History Characters / TheLifeAndTimesOfAWinningPony

* AndThenWhat: She uses this in ''The Lunar Rebellion'' to deliver an intellectual beatdown on Apple Tree by asking how he means to implement his reforms and deal with their fallout and side effects, illustrating that his positions -- while valid concerns -- are also immensely complex problems without the easy solutions he advocates.
* SinkOrSwimMentor: In chapter 7 of ''The Lunar Rebellion'', she purposefully refrains from interfering in a fight between Shadow and Sunbeam, hoping they will learn to work things out themselves. [[spoiler: It backfires disastrously, the argument escalating nearly to the point of violence rather than simmering down and continuing to erode their confidence in her leadership.]]

!!Freeport

[[folder:Sunset Shimmer]]
Celestia's former apprentice until the two had a rather unpleasant falling out. Sunset eventually escaped to Freeport and became a magus for hire, all the while planning to ascend to alicornhood to prove her worth to Celestia.

By the time of the main story's present, she has become the Archon of Freeport.
----
* DidntThinkThisThrough: She starts out with the tendency to jump into things without properly thinking her plans through. For instance, she didn't really put a lot of thought into what she was going to do after leaving Celestia beyond "head as far away from Equestria as possible", something she only realizes when she arrives at [[WretchedHive Freeport]] with little money, no contacts and no means to make either.
* ExactWords: In ''The Freeport Venture'', Sunset accepts the Council of Thirteen's offer to destroy Metal Mome's golems and all existing notes on how they were made. She never said anything about the very detailed memories she pulled from Mome’s mind, though.
* InSeriesNickname: Strumming likes to call Sunset "bacon-mane".
* MageTower: Sunset ends up building one made of obsidian to live in in Freeport, partly because it’s traditional, partly because it means she has to buy less land.
* ProperlyParanoid: When Strumming approaches Sunset Shimmer humbly, apologizes for her earlier antagonism, offers her food, and [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness doesn't try to steal any for herself]], Sunset promptly assumes the meal has been poisoned. [[spoiler: She's right, but Strumming does want to reconcile, and is JustFollowingOrders, however reluctantly.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Kukri]]
A young changeling Free Mind, and Sunset's apprentice in magic.
----
* InsistentTerminology: Kukri is not a grub. She's eleven-and-a-half years old.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Puzzle Piece]]
* KnowledgeBroker: He makes his living as this, ferreting out various kinds of information and selling it to whoever can pay his fees.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Strumming Heartstrings]]
A cousin of Lyra Heartstrings working as a spy for the Equestrian government. She's sent to Freeport when Sunset sets up residence there, in order to keep tabs on her.
----
* JustFollowingOrders: Strumming would really like to be friends with Sunset, it's just that she has orders to spy on the runaway [[spoiler:and later confine/keep an eye on/recapture her. Later, when Sunset uses DarkMagic while escaping, [[SarcasmMode she ''must'' be a warlock and thus ''obviously'' seeking to be the next King Sombra]].]]
* LaserGuidedKarma: In ''Blood Debts'', Strumming's past actions catch up with her when she is grievously injured and nearly killed by [[spoiler:the nephew of the very same ''bokor'' she murdered out of personal prejudice]].
* StrongFamilyResemblance: For all intents and purposes, she's an older version of Lyra with wings and no horn.
* VanHelsingHateCrimes: Strumming really, really hates warlocks -- a term that, as far as she's concerned, includes any habitual user of what she considers dark magic. [[BadPowersBadPeople Normally, this is a fairly justified feeling]], but Strumming takes it to extremes, as seen with her execution of the bokor in ''Blood and Iron''. While the things he was doing ''were'' morally questionable, he wasn't actually harming anyone -- he only used corpses he found washed up on shore and used his zombies as nothing more than free labor for his plantation, and while he did attack Sunset and Strumming, they ''had'' already broken onto his property and attacked his zombies and elementals. None of this matters to Strumming: he used illegal magic, therefore he had to die.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Starlight Glimmer]]
* TheBait: In ''Blood and Iron'', since the zombies that were periodically attacking her commune were already focusing their efforts on her, her role in Sunset's plan is to go out in the open to lure the undead horde into Sunset's trap.
* {{Foil}}: To Sunset. Both are very powerful unicorns, both are extremely dedicated to a goal (equality or alicornhood) and won’t shut up about it, and both have gone back on their ideals when faced with imprisonment (Starlight using her family’s wealth and connections, Sunset [[spoiler:using dark magic]]). The main difference is Sunset is more aware of her failures and much less of a hypocrite.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Starlight is one in much the same way she is in canon, since her motivation for making everypony equal is pretty obviously a way to make sure nopony’s better than her rather than actually helping ponies, as she claims. When she robbed a bank to give the money to the poor, claiming entirely altruistic reasons, she kept three quarters of the money for herself.
* UnskilledButStrong: She has plenty of raw magical power, perhaps as much as Sunset herself, but she doesn’t have any proper training in how to use it effectively. In contrast to Sunset, who can use a wide repertoire of spells as the situation demands, she's limited to basic telekinesis, shield spells and crude blasts of force. Her temper problems don't help, either.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Rising Fire]]
