Alternative Character Interpretation/Western Animation/My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

Examples of s in include:


 * It has sparked speculation about the true nature of Princess Celestia and Night Mare Moon. Could the Creation Myth holding that Celestia defeated her jealous sister's mad plan to bring about The Night That Never Ends be propaganda stretching the truth? Is Night Mare Moon a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who went mad after being sealed away for a thousand years?
 * Given how well Celestia and Luna have gotten along in the seasons since her return, the character interpretations involving them being secretly at odds or Celestia plotting against her sister are pretty well invalidated by now. Luna's comments to Apple Bloom in the season 5 episode "Bloom and Gloom" about how one can be so afraid or full of self-doubt that 'their entire life seems like a bad dream', an obvious reference to Nightmare Moon, would also seem to indicate that Luna's turn as the Nightmare was the result of succumbing to neurosis, not the cause of it.
 * The season 4 opener shows us the scene where Nightmare Moon is banished via magical postcognition on Twilight Sparkle's part. Celestia is shown as being confronted by a Luna who is completely out of her mind and banishing her as a desperate last resort, after all attempts to plead for reason have failed.
 * Aaand, the season 5 finale gives us a brief look at an alternate timeline where Nightmare Moon won. In that timeline, Celestia has been banished to the sun for 1000+ years, and Her Nocturnal Majesty rules over a land of endless night with an iron hoof. Admittedly, Nightmare Moon comes across in that timeline as a pony version of Victor von Doom, ruling over her equine version of Latveria as a grim and foreboding tyrant yet legitimately devoted to preserving the well-being of her subjects, but she's still clearly in villain territory.
 * There is also "Trollestia," a theory that Celestia is intentionally screwing with everybody (or everypony, as the case may be.)
 * Then there is the "Molestia" interpretation, which is pretty much what it sounds like. Compounding it are all the sub-categories of this persona; from a shiftless layabout who has grown bored of her duties and dodges actual administration to watch porn, to a very open but harmless nympho with a light BDSM fetish, to a serial-rapist and pedophile.
 * In a more minor example, Applejack's brother Big Macintosh has been portrayed in fanon as a simple, big-brother type, a civilized, not-quite-country boy with a lot going on in his head, and in the case of one particularly moving fanfic based from a short three-panel comic, a veteran shocked or similarly motivated into silence by what he saw. Oh, and a Chick Magnet.
 * Pinkie Pie also qualifies for this, considering speculation that her past may have led her to develop manic-depressive disorder and a severe phobia of rejection, especially from friends. And, well... Cupcakes.
 * There's another interpretation out there: Pinkie Pie is immortal. She grew up on a rock farm because that was an actual job during Discord's reign, and he made her as weird as she is to cause strife within her family. The rainbow blast and rainbow she saw afterwards wasn't from a Sonic Rainboom, it was from Celestia and Luna using the Elements of Harmony to defeat Discord. So that really was how Equestria was made.
 * On that note, the Screw Ball pony flying around with a propeller hat could be like Pinkie; A pony that would be happy if Discord's reign was permanent ("Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain!"). Discord has the ability to create ponies. Be afraid.
 * Also with all the comments about Pinkie's constant breaking of the fourth wall, a few fanfics and other stuff have hinted she may be more powerful than the princesses...and no one, not even herself, really knows it.
 * Because of season one's finale, Fluttershy has been thought of as more than a little unstable due to her rather terrifying outburst.
 * And her psychotic episode in season 2's "Putting Your Hoof Down" was worse. Fortunately, since then Fluttershy seems to have acknowledged that she has a problem regarding social anxiety and repressed anger, and has found healthier coping strategies.
 * Just who exactly is benefiting from the friendship reports that Twilight sends to the Princess? Is Twilight on the autistic spectrum and the reports are for her own personal growth? Or are they for Princess Celestia as a way to understand the common pony and how to interact with them? Or are they for Luna?
 * Or maybe it's for all those reasons.
 * It could also have something to do with some kind of future plan that will come into play later that may end up saving the world. Take for example the fact that Celestia's re-sending them all back to Twilight helped her to defeat Discord.
 * "Lesson Zero" seems to give more insight into Twilight's personality, specifically, her deepest fears: She's absolutely terrified of failure and the thought of not meeting the expectations of others. There's also the (unfounded) fear that she'll be sent back to magic kindergarten. Add her general social awkwardness, the fact that she always wanted to throw a slumber party (even though she and her friends are now adults) and even the lyrics of the theme song (I used to wonder what friendship could be...) and you get the idea that Twilight's early childhood was a less then pleasant experience (victim of bullying perhaps?). Her obsession with studying and being a good student may have been to avoid the pain of being alone and friendless and to validate her own self-worth. Now that she has real friends, she's completely terrified of losing them and reverting back to the lonely and scared filly she once was.
 * Rainbow Dash is often implied to be a Lazy Bum, yet she has also been shown working her rump off when it's important to her (such as constantly practicing her moves) or to Ponyville (she's a team leader in Winter Wrap-Up). Is she lazy, or is she bored by what she sees as trivial duties and consequently slacks off?
 * One Youtube commenter had the idea that Rainbow Dash has Winston Churchill complex- she equates affection with achievement and assumes that if she isn't the best at what she's doing, her friends won't love/respect her, which would possibly explain her fear of failing/losing and her increasingly erratic behaviour in "Sonic Rainboom" and "The Mysterious Mare Do-Well."
