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* SlouchOfVillainy: [[spoiler:In "The Cutie Remark", she's sitting on Twilight's throne this way when Starlight directly confronts her.]]
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* SlouchOfVillainy: [[spoiler:In "The Cutie Remark", she's sitting on Twilight's Fluttershy's throne this way when Starlight directly confronts her.]]
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* MotiveRant: On two separate occasions, to boot -- the first when Fluttershy reveals to the town that she [[spoiler:still has her cutie mark in spite of her claims that they're evil]] and the second is when she's cornered near the end, and is accompanied by a blast of magic.
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* MotiveRant: On two separate occasions, to boot -- the first when Fluttershy reveals to the town that she [[spoiler:still has her cutie mark in spite of her claims that they're evil]] and the second is when she's cornered near the end, and is accompanied by a blast of magic. She gets a third when [[spoiler:Twilight shows her the end result of messing with the time stream.]]
* StartOfDarkness: [[spoiler:Her best friend, Sunburst, saved her from books falling on top of her, his magic unlocking his Cutie Mark. When he showed everyone else, everyone was thrilled save Starlight, who felt abandoned. Through this, she came to the realization that Cutie Marks and differences will always ruin friendships.]]
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-->'''Starlight:''' I brought you friendship! I brought you equality! I created '''harmony!'''
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** It gets worse when [[spoiler:Twilight shows her the end result of trying to mess with time itself.]] She goes into another MotiveRant and shows Twilight her StartOfDarkness, and it keeps getting worse until Twilight offers her hand in friendship.
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Starlight Glimmer is the leader of a town in which all the ponies have given up their cutie marks for equal signs. She's has a different idea of "friendship" from Twilight; differences breed jealousy and disagreement that can damage friendships, thus everypony must be "equal" to everypony else in order to be friends. That means giving up your cutie mark so everyone has no special talents or conflicting opinions. [[spoiler:After trying to alter the timeline in revenge for ruining her village, she is convinced to finally stand down and becomes the newest member of the Mane Six, effectively taking Twilight's old spot as Unicorn.]]
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Starlight Glimmer is the leader of a town in which all the ponies have given up their cutie marks for equal signs. She's She has a different idea of "friendship" from Twilight; differences breed jealousy and disagreement that can damage friendships, thus everypony must be "equal" to everypony else in order to be friends. That means giving up your cutie mark so everyone has no special talents or conflicting opinions. [[spoiler:After trying to alter the timeline in revenge for ruining her village, she is convinced to finally stand down and becomes the newest member of the Mane Six, effectively taking Twilight's old spot as Unicorn.]]
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* NotQuiteFlight: While she can't fly through conventional means, her skill in self-levitation is such that she might as well be able to. Not only can she maintain it for long periods of time effortlessly, and she is very agile in the air while using it.
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* NotQuiteFlight: While she can't fly through conventional means, her skill in self-levitation is such that she might as well be able to. Not only can she maintain it for long periods of time effortlessly, and she is very agile in the air while using it.
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* {{Badass}}: She has access to some pretty powerful magic for a seemingly normal unicorn, managing to overpower ''Twilight'' by catching her off-guard. [[spoiler:The fact that she's developed a spell which can alter cutie marks is particularly impressive, as every other demonstration of such magic was either imperfect (Star Swirl's spell) or has a severe drawback (cutie pox). Her spell can not only remove a cutie mark, but replace it with another that actively dampens the special talent of the victim. When she returns, she's mastered TimeTravel well enough to be able to change the past [[WrongContextMagic (something previously established as impossible)]] and can match Twilight in a head-on magic duel]]
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* {{Badass}}: She has access to some pretty powerful magic for a seemingly normal unicorn, managing to overpower ''Twilight'' by catching her off-guard. [[spoiler:The fact that she's developed a spell which can alter cutie marks is particularly impressive, as every other demonstration of such magic was either imperfect (Star Swirl's spell) or has a severe drawback (cutie pox). Her spell can not only remove a cutie mark, but replace it with another that actively dampens the special talent of the victim. When she returns, she's mastered TimeTravel well enough to be able to change the past [[WrongContextMagic (something previously established as impossible)]] and can match Twilight in a head-on magic duel]]duel]]. Twilight herself acknowledges her as being extremely magically talented.
* NotQuiteFlight: While she can't fly through conventional means, her skill in self-levitation is such that she might as well be able to. Not only can she maintain it for long periods of time effortlessly, and she is very agile in the air while using it.
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* RevengeBeforeReason: [[spoiler:She proves willing to burn Equestria to the ground in order to exact revenge on Twilight, who is barely able to talk her down.]]
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* RevengeBeforeReason: [[spoiler:She proves willing to burn Equestria to the ground in order to exact revenge on Twilight, who is barely able to talk her down.]]
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** IJustWantToHaveFriends: [[spoiler:Her true motive for building the Equality village was because one of her old friends left her after getting his cutie mark.]]
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* TearsOfRemorse: [[spoiler: She shed lots of those during her VillainousBreakdown in the season five finale.]]
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** She seems to have realized this, as she apparently [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind done some level grinding since then]] and got much stronger.
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* VillainForgotToLevelGrind: Subverted, she ''certainly'' did between her first appearance and her second one. [[spoiler:She's now a match for Twilight.]]
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an expy of herself? I assume this is what was meant
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* {{Expy}}: Easily that of Starlight Glimmer in terms of villainous unicorns who clash with Twilight Sparkle. [[spoiler:As of the end of Season 5, she can effectively be an expy of the pre-"Magical Mystery Cure" Twilight, an incredibly powerful unicorn while NoSocialSkills.]]
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* {{Expy}}: Easily that of Starlight Glimmer Sunset Shimmer in terms of villainous unicorns who clash with Twilight Sparkle. [[spoiler:As of the end of Season 5, she can effectively be an expy of the pre-"Magical Mystery Cure" Twilight, an incredibly powerful unicorn while NoSocialSkills.]]
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* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: She's the main-series counterpart to Sunset Shimmer. They're both {{Evil Counterpart}}s to Twilight, as reflected in their names and similar levels of magical talent and knowledge; they're similarly temperamental, (Twilight's specialness seems to strike a BerserkButton in them both), and in the end both are shown the error of their ways and become TheSixthRanger in their respective Mane Casts. An upcoming chapter book has revealed that Starlight will become Twilight's student, just like Sunset now writes "Dear Princess Twilight" letters.
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* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:While her schemes fail, she isn't directly punished. After everypony gets their cutie marks back, she escapes into the caves, as defiant and villainous as she was before. In her second appearance, she is defeated again, but effectively joins the Mane Six instead of being punished]]
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* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:While her schemes fail, she isn't directly punished. After everypony gets their cutie marks back, she escapes into the caves, as defiant and villainous as she was before. In her second appearance, she is defeated again, but effectively joins the Mane Six instead of being punished]]punished, but now has to live with the fact her petty vengeance actually ''did'' destroy Equestria in an alternate future.]]
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Starlight never actually WON those fights, she merely managed to disrupt the race before Twilight could beat her.
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* {{Badass}}: She has access to some pretty powerful magic for a seemingly normal unicorn, managing to overpower ''Twilight'' by catching her off-guard. [[spoiler:The fact that she's developed a spell which can alter cutie marks is particularly impressive, as every other demonstration of such magic was either imperfect (Star Swirl's spell) or has a severe drawback (cutie pox). Her spell can not only remove a cutie mark, but replace it with another that actively dampens the special talent of the victim. When she returns, she's mastered TimeTravel well enough to be able to change the past [[WrongContextMagic (something previously established as impossible)]] and can beat Twilight in a head-on magic duel]]
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* {{Badass}}: She has access to some pretty powerful magic for a seemingly normal unicorn, managing to overpower ''Twilight'' by catching her off-guard. [[spoiler:The fact that she's developed a spell which can alter cutie marks is particularly impressive, as every other demonstration of such magic was either imperfect (Star Swirl's spell) or has a severe drawback (cutie pox). Her spell can not only remove a cutie mark, but replace it with another that actively dampens the special talent of the victim. When she returns, she's mastered TimeTravel well enough to be able to change the past [[WrongContextMagic (something previously established as impossible)]] and can beat match Twilight in a head-on magic duel]]
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Changed line(s) 15 (click to see context) from:
* {{Badass}}: She has access to some pretty powerful magic for a seemingly normal unicorn, managing to overpower ''Twilight'' by catching her off-guard. [[spoiler:The fact that she's developed a spell which can alter cutie marks is particularly impressive, as every other demonstration of such magic was either imperfect (Star Swirl's spell) or has a severe drawback (cutie pox). Her spell can not only remove a cutie mark, but replace it with another that actively dampens the special talent of the victim.]]
