@MegaAnimationFan
 
Allow me to add my 2 cents on this drama.
 
Number 1: I do think some, not all, but some of the hate directed towards Starlight is completely and utterly irrational. look at the comments section on EQD about the episode synopsis and you’ll know exactly why i said this. A lot of immaturity when it comes to this. I do think Starlight is both a good villain, and a good character in general. I think some need to realize is that Something as simple as a friend abandoning you in your childhood could have a big negative affect growing up. The trauma can carry on into adulthood and some times the rest of your life. I can see why Glimmer did what she did
 
Number 2: To me, Starlight is still a “Reformed” character. reformed and redemption are two different things, she hasn’t had her redemption yet. I think the Season 6 finale will confirm her redemption, Think of her as Sunset Shimmer in the earlier scenes of Rainbow Rocks.
 
Number 3: Why is it so bad to go against the status quo when it comes to a season finale for this show? The Mane 6 are taking a backseat, So equestiras mane 6 hero’s aren’t allowed to have others help them when they’re the ones in danger? Seeing other ponies step up and save them is so wrong? “Oh but Starlight is the main focus and Twilight isn’t” So? We still have a month and a half left before the finale. You don’t know what’s going to happen. Go and call DHX if you’re that desperate to know what happened or what’s going to happen. All in all. It really does feel like people are losing their appreciation for the series. Every episode just brings out more negativity and more unneeded drama. Again, go to the EQD post about the Season 6 finale episode synopsis and you’ll see why. And no, i do not think Season 6 is a bad season.

@Spinny  
Honestly, i don’t think Season 6 is as bad as people say it is.

@Spinny  

 
That’s a completely subjective statement. This show hasn’t begun to go downhill. Yeah there are some flubs here and there, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. And besides, the characters have had lessons relearned before season six. This show’s not perfect after all. And besides, the show will end soon. It won’t be season 7, but probably season 8. 9 at the latest.

@Spinny  
I can agree in some aspects: Season Six has in my opinion the biggest amount of “meh” episodes than any other season, but we also had fantastic and innovative stories, like: “The Saddle Row Review”, “Gauntlet of Fire”, “A Hearth’s Warming Tail”, etc. The only thing that I can’t understand is: why are we having so many new writers? I guess there’s something there that relates to all these “worring thing”.
 
Anyway, it’s all about opinions, I always try to be positive and wait until I could see the final result. If there’s a Season 7, there we can judge more correctly the quality of the series. I feel like it’s hard sometimes to try to pull apart “negativity” and “criticism”. When I finish to watch an episode I ask to myself: have I enjoyed it? If yes: the episode was good enough.
 
^{Edit: Remember the lesson of “Stranger than Fan Fiction”?
 
“Quibble Pants: Wait, hold on. Before we get in another fight, I-I think I finally figured it out! I love the Daring Do that solves puzzles and uses her brain to get out of tough situations, and she did way more of that in the original trilogy! You love the Daring Do that is brave and awesome and comes out on top no matter what the odds!
 
Rainbow Dash: Okay…?
 
Quibble Pants: And that’s okay! We might never agree on what makes Daring Do cool, but you… are definitely cool. I-I mean, the way you saved me on the bridge? Wow! And escaping from the temple… you, Rainbow Dash, are awesome.”}

@Spinny  
How sad.

@TheAnonShy
 
In my opinion, season 6 has not been that good, and it’s definitely showing the signs that the formula is growing stale. Aside from Fluttershy, I don’t think that the mane six have gotten much development this season, and instead, they seem to be re-learning the same lessons they’ve learned before. That’s obviously a problem. I think we’re definitely approaching the time where it’ll be better to end the show than let it continue on until it becomes Spongebob, and I’m definitely hoping that season 7 will be the “farewell” season.
 
Basically, what I’m saying is that I think there’s negativity because people have realized that the show is beginning to go downhill.

@TheAnonShy  
I know. It’s sad really……

@MegaAnimationFan  
Just wanted to put as example how initially the fandom showed that they were “the most respectful” and the irony of how it is today. I think that this tends to happen to all the fandoms in a certain moment of its life; people starts to worry too much because we reached the sixth season, don’t want this show to evolve to something like The Simpsons or The Fairly Odd Parents, and this is a clearly demostration of how we appreciate these little colorful ponies, but the negativity keeps increasing when a new season arrives.

