nature of our brains, we all want some really important reason for bad things to happen. If a dictator burns down a country, we want to be told they did it because they were beaten as a child or tortured for years straight. When in reality, Starlight did what she did because of what effected HER badly. Not what a jury of the masses would come to a unanimous decision was objectively “bad enough” to warrant the damage she wrought. Starlight’s backstory is realistic in the way that, bad things happen for what we would say are bogus reasons all the time. Not every villain in the real world have some dastardly backstory, and almost nobody thinks THEY’RE the bad guy. Very few people wake up and purposefully choose cruelty and acridity for the pure sake of being cruel and acrid.


I like to believe Twilight understood all this. At least a little. And that’s why she was willing to redeem Starlight instead of punish her severely. Even after the threat to the world was removed. Starlight’s initial actions do not hold a candle to the other villains in terms of pure villainy. Everyone else wanted to rule Equestria for their own sake just because they wanted to rule. Starlight wanted to do what she thought would help Equestrians in the long run. At no point after she’s found out did she ever “drop the charade” and declare that she was just using her village to gain power for the sake of it. Even while facing Twilight later on Starlight is convinced that her village was a good thing.

And that’s why I understand and like Starlight’s backstory. It makes sense to me due to personal experience. It’s also why Starlight is the best pony. Her character has a lot of depth and she is the most unique villain in terms of motivation. She was delusional and anguished, not evil.

Tl;dr: Just read the last bit.

Finally, someone else who has 24+ minutes of rambling about this pony

I didn't even know Starlight was generally hated, because the only opinion I've been exposed to about her is my own, and she's also my favorite character. Glad to see someone shares my opinion!

Technically, we don't know that Starlight never tried to contact Sunburst. But because of how Sunburst's mother tries to control his life, he probably threw out any letters Starlight wrote to him assuming they were from his mother. After all, it's revealed that he throws out letters from Sires Hollow. So yeah, Starlight doing what she did may be because of Sunburst's mother.

Wow... I'm actually kinda surprised that I'm not the only one to see that detail about Sunburst's mother. Then again, I was also surprised that nobody considered that possibility either. It just seems so obvious to a rational thinker.

I agree with you about Starlight's backstory being completely realistic. A lot of things we believe subconsciously look utterly stupid when brought out to the light and questioned. But the point is, we don't question them. They become a false bedrock of things we just assume are true because we've never thought to question them. And yes, most if not all of them we picked up as children, when we were too naive to know any better.

Starlight Glimmer is the best character in the show: a villain with a realistic motivation and vision who finds redemption, dedicates herself to learning righteousness, and ultimately saves the heroes while providing a bunch of fun dialogue and interactions with other characters.

Starlight’s expressions and reactions to things in this show are top tier tbh. Reminds me a lot of earlier-series Twilight, who was a bit more snarky and awkward.

Let us not forget that, if it weren't for Starlight, we wouldn't have Sugar Belle, aka the wife of my favorite pony, Big McIntosh.

I’ll be the first one to say that I feel like Starlight’s backstory is Apple Bloom and the rest of the Crusader’s nightmares come to life. It’s just that unlike Starlight, they actually had good family and friends to support them with their fears and worries. Especially about cutie marks and how it’d change their relationships with each other

3:50 YESSSSSSS LETSGOOOOOOO POLYAMORY CAN BE REAL, GUYS STARLIGHT HAS TWO HOOVES‼️‼️‼️‼️

This video literally has it all. Godlike editing, jokes in every single frame, thoughtful analysis, and MEMES. This was a fantastic watch. Loved it.

This video is one of the reasons why I still love MLP and the Brony Fandom. We can make fun of ourselves, laugh at cringe, and be cringy ourselves, but we can also have deep insight into characters and lore from a show that on the surface may not seem that deep. We can take these ponies and give new ways to think about and discuss them, and we can showcase just how cool they are and how smart the writers of the show were.

Props to you MV! Thank you for the entertaining video, and I can’t wait for part 2!

Fluttershy is still best pony though don’t @ me

Everything here in this video is basically facts entirely

Haven't seen such a well-edited, high-effort video about colorful horses in a long-long while. I am thoroughly impressed.

I feel like she’s not a Mary sue because she kind of works with her magic smarter rather than harder

I would've loved for Starlight to become a princess at the end. She absolutely deserved it, that's for sure.

Oh mah gosh, I just realized that Starlight is stronger than Celestia, or just smarter than her, why? Because she lasted way long than Celestia in that battle against Queen Chrysalis.

Imo, Starlight is the most realistic and relatable character. I used to hate her when I was young. But as I grew older, I find her situation similar to mine and I feel so bad bc she got help and found new friends while I got none of those. I'm the one who move to another place but I still miss my childhood friends and think about them daily. At first, I keep in touch with some of them. But as the years passed, everyone is busy with their own life. And so our conversation lessens. I'm still trying to contact them, but most of them never talk back to me or take too long to reply that I forgot about my text. Meh.. I guess that's life? Maybe I'll try to contact them again after they graduate from college

Starlight having a chaoticish and funny personality but damn little anger tolerance is so relatable