Starlight Glimmer

"My village was a sanctuary of equality, where nopony's cutie mark allowed them to feel superior! It was a special place, and you and your friends took it away! Now it's my turn to take something special from you! Without the rainboom, you and your friends will never form your special cutie mark bonds! Cutie marks for cutie marks! Sounds like a fair trade to me!"

- Starlight Glimmer and her plan for revenge.

Starlight Glimmer is the main antagonist in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic season 5 two-part starter, The Cutie Map as well as in two-parter final The Cutie Remark but she reforms.

She is voiced by Kelly Sheridan.

Cutie Map
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' individuality was 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.

Cameos
Starlight makes a cameo appearance in Amending Fences, when she was hiding behind a menu she was holding in the cafe. She has a second cameo in What About Discord?, hiding behind a bush and spying on the Mane 6 and Discord with a pair of binoculars.

Cutie Remark
Starlight returns as the main villain of the season finale, The Cutie Remark. After listening to Twilight's speech of how she and her friends obtained their cutie marks through Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom, Starlight appeared in Twilight's castle and used an altered version of Star Swirl the Bearded's time travel spell with the Cutie Map to travel back in time. She blasted Rainbow Dash away before she could do the Sonic Rainboom, altering time so that King Sombra ruled Equestria and was at war with Princess Celestia. Twilight's attempts to stop Starlight only led to Starlight crystallizing her and then convincing the jock bullies not to pick on Fluttershy, creating a timeline in which Queen Chrysalis is in power and at war with Zecora. Twilight tried to fight Starlight, but it distracted Rainbow Dash, creating a timeline in which Nightmare Moon was in power, with Rainbow Dash and Rarity working for her and Celestia imprisoned.

Twilight's attempts continued to be in vain; Starlight tripped Rainbow Dash, putting Lord Tirek in power; Starlight got Twilight to crystallize Rainbow Dash, putting Discord in power; she made Fluttershy fly with her magic, putting the Flim Flam Brothers in power. When Starlight blasted Rainbow Dash away again, Twilight took Starlight with her to the new apocalyptic future. When Twilight wondered what made Starlight think cutie marks were evil, she took Twilight to when she was a filly and her friend Sunburst got his cutie mark and left for Celestia's magic school, which began her vendetta against cutie marks. Returning to the Rainboom, Starlight attempted to destroy the spell so Twilight could never travel through time again, but Twilight convinced her to make new friends and give friendship a chance. So, Starlight allowed the Sonic Rainboom to take place, and she, Twilight, and Spike returned to the present, where Starlight became friends with the Mane 6 and Spike, became Twilight's student, and reconciled with her village.

Personality
When introduced, Starlight Glimmer is shown to be seemingly benevolent and laid-back, but is 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 6 to keep 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 onto Canterlot, making Starlight feel abandoned. When Twilight convinces Starlight to turn over a new leaf, Starlight becomes friendly and kind-hearted, as well as remorseful for her actions.

Powers 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.

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.
 * She is also the same villain to appear in the season finale.
 * Starlight Glimmer's name is similar to that of Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer. Similarly to Sunset Shimmer, she is an antithesis to Twilight Sparkle. Instead of accepting her friends with all their differences as Twilight Sparkle 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 is the only villain who wanted to seem good, while the others shown that they are villains directly.
 * She has a similar color scheme to Aria Blaze and a similar mane-style to Sonata Dusk.
 * She is the eighth recurring villain on the show. The others are: Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Trixie, Discord, Ahuizotl, Flim Flam Brothers, and Gilda.
 * 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.
 * She shares the same name as Starlight from My Little Pony Tales.

Similar villains

 * Starlight Glimmer is very similar to the Avatar villain, Amon, as they both...
 * have their own malevolent views on what is right (especially on equality), and aspire to create a world based on such views, putting them at odds with the show's true hero.
 * Starlight with Princess Twilight Sparkle
 * Amon with Avatar Korra
 * are very persuasive and have an entire army of followers behind them.
 * Starlight with the residents of the Unnamed village
 * Amon with the Equalists
 * have the power to strip other individuals of their special abilities...
 * Starlight can steal ponies' cutie-marks and the talents that go with them
 * Amon can "remove" a person's bending
 * ...however, their powers derive from a factor that make them contradict their own claims, causing them to lose their supporters once they were exposed...
 * Starlight still has her own cutie-mark specializing in magic
 * Amon is a bloodbender
 * ...thus they had to fabricate lies of which their powers derive from.
 * Starlight uses the "Staff of Sameness", claiming it to be one of nine magical items belonging to the great mage, Meadowbrook, but is really just some piece of wood she found in the desert.
 * Amon claims to have been the son of a poor non-bending family that was murdered by a firebender and given a permanent scar (which is actually fake). Then the spirits granted him the ability to remove bending from the world because the Avatar had failed them.
 * once had someone close to them, but circumstances tore them apart and drove them to become villains.
 * Starlight had a friend named Sunburst who gained a cutie mark of his own and left for Canterlot to study, leaving Starlight all alone and leading her to believe that cutie marks only lead to sadness.
 * Amon had a brother named Tarrlok who he was very protective of, but after training with their father, Yakone, Amon became cold and distant. He then turned his father and tried to convince his brother to run away with him, but he refused, leaving Amon to run away alone, calling Tarrlok weak.
 * Starlight is also very similar to Lotso from Toy Story 3: Both are intelligent manipulators who are the oppressive and restrictive leaders of their communities, both appear to be kind and caring at first and welcoming to the main characters of their respective works before revealing their true dark nature, both appear to offer a better life to their subjects when they are actually repressive towards them, both use force to eliminate any resistance to their ways and both also make themselves appear as equal to those they rule over whilst they actually put themselves above them.
 * However, unlike Lotso, who was shown to be a complete monster who only seemed to desire the pain and suffering of his fellow toys, it's possible that Starlight may actually seemed to have at least some care for the residents of her town, and that she may have truly believed that she was making their lives better.
 * She is also similar to Cyrus from Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, and Platnium versions as they're both major villains of their franchise's fourth generation, both want an equal world, and they both want to alter history.