My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Characters/Antagonists

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Not everyone in Equestria lives in harmony with each other. This page is split into two categories: the incredibly powerful beings who threaten Equestria, and ordinary antagonists to the cast.

Return to the character index here.

Powerful Threats to Equestria and Ponykind

Nightmare Moon

"From this moment forth, the night will last FOREVER! AHAHAHAHAHAAA!!"

Debut: "Friendship Is Magic, Part 1" ("Mare in the Moon")

Voiced by Tabitha St. Germain

An evil and wicked creature born from dark magic fueling up Princess Luna's jealously and bitterness. Her desire to create a never-ending night forced Princess Celestia to use The Elements of Harmony to imprison her in the moon, seemingly for eternity. However after one thousand years the stars helped her to escape and this time she attacked first, defeating Celestia off-camera and leaving Equestria stuck on night time. After a short rampage, she was defeated and "purified" of her darkness by Twilight Sparkle and her friends. According to the episode "Luna Eclipsed" Luna can still transform into Nightmare Moon (though not malevolent) at will.

Nightmare Moon: You're kidding. You're kidding, right?

  • Dirty Coward: Continually flees from the ponies and sends her servants to defeat them, is intimidated when confronted by them all at the same time and is greatly afraid in the presence of her sister.
  • Evil Counterpart: For both Celestia and Luna. Her Shadowbolts form is this to the Wonderbolts.
    • Also one to Twilight Sparkle to a certain degree.
  • Evil Laugh: A big fan of it.
  • Evil Plan: Eternal Night! Her intention was a Take Over the World plot, but Word of God confirms that it would've actually killed every living organism on the planet.
  • The Evil Princess: She is in a literal sense an "evil princess" but her position seems to (and was supposed to) be that of a queen. There isn't anyone higher in position than hers to overthrow with the exception of her equal and fellow princess, Celestia.
  • The Fair Folk: Nightmare Moon's legend post-Elements was told like this. Disguise yourself so she can’t recognize you, give her a candy offering so she could fill her stomach with that instead of you and above all, never piss her off. Only then she may just decide not to devour everyone on Equestria... until next year that is.
  • Fangs Are Evil: The actual Nightmare Moon doesn't have fangs, but Nightmare Night portrayals of her sometimes do.
  • For the Evulz: Unless she was too self-absorbed to notice, eternal night would essentially have made Nightmare Moon a genocidal villain albeit more indirectly than most. Without sunlight, plants cannot live thus no food to eat. Word of God confirms that "Their food can't grow without sunlight. [dead link]"
  • Fisher Queen: Naturally, when she seizes control of Equestria, the land is plunged into never-ending darkness.
  • Goddess of Evil/Mad Goddess
  • God Save Us From the Queen: Even though she's called a princess, her power as with Celestia seems to be that of a queen. Word of God states that it was due to Executive Meddling to prevent this trope from being invoked though Nightmare Moon is a straight example of this regardless of title change.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: She's essentially Princess Luna turned into an Omnicidal Maniac out for Revenge.
  • Good Eyes, Evil Eyes, Glowing Eyes of Doom and Hellish Pupils
  • Good Wings, Evil Wings: Has feathery wings like any Pegasus but they're drawn with a noticeably more bat-like outline.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: According to the Creation Myth, the problem started when she grew jealous of how their subjects went out and enjoyed the daytime but slept through her beautiful nights.
  • Hellish Horse
  • Hot Goddess: For the same reason as Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, considering that Nightmare Moon is their Evil Counterpart.
  • Large Ham
  • Mare In Black
  • Meaningful Name
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: When Twilight Sparkle sets off with her new friends to find the Elements of Harmony, they only have a partial idea of what they are looking for. Nightmare Moon's attempts to stop them provide the clues that are needed to figure out the rest of the missing information.
  • The Night That Never Ends: Her ultimate goal.
  • Prehensile Hair: Her mane and tail are made up of the purple smoke stuff she's also capable of entirely transforming into; it can move as she pleases.
  • Punny Name: Nightmare Moon.
    • The puns don't stop there. She went mad from jealousy, after all. The Mare of the Moon was a lunatic.
    • Also her change of name. Luna is Latin (and Spanish) for "moon".
    • The dark areas or "seas" of our moon are all named "Mare something-or-other". It's too bad they're not pronounced the same[1].
  • The Resenter: See above under Green-Eyed Monster.
  • Satan: The closest thing ponykind has to one, anyway: a powerful being, fallen from grace and imprisoned, whose return will usher in an era of darkness and evil. Folk legends revolve around her eating foals during Nightmare Night.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: She was sealed in the Moon for a thousand years as "The Mare in the Moon."
  • Self-Duplication: Combined with Voluntary Shapeshifting. Nightmare Moon transforms into a fictional trio called the Shadowbolts based on Rainbow Dash's idols, the Wonderbolts in order to distract her from helping her friends. However only the female member actually speaks (in Nightmare Moon's voice) so it is also possible that two male members are actually only non-sentient dummies. That or she couldn't make a convincing male voice for them.
  • Shadow Archetype: For both Celestia and Luna.
  • Shock and Awe: She uses lightning to escape the Summer Sun Celebration in the second episode.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": "Nightmare Moon" has been used by Hasbro, The Hub, WeLoveFine, and Lauren Faust, while "Night Mare Moon" has only been used by Hasbro and Lauren Faust and partially by the single-volume storybook adaptation of the pilot episodes.
  • Starter Villain: The first real Big Bad in the series.
  • Super-Powered Evil Side: A literal case as Nightmare Moon was born from evil magic taking over Luna.
  • Super Smoke
  • Vile Villain Saccharine Show
  • Villains Blend in Better: Did a much better job of adapting to modern Equestria than Luna did in her first appearance even though she/both of them were sealed inside the moon for a millennium.
    • It was arguably easier since she was trying to terrify the ponies and not making friends.
    • Nightmare Moon also seemed to have at least some awareness of Equestria during her imprisonment. Princess Luna was dormant during that time, so she wouldn't know of the changes during her absence.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting
  • You Don't Look Like You: Her official toy is actually relatively show-accurate, but she's given a purple mane. Justified, as a mane made of stars is pretty hard to translate into a Real Life sharable format.
  • You Gotta Have A Dark Blue Mane: With a space pattern of stars flowing in it as well.

Discord

"Priceless!"

"'Make sense'? Aww; what fun is there in making sense?"

Debut: "The Return of Harmony, Part 1"

Voiced by John de Lancie

This dopey-looking but deceptively manipulative and sinister Draconequus once ruled Equestria in a reign of terror and chaos until Celestia and Luna discovered the Elements of Harmony and turned him into a statue for what they thought was forever. Over 1000 years later, he is freed again and sets out to prevent the Elements of Harmony from being reunited. Since they are now in the possession of the mane cast, he has to tear the bonds of friendship they have into shreds...and with magical powers beyond those of any other character, it's a challenge he's more than up to…

Discord: Maybe the magic of friendship can help you...

    • A little earlier:

Discord: (after Twilight calls him out for not playing fair) "I'm not playing fair? Then perhaps we haven't met. I'm Discord. Spirit of chaos and disharmony? Hellooooo!"

