Starlight Glimmer

"I know what it's like to lead by fear and intimidation! And I know what it's like to want everypony to do what you say! But I was wrong. A real leader doesn't force her subjects to deny who they are! She celebrates what makes them unique and listens when one of them finds a better way!"

- Starlight Glimmer

Starlight Glimmer is one of the recurring characters turned main character and a former antagonist in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. She first served as the main antagonist in the season 5 premiere, The Cutie Map and later reformed in the two-part finale The Cutie Re-Mark. From season 6 onward she becomes a supporting heroic character. In the season 5 premiere to the season 5 finale, she was evil, mean, power-hungry, ruthless, impatient and wicked. For the rest of the series, she is kind-hearted, calm, positive, sweet, cowardly, fidgety, and confident as well as remorseful, friendlier, and happier.

She is voiced by Kelly Sheridan, best known voicing as Sango, Ukyo Kuonji and Diana Lombard in the English version of the cartoon, and Debora Magnaghi and Beatrice Caggiula in the Italian version of the cartoon.

Personality
When introduced, Starlight Glimmer is shown to be seemingly benevolent and laid-back, but was revealed to be a vain, hypocritical, selfish, villainous, deceptive, calculative megalomaniac. She is easily frustrated when things don't work out how she planned. It is not entirely clear whether Starlight truly believes that she is doing the right thing by ridding ponies of their cutie marks and is only keeping her magic because she is the only one who can do so, whether she is actually deriving satisfaction out of the fact that she alone in the town has a special talent, or a bit of both. Based upon how she responds to ponies thinking they are superior to others, it is implied she has an envious side. But despite being an expert manipulator, Starlight's zealot attitude and refusal to believe in any form of friendship other than her own makes her quite gullible herself, as she is tricked by Fluttershy into releasing her, by Party Favor into thinking that he was the only one wishing for his cutie mark back (he claimed this to defend the other free-thinking ponies, Sugar Belle and Night Glider) and by Twilight Sparkle into being distracted, although she claimed she was aware of Fluttershy's ruse. She is also quite disrespectful, even to royalty, as shown when she furiously silences Twilight when she tried to explain how differences can make friendships stronger. In addition, she is somewhat clumsy, something that allowed Fluttershy to discover her secret.

In the season 5 finale, Starlight becomes vindictive and relentless in her attempt to take revenge on Twilight by keeping the Sonic Rainboom that caused the Mane Six to get their cutie marks, as well as stubbornly thinking that it won't make any difference, even when proven otherwise. Starlight is given a sympathetic background as it is revealed that during her childhood, she had a friend named Sunburst who earned his cutie mark and went to Canterlot, making Starlight feel abandoned. When Twilight convinces Starlight to turn over a new leaf, after showing her the alternative Equestria and what friendship truly is, she adopts a remorseful, friendly, and overall happier side, turning her into a more kindhearted pony.

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.

From the season seven premiere and onward, Starlight is more confident and determined but she still needed Twilight's help so she decides not to leave the castle, much to Twilight's delight.

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

Appearance
Starlight is a unicorn, with a lavater coat and purple with green lining mane. She has a cutie mark that's the shape of a compass with a swirl line. In Season 5, her mane style was bane cutted straight and flat while the back is long and curled in back. From Season 6 and onward, Starlight's mane was changed to a swirl, exposing her big bald spot on her forhead. Her mane style often keeps changing sides. In addition, a piece of the back of her mane is seen hanging on either side.

As a human, Starlight wears a green shirt, a black vest, gray pants, and black shoes. She has a purple hat on her head and a watch on her left hand.

Power and abilities
Starlight Glimmer is a very powerful unicorn. From her true cutie mark, it can be presumed her special talent is magic. Her signature spell is the ability to drain a pony's talent by stealing their cutie mark, replacing it with an equal sign. However, she needs to keep stolen marks in some kind of container, lest they will return to their former owners.

In The Cutie Map, she demonstrated several other abilities that make her a formidable opponent to face in battle. She can emit a very powerful offensive beam from her horn, which is potent enough to explode a stone bridge and she is able to generate a defensive barrier around herself to push opponents away. She claims to have studied that spell for years. Lastly, she shows the ability to teleport in a violent detonation of energy.

