Spoilers: We now definitively know who worst pony is · 8:34pm Nov 28th, 2015
First of all, for the casual passerby, this is me talking about the season five finale. Not reviewing, not summarizing, just giving voice to my thoughts. I'll put some spoiler lines to avoid anyone reading further, assuming they clicked this expecting not to see spoilers somehow.
Okay, beyond here you're on your own.
I am not certain what to make of this.
The first problem I have is the shear problem of Starlight Glimmer being capable of a throw down with Twilight Bucking Sparkle.
A little math for you.
Twilight, utilizing the power of four alicorns, was able to throw down with Tirek, who was using an entire nation's natural magic, plus the power of Discord himself, and fight him to a stalemate.
That means Twilight + Celestia + Luna + Cadance is = to Tirek + an entire nation + Discord.
But, Celestia and Luna were unable to defeat Discord without the elements. So Celestia + Luna < Discord.
So remove them from the equation, we have Twilight + Cadance > Tirek + entire nation.
But, we know on his own, Tirek could barely overpower single ponies. Furthermore, we know that Cadance could barely hold off King Sombra. They are clearly not adding much to this equation. So let's assume they are roughly even.
So we are left with Twilight > an entire nation. Now, there is some room for variance, but suffice to say, Twi added a LOT to this equation.
And yet somehow, Starlight was able to keep up with Twilight. Hell, Starlight has magic to spare, keeping herself levitating while firing off beams.
But fine, she had the chops, somehow. I'll accept that for the purpose of otherwise we had no conflict.
We're still left with a pony on a personal revenge plot against Twilight, merely because she broke up a cult.
A cult which was formed... because Starlight lost a single friend when he got his cutiemark. A cutiemark he earned for saving Starlight from injury.
I have a new respect for Moon Dancer. She didn't become a supervillain bent on destroying the world when she lost her only friend, she just became a shut-in.
Good job, Moon Dancer!
My one consolation is that this episode essentially changes nothing. The past was restored, and the only thing that changed was we are less one plotting villain.
Final Verdict: Cringeworthy. I've seen better written fanfiction about this very scenario.
But hey, season six coming. There's still hope.
And for those who liked the episode, I won't apologize for my views on it. It wasn't unwatchable, but maybe they should have thought this through a little more. But again, my opinion, if you liked it, that's great! I did like certain aspects of it, just not the episode as a whole.
i liked it, but i think i would have liked it more if it were sunset shimmer and an alternate sequel to equestria girls
Starlight had a whole lifetime to stew over her friend's betrayal; Moondancer only had
onefour years. What do you think she was studying, anyway? :VI hope Moondancer and Starlight meet up in S6 and hint at this.
I've never been a fan of Josh Haber's writing, but between Friendship Games and the season finale, it seems like he's getting more cachet within the writers' group. With the departure of Amy Keating Rogers, this is tempering my expectations for S6. :(
Your equation is flawed by the assumption that a pony with the magic of two ponies has simply the sum of the power of two ponies, and that Tirek can efficiently use the magic of all the ponies he ate.
That cult was her validation of everything she believed. To have a pony come in and ruin everything you built, substantial or not, would suck. You probably aren't president, but if he had you fired tomorrow, you'd probably take it hard. To everyone else, you'd be a statistic.
Starlight could be more prodigious than Twilight. Twilight had to become good at magic before she could become a princess and was as seen by how she took down trixie, used dark magic, and could teleport. It's hard to believe somepony could best twilight in outright talent, which is what everupony said about trixie till it happened. Even though she's the element of magic, that doesn"t make her the best. It's a combination of Twi's talent and connection with her friends that gives her that title. She could be better than twi, but not other pony than twi could have solved the catastrophes we witnessed through the episode.
Also, the whole point of timetravel episodes is to stop the changes. Just because nothing for anyone else has changed, the character growth and traumas inflicted on those aware and involved is still important to the viewer.
Problem with your math. Two ponies fighting together is not the same as one pony fighting with the power of both, thr blows and abilities of the hosts are still at a disadvantage power wise. It's why goku and vegita can't beat an enemy but vegito or gogeta can. Together they are more powerful, but their power must be compoinded go have any effect.
Tirek was probably not using the power at its full effect, its not like he had been trained in how to use unicorn magic. That said, Starlight was probably a more powerful unicorn even than Twilight as a unicorn.
Starlight OP. Everything Trixie wanted to be but isn't powerwise.
3575160
Obviously it's going to be hard to pinpoint exact values. But my alternative is believing the power of love took down Tirek and I'm pretty sure that takes Shining and Cady touching horns.
3576441
Fabulous frottage!
3574995 PP... how old do you think Starlight is? She doesn't strike me as being in her thirties.
Also... her friend's 'betrayal'? He was sent off to magic school, very likely without being asked. I mean, I guess if you use kid-logic that's a betrayal...
3576441 No, I'm saying Quadruple Princess Twilight > Twilight + Cadance + Celestia + Luna and Fully Fed Tirek < Discord + all of the ponies in Equestria.
3577423 I'm sorry, try that again?
3577578 We've seen how much power Celestia, Luna and Twilight put into their lazor beams. They are not even close to 1/4 to the power of Quadruple Princess Twilight. Her power is far greater than the sum of its parts.
Similarly, more powerful unicorns like Shining and Twilight are not hugely far behind Celestia. No magic she does other than the Sun is particularly more powerful than what unicorns do, and in the comics she's hugely inferior to Shining in terms of shield spells. Surely, there are numerous regular ponies with that level of power. The combined efforts of ponies control wather and plantlife in the entire land. Tirek can only access a fraction of what he consumed.
Long story short comparing the power of Twilight with the combined powers of the princesses with Tirek is not a valid basis to declare Twilight is much more powerful than Starlight.