  • Defeat Means Friendship: He sarcastically taunts the Mane Six to "friend me" after they break out of his brainwashing. Subverted.
    • According to the close-captioning he was calling them friendemies.
    • Although he will return, so it was played straight the second time.
  • Defeat By Irony: He uses the group's personality flaws and his knowledge that the Elements Of Harmony won't work if their friendship is destroyed to break them. In the end, it's his own personality flaw—being too prideful to believe they might be an actual threat to him—combined with that knowledge that renders him incapable of realizing the Elements Of Harmony are working for real until it's far too late.
    • It's also quite ironic that the first line we actually hear him say is complaining about how making sense is no fun, but it's something that (in his mind) didn't make sense (the Mane Cast repairing their friendship) that spelled his downfall.
  • Didn't See That Coming: He plans for pretty much everything...except two things. First, that Celestia will send Twilight Sparkle her letters back, breaking her out of her Heroic BSOD and pulling her back from the Despair Event Horizon. And second, that Twilight will somehow free and reunite her friends enough to wield the Elements Of Harmony against him. The first he probably couldn't see coming at all; the second he doesn't even consider a possibility.
  • Driven to Madness: This and Break the Cutie are pretty much his favorite hobbies.
  • Dystopia Justifies the Means: His goal is nothing less than plunging Equestria into never-ending chaos for his own amusement. He's done this before and Celestia's words imply it was far from pretty. That and the cries of pain in the background as she gives his back story tell you all you need to know. We see some of this in part 2 which consists of turning everything upside-down and essentially driving everyone insane. And it gets worse by the minute pretty much.
  • Eldritch Abomination
  • Emotion Eater: It's rather heavily implied the Cutie Mark Crusaders fighting in front of his statue prison (creating discord) gives him enough power to break free.
  • Establishing Character Moment: When he appears in the stained glass windows, he demonstrates a sense of humor and mystery, as well as great knowledge of the Mane Cast.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Despite his Dangerously Genre Savvy and knowledge that the Elements run on The Power of Friendship, he doesn't seem to realize there's more to it than that and just how difficult a bond it is to truly break. He assumes the Power of Friendship could never overcome his brainwashing and that the Mane Cast's friendship was destroyed beyond repair. As such, the one thing he hasn't prepared for is the heroines breaking free of it and actually being able to activate the Elements.
    • Later subverted after he becomes Fluttershy's friend.
  • Evil Counterpart:
    • To the Elements of Harmony. Both are very powerful, but where the Elements are fueled by The Power of Friendship and have thus far only been used for good, Discord has been shown to draw strength from conflict and uses his power to make life miserable for everyone else. In addition, they represent opposite sides of Order vs. Chaos.
      • In addition, his personality traits are either opposites or twisted versions of the Elements Of Harmony. He uses lies, half truths and Exact Words to deceive his enemies (honesty), is cruel and sadistic (kindness), cares only for his own amusement (generosity), makes everyone around him miserable for his own amusement (laughter), makes deals which he twists in such a way to harm the other person and benefit himself (loyalty) and gets kicks out of destroying friendships (magic which represents friendship in this setting).
    • To Princess Celestia. She maintains order and harmony in the land with the power to maintain the day/night cycle which she does at a regular schedule. She takes the well-being of her subjects seriously and values good relationships between them but isn't above a little mischief. He uses his powers to shatter all natural laws and cycles and to torment the ponies and break their friendships. Celestia has also been referred to as "the bringer of Harmony", Discord's revival brings with it a storm of disharmony on all of Equestria.
    • He's actually able to turn the mane cast into essentially their own Evil Counterparts, as well.
  • Evil Is Hammy
  • Evil Laugh: He often mixes it with or switches it to an "Oh; that's just hilarious!" kind of laugh but it's still undeniably evil. He's also capable of producing a very menacing one if he feels like it, such as when he's being freed from his prison.
  • Evil Overlord: Ruled Equestria over 1000 years ago. Celestia implies his rule was far from pretty. He pretty much becomes this again during his brief reign over Equestria after being freed.
  • Exact Words:
    • Twists and turns are indeed his master plan, but he never says the Elements are in the maze.
      • He does say the elements are "back where you began." Twilight finds them in her book on the Elements. Take a guess what the very first frame of the very first episode shows.
    • Also counts with his Sadistic Choice to Rainbow Dash; he never said which choice was right or that Cloudsdale was the home that would crumble without her. Rainbow goes to save Cloudsdale, letting Discord have his way with Equestria, paying special attention to Rainbow's new home of Ponyville, his "chaos capital of the world".
  • The Fair Folk: He doesn't look much like an Old School fairy but he definitely has a lot of their more malevolent features. Despite possessing Reality Warper powers, he delights in playing mind games with the ponies as well as manipulating them into his power even though he could just hypnotize them right off the bat. He's also not above ignoring the rules he sets for others or ruthlessly undermining his game to suit his own ends. From a certain point of view, it could even be argued that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were tricked into "inviting" him in by starting a fight in front of him.
  • Fan Nickname: DisQord, to further underline the Actor Allusion aspect of the character.
  • Fashionable Asymmetry: See Mad Eye and Mix-and-Match Critters.
  • Fatal Flaw: Loves exploiting these in other people to manipulate them. Ironically it's his own Fatal Flaw ... his refusal to take the Mane Cast as a serious threat ...that leads to his downfall.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Discord treats the ordeal as a "game" and seems good-natured...then we see the absolute joy he takes in performing Break the Cutie and More Than Mind Control on the Mane Cast.
  • Fisher King: Under his rule, Equestria is every bit as chaotic and twisted as he is. He even spends his time atop a...surprisingly creepy-looking throne after taking over. The moment he's vanquished, a World-Healing Wave returns it to normal. Justified as he's a Reality Warper.
  • Flaw Exploitation: His MO for breaking ponies. He loses thanks to the heroes taking advantage of his flaws.
  • For the Evulz: His raison d'etre. He's not called "Discord" for nothing.
    • Fridge Horror: He manages to corrupt Fluttershy by simply touching her on the forehead. Given that she was able to resist his head games, he could have done this to the other five just as easily; he only messed with their heads and broke them emotionally because it was more fun that way.
  • God of Evil: Well...God of Chaos and Disharmony but a much more literal example than Nightmare Moon. Not only is he truly evil but his powers are far more god-like than hers were and he claims to be several eons old.
  • Good Is Boring: Pretty much considers harmony and good to be no fun.
  • Good Wings, Evil Wings: Has mixed angelic (well...Pegasus) and demonic (bat) wings, one of the more sinister types.
  • Go Out with a Smile: Certainly did so off-screen when Celestia and Luna sealed him away a thousand years ago as he's got a big open-mouthed smile when Cheerilee's class looks at the statue. Does not do so when the Mane Six seal him away.
    • Really; between the wide-open mouth, closed eyes and dramatic pose, he looks like he was originally imprisoned while singing opera.
    • Tempting Fate: If you look closely, when Discord says to the mane six "I'm missing some excellent chaos here." he makes the same pose. He probably did the same thing to Celestia and Luna when they challenged him, and we all know how that turned out.
  • Great Gazoo: Has some features of a Great Gazoo and The Fair Folk (above). However, he is far more evil than the typical version of this trope.
  • Hate Plague: One of his abilities.
  • Heel Face Revolving Door: Heel in "The Return of Harmony", Face in all of season 4, Heel in "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 1", and Face for good in "TWilight's Kingdom, part 2"
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: He lets them find the Elements Of Harmony, knowing they couldn't use them since he destroyed their friendship and allows them a "free shot" at him, aware it will fail. He tries to repeat this a second time only to realize too late he's underestimated them.
    • He also gets hit with this for turning Applejack into a liar. When she tells him their friendship is back together, Discord doesn't believe her because he thinks she's still lying.