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* {{Badass}}: She has access to some pretty powerful magic for a seemingly normal unicorn, managing to overpower ''Twilight'' by catching her off-guard. [[spoiler:The fact that she's developed a spell which can alter cutie marks is particularly impressive, as every other demonstration of such magic was either imperfect (Star Swirl's spell) or has a severe drawback (cutie pox). Her spell can not only remove a cutie mark, but replace it with another that actively dampens the special talent of the victim.]] When she returns, she's mastered TimeTravel well enough to be able to change the past [[WrongContextMagic (something previously established as impossible)]] and can beat Twilight in a head-on magic duel]]
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* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:While her schemes fail, she isn't directly punished. After everypony gets their cutie marks back, she escapes into the caves, as defiant and villainous as she was before.]]
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* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:While her schemes fail, she isn't directly punished. After everypony gets their cutie marks back, she escapes into the caves, as defiant and villainous as she was before.]] In her second appearance, she is defeated again, but effectively joins the Mane Six instead of being punished]]
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* FreudianExcuse: The true reason behind her hatred for Cutie Marks and desire for equality? [[spoiler:Turns out, she and her only childhood friend named Sunburst ended up separated by Sunburst getting his Cutie Mark (he had so much magic potential his parents decided to send him away to Canterlot). Starlight ended up being too scared to try and make new friends for fear that she would lose them too, and eventually she convinced herself that if Cutie Marks didn't exist, friendships would never again be torn apart by differences in special talents]].
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* BlackAndWhiteInsanity: A variation: she believes Cutie Marks are evil and equality is good to such an extreme that she seeks to bring everypony down to being ''below'' average in everything. The insane part is quite clearly shown when anyone trying to outright challenge her worldview is met with near psychotic rage.
* BelievingTheirOwnLies: [[spoiler:Even after she is revealed to be a hypocrite, she still preaches her beliefs, implying that she does believe them on some level.]]
* BelievingTheirOwnLies: [[spoiler:Even after she is revealed to be a hypocrite, she still preaches her beliefs, implying that she does believe them on some level.]]
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* BlackAndWhiteInsanity: A variation: she believes Cutie Marks are evil and equality is good to such an extreme that she seeks to bring everypony down to being ''below'' average in everything.everything [[spoiler:because it was because of Cutie Marks that she lost her first and only friend Sunburst]]. The insane part is quite clearly shown when anyone trying to outright challenge her worldview is met with near psychotic rage.
* BelievingTheirOwnLies: [[spoiler:Even after she is revealed to be a hypocrite, she still preaches her beliefs, implying that she does believe them on some level.]] As it turns out, her FreudianExcuse shows she has ''plenty'' of reason to believe them]].
* BelievingTheirOwnLies: [[spoiler:Even after she is revealed to be a hypocrite, she still preaches her beliefs, implying that she does believe them on some level.
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** Also, in ''The Cutie Re-Mark'', she manages to pull off ''TimeTravel'', something that was stated in ''It's About Time'' to be fundamentally ''impossible''. In addition, ''What About Discord?'' stated that using time travel was [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique extremely dangerous]], something that Starlight doesn't seem to care about just because of her desire for revenge. [[spoiler: Let's see how she reacts once she sees what her revenge against the Mane Six has done to Equestria as a whole...]]
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** Also, in ''The Cutie Re-Mark'', she manages to pull off ''TimeTravel'', something that was stated in ''It's About Time'' to be fundamentally ''impossible''.''impossible'' ([[TakeAThirdOption though she gets around this problem]] by [[AmplifierArtifact linking the spell directly into Twilight's map and by extension the Tree of Harmony itself]]). In addition, ''What About Discord?'' stated that using time travel was [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique extremely dangerous]], something that Starlight doesn't seem to care about just because of her desire for revenge. [[spoiler: Let's see how she reacts once she sees what her revenge against the Mane Six has done to Equestria as a whole...]]
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* AchillesHeel: She can take cutie marks, but they have to be sealed in a container of some kind or they'll just go right back to the pony they were taken from. [[spoiler:This is best shown when she has to go out of her way to keep the jars containing the Mane Six's cutie marks from breaking during the chase, and likely why she never used the spell during it.]]
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* AchillesHeel: She can take cutie marks, but they have to be sealed in a container of some kind or they'll just go right back to the pony they were taken from. [[spoiler:This is best shown when she has to go out of her way to keep the jars containing the Mane Six's cutie marks from breaking during the chase, and likely why she never used the spell during it.it or her battles with Twilight in her return.]]
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* AmbiguousDisorder: She shows signs of a number of disorders, such as OCD, paranoia, and bipolar or some other anger disorder. She has a very... disturbing and extreme obsession with order and equality, to the point of actively fixing another ponies' mane to fit the standard mid song or forcing them into step (in addition to her KnightTemplar level actions to enforce it on others), and there's indication she's paranoid, to the point of keeping a tight, constant watch on the entire town and making new recruits spend the first night in her house where she can keep her eyes on them. She has a ''severe'' distrust of those with different Cutie Marks (to the point her villagers' words imply she refused to get to know them at all while they still had theirs). She also has a particularly [[TheUnsmile unhinged and disturbing smile]] distinct from the forced smiles of the others and when crossed suddenly goes from calm and collected to near psychotic with rage to the point of [[spoiler:attempting to attack her own townspeople simply for turning her own rhetoric back at her]].
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* AmbiguousDisorder: She shows signs of a number of disorders, such as OCD, paranoia, and bipolar or some other anger disorder. She has a very... disturbing and extreme obsession with order and equality, to the point of actively fixing another ponies' mane to fit the standard mid song or forcing them into step (in addition to her KnightTemplar level actions to enforce it on others), and there's indication she's paranoid, to the point of keeping a tight, constant watch on the entire town and making new recruits spend the first night in her house where she can keep her eyes on them. She has a ''severe'' distrust of those with different Cutie Marks (to the point her villagers' words imply she refused to get to know them at all while they still had theirs). She also has a particularly [[TheUnsmile unhinged and disturbing smile]] distinct from the forced smiles of the others and when crossed suddenly goes from calm and collected to near psychotic with rage to the point of [[spoiler:attempting to attack her own townspeople simply for turning her own rhetoric back at her]]. She also shows bursts of extreme rage in her second appearance when enraged.
** More overall, Wrath. Her anger is repeatedly shown to get the better of her judgment, and she seems to have little ability to control it when she's set off. [[spoiler:Twilight just barely talks her down from letting it make the damage her time travel plot caused irreparable.]]
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* [[PersonOfMassDestruction Pony of Mass Destruction]]: Starlight is powerful, no doubt about it and it's one of the main reasons why [[spoiler:The Mane Six make her part of their group of friends.]]
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* [[PersonOfMassDestruction Pony of Mass Destruction]]: Starlight is powerful, no doubt about it and it's one of the main reasons why [[spoiler:The [[spoiler:the Mane Six make her part of their group of friends.]]
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* TheResenter: Her philosophy says that any friendship that isn't equal will eventually lead to at least one of the friends becoming this, and it's implied that part of her motivation comes from resenting others that were somehow more talented than her.
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* TheResenter: Her philosophy says that any friendship that isn't equal will eventually lead to at least one of the friends becoming this, and it's implied that part of her motivation comes from resenting others that were somehow more talented than her. [[spoiler:What she actually resents isn't talent, but genuine friendships that move forward while hers fell apart.]]
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* TheSociopath: She has a nasty combination of paranoia, and this. She's focused on removing the cutie marks of other ponies (their very life's essence) purely to advance her version of a [[KnightTemplar perfect society]], demanding everyone else live by her rules while not following them herself, manipulative, and maintains an outward image of benevolence but won't hesitate to physically hurt or mentally torture dissenters. Most telling, when revealed as a hypocrite, she accuses ''others'' of ruining ''her'' life and ends her appearance by ''twice'' refusing to admit ''any'' wrongdoing, still convinced it was her victims who rebuffed her generosity.
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* TheSociopath: She has a nasty combination of paranoia, and this. She's focused on removing the cutie marks of other ponies (their very life's essence) purely to advance her version of a [[KnightTemplar perfect society]], demanding everyone else live by her rules while not following them herself, manipulative, and maintains an outward image of benevolence but won't hesitate to physically hurt or mentally torture dissenters. Most telling, when revealed as a hypocrite, she accuses ''others'' of ruining ''her'' life and ends her appearance by ''twice'' refusing to admit ''any'' wrongdoing, still convinced it was her victims who rebuffed her generosity. [[spoiler:Subverted in the end, as she is capable of realizing her wrongdoing, it just took seeing the actual damage she was doing to make her realize it.]]
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* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:Twilight shows Starlight the end result of her changes if she doesn't stop - ''a barren wasteland''. It takes talking some sense to her to fully realize her actions.]]
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* PetTheDog: While there ''were'' ulterior motives, [[spoiler:her getting the bullies to stand down and stop teasing Fluttershy]] was nice of her.
