@Background Pony #64D7  

who? Starlight? She wanted power for selfish reason, but never for its own sake. In fact, she was the only borderline suicidal villain who was willing to be stuck in infinite loop with Twilight just to prevent the Mane6 from happening and thus deny Twilight friendship.
 
Power for power’s sake would be Tirek and on a much smaller scale, Sunset (especially if you’re counting the IDW backstory)

@genervt  
There’s a difference between ‘Not being a good person’ and dancing close to the moral event horizon. And she was riding the razor’s edge of being right in the same class of villains as Sombra, Tirek and The Storm King. Considering her motives are centered around gaining power for its own sake.

@Background Pony #64D7  
I never said she was good person before; she just still had some standards and was no monster that was willing to commit murder.  
And when she was purified she was horrified about what she had become and almost had done.  
She regretted it deeply and was more than grateful for her second chance.
 
Sorry, but I don´t consider that forced.

@genervt  
Lets be serious, there was enough jealousy, anger and self centered ambition in Sunset well before she put on the crown. Much like Trixie when she was pursuing the Alicorn Amulet, both had bad intentions and were acting villainous before wielding the artifacts. They just went from bad ponies to outright evil ones. And how she goes from cackling and throwing bolts of magic gleefully, one moment to sobbing her head off the next just feels completely forced. There’s no transition, just poof. And the Sunset fans revolve everything around ‘Well she wouldn’t hurt a dog’ when there was absolutely no other signs of reconsideration or remorse up until her defeat.
 
Sometimes I suspect the power of the tree of harmony removes part or all of who they ( Sunset and Luna, but flat out destroyed the mean six ) are and absorbs that portion of them as power for itself. That might have been the fate of the student six if they had not passed the tree’s test. Kinda like some lobotomy of one’s spirit or nature.

Because Cozy didn’t apologize  
Apologizing makes everything okay in MLP

@Crimson Prose  

 
She was not terrified of being sent to Tartarus.  
However she was guilt-ridden because of her past deeds.
 

 
Sunset was corrupted when she put on the crown with anger and jealousy, so she became a demon who was willing to commit murder.
 
Afterwards she realized that she went way too far, was appalled of what she had become (she was not willing to hurt a puppy before her corruption) and regretted everything what she had done.

@Crimson Prose  
Don’t make the mistake of ignoring Our Town. Starlight did more than try to break up some friendships, and by the way, that included shooting a little girl out of the sky.

Saying that Starlight is guilty of trying to destroy all realities is like saying someone that tried to break you up with your best friend for spite is a bad as a genocidal maniac. How do so many people miss the fact that Starlight wasn’t aware what it was causing? Starlight could have easily beaten Twilight, but chose not to because she realized what it would cause. I don’t even see it as a redemption, more of a “This isn’t worth it” moment, after which she cooperated probably only for fear of something like being sent to Tartarus. Of course she DID cooperate. If Cozy was smart, she would have lied and said she wanted to change too.
 
It’s just like Discord. He pretended to be redeemed at first to keep from getting turned back into stone and only actually became redeemed after he got to know the ponies (or Fluttershy at least).
 
The only redeemed villain I can think of that changed on the flip of a coin for no reason is Sunset. Luna was only evil because of a possession, same with whats-his-name that was in the Pony of Shadows, so both of their instant reformations made sense. Same with Midnight Sparkle and whats-her-face the vine lady from EQ# 17 or whatever.

@Background Pony #8F54  
dont compare a finger to a dick

@Background Pony #A266  
Yeah, some of them occasionally shoot up schools, #JustKidsThings.

@Background Pony #64D7  
Oooh. You’re a mind-reader then. Good to know.

@tehwatever  
Baseless? If I had a dollar every time Shimmer fans portrayed Starlight as a badly written carbon copy of Sunset Shimmer, I’d have enough money to take the rest of the year off.
 
In fact, whenever I see ‘badly written’ used in the argument, I know the true colors behind any poster or commenter.
 
And throwing random sneak jabs at Starlight by using other ponies as proxy is exactly what I expect them to do.
 
I could spend all day sending evidence of this from images to comments and discussions, so you must really enjoy turning a blind eye to this kind of stuff just to whitewash the issue.

@TheMultiBrony21
 
Exactly.  
I don’t think she will be redeemed.

@tehwatever
 
And it’s not like Twilight ever had the best track record as a warrior, mind you. Being a skilled adversary like Starlight is, and having some good power to back it up works wonders.
 
IMO, it’s worth pointing out that Starlight hasn’t ever actually penetrated one of Twilight’s shields, whether it was in Cutie Map (after she blocked it, Starlight just retreated), Cutie Re-Mark, or ELTSD.
 