  • Humiliation Conga: After spending both episodes as a Magnificent Bastard who considers (breaking) the Mane Cast to be no more than an amusing distraction, he has those same six completely obliterate his entire plan while he realizes too late everything he's been bragging about up to that point in the showdown is dead wrong and he's now completely screwed due to his own ego. Applejack and Twilight pretty much told him this to his face and he didn't believe them because he thought Applejack was still the liar he'd brainwashed her into and Twilight had already tried this once before to no avail. All he can do is watch in complete shock as the Elements Of Harmony fire and turn him back to stone. It takes less than a minute for all this to happen. And if you believe he's conscious while turned to stone, he also witnesses the World-Healing Wave that washes away his World Gone Mad a few seconds later. Oh, and he's got to spend eternity with his Oh Crap look frozen on his face.
  • Hypnotic Eyes
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: He tries this on multiple occasions with the mane six, particularly Twilight Sparkle.
  • Immortality: At least Undying as he states he's at least several eons old.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He may be a mean old monster, but Fluttershy calls him a "real sweetheart".
  • Jerkass Gods: He is the spirit of chaos and disharmony.
  • Just Toying with Them: Since he's apparently more powerful than anyone else, obviously it would be boring to just use those powers straightforwardly to beat them. It's not like Discord even has any goal other than the same thing in a broader sense with everyone.
  • Kansas City Shuffle: The hint he gives is "Twists and turns are my master plan, then find the Elements back where you began", causing the Mane Cast to search the maze for them...except he never says the Elements are in it; it's just a ploy to lure them into his trap.
  • Kick the Dog: Throughout both episodes. The best example is in part 2 when he gives a Big Yes/Victory Pose after realizing he's completely broken Twilight Sparkle.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Though he has many humorous qualities, there is a reason Celestia is serious around him.
  • Lack of Empathy: His reaction to Twilight being completely broken emotionally and crossing the Despair Event Horizon? To give a Big Yes and celebrate. That tells you just about all you need to know about him in this regard.
    • Then he realizes how much he really cares about Fluttershy.
  • Large Ham: It's John De Lancie playing a much more malicious version of Q as a cartoon dragon. What more do you need to know?
  • Laughably Evil: He's fun to watch, that's for sure, but he's more like The Joker in this respect, as it just makes him more creepy and disturbing.
  • Lean and Mean
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall His riddle is "Twists and turns are my master plan; then find the Elements back where you began". Where do they find the Elements? In the reference guide which was the very first thing we saw in the very first episode...literally back where the series began.
  • Leitmotif: Can be heard here. Similar background music has been used in "Look Before You Sleep" and "Party of One", episodes prior to his introduction.
  • Light Is Not Good: Much of his reality warping and teleportation are accompanied by a bright light.
  • Mad Eye: However, it should be noted that even though his head is goatlike, his pupils are round, unlike Iron Will's assistants who have the rectangular pupils typical of goats in Real Life.
  • Manipulative Bastard: To drive the point home, at one point, he's literally holding puppeteer strings. Playing on the mane cast's fears is key to his plan. And boy, does he live up to it!
  • Meaningful Name: The polar opposite of harmony, to be specific.
  • Mind Screw: How he manages to corrupt four of the Elements.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: To further cement that he is chaos incarnate. Discord looks generally like an Eastern dragon, but with the head of a goat (not a pony as Cheerilee would have you believe), one goat horn, one stag horn, one fang, the tongue of a snake, the mane of a horse, a snake-like torso covered with eagle feathers, one eagle talon, one lion paw, one bat wing, one bird wing, one green dragon leg, one horse leg and a red dragon tail.
    • Most of these creature parts also happen to be from previous threats and antagonists to the Mane Six (the Manticore, the two dragons, Gilda, etc.).
    • Even his species name is a combination of "dragon" and "horse". (Presumably "Draconequuscervuscaperleonaquilalacertavespertilioserpens" would have been a bit too long.)
  • Mood Whiplash: What he looks like combined with how he acts at first pretty much ensures you'll get this once he starts with the Mind Rape. Naturally as the Spirit Of Chaos, he thrives on this trope.
  • Moral Myopia: Has absolutely no qualms about sadistically torturing innocent ponies mentally and physically, turning all of Equestria into a World Gone Mad, driving everypony insane and generally doing whatever he wants to for his own amusement with no sense of morality...But gave Celestia a What the Hell, Hero? for turning HIM to stone for the aforementioned acts.
    • That was most likely an attempt to turn the Mane 6 against Celestia. Hey; why take out the second biggest threat to your reign of chaos when you can manipulate somepony (or some ponies) to do it for you?
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: When Twilight Sparkle complains about the hedge maze being taken away, he corrects her error in reasoning by proving he never said the Elements were in the maze instead of keeping quiet and letting her continue to believe they've already lost because of his cheating. He is completely aware of this and never lets Twilight know that the Elements won't work if the team isn't completely united. In fact, he may be banking on their failure increasing their despair to the point where it will drive them apart PERMANENTLY thus granting him long-term security from the only viable threat to his power. It still does come back to bite him as the Elements are ultimately used to defeat him later on.
  • No Sense of Personal Space: Just as an intimidation technique.
  • Not So Harmless: At first, he only seems mischievous, doing things like making cotton candy clouds that produce chocolate rain. Then he steals the Eleements of Harmony, and things just get worse from there...
  • Oh Crap: He gets that very look just before the Elements of Harmony hit him full force. Considering what a monster he's been the entire time, it's very satisfying, made all the sweeter by it becoming his permanent expression after being petrified again, in contrast to the smug laughter he showed in his previous imprisonment.
  • Only Friend: In Season 3, he admits that he had never made any friends before he met Fluttershy.
  • Order vs. Chaos: This is his conflict with the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. However, it's more Harmony vs Disharmony, harmony in this case being more compromise and working together while disharmony is self-centered and breeds strife and hatred between them. Discord, obviously, is disharmony incarnate.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: His species name is Draconequus and, while he's more of a chimera, he seems to be at least partly modeled off an eastern dragon, at least his general body shape. His left leg and part of his tail also seem to be those of a dragon.
  • Pass the Popcorn: At the beginning of Part II, he finds the sight of Twilight's bickering friends to be so entertaining that he gets a movie theater seat with a bag of popcorn to properly enjoy the show.
  • Playing with Puppets: Discord's favorite trick.
    • Pony Puppets: If you look at the windows in the Equestrian palace as Princess Celestia talks about Discord, Fluttershy sees one of them with an image of Discord holding ponies up with puppet strings screaming over a pit of fire. Needless to say, Fluttershy's terrified reaction was very justified and understandable.
  • Poor Man's Substitute: Subverted. They originally intended to do this but someone suggested they get the real John de Lancie instead.
  • Pride: His fatal flaw.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: While he's aware of his actions and how horrific they are, he really has nothing better to do than have whimsical and nonsensical fun at the expense of other characters, no real business to take care of and no compassion for the beings he's toying with to restrain him. Everything's just fun and games to him and all of Equestria is his personal playground thanks to his being a Reality Warper. Can't get more childish than that, folks. The psychopathic part comes from quite a few of the things he considers fun and games.
  • Reality Warper: He can do just about anything. Most notably, he steals Twilight's and Rarity's horns and Rainbow Dash's and Fluttershy's wings with a thought.
    • A general aura of chaos and surreality surrounds him. For instance, he holds out a glass under a cotton-candy cloud that rains chocolate milk, and it fills up from top to bottom rather than bottom to top. He then proceeds to drink the glass. Not the milk; the glass itself. He then throws the milk over his shoulder and it explodes. He's a crazy one, that Discord.
      • Furthermore, said explosion covers the area just behind him in complete darkness, then gradually fades up to normal light.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: He carries a pink umbrella. There's also his pink cotton candy clouds.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning
  • Rhymes on a Dime: Not as often as Zecora, mind you, but loves handing out torturous riddles. He normally sounds far more menacing while doing so as well.
  • Riddle Me This: Varies between this and conventional challenges.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers: See Berserk Button and Villainous Breakdown.