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She refused to believe it after Twilight showed her. She even tried to continue afterwards. No regret there.
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* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:Twilight shows Starlight the end result of her changes if she doesn't stop - ''a barren wasteland''. This gets her to stand down fully.]]
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* [[PersonOfMassDestruction Pony of Mass Destruction]]: Starlight is powerful, no doubt about it and it's one of the main reasons why [[spoiler:The Mane Six make her part of their group of friends.]]
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** Also, in ''The Cutie Re-Mark'', she manages to pull off ''TimeTravel'', something that was stated in ''It's About Time'' to be fundamentally ''impossible''. In addition, ''What About Discord?'' stated that using time travel was [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique extremely dangerous]], something that Starlight doesn't seem to care about just because of her desire for revenge. [[spoiler: Let's see how she reacts once she sees what her revenge against the Mane Six has done to Equestria as a whole...]]
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** Also, in ''The Cutie Re-Mark'', she manages to pull off ''TimeTravel'', something that was stated in ''It's About Time'' to be fundamentally ''impossible''. In addition, ''What About Discord?'' stated that using time travel was [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique extremely dangerous]], something that Starlight doesn't seem to care about just because of her desire for revenge. [[spoiler: Let's see how she reacts once she sees what her revenge against the Mane Six has done to Equestria as a whole...]]]]
----
----
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* GoneHorriblyRight: [[spoiler:She wanted revenge on the Mane Six for ruining Our Town, and her spell let's her do that...it just works ''too'' well due to the ButterflyEffect.]]
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This might be a bit too cruel.
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* DidntThinkThisThrough: Her EvilPlan in the Season 5 finale is about as well thought out as a legless table. Which is to say it wasn't well thought out at all. [[spoiler: She travels back in time to prevent to Mane Cast from getting their Cutie Marks as an act of petty revenge. She never considered that a) time travel in itself could [[ButterflyOfDoom have some serious consequences]] and b) that Twilight and company are [[TheHero important enough]] that messing with their past could [[BadFuture horrifically affect Equestria's future.]] Granted, [[DudeWheresMyRespect people forget about the Mane Cast's importance all the time]]. It's just that this the first time that forgetfulness led to an apocalypse.]]
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** [[spoiler:Averted at the end of "The Cutie Remark", as she finally gets the message and turns good.]]
**IJustWantToHaveFriends: [[spoiler:Her true motive for building the Equality village was because one of her old friends left her after getting his cutie mark.]]
**IJustWantToHaveFriends: [[spoiler:Her true motive for building the Equality village was because one of her old friends left her after getting his cutie mark.]]
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* TragicVillain: It's hard not to feel sorry for her because of the loss of her closest friend.
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* {{Expy}}: Easily that of Starlight Glimmer in terms of villainous unicorns who clash with Twilight Sparkle. [[spoiler:As of the end of Season 5, she can effectively be an expy of the pre-"Magical Mystery Cure" Twilight, an incredibly powerful unicorn while NoSocialSkills.]]
Changed line(s) 53 (click to see context) from:
* GreenEyedMonster: Implied to be her motivation, with her sneering delivery when saying some ponies think their cutie marks make them better than others. Another scene that implies this is when Twilight performs a spell in front of her and Starlight complains that it took a long time for her to learn it.
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* GreenEyedMonster: Implied to be her motivation, with her sneering delivery when saying some ponies think their cutie marks make them better than others. Another scene that implies this is when Twilight performs a spell in front of her and Starlight complains that it took a long time for her to learn it. [[spoiler:"The Cutie Remark" pretty much confirms it.]]
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* IJustWantToHaveFriends: [[spoiler:This is Starlight Glimmer's main problem - she wants friends, but because her childhood friend gained his Cutie Mark and left, it pretty much scarred her, leading to her actions.]]
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** Ultimately, her ''true'' FatalFlaw is [[spoiler:her inability to put faith in any friendship after losing her foalhood friend for fear of it falling apart again, which is the cause of her actions.]]
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* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Is convinced by Twilight to turn good.]]
* HeelRealization: [[spoiler:Has one when Twilight makes her realize her alterations to the past have caused a series of horrible BadFuture scenarios to happen and ultimately she's letting her failed friendship with Sunburst ruin her.]]
* HeelRealization: [[spoiler:Has one when Twilight makes her realize her alterations to the past have caused a series of horrible BadFuture scenarios to happen and ultimately she's letting her failed friendship with Sunburst ruin her.]]
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[[quoteright:261:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/15801d9e5124c5157c83e298488f82bc.png]]
[[caption-width-right:261:"They'll finally understand what we're trying to accomplish."]]
->''"The only way to be happy is if we're all equal!"''
->'''Debut:''' [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E1TheCutieMapPart1 "The Cutie Map - Part 1"]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KellySheridan
Starlight Glimmer is the leader of a town in which all the ponies have given up their cutie marks for equal signs. She's has a different idea of "friendship" from Twilight; differences breed jealousy and disagreement that can damage friendships, thus everypony must be "equal" to everypony else in order to be friends. That means giving up your cutie mark so everyone has no special talents or conflicting opinions. [[spoiler:After trying to alter the timeline in revenge for ruining her village, she is convinced to finally stand down and becomes the newest member of the Mane Six, effectively taking Twilight's old spot as Unicorn.]]
* AchillesHeel: She can take cutie marks, but they have to be sealed in a container of some kind or they'll just go right back to the pony they were taken from. [[spoiler:This is best shown when she has to go out of her way to keep the jars containing the Mane Six's cutie marks from breaking during the chase, and likely why she never used the spell during it.]]
* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: The selling point of her belief system. With cutie marks, friends can disagree, argue, or be jealous of each other. In her community, everypony is equal, so those problems are a non-issue. Everyone is equal and no one has cause to fight or be jealous.
* AmbiguousDisorder: She shows signs of a number of disorders, such as OCD, paranoia, and bipolar or some other anger disorder. She has a very... disturbing and extreme obsession with order and equality, to the point of actively fixing another ponies' mane to fit the standard mid song or forcing them into step (in addition to her KnightTemplar level actions to enforce it on others), and there's indication she's paranoid, to the point of keeping a tight, constant watch on the entire town and making new recruits spend the first night in her house where she can keep her eyes on them. She has a ''severe'' distrust of those with different Cutie Marks (to the point her villagers' words imply she refused to get to know them at all while they still had theirs). She also has a particularly [[TheUnsmile unhinged and disturbing smile]] distinct from the forced smiles of the others and when crossed suddenly goes from calm and collected to near psychotic with rage to the point of [[spoiler:attempting to attack her own townspeople simply for turning her own rhetoric back at her]].
* ArcVillain: Of the Season 5 premiere "The Cutie Map." Unlike the others, [[spoiler:she isn't reformed or depowered by the end of the two-parter, and returns in the season finale. While she only appears in these episodes, with the season's overarcing focus on cutie marks, she serves as a thematic villain to tie into the season's story arc.]]
* {{Badass}}: She has access to some pretty powerful magic for a seemingly normal unicorn, managing to overpower ''Twilight'' by catching her off-guard. [[spoiler:The fact that she's developed a spell which can alter cutie marks is particularly impressive, as every other demonstration of such magic was either imperfect (Star Swirl's spell) or has a severe drawback (cutie pox). Her spell can not only remove a cutie mark, but replace it with another that actively dampens the special talent of the victim.]]
* BadPowersBadPeople: She has the power to strip ponies of their cutie marks and special talents, and is a tyrannical dictator, forcing others to believe in her twisted doctrine.
* BerserkButton: Challenging her beliefs. Emphasis on ''berserk''. She goes from FauxAffablyEvil to psychotic rage.
* BlackAndWhiteInsanity: A variation: she believes Cutie Marks are evil and equality is good to such an extreme that she seeks to bring everypony down to being ''below'' average in everything. The insane part is quite clearly shown when anyone trying to outright challenge her worldview is met with near psychotic rage.
* BelievingTheirOwnLies: [[spoiler:Even after she is revealed to be a hypocrite, she still preaches her beliefs, implying that she does believe them on some level.]]
* BigBad: Of season 5. The only major antagonist to be the key villain of both the 2-part season premiere [[spoiler: and the 2-part season finale.]] While she's only the villain in these episodes, she makes some notable blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos in a few episodes spying on Twilight, meaning while she isn't playing a direct role in the rest of the season her shadow is looming over things the whole time.
* BigBrotherIsWatching: She has spies in the village watching for dissenters and imprisons them until they submit again.
* BiggerStick: The Staff of Sameness' ([[spoiler:or rather Starlight's spell's]]) ability to steal Cutie Marks is her main threat. [[spoiler:While without it she's still quite the powerful unicorn, it's rather clear she's no match for Twilight at all in an actual fight.]]
* BigShutUp: A simultaneously funny and nightmarish example directed at Twilight.