A lich leading the undead army assaulting Starlight's commune in ''Blood and Iron''. She is originally from the Sombra timeline seen in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E25TheCutieRemarkPart1 The Cutie Remark]]", having come to the "main" timeline to seek revenge on Starlight for having retconned hers out of existence.
----
* FallenHero: [[spoiler:She used to be the Sunset Shimmer from the Sombra timeline, and was just as benevolent and well-intentioned as the one whose timeline she invaded. Decades of isolation in a dead world and an obsessive desire for vengeance ended up turning her into the crazed KnightTemplar she is now.]]
* KnightTemplar: She has no issue whatsoever with killing an entire village's worth of innocent people and raising them all as zombies in her quest to avenge her world. When Sunset calls her out on this, she frames her intentions as a noble sacrifice on her part to preserve a greater number of lives.
-->'''Sunset Shimmer:''' So you'll murder an entire village of innocents just to get some cannon fodder? You have a pretty twisted idea of sparing innocent lives.
* {{Necromancer}}: She is highly skilled in necromancy, having created an army of powerful, unique undead and turned herself into a lich.
* OurLichesAreDifferent: She is a fully self-aware and intelligent skeletal undead with a great deal of magical power, and is consistently referred to as a lich. She does not appear to have a phylactery, though.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Her motivation. [[spoiler:She comes from the timeline from "The Cutie Remark" where Equestria is at war with Sombra. Her world was destroyed when Starlight and Twilight changed the timeline afterwards, and everything she's done -- including becoming a lich, travelling to another timeline and raising an undead horde -- has been in order to kill Starlight in revenge.]]
* WingedUnicorn: She started out as a normal unicorn, and gave herself batlike wings of skin and metal, alongside an alicorn's stature, as part of her transformation into a lich.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:King Sombra]]
The King Sombra from the Crystal War timeline, who waged war against Equestria. That timeline's Sunset originally thought him to be the cause of her world's temporal apocalypse, and sought him out to make him pay for that and for the many other atrocities he committed. In doing so, she also learned of the actual cause of the apocalypse, setting her towards the main canon's timeline.
----
* CessationOfExistence: His eventual fate. [[spoiler:After Sunset defeats him and reduces him to a skeleton, she raises him as an undead soldier. When she realizes he rose as a self-aware, intelligent undead like Rainbow and Rarity, she eagerly tears through the necromantic magic animating him to learn more about it, destroying it in the process. She does this until she obtains his soul, which she casually snuffs out, condemning Sombra to oblivion.]]
* DemBones: After his duel with Sunset, [[spoiler:she reduces him to a charred skeleton and raises him as an undead soldier for her army]].
* EvilOverlord: He set himself up as the tyrannical ruler of the Crystal Empire, giving it a drastic makeover focused on slavery, ominous towers and black jagged crystals everywhere. He then conquered the yaks, caribou and northern Equestria, with plans to force all the rest of the world under his tyranny by means of armies of mind-controlled thralls, shadow demons, mindless undead and a few power-hungry traitors who went over to his side.
* OmnicidalManiac: His eventual goal after more-or-less realizing how the multiverse works: he intends to concentrate the power of the time storms and unleash it across the multiverse, killing every living being in every universe and timeline in order to lash out against the perceived meaninglessness of existence.
* SorcerousOverlord: To the Crystal Empire and other lands he conquered, being both their undisputed and tyrannical ruler and one of the most powerful warlocks to ever live.
* StrawNihilist: After concluding that the timeline branches every time a choice is made, thus creating an infinite number of multiverses where every possible outcome of everything is happening, he comes to the conclusion that absolutely nothing matters. If ''every'' choice is made at every junction and infinite copies of you exist doing everything you didn't do, individual agency and accomplishments are then utterly meaningless and he might as well just blow up the whole multiverse.
* TryToFitThatOnABusinessCard: He introduces himself to Sunset by spouting off a ridiculously long list of titles and cognomens, each more grandiose than the last. It serves to perfectly encapsulate his bloated ego and sense of self-importance.
-->He cleared his throat. "In better times, a herald would have seen to this for me, but... I am Emperor Sombra the Ever-Victorious, first of my name; Dread Master of Crystal Empire, King of the Yaks, High King of the Caribou, Rightful Master of Ponykind, Lord of the North, Protector of the Realm of Ice and Snow, Inheritor of the Crystal Empire, the Smokebound, Coryphaeus of Wisdom and Benevolence. I am the Breaker of Vanhoover and the Ravager of Coldharbor; the Son of the Arctic Winds, the Morning Star of the Empire, the Iron-Willed Commander of Those Who March South; the Grand Emperor Who Is A Perfect Incarnation of all that an Emperor Should Be; the One Who Stands Alone in his Utter Perfection, and the Greatest Lord and Master Who Ever Was or Will Be."
* VillainRespect: He seems to hold at least a degree of respect for Sunset, praising her skills in necromancy and offering her the chance to rule their dead world alongside him.
* WeCanRuleTogether: At the beginning of their face-off, he invites Sunset to rule alongside him as his empress as they remake the world in their image. Sunset immediately rejects the offer, something that Sombra takes in stride.
[[/folder]]