"I'm not playing fair? Perhaps we haven't met. I'm Discord: spirit of chaos and disharmony. Helloooooooo!"

Celestia: Discord! Show yourself!
Discord: [chuckling] Did you miss me, Celestia? I missed you. It's quite lonely being encased in stone. But you wouldn't know that, would you because I don't turn ponies into stone!

  • A Sinister Clue: He tends to favor the eagle talon he has for a left arm when snapping or holding things.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": The spelling of the name of his species, Draconequus has been mangled by both The Hub web site (Dragonokis) and the closed captioning (Draconaquis). Word of God is clear on the subject though.
  • Slasher Smile: He briefly sports one when he finally decides to directly engage the newly bonded mane cast with his magic.
  • The Sociopath: He doesn't care who or what he hurts so long as it's entertaining to him. He's also quite sadistic and very manipulative.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: He acts rather playful and friendly most of the time, but has a rather pronounced sadistic streak. The most obvious example is emotionally breaking the mane cast with his mind games when he could just straight up brainwash them into being disharmonious like he does to Fluttershy.
  • Surreal Humor: Thrives on it.
  • Sweet Tooth: He sure likes to make sweet and tasty food while he's causing chaos.
  • Taken for Granite: Princess Celestia and Princess Luna sealed him in stone in a comically dramatic pose. And then they left him in their garden.
    • Happens again at the end of Part 2. The pose is still dramatic but considerably less comical.
  • Tarot Motifs: A stained-glass window of Discord has him hanging tied-up ponies over a pit of fire, bringing to mind the Devil card in most tarot decks.
  • This Cannot Be!: His reaction when the Elements Of Harmony are activated after being so certain he's completely broken their friendship.
  • Time Abyss: Possibly. All we really know is that he was imprisoned by the Elements of Harmony some time before Nightmare Moon appeared a thousand years ago. He states that he's "eons" old; in astronomy and geology, an eon is half a billion years or more but immortal beings in fiction use the word much more loosely.
  • Too Clever by Half: He is well aware he's an omnipotent Reality Warper and never views anyone as much of a threat to him as a result...not even the Mane Cast.
    • This is ultimately his downfall. He's so confident he's broken up the Mane Cast, he never considers they'd be able to reunite their friendship enough to use the Elements on him. So he pretty much stands there while they power up, not realizing until it's too late that he's wrong.
  • The Trickster: Discord treats his fight with the Mane Cast as a game and enjoys messing with their heads. He even laughs at the shock taking away their wings and horns causes them.
  • Troll
  • Victory Is Boring: Subverted. At first, it looks like he's sad when Twilight gives up trying to fight him but then he cheers up and celebrates with some more chaos.
  • Vile Villain Saccharine Show: Appearance-wise, he'd fit right in. Personality wise, he's far more sinister and creepy than any villain that came before. Of note, he's the only truly evil villain the show has seen prior to the appearence of Queen Chrysalis.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Has a brief one when Fluttershy doesn't give in to his mind games. He gets angry and just brainwashes her on the spot.
  • Villainous BSOD: He has one when he risks losing Fluttershy's friendship.
  • Villain Teleportation: Utilizes this often.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting
  • Wacky Guy: Albeit one more actively malicious than most.
  • Where's the Fun In That?: See his quote.
  • World Gone Mad/World of Chaos: He's the Spirit Of Disharmony; what else would he turn Equestria into?

The Windigos

Debut: "Hearth's Warming Eve"

Winter spirits that feed off of hatred and cause deadly blizzards the more powerful they get. They existed before Equestria's founding and were seemingly destroyed when the three tribes united in friendship, trigging a powerful spell that vanquished them.


  • An Ice Horse
  • Cool Horse: Heh.
  • Darker and Edgier: Compared to a lot of antagonists in this show anyway.
  • Eldritch Abominations
  • Emotion Eater: Feed off of hatred.
  • Evil Is Deathly Cold
  • Family-Unfriendly Death: They burn to death. It's not that graphic, but it's still pretty unnerving.
  • Hellish Horse
  • Kill It with Fire: It was friendship powered fire, but they're destroyed or maybe just repelled by fire nonetheless.
  • Killed Off for Real: They are seemingly incinerated by the friendship powered spell the union between the tribes causes.
    • Not Quite Dead: Although the end implies they or more of their species are still out there.
  • Meaningful Name: They cause blizzards and the first syllable of their name is pronounced the same as the word "wind." Doubles as a Punny Name.
  • No Name Given: If they even have individual names.
  • Omnicidal Maniacs: Their plan seems to be to use the ponies' own hatred to freeze the entire world including the ponies themselves into an icy wasteland. It was already shown earlier that their winter was destroying all the crops in the pony's homeland.
  • The Power of Hate: They run on this.
  • Punny Name: They cause blizzards and the first syllable of their name is pronounced the same as the word "wind." Doubles as a Meaningful Name.
  • Sadly Mythtaken: The Wendigos in mythology are spirits that represent cannibalism whereas the show's version are spirits of hatred and cause a deadly winter. To be fair, though, cannibalism wouldn't be very appropriate with the show.
    • In fairness, Wendigos always did have a connection to ice.
  • Terrible Trio: We've only seen three Wendigos in the episode, but there may be more of their kind out there, as evident from the last part of the episode when a ghostly neigh was heard from outside the open window with a snowy gust while the mane six were briefly arguing with each other.
  • Vile Villain Saccharine Show: While not to Discord's extent, they're freaking scary for this show.
  • Wendigo: Of the Ithaqua-esque variety.

Queen Chrysalis and the Changelings

Queen Chrysalis

This day is going to be perfect~

"First, we take Canterlot! And then, all of Equestria!"

Debut: "A Canterlot Wedding"[3]

Voiced by Kathleen Barr[4]

The Queen of the changelings, bug-like pony-shaped creatures that can transform into those that you love. She masquerades as Princess Cadence during the Season 2 finale in a bid to conquer Equestria.