-->'''Twilight:''' Everypony has unique talents and gifts! And when we share them with each other, that's how we--\\
'''Starlight:''' (''furious'') '''''QUIET!'''''\\
(''Twilight gives an appropriate 0_0 face'')
* BitchInSheepsClothing: She's friendly and polite, welcoming the Mane Six to her humble little village. Then the façade begins to fade and we see how manipulative, controlling, and sinister she really is.
* TheCameo:
** She makes an easy-to-miss appearance in "Amending Fences," sitting at a nearby table to Twilight and her old friends with her face covered by a menu, and apparently keeping an eye on Twilight.
** She makes a second split-second appearance in "What About Discord?," where she can be seen spying on Twilight, Discord and the others with a pair of binoculars.
* ChaosIsEvil: She's a perfect example of the rare inversion of this trope (Order Is Evil), with her whole philosophy being about how "evil" the chaos of difference and disagreements are, to the point she's willing to [[GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul brainwash ponies]] into thinking that having everything that makes them special taken away is a ''good thing''.
* ChekhovsGunman: [[spoiler: [[TheBusCameBack She's back as the villain for the season finale.]]]]
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: Every previous BigBad in the series has been increasingly ObviouslyEvil, threatening, and heinous, Starlight [[{{Pun}} bucks those trends]]. She's able to [[BitchInSheepsClothing pass for a benevolent, normal unicorn]], has only a single, situational ability that let her be a major villain, and operated under a [[WellIntentionedExtremist seemingly altruistic ideology]] [[spoiler:that she seems sincere enough in selling to defend even when ousted as a hypocrite]].
** On a more direct level, she is this to the Dazzlings of Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks. The Dazzlings' methods involved having others embrace their individual differences to the point of driving friends apart, while Starlight goes to the opposite extreme of having others deny their differences to the point of creating an extremely twisted version of friendship.
* CrapsaccharineWorld: Her village seems pleasant and peaceful, but even at a glance it's obvious something is wrong. The deeper the Mane Six probe, the worse it looks. [[spoiler: Her time-travelling shenanigans in the two-parter season finale appears to have turned all of Equestria into this]].
* {{Cult}}: She has a number of similarities to a cult leader, especially her MoreThanMindControl of her followers.
* DangerouslyGenreSavvy: She immediately asks Fluttershy to name the ponies who told her about the cutie mark vault as a test of loyalty. She also has the Mane Six's cutie marks placed in her personal custody rather than leave them in the vault when she learns they plan to get them back. After she escapes retribution, she manages to make it out of the caves and through most of season 5 [[FreezeFrameBonus we can see her in the background tailing the Mane 6]] (Twilight in particular), obviously trying to study her opponents so she can be ready for them in their next confrontation.
* DarkMessiah: She presents herself as a bringer of harmony and true friendship. Right down to having a cult.
* DarkerAndEdgier: On the one hand, her physical threat level is significantly below the rest of the arc villains. However, she's much more of a cerebral threat than them, preaching a message about false friendship that amounts to inflicting MindRape on everypony. Her debut has many allusions to communism, cults, and government control in her methods and ideology.
* DidntSeeThatComing: While she's pretty clever and GenreSavvy, she seemed completely oblivious to the fact that [[spoiler:the Mane Six would be able to outsmart her without their Cutie Marks.]] Justified as her worldview doesn't allow for much belief that an Equalized pony might [[spoiler:be smarter than an unequalized one, or that Vitriolic Best Buds can be real friends, the latter of which allows Fluttershy to become a Fake Defector.]]
* EvilCounterpart: For Twilight, as the ruler of another town where she forcibly imposes her ideas about friendship on the people, in contrast to Twilight's role in Ponyville. Twilight was initially uninterested in friendship, while Starlight is obsessed with her own twisted version. Twilight has many close friends whose special talents she respects, though she was originally an introvert, while Starlight tries to "equalize" an entire town, and has ambitions to do so for the world. Twilight is a regular unicorn who becomes a special alicorn princess, while Starlight is a unicorn [[spoiler: who pretends to be more equal than she actually is]]. Her name also serves as a synonym for Twilight's, and she looks like a PaletteSwap of Twilight, even having a similar streak in her mane and voice actress. [[spoiler:She also has great magical power as well, like Twilight, and the eight-pointed star that's part of her cutie mark has the same colors as the star that makes up Twilight's.]] Both also seem to have [[SuperOCD Obsessive Compulsive tendencies]], but where Twilight's are minor and well controlled, Starlight's are taken to an extreme to the point of trying to turn her entire town into a harmonic, orderly 'utopia'.
* TheEvilsOfFreeWill: In addition to her feeling that friendship cannot exist when one friend is differently talented than another friend, she believes that friendship can only exist if everyone has the same opinions and ideas (''her'' ideas, to be precise), and that if friends argue, they can't be real friends. Thus, she enforces a HappinessIsMandatory attitude on the town she rules.
* FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon: On the outside, she looks sweet and nice. [[spoiler: On the inside, however, she is sinister, controlling, and manipulative]].
* FatalFlaw:
** Her zealot tendencies and absolute intolerance of other's beliefs in friendship. She absolutely ''refuses'' to [[EvilCannotComprehendGood accept that any worldview besides her own could possibly be valid]], and as a result is blind to the idea the mane six's friendship is stable and strong enough to stand up to what she puts them through.
** On a more general note: distrust of others. She's incredibly paranoid and distrustful of others who think differently than she does. As [[spoiler:Double Diamond]] tells her outright, she didn't even give her townsponies a ''chance'' to be her friends before converting them.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Cheery and friendly to the public, but several shots show her sporting a shadowy PsychoticSmirk, [[spoiler:especially once it's revealed that she doesn't practice what she preaches]].
* {{Foil}}:
** To King Sombra. Both are abnormal unicorns who rule hidden areas, enslave said areas' people, and take DangerouslyGenreSavvy steps to stay in power. But while he uses forced MindRape spells and has a ZeroPercentApprovalRating, she uses her FauxAffablyEvil charm and has a HundredPercentAdorationRating. They also occupy opposite ends of a spectrum when it comes to how evil their appearance is. King Sombra is as ObviouslyEvil as they come, Starlight [[TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse looks like a background character picked at random]].
** To Discord. As a villain, Discord's schtick is straight-forward ChaosIsEvil. Starlight Glimmer, on the other hand, wants nothing but order and equality... to the extent she's willing to assault people's minds and souls in order to ''force'' them to all be the same. Also, whereas Discord is dangerous due to his immense RealityWarper powers, Starlight uses personal charisma and intelligence to make up for her relative lack of power. Also, both make use of WrongContextMagic.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Starlight is the only pony in town to not have her coloring desaturated, has a natural smile, and her house is set apart from theirs. [[spoiler:It's because she's not like them; she still has her cutie mark.]]
* GreenEyedMonster: Implied to be her motivation, with her sneering delivery when saying some ponies think their cutie marks make them better than others. Another scene that implies this is when Twilight performs a spell in front of her and Starlight complains that it took a long time for her to learn it.
* HappinessIsMandatory: She makes all of the residents in town put on ear-to-ear smiles. Pinkie Pie immediately notices that something's not right with them.
* {{Hypocrite}}: She preaches a message of ponies giving up their cutie marks to be equal, but [[spoiler:she has her original cutie mark the whole time, covering it with make-up.]]
* IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten: When Fluttershy pretends to be converted, Starlight asks her to point out the three villagers who told her about the cutie mark vault to prove her loyalty.
* IgnoredEpiphany: [[spoiler:Twilight's attempt to pull a Sunset Shimmer on her goes nowhere, though Twilight still had hope that getting some time to think it over will have an effect. As "The Cutie Remark" shows, it didn't take.]]
* IndividualityIsIllegal: She has the belief that friends ''have'' to be exactly the same, with the same opinions and talents (or more precisely, the lack thereof), or else they can't really be friends. Thus, she convinces her followers to give up their cutie marks, live in plain houses, style their manes plainly, etc, and follow her ideology.
* ItsAllAboutMe:
** After the Mane Six (mainly Fluttershy) [[spoiler:reveal her as a hypocrite]], her VillainousBreakdown puts cracks in her FauxAffablyEvil routine, and a few of her lines suggest that deep down, she's either insecure about her own abilities, or simply [[GreenEyedMonster jealous]] of [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter other ponies more talented than her]], and her ''real'' reason (at least partly) for trying to make everypony "equal" and forcing her philosophy on others is [[spoiler:so that she'll be the only one left with any talent]].
** She also tries to steal the cutie marks of the Mane Six as {{Revenge}} for disrupting her plans, seemingly believing that the Mane Six opposing her is some kind of intentional slight against her personally
--->'''Starlight:''' They think they can come into ''my'' village and disrupt ''my'' life? Let's see how they like spending the rest of their lives without their precious cutie marks!
