Hey, remember when I called Starlight Glimmer a "fsking psycho" back in my S5 reaction thread?

I'm gonna retract that.

Don't get me wrong, I don't actually like her. Yet. I didn't like Sunset Shimmer at the end of Equestria Girls (incidentally, what do you call the first Equestria Girls movie when it's also the franchise name? Is there a name like "A New Hope" we can add to it?) but two movies later she is legitimately one of my favorite characters in the entire property. The distinct possibility yet exists that Starlight will eventually appeal to my "bad girl trying to do good" affinities strongly enough for me to swallow her tooth-gnashing color scheme and her irritating voice. She's also got an uphill battle because Josh Haber made her redemption montage way too easy (in the interest on ending S5 on a high note, kind of like how Twilight could fly perfectly while singing "EVERYTHING IS PERFECTLY FIIINE" at the end of S3 only to discover that this is not strictly the case come S4). It's possible I will come to love her. I have a doubt.

That said, there's a lot of hate for Starlight Glimmer out there that seems to be based on the conclusion that she set out to destroy Equestria based on a lost childhood friendship, which is... not strictly fair. This is kind of like going back to "Lesson Zero" and saying "Twilight set out to drive an entire town into physical combat because of a late friendship report!" Well... no. It was a terrible side-effect of her desperation, one that she never realized could occur, and one that she instantly regretted when she saw it taking place. The problem with powerful unicorns like Twilight and Starlight is that they tend to really throw a wrench in the works when their Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome flares up. And yes, Starlight has a mean streak. Like Trixie before her, Starlight's C.M.F.I.S. doesn't manifest as passive tea parties with inanimate objects. It manifests as a focused, direct, rage-revenge at Twilight for wronging her. In Trixie's case, it was the loss of her reputation; in Starlight's case, Twilight took from her the only friends she ever had post-Sunburst.

And yes, she made those friends by maintaining a toxic cult in a secluded area of Equestria. But she legitimately believed she was making the lives of her fellow ponies (who all--prior to the Mane 6--came to her first) better by doing so, and I believe that in her own messed-up way, the citizens of Our Town were her friends.

Starlight crosses a line by stealing the Mane 6's cutie marks without their permission. This much is also true. For perhaps the first time, she is not trying to make ponies' lives better, crossing over instead into the sinister sort of ideological evangelism. Seeing an alicorn, of all things, turns her philosophy on its head; she no longer wants to improve ponies' lives individually, she begins thinking big-picture. With an alicorn on my side, she thinks, the entire world can know this happiness!

But that's just it. It wasn't clear to me with the S5 premiere because her motives were still completely opaque, but by the end of S5 we can see that Starlight really did intend to make Equestria holistically better. She went about it wrong. Boy howdy, did she go about it wrong. And when her vision of a better world was threatened, she literally got murderous. Unlike Trixie and Sunset, who shot death-bolts at our main cast under the malign influence of the Alicorn Amulet and the corrupted Element of Magic, Starlight was made shooty solely by dint of her collapsing ideology. This is unmistakably reprehensible. But deep down, Starlight wants ponies to be the best they can be. And in her faint defense, this is something that no other serious would-be Equestrian conqueror can claim. Discord wants amusement and relief from his own creeping boredom, the ponies' suffering be damned. Chrysalis wants her people to prosper, but at the expense of everyone else. Nightmare Moon wants praise and adulation. Tirek wants power. Sombra wants--well, it depends if you canonize the comics or not, frankly, but it's either "power" again or "to get revenge for years of endured pain." Sunset? Again, hinging on the comics, it's either "power" or "a position at Celestia's side that she felt she deserved."

Starlight feels that destiny and special purpose are toxic concepts. I can't pretend I haven't wondered this about the "My Little Pony" universe myself, especially in light of the disquieting reveals about poor Troubleshoes and even Diamond Tiara. Starlight thinks everypony would be better without them. It is hard to say that she is absolutely 100% wrong on this point. Her real evil villain moments come in grasping too quickly for an opportunity to spread the light of her belief and in desperately lashing out in killing rage when it looks like her life's work is going to be undone. That's why she's a real villain. The entire season finale is just an act of clueless, petty revenge, no different than "Magic Duel" in its intent (leaving aside its unintended and apocalyptic consequences).

Strip away her petty revenge and you have a very powerful unicorn who wants what's best for every single pony in Equestria, not just Equestrian society. She is a tremendous force for good because unlike most villains, this was always her intent. She needs lessons in patience and forgiveness, and to be reminded to not get so wrapped up in her plans that they start achieving the opposite end of their intent[1]. But in her heart of hearts, she really wants the best. For this reason, I'm going to give her a chance.

[1]I will be the first to admit that this latter point is a serious issue with me personally. Those of you who've read "Contraptionology!" will recognize this as the seed idea for the concept of "convolvement," and it definitely stems from my own real-world issues.