  • All There in the Script: Her name was originally revealed by Word of God, and has since been used in The Merch.
  • An Alicorn I Am: How powerful she is originally is unknown, but after feeding off Shining Armor, she becomes more powerful than Celestia. Notably, she's the first Big Bad to have not been a god already.
  • Batman Gambit: It's heavily implied that her taunting Twilight in the caves was one to get her angry enough to kill Cadence. Thankfully, Cadence managed to prove she was the real one and Twilight was level-headed enough to let her.
  • Beam-O-War: Chrysalis is able to cast an offensive magical beam, and thanks to Shining Armor's love she can overpower even Princess Celestia!
  • Big Bad: Of the season 2 finale two parter.
  • Big No: In Big Bad tradition, she gives one just before her defeat.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: As the Fake Cadance.
  • Body Horror: Her legs, wings, mane, tail, and horn have holes in them, which give her kind a moth-eaten appearence. No blood, just... holes...
    • In general, she looks like a partially decomposed corpse.
  • Brainwashed: She regularly magically brainwashes Shining Armor (pretending it's a spell to cure his headaches due to keeping up a force field). This serves several purposes - stopping him from realizing something is off about his beloved, putting him completely under Chrysalis' control, and stopping him from keeping up the Force Field stopping her minions from invading Canterlot.
  • Celestia, Save Us From The Queen: And Celestia tries. However, Chrysalis had absorbed enough of Shining Armor's love to defeat Celestia at that point. She's the first villain ever to physically defeat Celestia, who's an immortal goddess.
  • The Chessmaster
  • Color-Coded Wizardry: Her magic aura is sickly green.
  • The Conqueror
  • Control Freak: Seen mainly when she's disguised as Cadence. Justified, as she is the Hive Queen of a swarm, of course she'd expect to get her way one hundred percent of the time.
  • Crocodile Tears: Whenever someone calls Chrysalis (as Cadence) out on her questionable ways, she bursts into fake tears and accuses them that they "just want to ruin her special day". Fools everybody, even Princess Celestia. Except Twilight Sparkle, that is.
  • Dark Is Evil
  • Devil in Plain Sight: Not the most obvious example, but the very first time we see her in disguise she already smiles wickedly, and then proceeds to treat everypony around her like crap. Thankfully for her, everypony readilly writes it off due to the circumstances.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: She was able to win a Beam-O-War with Princess Celestia after absorbing enough of Shining Armor's love. Unfortunately for her, the exact same love is used by Cadence and Shining Armor to return the favor.
  • Emotion Eater: Feeds off The Power of Love.
  • Enfant Terrible: While we don't see her as a child, she openly admit she's dreamed of watching her minions ransack a city, causing mass panic and suffering since she was a kid, so it's safe to say she was one.
  • Equinoid Abomination
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good/Blue and Orange Morality: She understands The Power of Love, but only as a power source. She doesn't truly feel it for Shining Armor and outright says there's no room in her heart for it. In the end, the idea The Power of Love might have power in someone else's hooves never enters her mind and spells her defeat.
  • Evil Counterpart: To both Princess Cadence and Princess Celestia.
  • Evil Gloating: To be fair, she saves most of it for when she's alone or when it's Genre Savvy to do so.
  • Evil Laugh
  • Fangs Are Evil
  • The Fighting Narcissist: Albeit a partially rotting one.
  • Four Hooved Insect
  • Giggling Villain
  • Good Eyes, Evil Eyes, Glowing Eyes of Doom and Hellish Pupils
  • Hive Queen: Popular fanon has her able to send out commands to the Changelings via a Hive Mind.
  • Hoist By Her Own Petard: Got as powerful as she did from Shining Armor's love for Princess Cadence, which she notes is even stronger than she imagined. In the end, Cadence and Shining Armor let her have it with that same love.
  • Horny Devils: Her MO pretty much makes her a g-rated succubus. For obvious reasons, no sex is involved, but how she feeds off of Shining Armor definitely brings this to mind.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: As Fake!Cadence, she nuzzles, clings to, and otherwise gets really close to Shining Armor, a whole lot. Just her keeping up the pretense of being a bride-to-be, right? Well... she also does the same to the mannequin serving as her surrogate groom during her Villain Song (where there is nobody around to fool) and even indulges in a little privacy invasion towards Shining Armor after she's transformed and revealed herself, though she probably just did it to mock the real Cadence.
  • Imposter Cadence Knows Not The Rhyme
  • Jerkass
  • Knight of Cerebus: And unlike Discord she is played dead serious.
  • Lack of Empathy: For a being that feeds off of love, she has a major lack of compassion.
  • Large Ham: Par for the course of big-name villains in this show. She even gets a Villain Song!
  • Laughing Mad
  • Lean and Mean
  • Manipulative Bastard
  • Master of Illusion: She's a Changeling, so this is to be expected, though she is not too good at copying personalities and keeps her cold, cruel ways even when disguised (forcing her to supplement disguise with a brainwashing beam). She also creates images of herself inside crystals when taunting Twilight Sparkle.
  • Meaningful Name: A chrysalis is the hard shell that envelops a caterpillar before they become a butterfly and Chrysalis, like all the other Changelings, is a bug-like pony creature. On top of that, the fake Cadance is the shell that hides her true form. She also imprisons Celestia in a giant green cocoon.
  • Morphic Resonance: Even when in a shapeshifted form, she seems to keep her Sickly Green Glow magic.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: She's a magic-wielding, shapeshifting, insect queen, Alicorn, succubus (or as close to one as you can get on this show).
  • The Not-So-Harmless Punishment: Being literally thrown out of the country seems like a light punishment compared to becoming Sealed Evil in a Can. But then you remember that at the very least she's been hurled several hundred, if not thousand, miles away and had her entire army scattered to the winds in all directions. And that's excluding being hit point blank with a blast powerful enough to hurl her clear out of Equestria.
    • Fridge Brilliance: Seeing as how she was hurled into what appears to be a barren desert-wasteland-type-thing, she'll probably starve to death from the lack of love to feed on, unless said wasteland is the desert near Appleloosa.
      • However that's assuming she has the same metabolism as normal ponies. Some animals are adapted to go remarkable periods of time between meals and that's just for normal animals. Given she's capable of feeding off an insubstantial emotion, it's doubtful she processes nourishment in the same way.
  • Obviously Evil: Let's see, dark coloring, fangs, holes everywhere, very skinny, sickly green magic and eyes... and she's a queen to boot!
  • Oh Crap: Her reaction to realizing that a Heart Beat-Down is about to hit her head on.
  • One-Winged Angel: When she sheds her disguise of Princess Cadence and reveals her true form.
  • Outside Context Villain: It seems that no one even knew she existed besides Cadence, who probably only knew it from Chrysalis, who kidnapped her. She was Dangerously Genre Savvy enough to take full advantage of this fact.
  • Playing with Fire: Well, it may only be an effect, but she seems to use green flames frequently.
  • Power Echoes: After assuming her true form.
  • The Power of Love: She turns this trope on its head as she feeds off Shining Armor's love for Princess Cadence. It empowers her enough to defeat Princess Celestia. Later on, however, it's what ends up defeating her.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: It's implied that she didn't outright kill Cadence or Twilight because she still needed their love to feed on.
  • Punch Clock Villain: played with. Chrysalis mentions that everything she has done is just part of her duty as Changeling Queen to feed her people. Nevertheless, her absolute maniacal demeanor and clear sadistic glee in the suffering she causes leaves no trace of doubt - she is absolutely, unrepentantly evil to the core and thoroughly enjoys that part of her job.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: A villainous example. It's her duty to provide food sources for her people, and she single-handedly makes it possible for the changelings to invade Equestria. She seems to enjoy it a bit too much.
  • Shadow Archetype: To Princess Cadence. One's a cold-hearted, manipulative, brainwashing love vampire, the other a genuinely kind and caring Love Goddess (whether one wants to take the "goddess" part literally or not). Suddenly the former impersonating the latter makes more than a little twisted sense.
    • And not only to Cadence. A tall, slender, winged magic-using ruler who towers over her subjects and wields tremendous power, who displays Chessmaster capabilities and works to give her subjects what they want and need--are we talking about Chrysalis, or Celestia?
  • Sickly Green Glow: The color of her magic.
  • Smug Snake: Her plan is a good one and she competently carries it out, still her impatience and vanity are established early on. Her love of Evil Gloating almost backfires when she reveals herself in front of Celestia before her plan was entirely complete, and later on is too distracted by the sight of her victorious forces to care too much about the heroes she feels are already beaten. She's wrong.
  • The Vamp: Poor Shining Armor.
  • Vampire Monarch
  • Vampiric Draining: The result of her Emotion Eater powers.
  • Vile Villain Saccharine Show: So much.
  • Villain Ball: If she had put even a token effort into deceiving Twilight Sparkle, her plan would have gone off without a hitch. Though Twilight probably knew the real Cadence a lot better than Chrysalis expected her to.
    • She also made a dumb mistake by banishing Twilight to the caves, allowing her to find the real Cadence and expose the Queen. If she had not done that, her invasion would have gone without a hitch, since Twilight would have remained absolutely without any proof of her accusations and nobody to listen to her. Then again, Chrysalis' ruse would probably have been exposed sooner or later anyway, and by, in her mind, permanently disposing of one of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, she disabled one of the only things that could potentially stop her while also getting rid of the only one who was onto her in the process. In addition, while it's never stated, her intent may have been to have Twilight dispose of the real Cadance in her anger. Unfortunately for her, that doesn't exactly happen.
    • She's an Emotion Eater, and that includes emotional responses. She probably pops them like candy, and so long as her children get their share, she doesn't really give a damn about consequences.
      • Of course this makes her dismissing of the Power of Love , when it was powerful enough to let her beat a SUN GOD much more baffling.
      • Chrysalis probably didn't know what she was dealing with. While she feeds off of love, it is implied that she doesn't actually feel it. The fact that the ponies could use love against her in that way might never have occurred to her.
  • Villains Blend in Better: When disguised as Cadence, she's not very good at staying in character. Despite this, Twilight is the only one who suspects something's wrong, as everyone else assumes she's suffering premarital stress.
  • Villain Song / Dark Reprise: Her half of "This Day Aria" and a brief reprise.
    • Which has gained quite the popularity amongst the fans; almost every theme for her is a remix of this song.
  • Voice of the Legion
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: Like all Changelings, but she comes with a dramatic Transformation Sequence.
  • Winged Unicorn: Like her subjects, she's similar to one but isn't actually a pony.
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: While most of her plan was likely formulated from the get go, she's able to work things she didn't expect (such as Twilight catching on and accusing her) into it and twist them to her advantage (use a Wounded Gazelle Gambit to turn everyone against Twilight in a single move).

The Changelings

Debut: "A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2"

As Princess Celestia has her little ponies, Queen Chrysalis has her changelings. They are a race of shapeshifters that feed off of love by taking the shape of your loved ones.