** In the season finale, she tries to disrupt the lives of the Mane Six yet again with a revenge plot involving [[spoiler:a spell that allows her to go back in time in order to prevent the Mane Six from getting their cutie marks.]]
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:While her schemes fail, she isn't directly punished. After everypony gets their cutie marks back, she escapes into the caves, as defiant and villainous as she was before.]]
* KnightTemplar: While what she desires (perfect harmony between friends in a happy utopia) is understandable, how she seeks to cause this is where she goes into this turf, as she won't even consider any concept of friendship besides her own.
* MagicStaff: Uses the Staff of Sameness to remove cutie marks. [[spoiler:Subverted; it's an ordinary piece of wood that she only claimed was an ancient artifact. Starlight's own magic is the cause.]]
* ManipulativeBastard: She uses a combination of speeches, propaganda, and emotional manipulation to sway ponies to her beliefs and get them to join her.
* ManOfKryptonite: Her PowerNullifier abilities make her this to any adult pony in the show, as even a powerful alicorn princess can lose her magic and get severely weakened physically by her Cutie Mark Removal spell.
* MindRape: Stealing a pony's cutie mark also robs them of their special talent and dulls down their personality, to the point Applejack can't make countryisms and Pinkie Pie can't get excited. She also locks dissenting and new citizens of the village in a cottage listening to her propaganda on a loudspeaker until they submit.
* MoodSwinger: During her VillainousBreakdown, she manages to flip flop between [[StepfordSmiler fake cheerfulness]] and [[HairTriggerTemper insane fury]]. Though it doesn't take long before she settles on the latter.
* MoralMyopia:
** Everypony has to give up their cutie mark in order to be equal. [[spoiler:Except for her, of course, since she needs ''her'' magic and special talent to take away the cutie marks from others and give them the equal signs that replace them. Naturally, her followers turn on her when this is revealed.]]
** She also rationalizes taking the Mane Six's cutie marks with her as she flees as {{Revenge}} for them "disrupting ''her'' life", not caring that by stealing them she's disrupted ''their'' lives.
* MoreThanMindControl: Her influence over her followers seems to be a combination of her magic, indoctrination, and her using her words to convince them that her way is best. She can take their cutie marks away by force, but she has to convince them that her ideology is worth following.
* MotiveRant: On two separate occasions, to boot -- the first when Fluttershy reveals to the town that she [[spoiler:still has her cutie mark in spite of her claims that they're evil]] and the second is when she's cornered near the end, and is accompanied by a blast of magic.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:Twilight shows Starlight the end result of her changes if she doesn't stop - ''a barren wasteland''. This gets her to stand down fully.]]
* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: During "In Our Town", and when talking to the Mane Six afterwards, she repeatedly gets really close to them, even touching them a few times.
* NonStandardCharacterDesign: Played with in two ways:
** In the grand scheme of the show, her design is ''perfectly'' standard, [[TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse to eerie effect]]. This makes her the non-standard one among the other arc villains.
** Among the inhabitants of her village, she's the only one whose color scheme isn't muted, and who doesn't keep their mane tightly trimmed. This turns out to be extremely relevant.
* OutGambitted: [[spoiler:The Mane Six turn the tables on her with a FakeDefector gambit and by tricking her into an EngineeredPublicConfession.]]
* PerpetualSmiler: From the moment she welcomes Twilight and her friends to the town to entering the cutie mark vault, she ''never, ever stops smiling,'' even when she's, say, singing about the disarray of a world of "special" people. She starts to let her other emotions through more and more when she thinks she has everything under control, and stops altogether after her VillainousBreakdown.
* PowerNullifier: Her equal sign cutie mark replacements work like this, dampening the special talents the ponies once had. Even attempting to use those talents causes the cutie mark to react and suppress it, such as nullifying Fluttershy's attempts to talk to animals. However, unless the original cutie marks are kept contained, they'll immediately fly back to their owners and undo the spell.
* TheResenter: Her philosophy says that any friendship that isn't equal will eventually lead to at least one of the friends becoming this, and it's implied that part of her motivation comes from resenting others that were somehow more talented than her.
* SanityHasAdvantages: Her zealot nature is one of her {{fatal flaw}}s, as she's so obsessed with her own belief in how friendship works that she's as GenreBlind to ThePowerOfFriendship as her fellow {{Arc Villain}}s. [[spoiler:The Mane Six actually exploit this to defeat her.]]
* ShadowArchetype: Manages to be this to ''two different characters''. She's more or less Twilight's focus on friendship taken to its extreme, especially when it comes to Twilight's feelings during "Boast Busters". She's also this to Sunset Shimmer, being more or less her complete opposite while still having some of her qualities (like [[GreenEyedMonster jealousy]]), and her town where everypony is equal and forced to be friends is the opposite to what Sunset did to Canterlot High. [[spoiler:Like both of them, she seems to be an abnormally powerful unicorn, but uses that power for evil.]] She also contrasts Sunset in defeat: [[spoiler:While Sunset tearfully begs to be shown the light and [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks later earns redemption]], Starlight lashes out verbally, followed by making a run for it and, when caught up to, attacks her former followers with magic before escaping.]]
* ShutUpKirk: Starlight responds ''twice'' with this to Twilight's PatrickStewartSpeech. First with a [[BigShutUp Big "QUIET!"]] and another time with a short MotiveRant and a magic blast.
* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: Her idea of "friendship" is everypony being exactly the same as everypony else, with the same talents and opinions, because being better at something means that you're not equal.
* SixthRanger: [[spoiler:Effectively this at the end of "The Cutie Remark".]]
* SlouchOfVillainy: [[spoiler:In "The Cutie Remark", she's sitting on Twilight's throne this way when Starlight directly confronts her.]]
* TheSociopath: She has a nasty combination of paranoia, and this. She's focused on removing the cutie marks of other ponies (their very life's essence) purely to advance her version of a [[KnightTemplar perfect society]], demanding everyone else live by her rules while not following them herself, manipulative, and maintains an outward image of benevolence but won't hesitate to physically hurt or mentally torture dissenters. Most telling, when revealed as a hypocrite, she accuses ''others'' of ruining ''her'' life and ends her appearance by ''twice'' refusing to admit ''any'' wrongdoing, still convinced it was her victims who rebuffed her generosity.
* StalkerWithoutACrush: After her initial appearance in "The Cutie Map", she makes an appearance in the background of "Amending Fences," holding up a menu to cover her face, [[spoiler: and again in "What About Discord?" as she spies the Mane Six and Discord from behind a bush with binoculars.]] [[spoiler:If "The Cutie Remark" is any indication, she'd been stalking Twilight throughout Equestria, gathering information for her revenge plot by finding the key to the Mane Six's friendship so as to prevent it from even happening.]]
* StealthPun: Her [[spoiler:actual cutie mark]] has the same basic shape as the inequality symbol in mathematics.
* StepfordSmiler: Shows some [[TheUnsmile signs]] of being this herself, and forces an entire town to be them, to boot!
* SugaryMalice: Practically drips it when guilt-triping Party Favor for approaching the Mane Six.
* SuperOCD: She shows some signs of OCD, probably to [[EvilCounterpart increase the similarities to Twilight]]. However, unlike Twilight's, hers isn't played for laughs, as she applies it to ''other ponies''.
* TautologicalTemplar: See BlackAndWhiteInsanity: she believes that her worldview is correct and Cutie Marks are evil, and absolutely refuses to acknowledge any other definition of friendship is true.
* ThemeNaming: Has a similar name theme to Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer.
* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: The thing that sets her apart from all the other ArcVillain level enemies: she's not a ObviouslyEvil, she's not a supernatural entity, she's not even corrupted to the point of looking like a monster like Sombra. She's simply a normal unicorn with a somewhat warped worldview and access to powerful and disturbing magic. She uses this trope to her advantage in "Amending Fences", "What About Discord" and during Twilight's lecture in "The Cutie Remark, Part 1", easily blending in the background.
* ThisCannotBe: Her reaction to Twilight blocking her spell with the same shield spell it took her years to learn, when Twilight only had to see it once to copy it.
* TodayXTomorrowTheWorld: While she's currently just the leader of a single little village on the outskirts of Equestria, her words hint at a greater scheme at work involving the rest of the country, particularly when she says "When the rest of Equestria sees that a princess gave up her cutie mark to join us, they'll finally understand what we're trying to accomplish."
* TheUnsmile: Not only does she frequently use these herself, she has a habit of plastering them on everypony across town.
* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: She wants to spread her idea of harmony and friendship across Equestria. Which means everypony giving up their cutie marks, and with them their unique personalities and special talents, to avoid dissent that could damage that harmony.
* VillainExitStageLeft: When all else fails, she escapes into the mountain caves. Twilight expresses hope that she'll see the light eventually, though it seems unlikely...
