Starlight Glimmer

**Starlight Glimmer** is a female unicorn pony and recurring character, initially an antagonist but later a protagonist, in the series. She first possibly appears in *My Little Pony: Friends Forever* Issue #14 and first explicitly appears in the season five premiere. From The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 2 to Celestial Advice, she is Twilight Sparkle's student in the ways of friendship. She is called **Starlight Shimmer** in some other media.

## Synopsis

In her episode debut, she is the head of a village where all the ponies have equal signs for Cutie Marks. She greets the Mane 6 when they enter the village. She and the townsfolk explain their philosophy - that being equal is what brings true happiness. The Mane 6 (except Fluttershy, who is warmed by the townsfolk's benevolence, and especially Pinkie Pie, who is adamantly suspicious of the location), find this odd. They promptly meet a trio of ponies who miss their Cutie Marks, showing that Starlight's village is not as happy as it seems. The trio informs the group of a vault inside a mountain which contains the taken marks. Starlight leads the ponies to the vault and shows them a wooden staff, which she dubs the Staff of Sameness. She claims that it's a magical item she uses to take away ponies' Cutie Marks. When Pinkie Pie prematurely discloses that a group of ponies told them about the vault, Starlight immediately sees the Mane 6 as threat to the town's lifestyle and steals their Cutie Marks with the staff, placing them in the vault. She imprisons the ponies in a house, wherein she condemns them to remain until they resign themselves to their fate of living in her town, markless and talentless forever. Unable to break out, the ponies persuade Fluttershy to feign having converted. Starlight is initially not convinced and commands Fluttershy to denounce the ponies who told her about the Vault. Fluttershy hesitates, but one of the free-thinking ponies - named Party Favor - voluntarily confesses that he was responsible for this, subsequently causing him to be imprisoned with the rest of the Mane 6. That night, Fluttershy intends to break into the Vault, but before she can get going there, she finds out that Starlight has taken their Cutie Marks to her house to guard them personally. She also discovers that in reality, Starlight still has her cutie mark and her equal mark is fabricated. The following morning, Fluttershy convinces Twilight to claim that she'll join Starlight and the rest of the village to distract Starlight's attention. While this is going on, Fluttershy tries to splash water on Starlight to reveal her cutie mark but misses. However, a drop of water wipes a smudge off the mark. Party Favor notices this and further wipes off the Equal mark, revealing Starlight's cutie mark and shocking the town. Starlight admits that the Staff of Sameness is just a regular staff she discovered in a desert, and that the Equalizing is the product of her own magic, which she hid from the town. Starlight tries to save face by claiming she did it all for the sake of establishing harmony, but the townsfolk turn on her for her deception. A group of ponies breaks into the Mark Vault and throws the Staff of Sameness at the glass, breaking it and releasing the population's Cutie Marks. Meanwhile, Starlight hides in her house and takes a secret passage, trying to make off with the Mane 6's cutie marks as revenge for exposing her. While the Mane 6 is failing to catch up with her since their forced equality causes them to move slowly, Party Favor and other ponies set out to apprehend Starlight and retrieve the marks (and in the process, use their individual talents to counter Starlight's obstacles). Just before reaching the caves, wherein she could have lost her pursuers, the villain winds up being covered in snow, forcing her to release the marks. Starlight emerges and tries to blast her former followers, but Twilight defends them and says to Starlight that her groups' individualities are what led her to become a princess. Starlight rebukes this and insists that her actions presented the townsfolk with a kind of friendship they couldn't have obtained otherwise, but is shot down by Double Diamond, who claims that she never gave them a chance to be friends before converting them to her beliefs. Enraged and defeated, and having lost all her followers, she uses her magic to escape. Twilight hopes that Starlight will consider what the townsfolk have taught her. Starlight makes a cameo appearance in *Amending Fences*, When she was hiding behind a menu she was holding in the cafe. In What About Discord?, Starlight spies on the Mane Six and Discord with binoculars from a bush in the park scene.

Starlight makes her second major appearance in the season 5 finale, *The Cutie Re-Mark*. She uses a time spell created by Star Swirl the Bearded to travel back in time to the day Rainbow Dash performed her first sonic rainboom. When she prevents Rainbow from performing the rainboom, she changes Equestria's history, and she takes steps to ensure that Twilight and Spike are unable to stop her from doing so. As Starlight and Twilight continually clash, Starlight creates numerous alternate futures in which Equestria falls into ruin. Twilight brings Starlight with her to one future in order to show her the consequences of her actions, but Starlight refuses to accept the truth. As Twilight cannot understand why Starlight acts this way, Starlight reveals that when she was a filly, her best friend Sunburst earned his cutie mark and left for Canterlot, leaving a young Starlight without a friend and with a fear of losing potential future friends. After bargaining with Twilight, Starlight decides to allow the rainboom to occur, restoring the present day.

