Winged Unicorn
A Winged Unicorn is a unicorn with wings. The idea would be to combine all the mobility of a flying creature with grace and rarity (and occasionally magical ability) of a unicorn.
Also known as a pegicorn, unipeg, or cerapter.[1] Occasionally winged unicorns are referred to as alicorns, which is a Portmanteau of the French words for wing (aile) and horn (corne). Note that in French, the word for unicorn is also licorne. However, be careful with this usage because the word alicorn also refers to the horn of a unicorn itself, a li translating to "secured" (so a li corne meaning "secured horn").
When winged unicorns appear alongside regular pegasi[2] and unicorns, it often indicates a (benevolent) hierarchy where they're usually top of the pecking order. In fantasy universes featuring humans, winged unicorns often serve as the Cool Horse, and will indicate that their rider is super-special.
Generally, they are rare—too many of these critters running around your fantasy world might make a work seem juvenile, since it's a melding of two magical creatures little girls generally adore. It's more likely to be a one-off creature with an unusual background (a "freak" unicorn or pegasus, a mysterious race in itself, or the result of powerful magic). It's surprisingly uncommon for them to be the actual hybrid offspring of a unicorn and a pegasus.
See also Unicorn and Pegasus for the exclusively horned and winged variants of the trope.
Examples of Winged Unicorn include:
Anime and Manga
- Unimon of Digimon Adventure.
- Pegasus AKA Helios in Sailor Moon is winged, of course, but is also a unicorn as well.
- The title character of Unico could use his magic to give himself wings in dire situations.
Literature
- Gaudior from A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
- Piers Anthony and Julie Brady's Dream A Little Dream is a Fantasy Kitchen Sink where the two super-powerful "creators" of the magical world are bonded to a winged unicorn (referred to in the novel as a "unisus"), Esprit. The perfect prince, Michael, also has a winged unicorn stallion, Heat.
- One of Norton's quests in the Incarnations of Immortality book "Bearing An Hourglass" is to free an alicorn from an evil sorceress.
Live-Action TV
- Rare evil (and anthropomorphic) example: The Polluticorn from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Music
- A song from the Rhapsody of Fire is titled "The Last Winged Unicorn"
- Another song called The Last Unicorn is about a unicorn that grows wings in order to survive The Great Flood.
- While it has not appeared in any songs yet,[when?] fans of Taylor Swift tend to like pegacorns since she mentioned one in the behind-the-scenes video for "White Horse." On the Set With Taylor Swift - White Horse Part 3
Newspaper Comics
- When Wally in Dilbert joins the "1% club" he gets the key from a tiny flying unicorn.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons and Dragons calls them alicorns.
- The Yu-Gi-Oh! card game has Crystal Beast Sapphire Pegasus.
Video Games
- In the Fire Emblem series, Falcoknights ride what appear to be winged unicorns, although the horn could conceivably be part of the pegasus' armor.
- Although the horse itself is never actually seen, the first Baten Kaitos game has a Magnus card called Pegasus Horn.
Web Comics
Web Original
- From The Annoying Orange and related videos, one can be seen in Daneboe Exposed #9: Daneboe Apocalypse, Nyan Boe, Annoying Orange Presents - Grapefruit's Totally True Tales: Bigfoot, and Ultimate Marshmallow Tease.
- The Unis in Neopets.
Western Animation
- She-Ra: Princess of Power had Swift Wind, who she referred to as a "Pegacorn"
- Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders: Sunstar was the winged unicorn bonded to the lead princess. Bafflingly, suffered from All of the Other Reindeer among other unicorns, until Starla reassured her that her wings were beautiful.
- In the My Little Pony franchise, these were almost unheard of until Generation 4, the first generation to feature permanently winged unicorns in the toy line itself.
- In My Little Pony: Escape from Catrina, a Blooper causes pegasus Baby Surprise to have a horn for a couple of shots during the song "Let's Not Take A Nap".
- The My Little Pony Tales episode "Up, Up and Away" features the four Glow 'n Show Ponies with wings, despite only Starglow being a pegasus in the toy line. Dazzleglow, a unicorn in the toy line, has both wings and a horn here.
- Four Generation 2 unicorns came with clip-on wings: Copper Glow, Silver Glow, Golden Glow, and Diamond Glow.
- In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, winged unicorns are actually all three types of ponies combined (according to Word of God) but the show has only referred to them as unicorns; a post by Hasbro's My Little Pony Facebook page provides the more specific term "Pegasus unicorn" (though this still doesn't acknowledge the Earth pony part of them).
- Pictured above are Princesses Celestia and Luna. They appear to be the "gods" of the world, being able to live thousands of years and having immense magical power—Princess Celestia raises the sun every day, and Princess Luna raises the moon every night.
- Celestia's niece Princess Cadence is another Pegasus unicorn princess, although she doesn't seem to have anywhere near the same level of power as Celestia and Luna.
- In "Hearts and Hooves Day", a Pegasus unicorn princess is told of and shown in a book. The story doesn't really fit with her being any of the three known ones.
- In "The Mysterious Mare Do Well", the eponymous heroine appears to be one. This turns out to be because she had a Collective Identity which included unicorn Twilight Sparkle and Pegasus Fluttershy, with Mare Do Well's Badass Cape and Nice Hat hiding the fact that she never had wings and a horn at the same time.
- Unicorn Rarity gains butterfly-like wings in "Sonic Rainboom" via a temporary magic spell, in the toy Glimmer Wings Rarity via an Imagine Spot, and in the licensed art print and shirt Flight [dead link] of the [dead link] Ponies. [dead link]
- From the episode "A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2", the changelings, while not ponies, are pony-shaped and have horns (which they can use some magic with) as well as wings, though they look very different than those of ponies.
- In one of Adventures in Ponyville's minigames, Twilight Sparkle uses magic to give the player's pony (as well as her earth pony friend) temporary pegasus wings. If the player's pony is a unicorn, she'll be one of these until the minigame is over.
- One of the French magazine stories introduces Canon Foreigner Léon, Princess Celestia's 4-year-old cousin.
- The Virtual Paper Doll ponies from the Web Games The Fabulous Ponymaker and/or Rarity's Bridal Boutique can be Pegasus unicorns if they're designed that way by the player.
- A couple of the show's Bloopers have made ordinary ponies into these: three stallions in the Canterlot Royal Guard during a Flash Back from the episode "A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1" and a unicorn filly in Magic Kindergarten during an Imagine Spot from the episode "Lesson Zero".
- A few of the many suspected factory reject and/or prototype toys are these: of unicorn Rarity, of toy-exclusive Pegasus Flitterheart, and a Glimmer Wings mashup of unicorn sisters Rarity and Sweetie Belle.
- Eunice from Dragon Tales.
- One episode of Word Girl had Becky and her friend Violet come up with a new mythical animal, which turned out to be a winged unicorn. They couldn't decide whether it should be called either a "Unisus" or a "Pegacorn", so they decided to call it a "Pegasussicorn" instead.
- All the unicorns in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends have wings.