* VillainHasAPoint: Starlight Glimmer is entirely correct in saying that differences between ponies, especially differences in their special talents, causes conflict between ponies. That's the plot of half of the episodes in this show, after all, and the Mane Six demonstrate this fact quite well in their own arguments in this episode. What she doesn't get, however, is that true friends can work past those differences, which is exactly what the Mane Six do and what causes several townsponies to reveal the existence of the vault. She also has a point on how some people with different attributes act as though they are more superior to others and belittle others. Starlight's fault is how her "solution" is going overboard, eliminating the cause entirely instead of dealing with it.
* VillainousBreakdown: When Fluttershy [[spoiler:reveals she still has her cutie mark]], she loses it before the village and gives them a MotiveRant. She even continues giving it to them as she tries to escape and her mask slips more and more from there.
-->'''Starlight:''' I brought you friendship! I brought you equality! I created '''harmony!'''
* VillainSong: "In Our Town", which she leads her village in singing, detailing her philosophy that only the equal can truly be friends.
* VisionaryVillain: Her ultimate goal is to spread her skewed vision of friendship beyond her little town, possibly to all of Equestria, as she genuinely believes it to be a better way of life.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: She thinks cutie marks make ponies different, and differences lead to disagreements and jealousy. Thus the only way to truly spread friendship and harmony is to eliminate cutie marks so everypony is the same. Starlight turned out to be a [[spoiler:hypocrite because she had her talent the whole time]]. This causes all her support to implode and she goes down in history as an EvilOverlord, undoing any good her methods might have brought.
* WrongContextMagic: Cutie marks have been previously demonstrated to be powerful, innate magic to pony-kind. Attempts to force them tend to backfire in terrible ways, and previously nothing short of completely draining a pony's magic was sufficient to remove them. Starlight Glimmer is a seemingly ordinary unicorn who can somehow control this kind of magic.
** Also, in ''The Cutie Re-Mark'', she manages to pull off ''TimeTravel'', something that was stated in ''It's About Time'' to be fundamentally ''impossible''. In addition, ''What About Discord?'' stated that using time travel was [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique extremely dangerous]], something that Starlight doesn't seem to care about just because of her desire for revenge. [[spoiler: Let's see how she reacts once she sees what her revenge against the Mane Six has done to Equestria as a whole...]]
[[caption-width-right:261:"They'll finally understand what we're trying to accomplish."]]
->''"The only way to be happy is if we're all equal!"''
->'''Debut:''' [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E1TheCutieMapPart1 "The Cutie Map - Part 1"]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KellySheridan
Starlight Glimmer is the leader of a town in which all the ponies have given up their cutie marks for equal signs. She's has a different idea of "friendship" from Twilight; differences breed jealousy and disagreement that can damage friendships, thus everypony must be "equal" to everypony else in order to be friends. That means giving up your cutie mark so everyone has no special talents or conflicting opinions. [[spoiler:After trying to alter the timeline in revenge for ruining her village, she is convinced to finally stand down and becomes the newest member of the Mane Six, effectively taking Twilight's old spot as Unicorn.]]
* AchillesHeel: She can take cutie marks, but they have to be sealed in a container of some kind or they'll just go right back to the pony they were taken from. [[spoiler:This is best shown when she has to go out of her way to keep the jars containing the Mane Six's cutie marks from breaking during the chase, and likely why she never used the spell during it.]]
* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: The selling point of her belief system. With cutie marks, friends can disagree, argue, or be jealous of each other. In her community, everypony is equal, so those problems are a non-issue. Everyone is equal and no one has cause to fight or be jealous.
* AmbiguousDisorder: She shows signs of a number of disorders, such as OCD, paranoia, and bipolar or some other anger disorder. She has a very... disturbing and extreme obsession with order and equality, to the point of actively fixing another ponies' mane to fit the standard mid song or forcing them into step (in addition to her KnightTemplar level actions to enforce it on others), and there's indication she's paranoid, to the point of keeping a tight, constant watch on the entire town and making new recruits spend the first night in her house where she can keep her eyes on them. She has a ''severe'' distrust of those with different Cutie Marks (to the point her villagers' words imply she refused to get to know them at all while they still had theirs). She also has a particularly [[TheUnsmile unhinged and disturbing smile]] distinct from the forced smiles of the others and when crossed suddenly goes from calm and collected to near psychotic with rage to the point of [[spoiler:attempting to attack her own townspeople simply for turning her own rhetoric back at her]].
* ArcVillain: Of the Season 5 premiere "The Cutie Map." Unlike the others, [[spoiler:she isn't reformed or depowered by the end of the two-parter, and returns in the season finale. While she only appears in these episodes, with the season's overarcing focus on cutie marks, she serves as a thematic villain to tie into the season's story arc.]]
* {{Badass}}: She has access to some pretty powerful magic for a seemingly normal unicorn, managing to overpower ''Twilight'' by catching her off-guard. [[spoiler:The fact that she's developed a spell which can alter cutie marks is particularly impressive, as every other demonstration of such magic was either imperfect (Star Swirl's spell) or has a severe drawback (cutie pox). Her spell can not only remove a cutie mark, but replace it with another that actively dampens the special talent of the victim.]]
* BadPowersBadPeople: She has the power to strip ponies of their cutie marks and special talents, and is a tyrannical dictator, forcing others to believe in her twisted doctrine.
* BerserkButton: Challenging her beliefs. Emphasis on ''berserk''. She goes from FauxAffablyEvil to psychotic rage.
* BlackAndWhiteInsanity: A variation: she believes Cutie Marks are evil and equality is good to such an extreme that she seeks to bring everypony down to being ''below'' average in everything. The insane part is quite clearly shown when anyone trying to outright challenge her worldview is met with near psychotic rage.
* BelievingTheirOwnLies: [[spoiler:Even after she is revealed to be a hypocrite, she still preaches her beliefs, implying that she does believe them on some level.]]
* BigBad: Of season 5. The only major antagonist to be the key villain of both the 2-part season premiere [[spoiler: and the 2-part season finale.]] While she's only the villain in these episodes, she makes some notable blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos in a few episodes spying on Twilight, meaning while she isn't playing a direct role in the rest of the season her shadow is looming over things the whole time.
* BigBrotherIsWatching: She has spies in the village watching for dissenters and imprisons them until they submit again.
* BiggerStick: The Staff of Sameness' ([[spoiler:or rather Starlight's spell's]]) ability to steal Cutie Marks is her main threat. [[spoiler:While without it she's still quite the powerful unicorn, it's rather clear she's no match for Twilight at all in an actual fight.]]
* BigShutUp: A simultaneously funny and nightmarish example directed at Twilight.
-->'''Twilight:''' Everypony has unique talents and gifts! And when we share them with each other, that's how we--\\
'''Starlight:''' (''furious'') '''''QUIET!'''''\\
(''Twilight gives an appropriate 0_0 face'')
* BitchInSheepsClothing: She's friendly and polite, welcoming the Mane Six to her humble little village. Then the façade begins to fade and we see how manipulative, controlling, and sinister she really is.
* TheCameo:
** She makes an easy-to-miss appearance in "Amending Fences," sitting at a nearby table to Twilight and her old friends with her face covered by a menu, and apparently keeping an eye on Twilight.
** She makes a second split-second appearance in "What About Discord?," where she can be seen spying on Twilight, Discord and the others with a pair of binoculars.
* ChaosIsEvil: She's a perfect example of the rare inversion of this trope (Order Is Evil), with her whole philosophy being about how "evil" the chaos of difference and disagreements are, to the point she's willing to [[GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul brainwash ponies]] into thinking that having everything that makes them special taken away is a ''good thing''.
* ChekhovsGunman: [[spoiler: [[TheBusCameBack She's back as the villain for the season finale.]]]]
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: Every previous BigBad in the series has been increasingly ObviouslyEvil, threatening, and heinous, Starlight [[{{Pun}} bucks those trends]]. She's able to [[BitchInSheepsClothing pass for a benevolent, normal unicorn]], has only a single, situational ability that let her be a major villain, and operated under a [[WellIntentionedExtremist seemingly altruistic ideology]] [[spoiler:that she seems sincere enough in selling to defend even when ousted as a hypocrite]].
** On a more direct level, she is this to the Dazzlings of Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks. The Dazzlings' methods involved having others embrace their individual differences to the point of driving friends apart, while Starlight goes to the opposite extreme of having others deny their differences to the point of creating an extremely twisted version of friendship.
* CrapsaccharineWorld: Her village seems pleasant and peaceful, but even at a glance it's obvious something is wrong. The deeper the Mane Six probe, the worse it looks. [[spoiler: Her time-travelling shenanigans in the two-parter season finale appears to have turned all of Equestria into this]].
* {{Cult}}: She has a number of similarities to a cult leader, especially her MoreThanMindControl of her followers.