[[/folder]]

!Lunar Rebellion-era characters
!!Loyalists
[[folder:Shadow Kicker]]
The FamousAncestor of the Kicker clans and a heroine of Equestria, Shadow was the only major clan leader to remain loyal to Celestia during the Lunar Rebellion.
----
* BackFromTheDead: In Chapter 1 of Ascendant Shadows, [[spoiler:Celestia and Sunbeam manage to save her from the fatal injuries she has sustained by shunting her consciousness into her armor until her body has healed]]. Arguably a borderline case, since heart and lung activity ceased, but it's implied brain death was not reached.
* ExactWords: Early in the Gathering Shadows, [[spoiler:Shadow promised a Griffon Archduke that she wouldn't castrate or flay him if he revealed where the remaining pony captives were, not that she wouldn't have him hung if she found out he'd killed said pony captives and eaten from their corpes]].
* HasTwoDaddies: Shadow is the adoptive daughter of two stallions, Tornado Kicker and Clay Striker.
* HonorBeforeReason: Like with many other pegasi, Shadow has a tendency to pick the honorable choice over less honorable but more efficient ones. A good example would be how, when seeking allies against Duke Polaris (a noble who had been given full command of the armed forces despite being highly unqualified for the role), she persistently refused to ally with Sunbeam, whom she saw as distasteful and dishonorable, despite it being her only realistic choice for gaining useful allies, with the avenues she pursued instead gaining her little beyond lost time that allowed Polaris to cement his position.
* LegendaryInTheSequel: By the time of the Wininningverse present, she even has a religion dedicated to her.
* OldMaster: Downplayed, but still there; although in the main story she's still far from old, she is implied to be in her mid-forties or so. Despite being extremely experienced, skilled, and battle-hardened, it's noted more than once that she's not quite as fast, durable or strong as she used to be. When forced into a direct confrontation with the extraordinarily gifted and physically in her prime [[TheAce Lance Charger]], she needs to use [[CombatPragmatist every dirty trick in the book]] to keep up.
* SoulJar: Shadow's Armor, which contains an imprint of her mind into the present day [[spoiler:and served as a much more literal example when Celestia temporarily stored Shadow’s soul in it when the latter died]].
* UnwantedFalseFaith: Shadow was never happy about being subject to regular hero worship, and even less happy about being subject to actual worship. Even in her modern day, her spirit clearly dislikes being referred to by her religious honorific of "Honored Shadow".
* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: Almost word-for-word in chapter 7, [[spoiler: when Sunbeam Sparkle congratulates her over defusing a very tense confrontation between Sunbeam and Rightly Doo]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Gale Kicker]]
* HappilyAdopted: She was adopted by Shadow as part of the Pegasopolian custom of adopting promising clanless youths into one's clan. By and large, the two have an extremely good mother-daughter relationship.
* TheSpymaster: She serves this role within the Kicker clan: her special talent is in information gathering, and she's extremely skilled at gaining informants and setting up intelligence networks. It's noted that she hardly ever visits a new place without having gained at least a few new informants there by the time she leaves, most of them entirely unaware of this.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sunbeam Sparkle]]
* AmbiguousDisorder: She shows a lot of symptoms and personality quirks (such as a highly manipulative and amoral nature and trouble understanding morality and altruism, as well as that others could genuinely use these things to guide their actions without being hypocrites or liars) typical of high-functioning sociopaths, and it's noted in the story that many present-day Equestrian psychologists and historians diagnose her with a high-functioning form of Antisocial Personality Disorder.
* TheArchmage: She holds the title of Archmage of Canterlot, the most influential of the five archmages of Unicornia and the de-facto leader of its magic orders. She's also one of most powerful unicorn mages around, perhaps second only to Celestia herself.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: More a case of Amorality Cannot Comprehend Morality, but it is noted that the ruthlessly pragmatic, amoral and self-interest-driven Sunbeam finds it very easy to deal with and predict actions driven by greed, self-interest and ambition (as that is largely how she operates herself). However, she has trouble understanding (and thus predicting) people who act based on genuine moral standards, usually considering them to be simply self-righteous fools.
--> '''Grandmaster Crossguard''': [S]he finds her morally driven allies to be unpredictable--she can understand greed or lust for power easily enough, and e'en loyalty, but simple altruism and decency elude her.
* EvilChancellor: {{Subverted}}. The story appears to set her up as this at first, what with her ruthless pragmatism, love of LoopholeAbuse and dislike for Princess Celestia's gentler touch. However, she remains loyal to Celestia throughout the story, making her more of a TokenEvilTeammate.
