@Scrounge  

 
This

Starlight didn’t see the problem on her own, she knew about it because Cozy Glow, who caused it, came to her and confessed.

@Background Pony #7CB4  
Indeed. :D We all need a tiny bit of ego to have confidence in our own common sense. Quite literally in fact, its a basic fact of the human existance. But nothing is sacred afterall. The true refuse of Internet culture can state and subjective-ify even the blue sky.
 
‘State.’ That doesn’t mean their worth ‘attention’. (And Ihhh being a duck is a biiiiit beyond the subjective stage.) People who overextend the subjectivity/‘just an opinion’ argument on others statements without an actual argument on their end, end up hurting their own stance even more.
 
And I don’t doubt the level of obsession of the die hard Starlight fans that still visit Starlight drama pages. A quarter of a decade and they still don’t filter it? You spend a quarter of a decade hearing people shit on one of your favorite characters.
 
Heck I’m a Rainbow Dash fan, but any hate for her character is usually sporatic, almost completely unnoticeable and dies down in less then a week’s time. And I never get involved in it.
 
Me? I like being here, on these pages. I love the fandom, love the show sans Starlight(unless it’s a Starlight/Trixie episode, about 1/5th of those episodes actually have some good writing and effort for Starlight), and I love that honest people like OP are willing to say what a ton of people think about the most divisive mainstay character of the show.
 
As for the rest, I guess we can just agree to disagree.
 
See ya!

@CronoM  

@Derpyfan  
Now kisssss. XD

@Cryosite  
I like you.

@Alexlayer  
I know what you mean :/

Opinions incoming!
 
@CronoM  

 
Who is a duck and who is a troll is subjective. Just because someone somewhere labeled someone else either doesn’t make the label accurate, and it certainly isn’t related to the general “toxicity” of the internet. I would say that the urge to censor other people simply because one person disagrees with another is far more toxic. I think the urge to value offense over reason is toxic. I would argue that many folks who troll toxic people are the opposite of toxic.
 

 
No. “Tool” is poorly defined, and I don’t feel it applies to Twilight. Certainly not in this episode, and I already explained in detail why not above. Just because you can pick out a few poorly written episodes in the past, by your personal definition of a poor episode, doesn’t render anything else in her character bad. Indeed, one could easily argue that the entire series seeks to maintain the “status quo” rather than show growth, in spite of many efforts by fans to read growth into the show.
 
Also, having flaws does not make what the OP said true. A character having flaws and working through them makes for a story. It doesn’t mean the writers are trying to make one character look better or worse than another. So your agreement with the OP is simply nonsensical.
 

 
No.
 

 
You seem to.
 
So, yes. Congratulations. You have some opinions. They don’t match up very well with reality, the show, or anything of merit. You’re welcome to keep them, and thank you for expressing them. I hope you enjoyed my opinions in reaction to yours, and so on.

@CronoM  
Those are all your opinions.

@CronoM  
Well, there have been people claiming the Earth is flat as of late, so… yeah. XD

@Ihhh  
Ducks and trolls are by definition the toxic side of the Internet, hence my argument on the worst of the internet is the basic reason you have those badges. Nearly everything is subjective if you stretch your argument enough.
 
But why? Why bother? Why not keep things simple?
 
“Among her many good and bad qualities, has Twilight often acred like a tool especially around Celestia or anything related to responsibilities?”
 
Yes.
 
“Is Starlight a creator’s pet in various ways?”
 
Yes.
 
“Do people have and sometimes bend varied limits on whether someone can be considered a tool or a creator’s pet?”
 
Yes.
 
See? Simple. And that variance mentioned in the third question is up the individual, but still has every right to be expressed since its honest.
 
Everyone draws a line in the sand somewhere they think common sense should be. Everyone.

@CronoM  
Your opinion is not objective just because you say it is.

Thanks OP. I needed someone to remind me that Pony Twilight has always been an inconsistant tool for 8 seasons and that Starlight is a Creator’s Pet.
 
