| NOTE: This article contains information only on Sunset Shimmer from the first EG movie, and not from the Rainbow Rocks movie until now where she's Near Pure Good. |
| “ | Sorry it had to be this way... Princess! | „ |
| ~ Sunset as a Pony at the beginning of the movie. |
| “ | When the crown and its power are mine, Twilight Sparkle will be sorry she ever set hoof into this world... Not that she would've been much safer if she stayed in Equestria. | „ |
| ~ Sunset swears revenge on Twilight Sparkle. |
| “ | Oh please. What do you think you're going to do to stop me? I have magic, and you have NOTHING! | „ |
| ~ Demon Sunset Shimmer facing Twilight. |
Sunset Shimmer is one of the main protagonists of the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls franchise, serving as the main antagonist of Hasbro’s 2013 animated feature film My Little Pony: Equestria Girls and later one of main protagonists in its sequels, short films, and webseries. She is Princess Twilight's former arch-rival and Snips and Snails' former leader and boss. She's also Pinkie Pie's human counterpart's former enemy-turned-one of her two best friends (alongside Sci-Twi).
She is voiced by Rebecca Shoichet.
Her Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Her Heinous?[]
In General[]
- While King Sombra is far more dangerous, heinous and evil than her with his acts of enslaving whole areas (e.g. the Crystal Empire and Ponyville), destroying the Tree of Harmony and placing ponies in a fate worse than death enabling him to go from a regional to an implied global threat (which is why he got a nasty legacy that holds up years after his death), Sunset has fewer resources and less power than him, and she still stands out by herself due to posing a local threat at best and her personal villainy goes beyond standard bullying (since she emotionally abused Twilight and her friends). Even though it is true that Sunset temporarily became a demon for the rest of the climax (which served as the last 5 minutes of her screentime as a villain) and never retains her demon form again, she still did the worst she can with her extra resources by brainwashing and controlling the minds of dozens of people against their will and using her fire magic to try to brutally kill Twilight and her friends out of sheer spite by throwing a fireball at them with the intention to burn them to death.
- By extension, despite Cosmos (who comes from a possibly different canon), Queen Chrysalis, Storm King and Tantabus doing much worse than her, not only do they rely on Fridge Horror to pass the baseline standard for PE (with the exception of Cosmos, who is heinous enough but comes from a comic series with a debatable canonicity and Tantabus whose actions of turning Equestria into a living nightmare shown to cause pain towards others but is given little to no personality), but they all have more resources with Cosmos being a reality-warper with vast mastery of magic and the ability to shapeshift, Chrysalis being a powerful monarch with an army under her command and access to the Bewitching Spell, Storm King having an immensely strong staff that is powered by all the alicorn princesses and the capability to create deadly tornadoes and Tantabus is an manifestation of darkness with the power to turn others dreams into nightmares. In contrast, Sunset is just a mere high school student who only has her intelligence and two minions and she doesn't suffer from Fridge Horror to stand out due to the effects of her personal villainy towards the Mane Six having sufficient clarity.
- As a result, it could also be argued that Sunset and King Sombra are the two most personal antagonists in the fourth generation of My Little Pony as the former temporarily divided the friendship between the Mane Six and the latter destroyed their main source of power and brainwashed/enslaved all their friends in his plan to rule Equestria, but unlike Sombra, Sunset changed for the better.
- She is sometimes a bad boss to Snips and Snails and can abuse them (albeit verbally) even if she had genuine care for them.
Background[]
- Even before becoming a villain, Sunset was already an arrogant and condescending individual, which is why she had troubled relationship with Princess Celestia and was refused to be acknowledged to be worthy of the princess status, thus leading her to rebel against Celestia, which got her expelled from school and banished from the castle.
- While she would normally be considered tragic due to not fully understanding the magic of friendship, this is ultimately inexcusable as she was a bitter and cold person whose anger and impatience is what brought it onto herself. Besides, her Freudian Excuse is never played for sympathy in-universe. Plus, despite not intending to be evil in the first place, her actions go too far for her to be considered a villain by proxy since she embraced her villainy and is only evil for the sake of hurting others' feelings.
- When she was a student of Celestia, she had a self-serving motive as she was only interested in becoming a princess rather than making friends, which is something that even Celestia outright hated.