@Jarkes
 
@Background Pony #BAF5  
And here I thought I’d get hate for ranting like that. Thanks!
 
@Spinny  
In all honesty, Starlight was more of a sociopath than a psychopath. And her intention wasn’t to kill Twilight. It was just to ruin her life like how Twilight (albeit inadvertently) did to her. Killing Twilight wouldn’t really do anything on Starlight’s part. And she didn’t intend to destroy Equestria, she had no idea what she was doing was affecting the world nor did she believe it because she had no idea how much Twilight and her friends impact Equestria in such an important way (with little knowledge of her, would you believe it?). But at least you’re being somewhat fair, which is more than I can say about all the other haters.
 
@TheAnonShy  
Oh, I know that term is practically dead this time around. Why do you think I ranted like that? I’m starting to get really tired of this fandom’s crap now after three years since I joined….  
At least it’s not the entire fandom who’s like this.

@LeoNero  
Oh, I’m sure there was a lot of loud complaining after that finale, same as after every episode airs.
 
I was just too in shock from the loss of Twilight’s tree library, and the appearance of the rainbow friendship castle to care much about what else was going on at the time.
 
Since the only other appearance of Rainbow Power was in Luna’s dreams/nightmares I’m gonna assume its a one time thing until proven otherwise.

@MegaAnimationFan
 
I think I have the potential to like Starlight. It’s just I feel she has not been handled well. Let’s face it, her joining the cast came completely out of the blue and was probably the last thing most people expected. Starlight is (or at least was) a freaking psychopath. She legitimately attempted to kill Twilight and she laser-blasted a filly, for crying out loud! And now, within the same episode, she’s joining the mane six, who after only one song, have apparently completely forgiven her and now trust her unquestionably?
 
That could not have been expected to go well, and so it really shouldn’t have been any big surprise that Starlight has not won everyone over.
 
To the show’s credit, at least Starlight hasn’t been shoved down our throats all season since she’s only made a few appearances, but now she’s getting the bulk of the focus in two two-parters in a row. This is especially troubling when you consider that the Remane five have not had much of a presence in two-parters lately, and it legitimately feels that she’s stripping them of any opportunity to shine.
 
It’s just too much, too soon, I guess. I think the writers expected us to like her far too quickly, and again, it wasn’t that long ago when she was attempting to kill Twilight and devastate Equestria. What’s more, during her brief time on the show, Starlight has only really interacted with Twilight and Spike. At this point, she doesn’t really feel like a friend to the Remane five, so if they attempt to use this finale as the point where she officially joins the cast, I don’t think like it’s going to feel genuine. The mane six are as close as family, but they’re not going to have that sort of relationship with Starlight.
 
So yeah, that’s my reasoning. That being said, I’d choose Starlight over Sunset if I had to pick one.

@MegaAnimationFan  
Do you remember in 2010-2013 the whole thing of the Brony fandom “Love and Tolerate”? Through the years that phrase practically went to the trash and we only have a bunch of negativity for “new and different things”, like the Starlight’s case. People usually say that her reason of start a pseudo-communist town was stupid, and I’m sure that them doesn’t know that the minimum of things when we are kids can translate into a big trauma. People is not giving her a chance to show her best, to develop herself to surpass what she always had in mind; her fears.
 
I don’t think that the hate of Starlight can be justified, because she even didn’t affected the show’s direction more than being a recurring character and the pupil of Twilight, which in fact —in my opinion— it’s something good to keep developing our favourite book horse.
 
We have to keep seeing what happens to her! In two weeks we are going to have the episode “Every Little Thing She Does”, which sounds interesting. If there’s something that I have learned in MLP, is that we have to keep watching to judge the final results, as most of us thought initially that this show was childish like the old ones.
 
People likes to be closed minded, it’s only that.

@MegaAnimationFan
 
Very nice…

@LeoNero  
Rest assured that there were.
 
The lasers might have been obscuring them.

@Background Pony #6051  
Are you sure about that? I honestly don’t remember anybody complaining and moaning about the Season 4 finale. To me it was the best Season finales of the series. I didn’t see any divide after that.

@FrzGT  
You must be new here.
 
This has happened in every season finale since season 3.
 