It’s like posting saying the sky is blue…it may seem pointless to say something so obvious everyone knows, but when your surrounded by an Internet culture that can get so toxic that people could say the sky is GREEN based on subjectivity, this is an oasis of common sense in comparison.
 
Thank you OP for being refreshingly honest.

@Ryodraco  
I know.  
And they did just that.

@Ryodraco  
Yeah, the only time they were at Twilight’s school instead of in class was when Starlight asked Cheerilee if she could pull them out of class for something which Cheerilee obviously agreed to let her do.

@genervt  
While I don’t think it actually happened (clearly Twilight’s school has some classes at times when the CMC are not in school) they certainly were at risk of doing it. Twilight tells them near the start of the episode they need to hurry to school or get late marks on their record.

@Tavi959  

 
Who said they were skipping classes?

@Tavi959  
I refuse to accept it because you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too.
 
Pick one: Professional or friend?
 
What I see in the episode is “Friend.” She dealt with the CMC as friends by keeping it informal. She identified their misbehavior (repeated misbehavior) and expressed her disappointment (“I can’t believe you’d do this!”). She told them to stay away from the school and the students, because that was what they were doing wrong. As I described above, I don’t think that “command” carried any legal weight or that she intended to enforce it. The scene was pretty clear that her disappointment alone was the punishment, and if they stayed away they could slowly regain her trust.
 
That is how friends behave when they have a disagreement of this nature. You can boil down what the CMC did as lying and attempting to abuse their friendship with Twilight. She was perfectly correct to express her disappointment in them and tell them to stop doing the wrong things they did.
 
If you want to describe “professional” then we’d point out how what they did was trespassing, lying to a Princess, lying to their sisters, disobeying a direct decree from a princess (by coming back on campus and/or attempting to bypass Twilight through their sisters). And if we go that route, then we can ascribe how “police” involvement to enforce punishment for breaking those laws might fit.
 
You appear to be trying to have it both ways. You erroneously label the “punishment” as “banishment” and insist that Twilight will actively police the CMC to ensure they don’t interact with her students. You are also concerned that the sisters/parents weren’t involved (and we both know those guardians would agree with Twilight and add additional punishment at least in the form of groundation to the CMC). Overall you both dislike how “bad” the punishment was while wanting to have it be worse than it was too. You both want Twilight to go easy on them while complaining that she went easy on them.
 
And you seem to be saying she didn’t respond as a friend, because she wasn’t more professional about it. Professional would involve rules and regulations, the involvement of both police and parents, and there would be something formally in the records of the CMC. That’s how schools professionally operate. Probably misdemeanor trespassing charges at the minimum, and whatever severity of crime disobeying royalty might entail.
 
Frankly, I am going to simply ignore your headcanon about the nature of the school. You bring up wild speculation about “public land” and “taxes” and the castle. I don’t particularly care about your headcanon. You don’t have a point there.
 
Anyway. I think we’ve drifted away from the topic brought up by the OP. OP is pretty clearly indicating a complaint about Twilight being depicted “badly” in the episode to make Starlight look better. Neither of us thinks that happened.
 
I think the episode did a fine job of showing Twilight being a friend in spite of disappointment towards the CMC and Cozy’s poor choices leading everyone to it. I think it was handled well, you don’t. I think your interpretation of the scene is inconsistent and wrong. You’re clearly not convincing me nor I you of whatever minute point of difference we’re having. Unless you have anything actually new to add to the conversation, I think we’re pretty much done.

@Ihhh  
Fair enough.

@Cryosite  
You’re missing my point. Twilight fancies herself to be a professional. And indeed she’s been a professional princess since at least season 5. We’ve seen her handling documents described as related to her position as princess. She desperately wanted an accredited school, and thus wanted to operate a formal school with formal teachers. It wasn’t until Starlight pointed out that she was literally writing the book on teaching friendship that she found the courage to stand up for her (and her friends’) methods.
 