* FamousAncestor: She is one to the entire Sparkle family, who are her direct descendants through her [[spoiler:adoptive]] daughter Midnight Sparkle. [[spoiler:Sunset Shimmer can also trace her ancestry to Sunbeam, by means of Sunbeam’s bastard son Daylight Shimmer.]]
* LoopholeAbuse: She employs this frequently, with others noting they have to phrase things carefully and deliberately when making terms with her. For example, when she enters an honor duel with a pegasus that she completely outclasses and Celestia orders her not to kill him, Sunbeam instead mutilates him so thoroughly that he takes his own life some time later.
* MamaBear: She is extremely protective of her daughter, and threatening Midnight is one of the few ways to make her visibly furious. When [[spoiler:the rebels capture Midnight as a sacrifice]], she drops her usual smooth façade and simply marches into their base and incinerating anypony in her way.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Sunbeam tends to revert to her working-class accent when angry.
* PeekABangs: Her mane covers her left eye.
* RagsToRiches: She started out as commoner from a family of glassmakers, and through her great magical skill and sheer ruthlessness she clawed her way up through the ranks of the magi until she was one of the most influential and powerful pony in Unicornia, second only to Celestia herself.
* TranquilFury: When entering the rebel base [[spoiler:in Canterlot to rescue her daughter]], she doesn't show any visible signs of anger. She simply enters their base, asks for the whereabouts of [[spoiler:Midnight]], and brutally incinerates anyone in her way.
* WouldHurtAChild: She's {{Flanderized}} in-universe for this after it's made public that she used a colt as an unwitting suicide bomber against his warlock father, earning her the unofficial title "Foal-slayer" amongst the nobility.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Midnight Sparkle]]
* AmbiguousDisorder: She shows a lot of behaviors (such as difficulty in reading and expressing emotions, a strong fascination with a specific subject, an unusual manner of speaking and a tendency for honesty and forthrightness even when not socially appropriate) consistent with high-functioning autism/Asperger's syndrome.
* TheArchmage: She eventually becomes the Archmage of Canterlot after her mother's retirement, becoming the leader of the magic orders after the time of the Rebellion.
* ArtificialHuman: [[spoiler:She was created through dark magic by Lunar cultists for the purpose of being an ideal vessel for Nightmare Moon's essence.]]
* BreadEggsMilkSquick: Midnight’s reasons for wanting to be grown up.
--> '''Midnight:''' I think I would like to be an adult more than a child. Then I could do as I pleased. Like stay up all night reading, eat ice cream when I wished, or call upon great magical forces to smite my foes and make them lament the day they crossed me.
* FamousAncestor: She is the direct ancestor of Twilight Sparkle and her family.
* AnIcePerson: Her special talent is for ice-based magic (her cutie mark is a snowflake), which manifests in the form of a lot of her spells involving ice, drops in temperature and gales of cold air.
* IOweYouMyLife: After Shadow saves her from being [[spoiler:sacrificed by Lunar forces to provide a new vessel for the Avatar]], she feels indebted to her for this. Shadow initially dismisses it, saying she didn't do what she did just to be owed a favor, but half-jokingly says Midnight should feel welcome to repay her if the opportunity ever comes up. Cloud notes that Midnight did eventually repay her life debt, many years later.
* NightmareFetishist: She's creepily obsessed with death. Among other things, she has a personal collection of pony skulls, and her reaction to a unicorn lieutenant who made the mistake of [[BullyingADragon trying to pick a fight with]] Shadow Kicker was to excitedly ask him if he's going to die.
* TheUnSmile: Midnight, as part of her general awkwardness with typical social interactions, is noted to have a very unsettling smile, often showing far too many teeth and not reaching her eyes.
-->Then she smiled. 'Tis a queer thing to see something so genuine and natural twisted, and e'en moreso when 'tis unintentional. Her lips curled upwards to bare her teeth, yet her eyes were untouched by the motion, her pupils shrinking until they were mere pinpricks in a sea of white. She held her gaze far too long for comfort, her uneven blinking sparse and veins readily apparent within her eyes the longer she failed to do so.\\
Mine entire body twitched back from her in an instinctive reaction to the horror before mine eyes, but years of discipline held me firmly in place, and a polite smile on my face.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Nimbus Kicker]]
A young soldier in the Kicker clan.
----
* RelativeError: At one point, Nimbus thinks her lover Radiant Day is cheating on her with his squire White Knight. Turns out, White Knight is his sister. And also his squire. But most importantly of all, his sister.
[[/folder]]