* DangerouslyGenreSavvy: She immediately asks Fluttershy to name the ponies who told her about the cutie mark vault as a test of loyalty. She also has the Mane Six's cutie marks placed in her personal custody rather than leave them in the vault when she learns they plan to get them back. After she escapes retribution, she manages to make it out of the caves and through most of season 5 [[FreezeFrameBonus we can see her in the background tailing the Mane 6]] (Twilight in particular), obviously trying to study her opponents so she can be ready for them in their next confrontation.
* DarkMessiah: She presents herself as a bringer of harmony and true friendship. Right down to having a cult.
* DarkerAndEdgier: On the one hand, her physical threat level is significantly below the rest of the arc villains. However, she's much more of a cerebral threat than them, preaching a message about false friendship that amounts to inflicting MindRape on everypony. Her debut has many allusions to communism, cults, and government control in her methods and ideology.
* DidntSeeThatComing: While she's pretty clever and GenreSavvy, she seemed completely oblivious to the fact that [[spoiler:the Mane Six would be able to outsmart her without their Cutie Marks.]] Justified as her worldview doesn't allow for much belief that an Equalized pony might [[spoiler:be smarter than an unequalized one, or that Vitriolic Best Buds can be real friends, the latter of which allows Fluttershy to become a Fake Defector.]]
* EvilCounterpart: For Twilight, as the ruler of another town where she forcibly imposes her ideas about friendship on the people, in contrast to Twilight's role in Ponyville. Twilight was initially uninterested in friendship, while Starlight is obsessed with her own twisted version. Twilight has many close friends whose special talents she respects, though she was originally an introvert, while Starlight tries to "equalize" an entire town, and has ambitions to do so for the world. Twilight is a regular unicorn who becomes a special alicorn princess, while Starlight is a unicorn [[spoiler: who pretends to be more equal than she actually is]]. Her name also serves as a synonym for Twilight's, and she looks like a PaletteSwap of Twilight, even having a similar streak in her mane and voice actress. [[spoiler:She also has great magical power as well, like Twilight, and the eight-pointed star that's part of her cutie mark has the same colors as the star that makes up Twilight's.]] Both also seem to have [[SuperOCD Obsessive Compulsive tendencies]], but where Twilight's are minor and well controlled, Starlight's are taken to an extreme to the point of trying to turn her entire town into a harmonic, orderly 'utopia'.
* TheEvilsOfFreeWill: In addition to her feeling that friendship cannot exist when one friend is differently talented than another friend, she believes that friendship can only exist if everyone has the same opinions and ideas (''her'' ideas, to be precise), and that if friends argue, they can't be real friends. Thus, she enforces a HappinessIsMandatory attitude on the town she rules.
* FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon: On the outside, she looks sweet and nice. [[spoiler: On the inside, however, she is sinister, controlling, and manipulative]].
* FatalFlaw:
** Her zealot tendencies and absolute intolerance of other's beliefs in friendship. She absolutely ''refuses'' to [[EvilCannotComprehendGood accept that any worldview besides her own could possibly be valid]], and as a result is blind to the idea the mane six's friendship is stable and strong enough to stand up to what she puts them through.
** On a more general note: distrust of others. She's incredibly paranoid and distrustful of others who think differently than she does. As [[spoiler:Double Diamond]] tells her outright, she didn't even give her townsponies a ''chance'' to be her friends before converting them.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Cheery and friendly to the public, but several shots show her sporting a shadowy PsychoticSmirk, [[spoiler:especially once it's revealed that she doesn't practice what she preaches]].
* {{Foil}}:
** To King Sombra. Both are abnormal unicorns who rule hidden areas, enslave said areas' people, and take DangerouslyGenreSavvy steps to stay in power. But while he uses forced MindRape spells and has a ZeroPercentApprovalRating, she uses her FauxAffablyEvil charm and has a HundredPercentAdorationRating. They also occupy opposite ends of a spectrum when it comes to how evil their appearance is. King Sombra is as ObviouslyEvil as they come, Starlight [[TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse looks like a background character picked at random]].
** To Discord. As a villain, Discord's schtick is straight-forward ChaosIsEvil. Starlight Glimmer, on the other hand, wants nothing but order and equality... to the extent she's willing to assault people's minds and souls in order to ''force'' them to all be the same. Also, whereas Discord is dangerous due to his immense RealityWarper powers, Starlight uses personal charisma and intelligence to make up for her relative lack of power. Also, both make use of WrongContextMagic.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Starlight is the only pony in town to not have her coloring desaturated, has a natural smile, and her house is set apart from theirs. [[spoiler:It's because she's not like them; she still has her cutie mark.]]
* GreenEyedMonster: Implied to be her motivation, with her sneering delivery when saying some ponies think their cutie marks make them better than others. Another scene that implies this is when Twilight performs a spell in front of her and Starlight complains that it took a long time for her to learn it.
* HappinessIsMandatory: She makes all of the residents in town put on ear-to-ear smiles. Pinkie Pie immediately notices that something's not right with them.
* {{Hypocrite}}: She preaches a message of ponies giving up their cutie marks to be equal, but [[spoiler:she has her original cutie mark the whole time, covering it with make-up.]]
* IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten: When Fluttershy pretends to be converted, Starlight asks her to point out the three villagers who told her about the cutie mark vault to prove her loyalty.
* IgnoredEpiphany: [[spoiler:Twilight's attempt to pull a Sunset Shimmer on her goes nowhere, though Twilight still had hope that getting some time to think it over will have an effect. As "The Cutie Remark" shows, it didn't take.]]
* IndividualityIsIllegal: She has the belief that friends ''have'' to be exactly the same, with the same opinions and talents (or more precisely, the lack thereof), or else they can't really be friends. Thus, she convinces her followers to give up their cutie marks, live in plain houses, style their manes plainly, etc, and follow her ideology.
* ItsAllAboutMe:
** After the Mane Six (mainly Fluttershy) [[spoiler:reveal her as a hypocrite]], her VillainousBreakdown puts cracks in her FauxAffablyEvil routine, and a few of her lines suggest that deep down, she's either insecure about her own abilities, or simply [[GreenEyedMonster jealous]] of [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter other ponies more talented than her]], and her ''real'' reason (at least partly) for trying to make everypony "equal" and forcing her philosophy on others is [[spoiler:so that she'll be the only one left with any talent]].
** She also tries to steal the cutie marks of the Mane Six as {{Revenge}} for disrupting her plans, seemingly believing that the Mane Six opposing her is some kind of intentional slight against her personally
--->'''Starlight:''' They think they can come into ''my'' village and disrupt ''my'' life? Let's see how they like spending the rest of their lives without their precious cutie marks!
** In the season finale, she tries to disrupt the lives of the Mane Six yet again with a revenge plot involving [[spoiler:a spell that allows her to go back in time in order to prevent the Mane Six from getting their cutie marks.]]
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:While her schemes fail, she isn't directly punished. After everypony gets their cutie marks back, she escapes into the caves, as defiant and villainous as she was before.]]
* KnightTemplar: While what she desires (perfect harmony between friends in a happy utopia) is understandable, how she seeks to cause this is where she goes into this turf, as she won't even consider any concept of friendship besides her own.
* MagicStaff: Uses the Staff of Sameness to remove cutie marks. [[spoiler:Subverted; it's an ordinary piece of wood that she only claimed was an ancient artifact. Starlight's own magic is the cause.]]
* ManipulativeBastard: She uses a combination of speeches, propaganda, and emotional manipulation to sway ponies to her beliefs and get them to join her.
* ManOfKryptonite: Her PowerNullifier abilities make her this to any adult pony in the show, as even a powerful alicorn princess can lose her magic and get severely weakened physically by her Cutie Mark Removal spell.
* MindRape: Stealing a pony's cutie mark also robs them of their special talent and dulls down their personality, to the point Applejack can't make countryisms and Pinkie Pie can't get excited. She also locks dissenting and new citizens of the village in a cottage listening to her propaganda on a loudspeaker until they submit.
* MoodSwinger: During her VillainousBreakdown, she manages to flip flop between [[StepfordSmiler fake cheerfulness]] and [[HairTriggerTemper insane fury]]. Though it doesn't take long before she settles on the latter.
* MoralMyopia:
** Everypony has to give up their cutie mark in order to be equal. [[spoiler:Except for her, of course, since she needs ''her'' magic and special talent to take away the cutie marks from others and give them the equal signs that replace them. Naturally, her followers turn on her when this is revealed.]]
** She also rationalizes taking the Mane Six's cutie marks with her as she flees as {{Revenge}} for them "disrupting ''her'' life", not caring that by stealing them she's disrupted ''their'' lives.
* MoreThanMindControl: Her influence over her followers seems to be a combination of her magic, indoctrination, and her using her words to convince them that her way is best. She can take their cutie marks away by force, but she has to convince them that her ideology is worth following.