 
@tehwatever
 
Yeah, a magic duel would be great to see. And Celestia could even pull a “that wasn’t even my full power”, just like an anime, lol.

@Starswirl  
Both Twilight and Starlight are pretty much leaving everyone else in the dust at this point. I get the feeling they’re the Goku / Vegeta duo of the series currently. Well, I personally don’t mind.

I believe this could happen. Twilight’s already an Alicorn AND she’s a prodigy. It’s implied that Twilight could actually reach Celestia level. And wherever Twilight goes, Starlight goes.
 
I want one episode or a short quick animation, ONE, where we see the Twilight and Starlight duo going toe to toe with THE Royal Sisters, like some kind of anime “Show me the results of your training” moment.

@tehwatever  
On the other hoof, the same introductory episodes showed Twilight having a massive advantage when she copied Starlight’s shield spell and Starlight complained it had taken her years to learn that spell. Yes, the Cutie Mark removing-move was powerful, but it felt like that—one move. One she used in an ambush because it’s a trick that will only work on the Elements once and it had to stick.
 
Do note when I say “the heroes” I mean all of them taken together. Later Starlight Glimmer was written to be more and more and more powerful, to the point where I wouldn’t have been shocked for her to be stronger than Celestia and Luna put together.

@Starswirl  
Nhop. BP was probably making a bunch of baseless assumptions.
 
@Starswirl  

that’s funny because her manipulating CUTIE MARKS already implied the level of power she has. Only Twilight managed to do that stunt back in S3. So already from the get go; from her name, her being a unicorn AND ability to remove CMs, they all indicate to her power level.
 
She WAS already stronger than most of the Mane6 except maybe for RD and Twilight.
 
But you’re right about using guile and tactics. Starlight still had to plan an ambush attack and kept putting Twilight at a serious disadvantage just to bridge the gap between her and Alicorn Twilight.
 
Yes, I actually did like Commie / Time Traveler Starlight a lot for being a great villain.

@tehwatever  
To be fair, I liked that version of Starlight a lot. When she was similar to Cozy Glow, including using guile instead of simply being straight-up more powerful than the heroes. And as with Cozy, I was open to hearing about her background. I just didn’t find what we got all that convincing or well-written.
 
Contrast that to Sombra, who had little to no personality in the show but the comics gave him a great backstory; and Stygian, who had a great backstory, but the redemption was botched because he never showed any regret for any of his actions other than how they affected him.
 
@tehwatever  
Did anypony even mention Sunset before BP did? Sounds like a conspiracy theory, more like.

@Background Pony #64D7  
…I would think better of Shimmer fans. I don’t think they be the kind to just throw random sneak jabs at Starlight by using other ponies as proxy, or rub their favorite ponies’s obvious superiority on the collective face of Starlight’s fans.
 
They’re fans of Sunset Shimmer ffs. SUNSET “The nicest, kindest, best, perfectly written to be your ideal waifu” SHIMMER.

@Starswirl  
Oh, ok. Because even if I knew Starlight was an obvious liar, I still found her somewhat sympathetic from the way she carried herself. Had a great song, had a unique theme and even the ideology which she didn’t really believe in, actually posed a legitimate question to the cutie mark system.
 
She gave the fake image of a benevolent cultist and that image is what I found to be sympathetic. Commie Starlight is beloved even today for a reason. Granted, commie Starlight is more of a meme than anything, but still.

@tehwatever  
This picture and several others feel more like Shimmer fans using Cozy Glow as an excuse for Saber Rattling than a random troll post, especially with how certain people were quick on jump on that bandwagon.

@tehwatever  
Well, I can’t say I share this opinion. When I first saw Starlight Glimmer, she seemed to me like a complete, bold-faced liar who, deep down, neither bought into nor truly cared for her ideology, using it merely to gain power over others. So, pretty much exactly like Cozy Glow.

@Background Pony #A266  
You missed the paragraph where I said that I love Cozy Glow for being an entertaining villain.
 
I’m just pointing out that even Equalist Starlight is a lot more sympathetic than Crazy Cozy.
 
I think username Starswirl’s argument, which says that we find Starlight to be more sympathetic than Cozy only because we know nothing of Cozy, is incorrect.
 
Taken without context, where we know nothing of both ponies, Season 5 premiere Starlight gets more sympathy than Season 8 finale Cozy by virtue of the way they presented themselves to the audience.

An  
+unforgivable  
irredeemable  
absolutely evil+  
child in a  
children’s cartoon.  
How unusual.

@tehwatever
 
i guess you dont like it when villains are actually evil? Come on, it would be too boring