!!Rebels
[[folder:Rightly Doo]]
* HeroAntagonist: By and large. He's a genuinely honorable, good and heroic stallion, and one of the most principled leaders in the rebellion, despite directly opposing Shadow since the beginning of the war.
* StarCrossedLovers: With Shadow. They're greatly attracted to each other, but are kept apart by social norms requiring Rightly to remain celibate for a prescribed mourning period following his wife's death, and then by being on opposite sides of a civil war.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Bright Charger]]
The ''materfamilias'' of the Charger clan, and one of the ephors of Pegasopolis.

For tropes pertaining to [[spoiler:the Avatar of Nightmare Moon]], see the appropriate folder.
----
* KickTheDog: In the epilogue of Rising Shadows, when Bright (who has already started becoming less and less sympathetic by this point) learns that one of her twins has died in battle against [[TheArchmage Sunbeam]] and that the other, realizing that he could only retreat or die a pointless death, fled. Her extremely cold-hearted response to this is especially notable because, earlier in the story, she had praised a soldier for doing the same thing and not pointlessly wasting his life.
--> "[...] Is it not better that one of us survives?" "Would that the better of my sons had." Mother struck him full across the cheek. "Instead he died so that thou might live."
* RevengeBeforeReason: In chapter twelve of Rising Shadows, [[spoiler: Bright Charger attempts to murder Shadow under a flag of truce for the latter's perceived murder of her daughter, never mind that a) she has nothing more than circumstantial evidence for this claim, and b) she willfully breaks a truce to do this, doing incredible damage to the rebels’ cause and credibility in the process]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Lance Charger]]
* TheAce: She's for all intents and purposes the ideal that all Pegasopolian warriors aspire to: she's brave in battle, unfailingly honorable and fiercely loyal to her cause and clan. She's made leader of the ''hetairoi'', the elite bodyguards of the Commander of Pegasopolis, at the beginning of the war, and she's already slated for a spot on the Ephorate. [[spoiler:She was even on the verge of becoming an alicorn before she died.]]
* AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler:She's stated by Celestia to be on the way to become an alicorn, which is described as a highly transformative experience that Celestia is confident will make her see past political and mortal conflicts and work to end the war. A pity she dies before this can happen]]. In fact, the timing [[spoiler:of her death implies that the rebel warlocks had also realized this, and killed her specifically to prevent this from happening, while also giving Bright a reason to accept the mantle of Nightmare Moon's Avatar herself]].
* RedHerring: Between her high status in the rebel forces and [[spoiler:hints that she's becoming an alicorn]], it's implied that she will become the Avatar of Nightmare Moon. [[spoiler:Then she dies, and her mother becomes the Avatar instead.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Dusk Charger]]
* DoubleAgent: Towards the climax of Ascendant Shadows, [[spoiler:he seems to defect to the Solar cause, although it’s all a ruse to infiltrate Canterlot and kidnap Midnight Sparkle. He later defects for real when he realizes exactly what the Avatar plans to do with Midnight.]]
* HeelFaceRevolvingDoor: By the end of the story, he has joined the rebellion against Celestia, [[spoiler:then defected to the Solars, then been revealed to actually be a rebel mole, then defected to the Solars for real out of disgust for the things the Avatar was doing]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Dawn Charger]]