3577602 Actually, I think the power problem is talent related. Celestia and Luna devote much of their magic to the celestial cycle, but they do have a great deal of power. This is evidenced by the fact that prior to their birth, unicorns who raised the sun and moon had only been able to do it for a very limited time before they had to retire, or the strain would kill them.
Twilight, however, when granted their magic, was not granted their talents, but their raw power. Since her talent was magic, she was able to use that power to greater effect than Celestia or Luna had. Basically, I am saying they had a fair bit of raw power but hadn't the talent to use it as Twilight did.
And I am not saying Twilight does have more power at her disposal. Clearly, she had roughly equal to what Glimmer was using. And that's kind of terrifying, because at least Twilight is on our side. Newly reformed Glimmer I am not so certain about.
3576531
It's a betrayal to her, doesn't matter if it actually is or isn't. Doesn't matter how old she is, either, she's older than five, which was my point. :B
Starlight was dodging. None of Twi's opponents have tried that so far.
3578250 Granted, but maneuvering yourself in a 3d space while having the presence of mind to fire back and somehow not running out of power and falling to your death speaks of a LOT of magic and control.
3578306
I'd argue that that takes a lot of skill, which takes a fair bit of practice, but we haven't seen her all season, and she must've been doing something.
Further, I'm guessing that she's not actually levitating herself. She's probably using that wing-spell Twilight cast on Rarity that one time, then using illusion magic to make the wings invisible and give herself the characteristic levitation-glow. Maybe she even got somepony else to cast those on her before she came a knockin' on Twilight's door.
Plus, remember for her the fights are non-contiguous. It's a fresh version of her every time Twilight pops in. Twilight's burning magic every time, not to mention what she's having to use to survive the diverse hellworlds of the present.
3578317 Well, no. Starlight is moving in the same spacetime as Twilight. After all, Starlight is trying different ways to avoid that race, if it was just her coming back at the same time every time, she would be trying the same tactic. And that self-levitation is totally doible. After all, Pumpkin did it as a baby.
Oh, Starlight being able to match Twilight? That's easy!
Remember that Starlight had access to Starswirl the Bearded's original scroll for the time-traveling spell. Who's to say she didn't get more than just that one scroll? Recall also that this is the same Starswirl the Bearded who had the spell that turned Twilight into an alicorn. If that spell was indeed Starswirl's, and part of the alicornification process is increasing raw magical ability/improving upon what is already there, then most likely what happened is that Starlight Glimmer found Starswirl's notes or the preliminary step that dealt with magical power, and applied that to herself.
In that way, she could have easily used the secrets to exercising more efficient control over her magic/increasing her mana pool to match Twilight's power, and simultaneously use magic to levitate herself through the air while engaging in combat. Hell, she could have even used the time-traveling scroll to go all the way back to the past, find Starswirl the Bearded's notes from his own timeline, and make a copy of those for herself without anyone noticing a thing!
Don't forget that Starlight only matched Twilight, though -- she didn't outright overpower or outmatch her, like Trixie, Chrysalis, Discord, Sombra, and other villains did. She was visibly suffering from exhaustion at the same rate as Twilight from weaving so many spells at once in a short period of time. Plus, it's also possible that Starlight simply has more experience with survival and combat, better reflexes, and a body in better shape than Twilight does, by sheer virtue of her having the chops to build a successful town out in the middle of the desert and, I assume, fighting off the unnamed horrors that may have harried her band before (she did show considerable talent with Destruction magic, after all, and she needed a reason to know that).
Overall, Starlight matching Twilight? Yeah, I buy it. Now if she overpowered her, I would be calling total, utter BS.
3578393 Fine reasons, certainly. Too bad the show gave us none..
Or maybe it simply doesn't even matter and nobody should bother to say anything at all, positive or negative.
...
I'm sorry, personal hang-ups are harder to get over than one would think.
3585074 Perhaps. These are merely my opinions. Except for the math. That's more me trying to make sense of a world that refuses to explain itself. But I won't claim it's accurate, merely better than what the show offers us.
3585104 Well even so, nothing that happens makes any difference to me regardless of episode or season. And that's pretty much it.
I don't mind the idea that Starlight Glimmer is comparable in power to Twilight; Sunset Shimmer is also a very powerful pony, as is Shining Armor.
Also, let's face it - Twilight has never studied battle magic.
I think the larger problem was all the missed opportunities.
3586483 It's not so much that I mind the idea. It's that we're offered no explanation why a unicorn is that powerful. It just is, and I'm expected to somehow buy this despite earlier evidence to the contrary.
3586492
To be fair, Twilight was a bloody powerful unicorn herself. It was never clear how much of a power boost Twilight got from becoming an alicorn, if it indeed linearly increased her unicorn abilities at all - it may simply be that alicorns get all three kinds of magic, plus their unique alicorn magic, which makes them more powerful, but not linearly so, and their overall original power level in their original form remains static. There's some evidence of this from Cadance - from what we can tell, Twilight may actually be a more powerful flyer than her sister-in-law, despite the fact that Cadance was a pegasus to begin with.
Subtract all that magic from her system and you get an even match between her and Starlight! Why is this fandom hit and whipped with the clueless stick???
3882528 The point of that was to demonstrate that Starlight has a lot more power than your average unicorn. Too much to be an unknown in the middle of nowhere running a cult. Twilight is an unusually powerful unicorn, she shouldn't be matched by just anypony. I mean, if Starlight had found the alicorn amulet, then I buy she can throw down with Twilight. Failing that, I am left with the idea that this massively talented and powerful unicorn just exists, and noone has noticed ponies missing from various towns around Equestria. Because that's what was happening, ponies followed Starlight, got brainwashed, and had their cutiemarks taken.