Gentian's Lexical Tomfoolery

[whobawhats]

Whobawhats, I know you consider your Starlight to be the canonical one, or to at least be from a place which follows show canon exactly, but my Twilight does not come from such a place. Her Equestria has very little in common with what we see on on Hasbro's cartoon, and this essay was written with her world in mind.

Some of the differences are quite drastic, such as the complete absence of Spike, Discord, Changelings, dogs, and Princess Cadance. Her Celestia is a literal goddess, and ponies are the only sapient species on her world, no talking yaks, dragons, griffins, cows, breezies, etc. All but thaose last exist, but as beasts, not other intelligent creatures, and these are only a few of the differences.

Not all of those changes are welcome to me. I like Princess Cadance, for example, and tend to also like dogs; I own one, after all. I say this because I don't want you to get the wrong idea when I tell you that it seems there is no Starlight Glimmer in her world, either. Further, Starlight is not my waifu, and I am not as knowledgeable about her or her capabilities, as you obviously are. I used Starlight as an example there because that's how I've interpreted her to be: a powerful, talented magic user, but perhaps not as educated.

This is not intended as a slight against her, it simply seems to follow from her lifestyle choice as the leader of an extremely isolated town. Neither is this precluded by the lines in those episodes wherein she says it took her years to master a given spell. It just shows that she took that time to master that spell; it says nothing of a general magical education. Perhaps it took her years because she only had a single text to work from? Maybe it's because she had to piece the spell together herself from half-remembered fragments? Maybe it's because she spent so much of her time playing politics that she didnt have enough time to study? Do you see? I'm not insulting her, I'm extrapolating from what Hasbro has shown us onscreen.

If she had made her home in a more urban area, had easier access to a wider range of written knowledge, or ponies to teach her (or to challenge her), her background appearance in Canterlot, notwithstanding, it might not have taken her years. I simply don't know, and went with what to me seemed the most likely interpretation of events.

But again, I haven't waifued her, nor do I make a study of her, and as you do, I would expect you know more about her than I do. However, again, this essay is written to represent my Twilight's Equestria, and not Hasbro's, or anyone else's Equestria.

I'm sorry it came off to me in that paragraph that is what you were talking about. Other than what you say I have no idea what your twi's equestria is like so I can't really speak on that. I just find it to be an unfair assumption to say that Starlight puts little to no work into her magic since I feel it has been showed the opposite is true. The show may not show that she has her head constantly buried in books like twi did(and still does) when she was still a new character, but that's something that starlight doesn't seem to take the same level of enjoyment of. Never the less as I said it's been shown for her to practice and study magic even with her natural inclination.

Right, I think the problem some have is it's very forgettable just how much she's done, just off-screen. And of course, this is strictly from the cartoon without any fanthought. There's the bit like you said she studied, then she said she studied a lot in between the beginning and end of the 5th season attempting to get back at the Mane 6, and we know that immediately after that she started studying with Twi.

Now going into personal thoughts about her, if I had to say I think the bulk of it came from that period of during S5, and then outwards having Twi teach her. I think prior to that, she mainly studied cutie mark magic (along with some other usual unicorn spells) mostly to do what she had the specific goal of with the town. I think that's why she didn't do something with far more powerful magic then, her goal was to spread her ideology. After the Mane 6, I think she went out of her way to study far more powerful magic solely to get back at them. And training with Twi definitely isn't something to think only happened occasionally.

Yes I would have to completely agree with you in all of this. Starlight is/was twi's student and I'm sure just from that she learned a lot.