Ontology talk:9k/RD/Q56,84

Main entry

5684. Q5684/Q56,84Starlight Glimmer (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)
5684. Q5684/Q56,84Starlight Glimmer -> you may put this character in red for Alternate Universe scenarios only

Motifs

618. Q618/Q618Starlight Glimmer and competition over magic / Starlight Glimmer and Sunburst going to magic school (generic)
618. Q618/Q618psychological wound monomyth (fiction) [1] -> the motif of antagonist characters becoming "villains" due to personal psychological wounds.
     saw this in a video but I can agree with this assessment too.

Subjective themes

618. Q618/Q618Starlight Glimmer was created as a narrative replacement for Sunset Shimmer [2] -> yeah, I can believe that.
618. Q618/Q618Starlight Glimmer is similar to the Argentinian dictatorship because she tried to eradicate identities / Starlight Glimmer is similar to the discourse that tries to suppress identities [3] -> I hate that I know just enough about Foucault to know that although "discourse" came from an automatic translation it's probably exactly the correct word for the argument being made
618. Q618/Q618Suppressing art that doesn't fit in with the official narrative makes societies easier to control; this is to imply that art defends people's rights [4] / They don't need to kill you if they strip you of everything that makes you powerful [5] -> okay, first of all, I have to halfway give you this one because it was quite literally in the Kirin episode if not in this one. so, well done on that.
     second of all... really? like. if art is such a powerful tool of resistance, why is Liberal-republicanism needed? if all it takes to defeat Undemocracy is to "make the reactionaries angry by making art" then what exactly are laws and cops and Congress for? if you're going to claim they don't protect anyone, then that might be technically true, but like, why does anyone vote if making art reaches several people and should logically be far more powerful than any single vote can be? you can't explain why anyone ever shows up to vote with a statement like this.
     why was it a bunch of tired bureaucrats with no principles that defeated Stalin and restored capitalism, if art and media are so powerful?
618. Q618/Q618Having a unique talent makes ponies irreplaceable [6] -> so, the cutie mark crusaders are disposable then? this has some very dark implications.
618. Q618/Q618The series never explained how Starlight's artifact can take away cutie marks; at other times magic has been unable to change cutie marks -> interesting thought.
618. Q618/Q618Starlight Glimmer maintaining a grudge against Sunburst for decades is unbelievable unless Starlight's ability for psychological growth and learning is broken [7] -> well... if you ask me, this is the moment the narrative ceases to make internal sense because the characters have become metaphors. so it's a great catch to notice it but not for the reason you think.
618. Q618/Q618If Starlight Glimmer is an "original" replacement for Sunset Shimmer, then Starlight Glimmer's narrative (narrative structure analysis; not her character development) demonstrates that uniqueness and originality for the sake of originality easily create poor results -> I've thought about Starlight Glimmer's story from so many different angles, and like, from every angle it fails. it's a horrible portrayal of regimes that promise "equality" that at the moment they show the village having terrible food and clothing comes off as a weird microaggression against all Third World countries. it doesn't make any narrative sense why "individuality" is what solves the problem in particular and not "numbers" or "teamwork"; whenever Twilight teams up with her friends you can argue it's teamwork and being something other than an individual as much as it is uniqueness. and if Starlight is a quick attempt to throw together a new character, it's arguable all the things about the arc that don't make any sense actually undermine the arc's stated message, because although Starlight was born of "individuality" and "uniqueness" that she goes on to deny in the story, it was also on the level of individuality and uniqueness that she failed, perhaps amply explaining why she doesn't like those things. the story tries to force her to do something she's not good at, so of course she isn't happy about it and tries to find some kind of shortcut out of what's otherwise a weirdly tortured existence in such a bright and welcoming fantasy world. Starlight's whole existence is like the episode where the main characters' cutie marks get mixed up. she could have been a good character, even without the silly fantasy-USSR nonsense I think is really funny to throw onto her for the hell of it, and yet she fails on every level. like. you know what would have made starlight stand out. if she didn't even have a cutie mark at the end of the episode, she is a grown mare and doesn't have one and she's using the equals sign to hide it. make the starlight doll without a cutie mark and with an optional equals sign sticker so people would see it and be like what the heck is wrong with this one why doesn't it have a mark, then they get sucked into the show and all its lore. that would have been the way to really nail Starlight's first two episodes if you ask me. the problem of Starlight "having no reason to still be angry" would be fixed then, because the problem is still there! also imagine the CMC finding Starlight and thinking she's a complete loser because they ultimately handled the same thing better. I love the fact Starlight starts out a failure who has no idea what she's talking about and I would never change that

Ideologies, fields, or genres

618. Q618/Q618Fy (pronounced F.Y.) / dystopian fiction
618. Q618/Q618ES (pronounced E-S) / anticommunist fables
618. Q618/Q618Aa (pronounced A.A.) / psychoanalysis in fiction