Ordinary Jerks and Bullies

Gilda the Griffon

Debut: "Griffon the Brush Off"

Voiced by Maryke Hendrikse

A griffon and an old friend of Rainbow Dash's from flight camp. Rainbow Dash sees her as a Cool Big Sis but Gilda thinks she's vastly superior to all the ponies save Dash and enjoys picking on them.

Pinkie Pie: What's a griffon?
Rainbow Dash: She's half eagle, half lion.
Gilda: And AAAAAALL awesome!

  • Noisy Nature: She can both screech like a red-tailed hawk and roar like a lion.
  • Our Gryphons Are Different: With a Stealth Pun made based on other depictions of griffons: Granny Smith mistakes Gilda's tail for a snake.
  • Pet the Dog: For all her flaws, she did genuinely care about Dash.
  • The Prankster: Unlike Pinkie and Dash, she has no reservations about scaring others for her own amusement. Course as the saying goes, she can dish it out but she can't take it.
  • Prehensile Hair: While taking a bite out of an apple she stole, the hair on her tail grips it like she had an extra pair of fingers hidden under them.
  • Pride: She doesn't hold back on how awesome and superior she thinks she is compared to the ponies.
  • Shadow Archetype: To Rainbow Dash. While both are show-offs and proud of it, Gilda is a complete Jerkass to everypony she encounters except Rainbow Dash. While Rainbow ends up backing off of pranking Fluttershy when she realizes Fluttershy would take it the wrong way, Gilda yells at the poor pony just for bumping into her. Finally while Rainbow Dash is perfectly happy with making new friends, Gilda only cares about Dash and looks down on everypony else.
  • Smug Snake
  • Super Speed: This is the only way she could keep up with Rainbow Dash.
  • Sweet Tooth: She seems to like Vanilla Lemon Drops.
  • Toothy Bird: When the expression requires it, she not only gains teeth but also lips that extend far beyond her beak.
  • Totally Radical
  • White-Feathered Pretty Girl
  • X-Ray Sparks: When she gets shocked by Pinkie's joy buzzer at the party.


"The Great and Powerful" Trixie

Debut: "Boast Busters"

Voiced by Kathleen Barr

Trixie Lulamoon is a blue unicorn who boasts about and greatly exaggerates her magical powers. She enjoys traveling about, regaling all who'll listen with tales of her exploits...and humiliating anyone who dares call her out on her incessant bragging.

  • Adaptation Name Change: At one point, the two parts of her name seemed to be separate names, as everything but the toy line only referred to her as Trixie while the toy line only referred to her as Lulamoon. Hasbro rectified this by having subsequent toys refer to her as Trixie Lulamoon.
  • The Adjectival Superhero: She's "The Great and Powerful" Trixie.
  • Aerith and Bob
  • All There in the Manual: Her Wave 4 collector card reveals that she "has a favourite star!" (Her Wave 5 collector card states that she "likes showing off!" but that much is obvious from her appearance in "Boast Busters".)
  • All There in the Script: Lulamoon, the second part of her name, has only been used by the toy line.
  • Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better: Believes this wholeheartedly, and says so word for word. In practice, though, she didn't actually outdo anypony, just humiliate them with their own tricks.
  • Awesome McCoolname: Her full name is Trixie Lulamoon, which is a pretty great name for a performer.
  • Break the Haughty: Twilight eventually does this to her.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: Her magic easily outclasses Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity without a second thought.
    • At the receiving end against the Ursa.
  • Cute Witch
  • Dark Secret: Admittedly, we never find out what it is, but a season two episode acknowledges that she has one.
  • Fake Ultimate Heroine: She claims to have defeated an Ursa Major but can only mildly annoy an Ursa Minor.
  • Humble Pie: What she doles out to those who challenge her claims by taking whatever task they challenged her with and twisting it to her own ends. She staunchly refuses to eat the piece that's served up to her at the end.
  • Insistent Terminology: She prefers to be called "The Great and Powerful Trixie" at all times.
  • Insufferable Genius: She does have honest magical talent like all unicorns. The problem is that she won't shut up about it, grossly exaggerating what ability she has and using it to lash out at anyone who tells her off.
  • Jerkass: How well she actually rose to the challenges of other ponies is pretty debatable; the thing she did definitely do was humiliate anyone that talked back at her while she was boasting.
  • Large Ham: Justified as she is a show pony.
  • Magicians Are Wizards: All Unicorns have some degree of magic but Trixie augments hers in her stage act with fireworks and smoke bombs.
  • Meaningful Name: Both parts, even!
    • The name "Trixie" means "bringer of joy" and she is first and foremost an entertainer. Plus her specialty is performing tricks.
    • The name "Lulamoon" references her Cutie Mark which includes magic sparkles in a shape resembling that of a crescent moon.
  • Miles Gloriosus: Trixie is legitimately talented but doesn't show any talent which could be said to exceed that of your average Unicorn. She claims to be mighty enough to defeat a powerful monster called an Ursa Major and when Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Rarity challenged her to a skills duel, she defeated them by interfering with their own tricks rather than by displaying superior skill. When Snips and Snails lead an Ursa into Ponyville, Trixie runs away, and only fights back when urged to by her adoring fans. She fails miserably, forcing her to admit that all of her amazing tales were just lies to make her look more important.
  • Nice Hat
  • Non-Standard Character Design: A subtle one in the show; while other adult mares' eyes have two reflections each, Trixie's only have one each.
    • Also the glow from her horn whenever she uses magic is spiky rather than wavy.
  • Pride: She takes this Up to Eleven and back again.
  • Punny Name: She is a magician, she does tricks. Tricks. Trixie.
  • Robe and Wizard Hat
  • Shadow Archetype: For Twilight Sparkle. Trixie's an utter braggart and flaunts her abilities while Twilight treats them like no big deal and is quite friendly (she's also afraid of looking like a showoff).
    • Also to Rarity, considering that they are both unicorns with a lot of Pride and they have younger males that are interested in them. The difference is that Rarity is very nice to Spike on the whole, where as Trixie was pretty mean to Snips and Snails after they had done what she wanted.
  • Shock and Awe: She can create a raincloud to shock ponies with. Unfortunately it isn't enough to subdue a humongous bear.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: All she can actually do are simple magic tricks and a few mean-spirited telekinetic pranks but she talks down to everyone... including the Mane Six who defeated Nightmare Moon and don't brag about it.
  • Smoke Out: Though it doesn't last long enough to completely cover her exit.
  • Smug Super: Doesn't hesitate to boast about her superior skills, regardless of the fact that she isn't as good as she claims.
  • Stage Magician: Her profession, her Cutie Mark is even a Magic Wand!
  • Stop Helping Me!: Trixie's reaction to Snips and Snails bringing the Ursa Minor to Ponyville so she could "vanquish" it.
  • Supernatural Is Purple: Her clothes are purple to help her image of being a great sorceress. She also has purple eyes.
  • Third-Person Pony: Only when she wants to emphasize how great and powerful she is. Which is almost always.
    • Perhaps the only challenge she wouldn't have been able to twist to make the other pony look bad would be referring to herself in the first-person.
  • Weak but Skilled: Her magical potential is leagues behind Twilight's but the tricks she can do are accomplished with a quickness and efficency that Twilight usually only has on her better days and in routine telekinesis. The most likely explanation is that she has practice and finesse in everything she does already while Twilight is still constantly pushing for a new more challenging spell.
  • Weather Dissonance: Her one genuine act of powerful magic is to summon a thundercloud above the Ursa. It was woefully underpowered and only serves to anger her target, but the act itself was a decent display of power.
    • She did the same thing to humiliate Rainbow Dash. It only served to shock her lightly.
  • What Could Have Been: Originally, she was going to be male.
  • White-Maned Pretty Mare
  • You All Look Familiar: Multiple Trixies (all lacking Cutie Marks) appear in a shot from "Bridle Gossip" and "The Return of Harmony Part 1".
  • You Don't Look Like You: Her molded toys and collector cards (from the fourth and fifth waves of the Blind Bags) all depict her as a Palette Swap of Rarity.