The rage-filled critic haters spill woefully stubborn insists that the finale is good, they end up being half assed and the fandom is split or feels negative majority wise, the critic haters say all sorts of nonsense on how the people who don’t like it should ‘leave’, as if there isn’t plenty to love remaining in the show, and spread more hate and alienation then the critics ever do.
 
Every year.
 
And now, we have a character who’s majority of growth and acceptance was skipped, and those people expect fans who enjoy high quality parts of the show to praise it or ‘leave’.
 
It’s disgusting. I’m not saying it’s an absolute it will be bad, but the track record for half assed two parters is HUGE. If it doesn’t cause a split in who likes it, more power to it. It’s just incredibly unlikely considering the premise. Maybe the other characters will rise up and surprise us, who knows.

@MegaAnimationFan  
Couldn’t say it better myself. Pretty much my thoughts exactly, I can’t give you an upvote, so take this instead, you deserved it  

@MegaAnimationFan
 
This is why we need an upvote comment feature.

@Vinyl Fluff  
And Sunset’s motivation can be summed up in: “Oh, I’m not ready for this yet Celestia? Screw you then! I’m gonna run away from home!”. At least Starlight was very young when that happened and can easily misinterpret anything that happens. Sunset was older and new better. She even said in the second movie that deep down she knew she was making a mistake. If that’s the case, what she did was wrong, she knew it was wrong, but she did it anyway. Starlight thought she was doing some good because in her experience, cutie marks can two of the closest friends apart.
 
Also, remember Bloom and Gloom? How it dived into the Applebloom’s psyche all the bad things she thought would happen when she got her cutie mark. Hell, that ominous voice said: “Sounds to me that cutie marks and trouble are two peas in the same pod”. And it turned out that all that was a never ending dream and that spooky voice was a part of her mind that was saying all of this. The only way the fears were soothed was when Luna came in. There was no Luna when Starlight was a kid. So it lead her down a dark path. It took a long time, but it happened. It took Twilight, Princess of friendship, to tell her how it really is. And by the look on Starlight’s face, it was all sinking in deep like it was the first time anyone has said any of that to her. Also, you gotta remember, the whole school didn’t trust Sunset because they where all directly involved in her crap. All except the five main girls. And from what we’ve seen, only four ponies in that village forgave Starlight. But what about the rest of the town? It’s probably the same thing. No one trusts her, which is probably why we never see her go back there after the season 5 finale. And all of ponyvile doesn’t count, because they didn’t know about her.
 
I just don’t get why you all don’t even want to give her a chance to redeem herself and prove herself to be a better person (or rather, pony). In fact, why are ANY of us even having this discussion/debate?! We are all comparing a series of movies to only a season of a TV show. Now tell me, does that sound the least bit fair, especially considering Sunset is basically a main character and Starlight is only a reoccurring character who is in only a handful of episodes? Of course Sunset has had more development. Movie’s have to do stuff like that effectively in a short amount of time. In a TV series you have more wiggle room and time to develop characters. But probably not as much because, like I said, Starlight’s not a main character. Hell, even if I shared the haters opinions (God forbid) I’d still be saying all of this!  
The only conclusion I can come up with is that the haters just don’t want to like Starlight and will deny ANY good in her. And I’m sorry, but that is easily one of the most stupid, petty things I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness. Especially since we’ve forgiven (and love) characters who’ve intentionally done worse things for lesser reasons.

Finally something good is happening for Season 6. Time for Starlight’s time to shine. Don’t care about all the crying people will be doing, Glimmer is going to finally have her shining moment.

Sticking something into what he hates is really painful. I’m really sorry for Murrison.
 
Or something. I mean he can leave but choose to not and behold the crutch for years.

@Jarkes  
Murrison needs professional mental help.

@thatguy  

 
How did I not? It’s not as if it wasn’t shown in the show. Sunburst got his cutie mark. For whatever reason this was enough to get him into Celestia’s school. Starlight thinks he’s lost to her forever, and she’s lost her only friend. This makes her decide that cutie marks are terrible things, and sets her out on her path to eliminate them.
 
Then when Twilight confronts her about it, she acts as if she could never make another friend.
 
Yes, I shortened it down for humor in that quote. I’m going on the basis that we’re all pretty familiar with the show itself and what happened in it, here.

@Vinyl Fluff  

 
Putting aside how ridiculous it is to reduce a complex matter to something so simple, you didn’t even accurately represent it…