* MotiveRant: On two separate occasions, to boot -- the first when Fluttershy reveals to the town that she [[spoiler:still has her cutie mark in spite of her claims that they're evil]] and the second is when she's cornered near the end, and is accompanied by a blast of magic.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:Twilight shows Starlight the end result of her changes if she doesn't stop - ''a barren wasteland''. This gets her to stand down fully.]]
* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: During "In Our Town", and when talking to the Mane Six afterwards, she repeatedly gets really close to them, even touching them a few times.
* NonStandardCharacterDesign: Played with in two ways:
** In the grand scheme of the show, her design is ''perfectly'' standard, [[TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse to eerie effect]]. This makes her the non-standard one among the other arc villains.
** Among the inhabitants of her village, she's the only one whose color scheme isn't muted, and who doesn't keep their mane tightly trimmed. This turns out to be extremely relevant.
* OutGambitted: [[spoiler:The Mane Six turn the tables on her with a FakeDefector gambit and by tricking her into an EngineeredPublicConfession.]]
* PerpetualSmiler: From the moment she welcomes Twilight and her friends to the town to entering the cutie mark vault, she ''never, ever stops smiling,'' even when she's, say, singing about the disarray of a world of "special" people. She starts to let her other emotions through more and more when she thinks she has everything under control, and stops altogether after her VillainousBreakdown.
* PowerNullifier: Her equal sign cutie mark replacements work like this, dampening the special talents the ponies once had. Even attempting to use those talents causes the cutie mark to react and suppress it, such as nullifying Fluttershy's attempts to talk to animals. However, unless the original cutie marks are kept contained, they'll immediately fly back to their owners and undo the spell.
* TheResenter: Her philosophy says that any friendship that isn't equal will eventually lead to at least one of the friends becoming this, and it's implied that part of her motivation comes from resenting others that were somehow more talented than her.
* SanityHasAdvantages: Her zealot nature is one of her {{fatal flaw}}s, as she's so obsessed with her own belief in how friendship works that she's as GenreBlind to ThePowerOfFriendship as her fellow {{Arc Villain}}s. [[spoiler:The Mane Six actually exploit this to defeat her.]]
* ShadowArchetype: Manages to be this to ''two different characters''. She's more or less Twilight's focus on friendship taken to its extreme, especially when it comes to Twilight's feelings during "Boast Busters". She's also this to Sunset Shimmer, being more or less her complete opposite while still having some of her qualities (like [[GreenEyedMonster jealousy]]), and her town where everypony is equal and forced to be friends is the opposite to what Sunset did to Canterlot High. [[spoiler:Like both of them, she seems to be an abnormally powerful unicorn, but uses that power for evil.]] She also contrasts Sunset in defeat: [[spoiler:While Sunset tearfully begs to be shown the light and [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks later earns redemption]], Starlight lashes out verbally, followed by making a run for it and, when caught up to, attacks her former followers with magic before escaping.]]
* ShutUpKirk: Starlight responds ''twice'' with this to Twilight's PatrickStewartSpeech. First with a [[BigShutUp Big "QUIET!"]] and another time with a short MotiveRant and a magic blast.
* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: Her idea of "friendship" is everypony being exactly the same as everypony else, with the same talents and opinions, because being better at something means that you're not equal.
* SixthRanger: [[spoiler:Effectively this at the end of "The Cutie Remark".]]
* SlouchOfVillainy: [[spoiler:In "The Cutie Remark", she's sitting on Twilight's throne this way when Starlight directly confronts her.]]
* TheSociopath: She has a nasty combination of paranoia, and this. She's focused on removing the cutie marks of other ponies (their very life's essence) purely to advance her version of a [[KnightTemplar perfect society]], demanding everyone else live by her rules while not following them herself, manipulative, and maintains an outward image of benevolence but won't hesitate to physically hurt or mentally torture dissenters. Most telling, when revealed as a hypocrite, she accuses ''others'' of ruining ''her'' life and ends her appearance by ''twice'' refusing to admit ''any'' wrongdoing, still convinced it was her victims who rebuffed her generosity.
* StalkerWithoutACrush: After her initial appearance in "The Cutie Map", she makes an appearance in the background of "Amending Fences," holding up a menu to cover her face, [[spoiler: and again in "What About Discord?" as she spies the Mane Six and Discord from behind a bush with binoculars.]] [[spoiler:If "The Cutie Remark" is any indication, she'd been stalking Twilight throughout Equestria, gathering information for her revenge plot by finding the key to the Mane Six's friendship so as to prevent it from even happening.]]
* StealthPun: Her [[spoiler:actual cutie mark]] has the same basic shape as the inequality symbol in mathematics.
* StepfordSmiler: Shows some [[TheUnsmile signs]] of being this herself, and forces an entire town to be them, to boot!
* SugaryMalice: Practically drips it when guilt-triping Party Favor for approaching the Mane Six.
* SuperOCD: She shows some signs of OCD, probably to [[EvilCounterpart increase the similarities to Twilight]]. However, unlike Twilight's, hers isn't played for laughs, as she applies it to ''other ponies''.
* TautologicalTemplar: See BlackAndWhiteInsanity: she believes that her worldview is correct and Cutie Marks are evil, and absolutely refuses to acknowledge any other definition of friendship is true.
* ThemeNaming: Has a similar name theme to Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer.
* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: The thing that sets her apart from all the other ArcVillain level enemies: she's not a ObviouslyEvil, she's not a supernatural entity, she's not even corrupted to the point of looking like a monster like Sombra. She's simply a normal unicorn with a somewhat warped worldview and access to powerful and disturbing magic. She uses this trope to her advantage in "Amending Fences", "What About Discord" and during Twilight's lecture in "The Cutie Remark, Part 1", easily blending in the background.
* ThisCannotBe: Her reaction to Twilight blocking her spell with the same shield spell it took her years to learn, when Twilight only had to see it once to copy it.
* TodayXTomorrowTheWorld: While she's currently just the leader of a single little village on the outskirts of Equestria, her words hint at a greater scheme at work involving the rest of the country, particularly when she says "When the rest of Equestria sees that a princess gave up her cutie mark to join us, they'll finally understand what we're trying to accomplish."
* TheUnsmile: Not only does she frequently use these herself, she has a habit of plastering them on everypony across town.
* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: She wants to spread her idea of harmony and friendship across Equestria. Which means everypony giving up their cutie marks, and with them their unique personalities and special talents, to avoid dissent that could damage that harmony.
* VillainExitStageLeft: When all else fails, she escapes into the mountain caves. Twilight expresses hope that she'll see the light eventually, though it seems unlikely...
* VillainHasAPoint: Starlight Glimmer is entirely correct in saying that differences between ponies, especially differences in their special talents, causes conflict between ponies. That's the plot of half of the episodes in this show, after all, and the Mane Six demonstrate this fact quite well in their own arguments in this episode. What she doesn't get, however, is that true friends can work past those differences, which is exactly what the Mane Six do and what causes several townsponies to reveal the existence of the vault. She also has a point on how some people with different attributes act as though they are more superior to others and belittle others. Starlight's fault is how her "solution" is going overboard, eliminating the cause entirely instead of dealing with it.
* VillainousBreakdown: When Fluttershy [[spoiler:reveals she still has her cutie mark]], she loses it before the village and gives them a MotiveRant. She even continues giving it to them as she tries to escape and her mask slips more and more from there.
-->'''Starlight:''' I brought you friendship! I brought you equality! I created '''harmony!'''
* VillainSong: "In Our Town", which she leads her village in singing, detailing her philosophy that only the equal can truly be friends.
* VisionaryVillain: Her ultimate goal is to spread her skewed vision of friendship beyond her little town, possibly to all of Equestria, as she genuinely believes it to be a better way of life.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: She thinks cutie marks make ponies different, and differences lead to disagreements and jealousy. Thus the only way to truly spread friendship and harmony is to eliminate cutie marks so everypony is the same. Starlight turned out to be a [[spoiler:hypocrite because she had her talent the whole time]]. This causes all her support to implode and she goes down in history as an EvilOverlord, undoing any good her methods might have brought.
* WrongContextMagic: Cutie marks have been previously demonstrated to be powerful, innate magic to pony-kind. Attempts to force them tend to backfire in terrible ways, and previously nothing short of completely draining a pony's magic was sufficient to remove them. Starlight Glimmer is a seemingly ordinary unicorn who can somehow control this kind of magic.
** Also, in ''The Cutie Re-Mark'', she manages to pull off ''TimeTravel'', something that was stated in ''It's About Time'' to be fundamentally ''impossible''. In addition, ''What About Discord?'' stated that using time travel was [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique extremely dangerous]], something that Starlight doesn't seem to care about just because of her desire for revenge. [[spoiler: Let's see how she reacts once she sees what her revenge against the Mane Six has done to Equestria as a whole...]]