* TheMedic: Unlike the rest of her family members, who are uniformly warriors, she's a chirurgeon, and her chosen role in wartime is to heal and tend to the injured. Like other chirurgeons at the time of the rebellion, she has sworn a vow towards protecting life, and as such heals the injured without considering what side they fight on, and refuses to raise arms against others.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Steel Striker]]
* CoolOldGuy: He's much older than the other ephors, and one of the few consistent voices for reason and moderation in the Ephorate.
* TheQuietOne: He's laconic enough to give Big Mac a run for his money. He never speaks more often than he has to, and almost never in full sentences. It's mentioned that at one point, Rightly challenged Bright Charger to get Steel to speak three words during an Ephorate meeting. Steel kept quiet for the entire session, until, at the end, he turned to Bright and said "You lose."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Swift Blade]]
* {{Hypocrite}}: As part of his motive for rebelling, he calls Celestia a tyrant who is only concerned with the well-being of one tribe (the unicorns) over the rest of Equestria and denounces Sunbeam as a monster for performing atrocities in the name of grim necessity. [[spoiler:He later performs atrocities as bad as -- if not worse than -- Sunbeam's on much shakier grounds, and openly and knowingly promotes Pegasopolian interests and welfare over those of the unicorns and earth ponies.]]
* IDidWhatIHadToDo: In the second Manehattan Crisis chapter, his rationale for [[spoiler:burning the Earth Pony governing body alive when they wouldn't side with Pegasopolis and replacing them with a puppet government]].
* KlingonScientistsGetNoRespect: During the time of the Lunar Rebellion, pegasi are almost exclusively a warrior culture. Swift Blade is skilled in strategy and logistics and plays a vital role in ensuring the Pegasopolian armies are reliably supplied and fed, but the other pegasi still look down on him for not possessing their prowess in personal combat.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: He's essentially one who got his facts wrong. He honestly believes that Celestia is a tyrant, that Nightmare Moon was banished unjustly and should be returned to power, and that Equestria would be genuinely better off as a pegasus-run military dictatorship. Even if he were right, that still doesn’t excuse [[spoiler:allying with [[BadPowersBadPeople warlocks and lunar cultists]], violently overthrowing other governments, and using [[BlackMagic blood magic]] to turn a fellow ephor into the Avatar of Nightmare Moon]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Avatar of Nightmare Moon]]
For tropes pertaining to [[spoiler:Bright Charger]], see her folder above.
----
* AGodAmI: The Avatar's worldview in a nutshell, although "A God's Avatar Am I" might be a more accurate term.
-->"I am an alicorn, a higher state of being. I am faster, stronger, smarter, and simply better in every conceivable way. I am Luna reborn, her will made flesh and Equestria’s liberation."
* BodyHorror: The Avatar's state by the end of the battle within Canterlot. [[spoiler:Half of her body was reduced to a charred ruin -- so much of her side had been simply burned away that her organs were fully visible, still trying to keep her alive despite their own wasted state -- her face was a mass of charred flesh and shattered bone and what flesh she still possessed was visibly and rapidly rotting.]]