 * A common fanon portrayal of The Great and Powerful TRRRIXIIEEE depicts her Miles Gloriosus streak as a mask over a Dark and Troubled Past with a side order of woobie. (It's quite possible you get bonus points for the degree of cruelty with which you kill off the parent who inspired her to start a magic act.)
 * Others have suggested that Trixie suffers from an Inferiority Superiority Complex; she didn't make it in magic school because she was a bully whose only real talent was using her telekinesis to pick on others compared to other unicorns that can do much more useful magic. Similar to common fan theories about Applebloom's nemesis Diamond Tiara, this theory holds that Trixie is such a showboating Jerkass because her talent is nothing special and she's desperate to convince herself and everypony else otherwise.
 * Gilda gets viewed in a couple different ways, ranging from a full-on Jerkass thug who feels overly possessive of Dash, a Tsundere Jerk with a Heart of Gold that got caught on a bad day, or a genuine Cool Big Sis character who got tripped up by cultural boundaries which Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie didn't consider and overeacted to.
 * Scootaloo is the only member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders who has had no familial connections shown or even hinted at, and is rarely seen apart from her two closest friends. Additionally, she's a pegasus unable to fly for anything but short distances, and is rarely seen without her crude wooden scooter. As such, Scootaloo is often depicted as being stuck in an abusive family, or as a homeless orphan.
 * Season 4's episode "Flight to the Finish" confirms that Scootaloo lives in a home with a family, although her parents or guardians are never seen on-screen. That same episode also confirms that Scootaloo is physically challenged in some way, as its explicitly stated that in the normal course of events a pegasus filly of her age would already have been flying for some time, and yet Scootaloo tries and repeatedly fails to despite putting in an obsessive level of effort.
 * One popular theory is that Fluttershy witnessed her father being eaten by a dragon, traumatizing her. Her mother then pushed and forced her into all the best flight schools and camps, not noticing (or possibly, not caring) that Fluttershy was a weak flyer, causing her to fall behind...
 * In Sweet And Elite, Twilight says to Rarity that she understands her going to the other party as being work related. However, they immediately afterwards crash the party and make complete asses out of themselves and proudly declare their association with her. Was it merely all in good fun, or were Rarity's friends being spiteful over Rarity lying to them?
 * A popular alternate interpretation is that both the overly forgiving and good-natured response of Rarity's friends and their immediate descent into embarrassing jerkdom and total lack of indoor voice both derived from the same root cause -- they were drunk. Supporting evidence for this lies in the fact that her friends had already been partying for some time before Rarity showed up, and there were foaming mugs of cider (and Equestrian cider is hard, i.e., containing alcohol) visible at the birthday party.
 * Blueblood's behaviour at the Gala has been interpreted by some as him recognizing Rarity's dream, and was screwing with her because he's met countless other mares with the same vapid dream and he's not willing to play the part.
 * Some people don't really buy Mr.Cake's explanation of why his children are a pegasus and a unicorn. They believe that magical fertility treatments or infidelity may be involved somehow.
 * In the iTunes redub of the beginning of "The Last Roundup", The pony formally known as Derpy Hooves was made to sound more "intelligent" and her eyes are no longer as "derpy" as before. This could make her wanton destruction of the town hall to be completely senseless. Is she still genuinely slow or was she Trolling Rainbow Dash?
 * Is Discord a truly malevolent being who loves to torment others for his amusement, a crazy but not necessarily evil being who is only doing his job as the God Of Chaos, or simply a mere Jerkass God who merely finds the ponies as little more than entertainment but doesn't hold any malevolent feelings towards them? Or, all three?
 * The nature of the Dragons as a species is also debated. Common interpretations are that wild dragons tend to be JerkAsses and Spike's a nice guy because he was raised by ponies, while others suggest that adult dragons are powerful and dangerous when provoked but also intelligent and non-malicious, in which case they are the antagonists because we keep seeing them at their worst; the red dragon was unreasonable because it was exhausted and the Mane Six kept interrupting his nap, the green dragon overreacted because he thought Spike wanted to steal all his food, and the teenage dragons were immature idiots that hadn't learned how to behave.
 * Diamond Tiara is usually thought to be a simple Alpha Bitch (although see the Trixie example for one way some people interpret her more sympathetically), her friend Silver Spoon is sometimes suggested to be a much nicer filly who is mean to Apple Bloom because she's imitating her best friend. Silver Spoon is noted to genuinely care about Diamond Tiara's feelings, seeing how she tried to cheer her up at the end of "Call of the Cutie", but she's also one of the first to applaud Granny Smith's story about how the Apple Family founded Ponyville despite Diamond Tiara refusing to.
 * Season 5's "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" has given more character depth to Diamond Tiara -- the root cause of her behavior was revealed to be her incredibly demanding and emotionally abusive mother, Spoiled Rotten, who not only pushed Diamond Tiara to succeed at everything and harshly punished even the slightest failure but also taught her daughter the worst possible lessons about social skills and interpersonal cooperation. (Specifically, that the entire idea of mutual cooperation was a suckers' game and that in 'real life' you either trampled all possible rivals underfoot or were the one being trampled, no middle ground.) Upon finally cluing in that her mother is a horrible pony, Diamond Tiara face turns and makes peace with her former victims.