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon

The duo laughs at your pathetic attempts on getting a cutie mark.[5]

Debut: "Call of the Cutie"

Voiced by Chantal Strand (Diamond Tiara), Shannon Chan-Kent (Silver Spoon)

Spoiled Brats who tease Apple Bloom and Twist about not having a Cutie Mark yet. During "Call of the Cutie", Diamond Tiara holds a cuteceañera to celebrate recently gaining her mark. Not antagonists as such, just obnoxious.

Sweetie Belle: The gossip we've been printing is hurting everypony's feelings.
Diamond Tiara: Feelings?! I don't care about "feelings"!

  • Manipulative Bastard: Diamond Tiara, especially in "Family Appreciation Day".
  • Meaningful Name: Silver Spoon comes from the idiom "born with a silver spoon in one's mouth" which means to be born into wealth. Diamond Tiara's means exactly what you think it means.
  • Multicolored Hair: Diamond Tiara has purple-and-white swirled hair. Silver Spoon also has a noticeable stripe of lighter gray in the middle of her mane.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: They're the reason the Cutie Mark Crusaders became friends in the first place.
  • Pet the Dog: Silver Spoon was the first one applauding Granny Smith's story about the founding of Ponyville.
  • Princesses Prefer Pink: Diamond Tiara's body is a pinkish color and the outfit she wears for her cuteceañera is pink.
  • Recurring Characters: Notable in that they're thus far the only antagonists to make speaking appearances in more than two episodes.
  • Rich Bitches: If Silver Spoon's name is any indication, she might have a family based on old money. But as found out in "Family Appreciation Day", Diamond Tiara's wealth only goes back a few generations. Her great-grandfather worked his way up to gain said riches by selling Zap Apple Jam made by Granny Smith herself.
  • Shadow Archetype: Diamond Tiara is this to Apple Bloom. While both of them are ambitious young girls who might cross the line in their endeavors to accomplish their goals, Apple Bloom at least will stop and acknowledge that she's wrong if she goes too far, while Diamond Tiara has no problem getting what she wants at any cost even if she does offend other ponies in the process. This is best seen in "Ponyville Confidential".
  • Skunk Stripes: They both have these, but Diamond Tiara's is more noticeable.
  • Smug Smilers: It's practically Diamond Tiara's default facial expression.
  • Teacher's Pet: Diamond Tiara tries to be this to Cheerilee, but it backfires (or simply passes over Cheerilee's head).
    • Considering the way Ponyville's school system functions in "Call of the Cutie", it's probably the latter.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: When it's revealed that she's only rich in the first place thanks to Granny Smith, Diamond Tiara still tries to humiliate her and Apple Bloom and shows absolutely no gratitude.
  • Valley Fillies: Which gets, like, totally mocked by Scootaloo.
  • Vocal Evolution: Diamond Tiara in a BIG way in "Ponyville Confidential".
  • When She Smiles: Despite Diamond Tiara's bratty behavior, she still loves her father to the point that his story during Family Appreciation Day is the only time that she has a genuine and non-mischievous smile on her face, and it's beautiful. Provided, of course, it was really genuine, and not just a face.
  • White Maned Pretty Filly: Silver Spoon.

The Sports Pegasi

From left to right: Billy Dumbbell, Hoops and Score

Voiced by Kathleen Barr ("Hoops") and Richard Ian Cox ("Billy Dumbbell")

Debut: "Sonic Rainboom"

A group of three muscle-headed Pegasi living in Cloudsdale who used to tease Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. They later apologized for their teasing after seeing Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom.

  • Actor Allusion: Kathleen Barr playing a Jerk Jock who makes fun of a main character with a big ego? Sound familiar?
  • Blinding Bangs: Hoops (as an adult) and Billy Dumbbell.
  • Cross-Dressing Voices: Kathleen Barr voices Hoops.
  • Failed a Spot Check: In Sonic Rainboom Dumbbell and Hoops say there's no such thing as the title phenomenon. It is revealed in The Cutie Mark Chronicles that they were in an impromptu race that produced one.
    • Possibly justified considering that they are jerks who probably wouldn't admit being wrong if they didn't have to. Once Princess Celestia herself saw Rainbow Dash do the Sonic Rainboom, there was no way that they or anypony there could deny it anymore.
    • Actually, they were both unconscious when it happened.
  • Insult Backfire

Hoops: You're going down!
Rainbow Dash: In history, maybe!

The Diamond Dogs

The Diamond Dogs show you where to dig.[6]

Debut: "A Dog and Pony Show"

Voiced by Scott McNeil (Rover)

The Diamond Dogs, led by Rover, Fido and Spot, are a group of ugly, dirty, greedy and stupid canine-like creatures who live underground and value gems. They ponynap Rarity in an attempt to use her gem-finding skills to obtain more gems.

The Flim Flam Brothers

They're bringing opportunity to your very community. [7]

Debut: "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000"

Voiced by Samuel Vincent (Flim), Scott McNeil (Flam)[8]

Flim and Flam are Unicorn brothers and self-proclaimed "traveling sales-ponies nonpareil" who roll into Ponyville one day with their fancy new cider press, the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000. They end up challenging the Apple clan to a cider-making contest, goading them into wagering the rights to sell cider in Ponyville.