* BreadEggsBreadedEggs: When she's startled out of an eavesdropping spell in ''Princess Twilight's Profoundly Peripheral Protector'', she awkwardly tries to claim she was distracted due to thinking about "magic and friendship, and the magic of friendship."

* RelativError: At one point, Nimbus thinks her lover Radiant Day is cheating on her with his squire White Knight. Turns out, White Knight is his sister. And also his squire. But most importantly of all, his sister.

The materfamilias of the Charger clan, and one of the ephors of Pegasopolis.

Wind Kicker's and Typhoon Season's youngest daughter and Cloud Kicker's cousin.

* TrackingSpell: Her special talent is tracking and location magic. She specializes in creating small gems enchanted with tracking spells. She also has the rather impolite habit of planting these gems on the clothing and persons of everybody she meets or talks to, for the purposes of being able to track them should the need arise. This does come in handy on some occasions, such as in ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/127803/the-incredibly-thrilling-investigation-of-storm-kicker The Incredibly Thrilling Investigation of Storm Kicker]]'', when Lyra goes missing and Star is able to use a gem she previously planted on her as a focus for casting a tracking spell.

* AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler:She's stated by Celestia to be on the way to become an alicorn, which is stated to be a highly transformative experience that Celestia is confident will make her see past political and mortal conflicts and work to end the war. A pity she dies before this can happen.]]
** [[spoiler:In fact, the timing of her death implies that the rebel warlocks had also realized this, and killed her specifically to prevent this from happening, while also giving Bright a reason to accept the mantle of Nightmare Moon's Avatar herself.]]

* StrawNihilist: After he concluding that the timeline branches every time a choice is made, thus creating an infinite number of multiverses where every possible outcome of everything is happening, he comes to the conclusion that absolutely nothing matters. If ''every'' choice is made at every junction and infinite copies of you exist doing everything you didn't do, individual agency and accomplishments are then utterly meaningless and he might as well just blow up the whole multiverse.

* EvilCannotComprehendGood: More a case of Amorality Cannot Comprehend Morality, but it is noted that the ruthlessly pragmatic, amoral and self-interest-driven Sunbeam finds it far easier to deal with and predict actions driven by greed, self-interest and ambition (as that is largely how she operates herself). However, she has trouble understanding (and thus predicting) people who act based on genuine moral standards, usually considering them to be simply self-righteous fools.
--> '''Grandmaster Crossguard''': [S]he finds her morally driven allies to be unpredictable--she can understand greed or lust for power easily enough, and e’en loyalty, but simple altruism and decency elude her.

* MamaBear: She is extremely protective of her daughter, and threatening Midnight is one of the few ways to make her visibly furious. When [[spoiler:the rebels capture Midnight as a sacrifice]], she completely drops her usual smooth façade, simply marching into their base and incinerating anypony in her ways.

* OmnicidialManiac: His eventual goal after more-or-less realizing how the multiverse works: he intends to concentrate the power of the time storms and unleash it across the multiverse, killing every living being in every universe and timeline in order to lash out against the perceived meaninglessness of existence.

!!Others

%%
%%By the time of the main story's present, she has displaced the Council of Thirteen and has become the Archon of Freeport.

A lich leading the undead army assaulting Starlight's commune in ''Blood and Iron''. [[spoiler:She is originally from the Sombra timeline seen in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E25TheCutieRemarkPart1 The Cutie Remark]]", having come to the "main" timeline to seek revenge on Starlight for having retconned hers out of existence.]]

* CatchPhrase: She almost always refers to sex as "banging." [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness When she doesn't (non-dramatic, by the way)]], [[spoiler: "And then we made love"]] is the sweetest sentence in the entire fic.

* CatchPhrase: She almost always refers to sex as "banging." [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness When she doesn't -- non-dramatic, by the way]] -- [[spoiler: "And then we made love"]] is the sweetest sentence in the entire fic.

* CatchPhrase: She almost always refers to sex as "banging." [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness When she doesn't. Non-dramatic, by the way]], [[spoiler: "And then we made love"]] is the sweetest sentence in the entire fic.