And the CMC did nothing that would warrant calling the police/guards. There was no seriously malicious intent, and considering the school resides on public property (Twilight’s castle lies on unrestricted, unguarded property), funded by public funds (Twilight’s gotta be paying for this somehow and nothing has been said of students paying tuition), I would argue that it is not a “private” school with a closed campus but in fact an alternative learning center. The implications are not that the CMC are trespassing, but rather that they are being disruptive and trying to get out of their proper (also publicly funded) schooling.
 
Your refusal to acknowledge that Twilight clearly strives to be a professional in a professional situation based upon the fact that her school is informal and unaccredited leaves a lot to be desired considering how she was literally suffering from depression when the school was shut down by Neighsay. She may not be an official headmaster of an official school, but she’d like both to be true and should act accordingly.
 
Involving parents/guardians and/or Cheerilee would have gotten the antics to stop immediately and dished out an appropriate punishment for being disruptive and skipping class. It’s what should have been done if Twilight was going to throw them off the property.

@Derpyfan  
Perhaps not, but they are remaining civil, and they raise a lot of interesting points.

@Tavi959  
@Cryosite  
Guys, I’m pretty sure this isn’t going anywhere.

@Tavi959  
You seem to have some kind of worldview that is different.
 
Re: open/closed campus. It’s a closed campus. There are plenty of indicators in the episode that inform us of that. You can either accept them or not. Everyone involved in the episode behaved as if it were a closed campus, not an open one. Just because open campuses exist doesn’t mean Twilight’s School was one. I don’t care if they exist in the real world, or if they manage to work without issue in the real world. Twilight’s school isn’t one.
 
Re: Parents/sisters. Don’t care. I agree that it might have been better to involve others, rather than Twilight talking to the CMC alone. I don’t think it would change the outcome. I don’t think it changes the morality of the situation or anything.
 
I also know that if you look to the real world, if some teenaged hoodlums vandalize some property, the police can and will arrest them and charges will be processed. Parents will be notified after the fact. Call this “professional” resolution.
 
On the other hand, the owner of the property can and will talk to the teenagers personally instead of calling the cops. If the teens apologize, perhaps agree to fix/clean the damage, and behave in the future, the parents don’t need to be informed. Because, again, parents will often add additional consequences like groundation. Call this “informal” resolution.
 
You see it as a flaw that Twilight didn’t bring in parents/others, I see it as actual evidence that she was treating them as more mature and capable of behaving simply by being talked to rather than dragging in parents and insisting on real (professional) consequences.
 

 
You are attempting to paint the picture that Twilight is a professional, and should have handled things professionally. She isn’t, her school isn’t, and she handled the situation informally. You cite the informal nature of the resolution as a fault when it comes to directly dealing with the CMC, then try to amp up the consequences by treating it as a professionally resolved situation.
 
She isn’t a professional. She handled the situation informally. The consequences are informal. She did not once say, “if you are caught on campus or interacting with any of my students in any way, I will banish you to the moon for a milennium.” She said, “stay off school grounds” (because they kept sneaking on) and “stay away from my students (because they just misled one so badly that she failed a test).
 
As for judging the CMC, again, they just went around lying to their sisters and to Twilight and others. Trust for them isn’t particularly high at the moment. I am not saying Twilight was entirely in the right for how she handled the situation, I am saying it is reasonable. As in, using the information she had, how well she knew the CMC, and so on. She made a decision that fits her character and the information she had. It isn’t a detractor to her overall growth, it doesn’t ignore who she is or what she’s learned over the years.
 
I would further say that your suggestions would make everything worse. Twilight was being a friend. A friend who had to deal with a trio of teenager (friends) who made bad choices. She told them to specifically stop doing the things they were doing that were wrong, and the only consequence she offered was her own disappointment in them.
 