- She became increasingly impatient during her time as a student of Celestia as she felt her teaching wasn't getting her anywhere fast enough and went to the dark magic library to do some research on the Mirror Crystal without her tutor's permission, and once Celestia confronts her, she argues with her and demands her to make her a princess, resulting in her being expelled from school. Later on, she escaped from the guards who were restraining her and went through the Crystal Mirror to get to the human world.
- Before the human version of the Mane Six went to the human world, Sunset split up their friendship with the only reasons amounting to envy and spite without any remorse for her actions.
- This is arguably one of the worst acts of personal villainy in G4 of My Little Pony, considering main villains try to kill them at best with some exceptions who manipulate them, give them personal conflicts or try to separate them but being barely succesful or succeding but not lasting long enough due to the bond of the pony version of the Mane 6 being much stronger than their human conterparts.
- Considering that Flash Sentry used to date her before they broke up due to Flash growing tired of Sunset's attitude, it could be implied that she abused him throughout their relationship (though this isn't confirmed).
- The reason why she only dated Flash was to gain herself more popularity, as she admitted it following her redemption.
- While attending Canterlot High School, she pretends to rule it like a totalitarian zone with an iron first and serves as the school bully, manipulating and bullying other students to revel in her sadism and get her way while taking pleasure in making others feel bad.
- Due to her actions, some of the students are shown to embrace fear and resent.
My Little Pony Equestria Girls[]
- After learning that Twilight is the princess of friendship, she snuck into the Crystal Castle and stole her Elements of Harmony crown while sarcastically apologizing to Twilight just to spite her, leading to the events of the first Equestria Girls movie.
- She threatened Fluttershy into giving her the Elements of Harmony crown before Twilight intervened and ordered her to leave Fluttershy alone.
- She tried to discourage Twilight from persuading other students to vote for her to win the Fall Formal election by ordering Snips and Snails to post a humiliating video of Twilight onto the internet to break her will before her friends cheer her up and prevent her from giving up on her goal.
- After failing to break Twilight, Sunset vandalized the Fall Formal decorations and pinned the blame on to Twilight, which caused her to feel guilty over feeling responsible for an act of mass property damage that she didn't even commit in the first place.
- Even worse, this almost led to Twilight being kicked out of the school only for Flash Sentry to come to her defence and prove her innocence. If it wasn't for him, Twilight would have dwelled on the incident for days and this could have taken a toll on her mental health all because of Sunset's petty grudge against her.
- After learning that Twilight became the Princess of the Fall Formal, Sunset snapped and spitefully kidnapped Spike and took him as hostage into forcing Twilight to give her the Elements of Harmony crown. While she wasn't that willing to hurt Spike, she still refused to see the error of her ways and threatened to destroy the portal to Equestria to bribe Twilight into doing so (implying that she knew how Twilight and her friends would feel if they were unable to return to their homeworld), to which she refused much to Sunset's dismay.
- After having a fight with the Mane Six over the Elements of Harmony crown, Sunset successfully wielded it and put it on her head, transforming into a wicked and powerful demon. Upon gaining her temporary demon form and amassing a significantly high extent of power, she turned her own minions Snips and Snails into demons for her own amusement and then proceeded to brainwash all of the unwilling Canterlot High students to build an army that she planned to use to help her invade and conquer Equestria.
- While her demon form could be a similar being to Midnight Sparkle who is a separate being from Sci-Twi, there's little to nothing suggesting Sunset's demon form is a separate being from her or if she has the same powers Midnight Sparkle has.
- Despite transforming into a demon, Sunset still has moral agency, such as laughing when Twilight's friends came coming to her aid.
- Despite her brainwashing not being depicted as painful, it's evident that she is controlling their minds (with her even bragging about it) and depriving them of their free will without the students being aware of their states, and although it's not mentioned how bad her takeover of Equestria would be, it's still treated as a threat used to spite Twilight and make her resent Sunset even more than she already did beforehand.
- When Twilight realises she had nothing to stand up to her, Sunset arrogantly bragged about how powerful she is and berated Twilight for her lack of ideas, and when Pinkie, Rainbow, Applejack, Fluttershy and Rarity joined Twilight to help her, she mocked their bond and attempted to brutally kill all of them in one fell swoop by hurling a large fireball at them, which would have likely burned them alive had it not been for a force field protecting them.