  • Badass Moustache: Flam has one, and is much calmer than Flim.
  • Bow Ties Are Cool
  • Brilliant but Lazy: The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 is pretty amazing, so they're obviously talented. They prefer con artistry to hard work, which leads to their failure in Ponyville. Also, they spend most of the competition relaxing and drinking cider, and panic when their machine's default settings aren't good enough.
  • Captain Ersatz: Their style of dress and fast-talking salesman demeanor is reminiscent of Harold Hill from The Music Man, and their song is even reminiscent of the number "Trouble".
  • The Charmers/Chick Magnets: During their song sequence, they managed to make a lot of mares including Rarity swoon.
  • Color-Coded Wizardry: Their magic glow is a unique shade of green.
  • Con Artist: They sell a legitimate product through legitimate means[9], but they goad the Apple family into a contest that has no benefit for them in order to steal the rights to sell cider in town.
  • Cool Car: The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 not only presses cider, but also serves as a steam-powered carriage.
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Ponyville had a massive want for apple cider so had they just provided what the Apples couldn't and paid the Apples for the required apples, they'd probably have made a decent profit. Instead they give the Apple Family an "accept 25% of the profits which you need to survive or we'll drive you out of business" speech and tried to take over the market, ultimately having to leave with nothing.
    • Their machine was a real wonder and apparently, prior to the deactivation of the quality control mechanism, produced cider equal to the Apple Family's (but at a much faster rate). With a little financial backing and some better business ethics, they could have made a lot of money.
  • Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: As mentioned in Cut Lex Luthor a Check, the brothers' pitch wasn't a con at all (their real con was goading the Apple Family into a no-win situation); their machine appeared to be exactly as good as they claimed it was, and it gave them a handsome head start in the cider-making competition. Even with the Mane Six pitching in to aid Applejack towards the end, Flim and Flam might well have won fair and square if they'd simply maintained their production rate and counted on the huge gap the Apples needed to fill to catch up to them.
  • Didn't See That Coming: When they agreed to let the mane cast help the Apples, they didn't expect Twilight to be able to organize the group to the point it'd make a difference, leading to their downfall.
  • Establishing Character Moment: Before we even see their faces or learn their names, they carelessly wreck the Apple family's fence--symbolizing their lack of regard for other ponies, and the near-disastrous effect their presence will personally impose on Applejack and her family.
  • Expy: Flim's voice sounds like Matthew Broderick playing Harold Hill in the revival of The Music Man, while Flam sounds like Robert Preston in the same role from the original production.
  • Evil Geniuses: They're highly intelligent, but they completely lack morals when it comes to business practices.
  • Faux Affably Evil: While evil may be a strong word, they act polite and charismatic, but have absolutely no qualms about driving somepony out of business and taking away their livelihoods for a quick buck.
  • Fatal Flaw: Theirs is pride.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: They apparently built the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 themselves.
  • Hoist By Their Own Petard: First, letting the rest of the Mane Cast help the Apples, seeing them as no threat. Then by turning off their quality control, which is ultimately their downfall.
  • Identical Twin ID Tag: Aside from both brothers having slightly different hairstyles, Flam sports a spiffy mustache. Also Flam's Cutie Mark is apple missing one segment, and Flim's is said segment his brother's is missing.
  • Insufferable Genius: Their device is remarkably effective and in other circumstances would be exactly what the hundreds of thirsty ponies left over from the Apple Family's daily supplies running out would want, but despite their invention appearing to be legit, the brothers' abrasive treatment of the Apple Family ultimately dooms any chances of them both doing business in Ponyville.
  • Irony: They use Granny Smith's pride to goad the Apples into a competition that, without help, they had no chance of winning. It's ultimately their own egos that causes them let the Mane Cast help the Apples, which leads to their defeat.
  • Jerkasses: Their Kick the Dog moment, if not their previous actions, show them to be this.
  • Jerks With Good Publicity: They are charismatic, their cider-making machine is a true wonder and their abundant machine-made cider is as good (or maybe even better) than the cider squeezed by the Apple family, so they win everyone's support as soon they arrive to Ponyville. Isn't until after they cheat the Apple family out of their farm and deactivate their machine's quality control system to produce faster (and vastly inferior) cider that makes the townfolk angry.
  • Kick the Dog: Openly rubbing the fact they won and cost the Apples their farm in their faces, and laughing about it. Comes back to bite them fast.
    • Repeatedly breaking Granny Smith's fence for no reason works quite well to deter sympathy from the viewers, as well.
  • Lack of Empathy: They show absolutely no remorse over the fact they've cheated the Apple Family out of their livelihood.
  • Lean and Mean
  • Meaningful Name: "Flim-flam" is another word for a confidence scheme, and these guys aren't exactly trustworthy.
    • Their cutie marks are apples that are quartered 75% (Flam) and 25% (Flim) respectively.
  • Motor Mouth
  • Multicolored Hair: See Skunk Stripe below.
  • Nice Hats: They wear vaudville-esque straw boater hats.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Their actions ultimately leaves the Apple family with enough cider to fix the problem that made these two a threat in the first place, not enough cider for everypony.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: They're much more elongated than other ponies: Longer legs, taller, actual horse like faces and pointier unicorn horns. They also move somewhat differently, especially during the song.
  • Oh Crap: When they realize just how furious the entire town is with them.
  • Shadow Archetype: To the Apple family. They run another family business centered around apples, but put quantity over quality and use dishonest business practices.
  • Skunk Stripe: They have them on their manes and tails.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Traveling salesponies nonpareil? Really?
  • Smug Snakes: "We don't care if the whole kingdom of Canterlot helps; it's a lost cause!"
  • Snake Cider Salesponies: Not really in practice (since their product is proven), but their personalities fit the trope to a T.
    • Downplayed and failed in their attempt at selling the final batch of cider.
  • Theme Twin Naming
  • Villainous Breakdown: When the Apple team starts to win, Flim panics almost instantly, though Flam stays composed.
  • Villain Song: Notably the first villains to have one in the series.
  • Waistcoat of Style

Dragons

Red Adult Dragon's Debut: "Dragonshy"

Green Adult Dragon's Debut: "Owl's Well That Ends Well"

Other Dragons' Debut: "Dragon Quest"

Voiced by Ashleigh Ball (one dragon in "Dragon Quest")[10]

Over the course of the series, dragons of various sizes, colors, and personalities have appeared, usually playing the role of an antagonist. How bad they are, however, depends on the episode and the dragon(s) in question.

  • All There in the Script: Word of God says the red teenage dragon's name is Garble.
  • Ambiguous Gender: Crackle has eyelashes, but "Crackle's cousin" (Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash and Rarity in a dragon costume that also has eyelashes), is assumed to be male by the purple teenage dragon.
    • The other dragons might have not noticed the eyelashes on the costume.
  • Blinding Bangs: The purple teenage dragon has these...
  • Breath Weapon: As expected, they can all breath fire, of varying colors.
  • Evil Albino: One of the teenage dragons has white scales and pink eyes.
  • Extreme Omnivore: They eat gemstones.
  • Fantastic Racism: The teenage dragons at least, but they looked down at the ponies and possibly all the other races as well.
  • Fan Nickname: The red adult dragon named as "Basil" (after a previous generation dragon with a similar color scheme) and the green adult dragon as "Reginald", from a Youtube caption. As for the teenage dragons, the most popular name (at least in Ponibooru prior to Word of God revealing his name to be Garble) for the red-scaled leader was Crim as the letters in that Fan Nickname are the first four letters found in the words "Crimson" (his scale color) and "Criminal" (definitely not a good person).
  • Gem-Encrusted: Crackle.
  • Gonk: Crackle.
  • Greed: It's their racial trait, and a part of their growing up. "Secret of My Excess" explained exactly why it is that both dragons encountered up to that point had massive hoards of valuables.
  • Jerkasses: Most of the dragons fall under this, especially the teenage ones.
  • Law of Chromatic Superiority: Among the teenage dragons, the red one (Garble) is the leader.
  • Leitmotif: Straight-up rock for the teenage dragons.
  • Non-Malicious Monster: "Basil" was a threat mostly because his snoring was creating a huge cloud of smoke and he refused to leave until Fluttershy scolded him; "Reginald" on the other hand is a territorial Jerkass that tried to kill Spike.
  • No Name Given: With the exception of Crackle and Garble.
  • Non-Standard Character Design:
    • Crackle has four pairs of limbs, a very unusual body shape, and is slightly Gem-Encrusted.
    • The green teenage dragon is wingless, and has a tiny upper body but very large feet and an even larger tail.
  • Ocular Gushers: When Fluttershy yells at him for roaring at her friends after Rainbow Dash kicked him in the face, "Basil" bursts into tears which resembles a rainstorm to the tiny ponies.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Crackle.
  • Only Six Faces: The adult dragons look a lot more alike than the teenage dragons do.
  • Shadow Archetype: The gang of teenage dragons is this to Spike. Unlike the kind, helpful Spike, they're a group of violent, bigoted thugs, showing what Spike might have become had he been raised among dragons
  • Teens Are Monsters: The delinquent dragons from "Dragon Quest". The full grown adult dragons only attack when provoked and greed-filled Spike, while destructive, more or less acted out of instinct. The delinquent dragons are full-on Jerkasses and love every minute of it whether it's ridiculing baby dragons, their utter disrespect for ponies (even Princess Celestia), kidnapping phoenix chicks, or smashing phoenix eggs.
  • Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: Crackle has four pairs of limbs.
  • Vile Villain Saccharine Show: The adult dragons are very territorial, and the teenagers are disturbingly similar to real life gangs of bullies.
  • Would Hit a Girl: They have no problem attempting to attack the ponies, even if they are female.
  • Would Hurt a Child: They have no problem harming or threatening Spike, even if he is a baby dragon.


Various Monsters

Along with the Ponies are various monsters. Most of them live in The Everfree Forest: an enigmatic place which is apparently free from the control of the rest of Equestria. Some of them are intelligent enough to be reasoned with while others are not. They have served as obstacles for the Ponies from time to time.

  1. ↑ "mare" is Latin for "sea" and is pronounced "mah-ray"
  2. ↑ Literally. He turnes her into a complete dullard
  3. ↑ She appears in Part 1 masquerading as Princess Cadence. She makes her full physical debut in Part 2.
  4. ↑ according to this tweet by Jayson Thiessen
  5. ↑ From left to right: Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara.
  6. ↑ From left to right: Spot, Rover, and Fido.
  7. ↑ Right's Flim, left's Flam, they're the world-famous Flim-Flam Brothers!
  8. ↑ both according to this tweet by Jayson Thiessen
  9. ↑ Or at least, that's the plan if they can get some apples
  10. ↑ according to this interview with Ashleigh
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