Now. If this were a professionally handled situation, then permanent records would be on file somewhere. You could imagine police/guards roaming about, and if they happened to notice one of the CMC interacting with a Friendship Student, they would be permitted to arrest that CMC for breaking a law/decree from a Princess. This appears to be more or less what you think happened, and you’re arguing that this is unfair and wrong.
 
This is what we call a strawman argument.
 
What I saw happen is that Twilight told the CMC, “stay away from my students.” Specifically in the context of tutoring them to set them up for failure, as they did with Cozy Glow (as far as Twilight knows). The worst the CMC could expect is that if they, for example, encountered Silverstream near Sugar Cube Corner one day, they’d probably be inclined to reply to her greeting with, “hi, Silverstream. We shouldn’t talk to you or hang out with you, Twilight is kinda mad at us because we messed up.” I could also imagine that if Twilight or one of the M6 saw one of the CMC talking to a student, they might raise an eyebrow, glare a bit, and be suspicious of the CMC’s intentions. All of this until such time as the CMC earned back the trust they threw away.
 
The fact that the CMC were actually innocent in this case means they regained a fair bit of the trust they threw away that day/those days. All the lying and sneaking they did was brushed under the rug and forgotten about, and they were given jobs.
 
Overall, seems like the whole situation was indeed handled in a “Friendship” manner. Because it wasn’t professionally handled.

@Cryosite  
And yet Twilight did, in fact, do such a thing. In Ponyville Confidential, in the very first example we see of Twilight using barriers, she erects one around the library specifically to keep out the CMC.
 
And if you want proof that Twilight’s been paying attention to the CMC’s growth as a group, look no further than The Cutie Re-Mark. She uses the CMC as a specific example of cutie mark magic that requires further study, something that Twilight herself would engage in long before anyone else would care to.
 
I would agree with parents turning up, with the sole problem being that they are all absentee for the most part. This leaves Rarity representing her sister and Rainbow Dash being the closest thing Scootaloo has to a guardian. And if Twilight wants to shame them off the campus, the CMC’s guardians should be there to agree with it. As they should, under the circumstances. Perhaps they should have even involved Cheerilee. Instead, Twilight took it entirely upon herself to ignore the growth she herself is aware of in favor of kicking them out. There was no discussion or conversation, she just accused them of pulling a mean prank and basically said “stay away from my students.” This is plainly unprofessional for a professional adult to say to teenagers, misbehaving or not, without guardians present. To say nothing of the suggestion that Twilight’s literally forbidding them from interacting with anyone who goes to her school, which is completely unfair and an unreasonable expectation because that’s interfering entirely with the formation of potential friendships.
 
Again, Twilight’s job here is as the headmaster of the school. It’s her job, self-appointed or not, and she should act accordingly. She brands her school as one to teach friendship, and her punishment to three fillies she’s known for years is to actively forbid them from even trying to bond with anyone going to her school? Just because they wanted to attend the school themselves? They were being disruptive about it, sure, but this punishment is not only one Twilight is incapable of enforcing, it’s above and beyond what they deserved.
 
Frankly, she should have at least summoned Cheerilee, explained everything to her, and had HER punish them for skipping class because she’s actually their teacher. Instead, she went way too far, acted unprofessionally and acted on her own when she had no right to. She can forbid them from being on campus, but she overreached in prohibiting them from having anything to do with the students.
 
As for the closed campus argument, it depends a lot on where the campus is. Some places are a lot more lax about freeloaders than others. Some view it as harmless because if they’re not paying to be there, they’re not actually getting a formal education out of it. Others think if they want to learn, let them learn, formally or not. Hell, there was a time when you could become a professor by showing up looking the part and acting like you know what you’re talking about. Security enforcement on campus is a lot more rigid nowadays, but it’s still not absolute. I can drive into a campus, park, go inside and get a coffee, talk to whoever I want and nobody will ever ask a question. Because educational campuses are not prisons and they can’t keep everyone who shouldn’t be there out.

@Psyga315  
No, no, he did something wrong. It just wasn’t didn’t make him wrong about the school.