Realizing the error of her ways, Starlight accepts whatever punishment that Twilight and her friends give her. Instead of punishing her, however, Twilight and her friends decide to teach Starlight about the magic of friendship, and Starlight feels reinvigorated with new life. In *The Crystalling*, Starlight has taken up residence in the Castle of Friendship as Twilight Sparkle's pupil, and Twilight presents her with her first friendship lesson: reuniting with her old friend Sunburst. Because of her past actions, Starlight is very nervous about seeing Sunburst again. When the two finally meet again, their dialogue is mostly awkward stuttering.

After a failed reunion, Starlight is convinced that Sunburst no longer wants to be her friend. However, when she approaches him later and discovers that he did not become an important wizard like she believed, Starlight learns that they both have their own histories of shame. The two then help Twilight and her friends save the Crystal Empire from an eternal winter.

With their friendship rekindled, Starlight and Sunburst say goodbye on much friendlier terms and promise to keep in touch.

In No Second Prances, after several attempts to make friends in Ponyville end in failure, Starlight meets and befriends Trixie. When Twilight expresses skepticism in their relationship, Starlight feels that Twilight doesn't trust her to make her own friends. However, when Trixie admits that she became friends with Starlight partly to one-up Twilight, Starlight is emotionally hurt. With Twilight's help, Starlight makes amends with Trixie and helps her in her magic show.

In A Hearth's Warming Tail, Starlight is unenthusiastic about celebrating Hearth's Warming Eve and considers it no different from any other day. However, after Twilight reads her the story "A Hearth's Warming Tale", Starlight gains a new appreciation for the holiday.

In Spice Up Your Life, Starlight Glimmer briefly appears helping Twilight to reactivate the Cutie Map after the events of The Cutie Re-Mark caused it to go inactive.

In The Times They Are A Changeling, Starlight accompanies Twilight and Spike on their visit to the Crystal Empire to visit Sunburst and Flurry Heart. She is present when Spike's changeling friend Thorax exposes himself by accident, and she is quick to help defend Flurry Heart against the suspected changeling spy. Later, when Spike pleads with his friends that Thorax deserves another chance, his words strike a chord with Starlight, who comes to accept Thorax as a friend.

In Every Little Thing She Does, Starlight excels at her magic studies, but she avoids her friendship lessons. To fix this, she takes on several friendship problems at once with Twilight's friends, in order to impress her. In an effort to make things easier, she uses the *Fiducia Compelus* spell to mind-control the ponies into following her orders. Unfortunately, the ponies follow her orders so exactly and literally that things quickly spiral out of Starlight's control.

After Twilight helps fix her mess, Starlight confesses that she avoids her friendship problems out of fear of failing and being a disappointment to Twilight. With Twilight and Spike's guidance, Starlight apologizes to her friends for using magic on them, and she learns to address her friendship lessons more naturally.

Starlight makes a brief non-speaking appearance at the beginning of Top Bolt.

In To Where and Back Again, Starlight Glimmer is invited back to her old village to celebrate the Sunset Festival, and she is accompanied by Trixie out of fear of being rejected. While the villagers openly welcome Starlight back, they look to her for advice on how to manage the festival. Starlight, uncomfortable with being in a leadership role after her past actions, abandons the festivities to return home.

When Starlight discovers that changelings have captured the royal princesses and taken the places of her friends, she assembles a team consisting of herself, Trixie, Thorax, and Discord to rescue them and save Equestria. Along this journey, Starlight is forced to take up the leadership role that she fears and lead her allies into the Changeling Kingdom. Due to the magic-dampening properties of Queen Chrysalis' throne, Starlight and her team infiltrate the changeling castle to destroy it and free the rest of her friends.

In the castle throne room, Starlight confronts Queen Chrysalis and, using what she has learned about Thorax not needing to feed on love, tries to convince Chrysalis to change the way she leads her hive. When Chrysalis tries to absorb Thorax's love, Starlight tells him to give it to her willingly, resulting in a magical blast that transforms the changelings into colorful, love-filled creatures. Starlight extends her hoof to the defeated changeling queen in friendship, but Chrysalis refuses, vowing revenge upon Starlight Glimmer before escaping.

Now more comfortable being a leader, Starlight returns to her old village to take part in the Sunset Festival.