- Furthermore, despite telling Twilight's friends to "step aside" (which implies that she only targeted Twilight personally), she did not care when they protected Twilight from the fireball and later opposed them with homicidal intent, allowing the Mane Six to combine their power to battle Sunset and defeat her.
Sequels[]
- Even after her redemption, she still has her flaws as she can be rude at times and never subverts her anger issues, most notably when she lashed out at Twilight for messing around with magic she didn't understand and hurt Pinkie's feelings by ditching her when they were meant to see PostCrush together.
- Her actions in the first Equestria Girls movie made her indirectly responsible for most of the events that happen in the Rainbow Rocks movie since the Dazzlings witnessed her magic from afar. While she didn't know that she caused all of this, she is still responsible for the Dazzlings' actions at Canterlot High School.
- Due to her actions in the first Equestria Girls movie, her crimes earned herself the hatred and resentment from other students despite she brought the misery upon herself, initially not having been forgiven due to the impact of her cruel and mean-spirited mistreatment of them, with only the exception of the Rainbooms who forgave her in mercy. This would lead to the Dazzlings taking advantage of her insecurity for their pleasure in the Rainbow Rocks movie. Despite this, she was finally forgiven and accepted by the rest of the students at the end of the movie.
What Makes Her Inconsistent?[]
- She has a Pet the Dog moment where she spared hesitancy to harm Spike and only kidnapped him to goad Twilight into giving her the Elements of Harmony crown, proving she had standards and a sense of honor.
- Even if she's taken more seriously than most of the other villains in the series, she's still played for laughs sometimes such as there being a running gag of her being denied access to the Elements of Harmony crown, her being irritated by Snips and Snails’ incompetence, her being interrupted by Snips and Snails during her monologue and forcing them to leave and her mocking Twilight's friends for defying her while shedding a single tear.
- She genuinely cares about her minions Snips and Snails, as despite the rough relationship, she was rather fond of them as she treated them nicely most of the time. Her forcibly turning them into demons is not a subversion, as she likely didn't know she was torturing her own henchmen (although this could be implied as a way to thank them for their help, especially compared to other villains with their henchmen).
- She ultimately redeems herself at the end of the first Equestria Girls movie; After being defeated by the Mane Six, she becomes repentant over her crimes and sheds some tears while saying sorry to everyone for everything she had done, which is played for sympathy. This encourages Twilight to forgive and accept Sunset and make her part of her friend group to teach her about the magic of friendship. As a result, Sunset becomes one of the supporting protagonists for the rest of the Equestria Girls series and even becomes Near Pure Good.
Trivia[]
- Sunset is the one of four canon Inconsistently Heinous characters from the fourth generation of My Little Pony, alongside the Tree of Harmony, Midnight Sparkle, and the Tantabus.
- For a long time, she was considered a Villainous Benchmark due to the wide assumption that most of her actions were nothing but bog-standard, amounting to bullying, "kill the heroes" villainy and attempted world domination. However, upon reevaluation and reexamination, it was concluded that her personal villainy is comparable to emotional abuse and she not only has one of the highest attempted kill counts in the series with six attempted murders, but she also has one of the most brutal ways of trying to kill her intended victims via incineration. It also helped that she had lower resources than many of the worse villains such as Chrysalis, Sombra and Storm King, being a normal student who attends a high school and was only a demon for a few minutes at best. Thus, she was subsequently discussed and approved as Inconsistently Heinous.
- She is one of the eight Inconsistently Heinous villains to also be a Near Pure Good hero, with the other 6 being Joseph Korso, Thel 'Vadam, Cedric the Sorcerer, The Animator, Kaworu Nagisa, Nathalie Sancoeur, and Grace Monroe.
External Links[]
- Sunset Shimmer on the Antagonists Wiki
- Sunset Shimmer on the Villains Wiki
- Sunset Shimmer on the Heroes Wiki
- Sunset Shimmer on the Near Pure Good Wiki
- Sunset Shimmer on the Guile Heroes Wiki
- Sunset Shimmer on the Love Exalted Wiki
- Sunset Shimmer on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Wiki
- Sunset Shimmer on the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Wiki
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 Inconsistently Heinous
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Canon Equestria Girls Fanon | ||