@Jarkes
I haven’t seen it, but based on what I’ve heard, it sounds interesting. I’ll probably go ahead and watch it once I find it on Youtube, Dailymotion, etc.
@Ryodraco
Okay, maybe I was being a little harsh, but I’ve always found Starlight’s backstory underwhelming and her apparent lack of formal magical training highly implausible.
@Crystal Neighybánya
And we know that all talented unicorns go to this school? Besides, why would Starlight want to go there when it played a part in what she saw as her ruined friendship?
As for why she didn’t wind up Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns, 1. she never displayed such high level magic until after she begun her slide to villainy, by which time she was too mentally messed up to consider it. 2. Sunburst earning his cutie mark for his magic is why everypony thought it was impressive enough to warrant the school, despite it not being any better than what Starlight was capable of by then.
On the subject of the age spell here being an illusion, my headcanon is that any unicorn magic that can’t be explained by telekinesis (shields and lasers are shaped telekinetic fields, teleportation and time travel are telekinetically warping the fabric of space/time) are mental manipulation, like mind control spells. Anything else is illusions that even effect memory (filly Twilight turning her parents into plants was an illusion that also brainwashed them into thinking they were plants, or into not thinking about it afterward) or channeling magic from other tribes (earth plant growing, pegasus weather control).
As for why unicorns seem so much more powerful, I think it’s due to their being the most scholarly of the tribes, they have the most analyzed magic and thus the best knowledge of what it can do, and how to teach and use it. Why the other races haven’t done so…raises implications that are better discussed another time. If they did… Pinkie and Maud show earth ponies can use offscreen teleportation, with Pinkie showing things beyond that. A pegasus could generate the 88 mph speed and 1.21 gigawatt lighting bolt that enable time travel.
Also, from her eyes she was killing two birds with one stone. She was trying to impress him with magic (which she knows he likes) and use that magic to let them relive their youth.
@Background Pony Number 17
Its rather sad, but at the same time there is a certain logic to it. To Starlight her time with Sunburst as a foal truly must feel like it was in a sense the best time in her life, as it was before she made all those horrible choices and got so emotionally damaged. Hence her words “nothing was better than when it was just you and me playing this game.”
You know, in this case, how Starlight did what she did is a lot less important than why she did what she did.
Seriously, you’re having problems emotionally connecting with your boyfriend and THIS is your solution?
@Ryodraco
I haven’t followed Faust’s interviews so I don’t know about it. But it definitely seems that Twilight’s entrance exam was not standard procedure to get a place in Celestia’s school.
@DonMaguz
Didn’t Faust say that hatching a dragon egg was not the normal exam and that she had Twilight do it because she suspected she was basically a destined pony? Not confirmed in the show yet regarding the dragon eggs, but I think we would have heard by now if that was a regular exam. Instead through the series we had it made abundantly clear that most ponies in Equestria never even see a dragon up close. Having a whole school of ponies who hatched dragon eggs seems unlikely.
@gingerninja666
My headcanon is that Twilight was performing her exam for a scholarship, there is no way Minuette and the others were able to hatch dragons when she did, so I call gifted parents’ bank accounts.
Back to Starlight, you make a great point on her confidence. She was superb in those flashbacks as a filly, but she also seemed to wait for Sunburst’s example to try her own magic.
@Josh103
Well we know age spells are possible for the most powerful unicorns, just very difficult, and as OP as she is Starlight tends to acknowledge when spells she uses are known as difficult ones (and she didn’t do that here). So I agree that the way they talked about what Starlight did it did sound a lot more like an illusion spell than actual age regression. After all they were clearly not actually in their childhood home (Twilight heard them talking from another room), so that was an illusion/recreation. Why go to the trouble of actually regressing your age when you can just use your memory to make another illusion? Course that the illusion also changed their voices is very impressive.
Plus Sunburst stated he didn’t want to “pretend” to be a foal again. Given he used the term “pretend” I think that implies he wasn’t actually aged backwards.
@Josh103
But transforming may not take her knowledge and training away because it doesn’t turn her into the exact state she was at that time. It just changes her form. Also have you seen how strong unicorn babies (pumpkin cake, flurry heart) can be? Magic may not be dependent on age.
@FlonnesIkramant
A true age spell should actually turn the person to that age. Magic level and all.
Unless of course, Starlight as a filly had that level of magic. In which case is a whole another level of ridiculousness.
I still believe it’s a illusion spell. If it’s age spell then simply just more power creep in the show. I expect Twilight to also know age spells now. Maybe even Trixie soon why not.