In The Cutie Remark, her abilities and skill improved even more. She was able to improve and modify Star Swirl the Bearded's time travel spell so that she could travel to any time and place she wished, when Star Swirl and Twilight were previously only able to use it to go back about one week and only for a few seconds. She can walk on clouds and use levitation on herself to fly (which most unicorns cannot do), showing impressive agility and stamina. She can trap opponents in crystal. It is notable that in the course of her battles with Twilight, Twilight eventually became winded despite being an alicorn, while Starlight did not. While deciding to take her as a student, Twilight speculated that Starlight's magical power and talent exceeded her own.

In No Second Prances, Starlight makes a multi-layered cake in seconds and turns the normally laconic Big Macintosh 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.

In All Bottled Up, Starlight explains that her own magic is tied to her emotions—the stronger she feels, the stronger her magic.

Season 5

 * The Cutie Map - Part 1
 * The Cutie Map - Part 2
 * Amending Fences (cameo)
 * What About Discord? (cameo)
 * The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 1
 * The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 2

Season 6

 * The Crystalling - Part 1
 * The Crystalling - Part 2
 * No Second Prances
 * A Hearth's Warming Tail
 * Spice Up Your Life (no lines)
 * The Times They Are A Changeling
 * Every Little Thing She Does
 * Top Bolt (no lines)
 * To Where and Back Again - Part 1
 * To Where and Back Again - Part 2

Season 7

 * Celestial Advice
 * All Bottled Up
 * Rock Solid Friendship
 * Fluttershy Leans In (no lines)
 * Hard to Say Anything (mentioned)
 * A Royal Problem
 * Fame and Misfortune
 * Triple Threat
 * To Change a Changeling
 * It Isn't the Mane Thing About You
 * Uncommon Bond
 * Shadow Play - Part 1
 * Shadow Play - Part 2

Season 8

 * School Daze - Part 1
 * School Daze - Part 2
 * The Maud Couple
 * Fake It 'Til You Make It (no lines)
 * Horse Play
 * The Parent Map
 * Marks for Effort
 * The Mean 6
 * A Matter of Principles
 * The End in Friend
 * Road to Friendship
 * Father Knows Beast (no lines)
 * School Raze - Part 1
 * School Raze - Part 2

Films

 * My Little Pony The Movie (cameo)

Friendship is Magic

 * Ponies of Dark Water (cameo)
 * Election
 * Chaos Theory
 * Wings Over Yakyakistan
 * My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Issue #57
 * Queen for One Less Day

Friends Forever

 * Friends Forever Issue 35

Legends of Magic

 * My Little Pony: Legends of Magic Issue #4
 * My Little Pony: Legends of Magic Issue #6

Specials

 * My Little Pony Holiday Special 2017 (cameo)

Trivia

 * She was the first villain in a two-parter to be just a regular pony. The other previous villains were all monstrous and/or demonic-like.
 * She is also the first villain to appear in the season finale whose reckless actions caused the other villains to appear as well.
 * Starlight Glimmer's name is similar to that of Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer. And similar to Sunset, she is regarded as an antithesis to Twilight Sparkle. Instead of accepting her friends with all their differences as Twilight does, she thinks that the only way to friendship is through complete "equality", and will not accept that anyone could be more powerful and gifted than her.
 * She also shares the same name as Starlight from My Little Pony Tales.
 * She was the only main villain who wanted to seem good, while the others showed that they were villains directly.
 * She has a similar color scheme to Aria Blaze and a similar mane-style to Sonata Dusk.
 * Starlight Glimmer breaks the gender pattern for the main villains, who until now (including Sunset Shimmer and the Dazzlings) have always alternated between male and female.
 * Starlight Glimmer was one of the few MLP: FiM villains who can be considered clinically insane.
 * There are several hints in the premiere that Starlight was not as "equal" as she claimed to be:
 * Her house was directly separate from all the others.
 * The color of her coat and mane didn't seem dimmed down like all other equalized ponies.
 * She didn't give a disturbing expression like all the others either.
 * She constantly acts as the supreme leader of the village, telling others how to act and think.
 * When exposed, she brags about gifted at magic she is, showing a superiority complex.