Sorry this took so long, and for the not so great quality of writitng. I had a lot of difficulty writing this out and I think it shows.
Rarity
Rarity has always been one of the more flawed characters in the shows line-up. Despite being the Element of Generosity she is one of the more selfish and greedy characters on the show, and has let her ego and vanity go to her head on more than one occasion. Despite that she has demonstrated that she can be very mature and recognizes her own missteps and tries to correct them. More so then others she comes across as genuinely multi-layered, complex and, for lack of a better term, realistic (well most of the time). It has made her popular (and unpopular) with the fandom, and I generally agree with those sentiments, but at the same time when I look at all of Rarity’s appearances since the beginning of the show to now it seems to me that Rarity, while having some development, has primarily remained static, and in the case of the most recent season has even appeared to have gone backwards to an extent. Like other characters I’ve discussed we can probably chalk this up mostly to varies meta-reasons (humor is most the most obvious, lack of recent starring roles is another), but before we get to that lets look at what
In the beginning Rarity, like much of the Mane Six, was rather easy to pigeon hole into the role of “vain fashionista” and proved to be fairly unpopular initially. It also didn’t help that her “element” was not really an obvious aspect of her personality and was even contradicted by her later greedy behavior. However when we get to “Suited for Success” we finally get a chance to not only get a chance to see her act genuinely generous to her friends, but we actually get to empathize with Rarity’s goals and appreciate just how much effort she has to pours into her chosen profession. As we got further into season one she quickly became one of the more rounded members of the cast; showing empathy in situations no one else likely would have though still getting caught up in her new found attention and fame (Sonic Rainboom), she was able to handle herself in a dire situation (A Dog and Pony Show), and was able to put aside her own jealousy to help her friend (Green Isn’t Your Color). Despite all of that she still remained one of the more flawed members of the group, which would be further explored in season two.
In her first starring appearance in season two we get to see that she is not exactly the best big sister in the world. To be frank I’m not exactly sure why Sweetie Bell looks up to Rarity so much and wants her approval/attention what have you, but what I am sure of is that Rarity would rather not have to deal with her little sister, primarily because of the damage she had wrought. When she did go to make up with her sister we got to see one of the more interesting aspects of her generosity. While Rarity is willing to help others she really doesn’t take into consideration what another pony would really need or want, she just offers whatever she would want or feel that they need. It’s an important lesson in how just because you are willing to contribute your personal hobbies to a situation doesn’t mean you are actually being helpful. Thankfully Rarity picks up on this pretty quickly and took a big step forward into being a better big sister, and being genuinely generous . . . at least for now.
Sweet and Elite is Rarity’s last major episode and one that could have very easily made Rarity as unsympathetic and shallow as some may have stereotyped her as, but ultimately worked out to be one of her more interesting episodes. I think it would not have worked nearly as well if Rarity’s character hadn’t been so thoroughly established at this point. It has been her dream to live the high and sophisticated life, and despite how discriminating the other high class ponies could be she still enjoyed and wanted to participate in that lifestyle. While it is very easy to argue about how it was wrong of her to lie and demonstrate such little faith in her friends with her dreams, it should be noted that the last time she involved all of her friends in her work they very nearly destroyed her career, and in fact almost did it again in this episode if it weren’t for Fancy Pants. It was not an easy position for her to be in, and while it did work out in the end I’m not sure if her friends ever realized what they had almost done . . . again.
After all of this Rarity gets a few minor roles in a couple of episodes, her largest being the next episode where she seems to gets a fire ruby from Spike that her originally planned to eat (whether she tricked him out of it or not is up to interpretation) and showers him with praise and adoration and seems to acknowledge his crush. Most of her other appearances however are pretty focused on the humor of her vanity and in the case of season three she seems to come across as more selfish and vain then she has before. I’m not really sure if I can give any real in universe reasons as to why she has become this way, but it does highlight how despite being a fairly well rounded character she hasn’t exactly changed a whole lot since the beginning of the series. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, a character does not necessarily need to be dynamic to be good and she has already proven to be fairly mature and aware of her failings. At the same time we really haven’t seem much of that aspect of her personality this season. Hopefully this coming season will see that resolved.
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