In Celestial Advice, Starlight receives a Pink Heart of Courage for saving Equestria from Chrysalis. After Twilight struggles to come up with a plan for her after she has progressed beyond needing friendship lessons, she graduates Starlight from her pupil status.

In All Bottled Up, Starlight teaches Trixie transfiguration and teleporting magic and inadvertently causes the Cutie Map to disappear. She uses a spell to bottle up her anger until the map is found, but it backfires once the bottled-up anger infects other ponies. Starlight and Trixie eventually recover the map, and Starlight learns not to bottle up her emotions.

In Rock Solid Friendship, Starlight befriends Maud Pie, and the two form a connection over rocks and kite-flying. It is also revealed that Maud and Starlight met before during the initial founding of Starlight's village.

In Fluttershy Leans In, Starlight is among Fluttershy's friends who help her build her animal sanctuary.

In A Royal Problem, Starlight is summoned by the Cutie Map to solve a friendship problem between Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. When she determines that the two sisters don't appreciate one another, she uses a spell to switch their cutie marks for twenty-four hours so they can spend a day in each other's shoes.

In To Change a Changeling, Starlight and Trixie meet Thorax's brother Pharynx.

When initially introduced, Starlight Glimmer is openly friendly and welcoming, both toward the Mane Six and her followers. She is also somewhat of a disciplinarian, issuing punishment to those who do not conform to her philosophies. However, she later adopts a more callous and ill-tempered persona, desperate to keep up appearances and dismissing any concept of friendship that isn't the same as her own.

In the season five finale, Starlight harbors a bitter grudge against Twilight Sparkle, mocking and belittling her attempts to stop her from altering the past. Her contempt for cutie marks is revealed to be a result of losing her childhood friend Sunburst when he gained his, giving her a distorted conception of "equality". When Starlight finally realizes how friendship is enriched by ponies' differences, she adopts a remorseful, friendlier, and overall happier side.

In the season six premiere, she is portrayed as timid and easily unnerved, especially when it comes to the prospect of reuniting with Sunburst. In the finale, Starlight demonstrates an aversion to being in a leadership role due to her past actions, though she proves to have a natural talent for it and eventually overcomes her fears.

In Rock Solid Friendship, Starlight displays a keen knowledge and interest in kites.

## Powers and abilities

Starlight Glimmer is very skilled in using magic and mentions that she has studied a spell for years. She wields an ordinary wooden staff called the Staff of Sameness while casting a spell in a ceremony known by her followers as "cutie unmarking," pretending this to be the staff's power instead of her own. She also uses telekinesis at long range, projects magical barriers, creates distracting lights, and shoots powerful magic blasts.

In The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 1, Starlight demonstrates self-levitation, cloud-walking, and crystallizing spells. In The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 2, Twilight states that Starlight's magic rivals her own. In No Second Prances, Starlight makes a multi-layered cake in seconds and turns the normally laconic Big McIntosh into a figurative motormouth talking machine. In Every Little Thing She Does, she demonstrates a talent for teleportation, transfiguration, super speed, self-duplication, and mind control. In To Where and Back Again - Part 1, Starlight demonstrates invisibility to hide herself and Trixie from the changelings.

## Depiction in *Equestria Girls*

In the half-hour *Equestria Girls* special *Mirror Magic*, when Sunset Shimmer returns to Equestria, Starlight gives her a new magic journal and becomes very interested in the world on the other side of the Crystal Mirror. She convinces Sunset to take her along, and she transforms into a human upon arriving.

When Sunset and her friends become trapped in limbo through Juniper Montage's enchanted mirror, and Juniper starts terrorizing mall patrons, Starlight convinces her to stop by offering to be her friend. In the end, Starlight helps Sunset to not worry so much about future dangers and to live in the moment, and through a message from Twilight in Sunset's journal, she is allowed to stay in the human world for a few more days.

## Depiction in *My Little Pony The Movie*

Starlight will appear in some capacity in the film. In the trailer, she appears watching Trixie's magic show.

## Trivia

* She is the first villain in a two-parter to be, or at least have the appearance of, a regular pony. Nightmare Moon was an alicorn with an ethereal mane, Discord was a draconequus, Queen Chrysalis was a changeling with the appearance of an insectoid alicorn, King Sombra was a demonic unicorn with a shadow form, Lord Tirek was a centaur and The Dazzlings were sirens. The only other villain who is a regular unicorn is Sunset Shimmer, who appeared in a movie and is mostly seen in human form. Even then, Sunset had a demonic empowered form, while Starlight did not.

* Starlight Glimmer is also Jeremy the Crow's marefriend.