* ChivalrousPervert: She certainly sees herself as such. Actual results... vary

* JustFollowingOrders: Strumming would really like to be friends with Sunset, it's just that she has orders to spy on the runaway [[spoiler:and later confine/keep an eye on/recapture her. Later, when Sunset uses DarkMagic while escaping, [[SarcasmMode she ''must'' be a warlock and thus ''obviously'' seeking to be the next King Sombra]].]] [[note]][[spoiler:Strumming's superiors are dicks.]][[/note]]

* ObliviousToLove: It took him a surprisingly long time to realize that Cadence liked him that way. It took Musette saying to his face in so many words that Cadence had a crush on him for him to catch on.

* MamaBear: She is extremely protective of her daughter, and threatening Midnight is one of the few ways to make her visibly furious. When [[spoiler:the rebels capture Midnight as a sacrifice]], she completely drops her usual smooth façade, simply marching into their base and incinerating anypony in her ways.

!!Freeport
[[folder:Sunset Shimmer]]
Celestia's former apprentice until the two had a rather unpleasant falling out. Sunset eventually escaped to Freeport and became a magus for hire, all the while planning to ascend to alicornhood to prove her worth to Celestia.
%%
%%By the time of the main story's present, she has displaced the Council of Thirteen and has become the Archon of Freeport.
----
* DidntThinkThisThrough: She starts out with the tendency to jump into things without properly thinking her plans through. For instance, she didn't really put a lot of thought into what she was going to do after leaving Celestia beyond "head as far away from Equestria as possible", something she only realizes when she arrives at [[WretchedHive Freeport]] with little money, no contacts and no means to make either.
* ExactWords: In ''The Freeport Venture'', Sunset accepts the Council of Thirteen's offer to destroy Metal Mome's golems and all existing notes on how they were made. She never said anything about the very detailed memories she pulled from Mome’s mind, though.
* InSeriesNickname: Strumming likes to call Sunset "bacon-mane".
* MageTower: Sunset ends up building one made of obsidian to live in in Freeport, partly because it’s traditional, partly because it means she has to buy less land.
* ProperlyParanoid: When Strumming approaches Sunset Shimmer humbly, apologizes for her earlier antagonism, offers her food, and [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness doesn't try to steal any for herself]], Sunset promptly assumes the meal has been poisoned. [[spoiler: She's right, but Strumming does want to reconcile, and is JustFollowingOrders, however reluctantly.]]

[[folder:Kukri]]
A young changeling Free Mind, and Sunset's apprentice in magic.
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* InsistentTerminology: Kukri is not a grub. She's eleven-and-a-half years old.

[[folder:Puzzle Piece]]
* KnowledgeBroker: He makes his living as this, ferreting out various kinds of information and selling it to whoever can pay his fees.

[[folder:Strumming Heartstrings]]
A cousin of Lyra Heartstrings working as a spy for the Equestrian government. She's sent to Freeport when Sunset sets up residence there, in order to keep tabs on her.
----
* JustFollowingOrders: Strumming would really like to be friends with Sunset, it's just that she has orders to spy on the runaway [[spoiler:and later confine/keep an eye on/recapture her. Later, when Sunset uses DarkMagic while escaping, [[SarcasmMode she ''must'' be a warlock and thus ''obviously'' seeking to be the next King Sombra]].]] [[note]][[spoiler:Strumming's superiors are dicks.]][[/note]]
* StrongFamilyResemblance: For all intents and purposes, she's an older version of Lyra with wings and no horn.
* VanHelsingHateCrimes: Strumming really, really hates warlocks -- a term that, as far as she's concerned, includes any habitual user of what she considers dark magic. [[BadPowersBadPeople Normally, this is a fairly justified feeling]], but Strumming takes it to extremes, as seen with her execution of the bokor in ''Blood and Iron''. While the things he was doing ''were'' morally questionable, he wasn't actually harming anyone -- he only used corpses he found washed up on shore and used his zombies as nothing more than free labor for his plantation, and while he did attack Sunset and Strumming, they ''had'' already broken onto his property and attacked his zombies and elementals. None of this matters to Strumming: he used illegal magic, therefore he had to die.

[[folder:Starlight Glimmer]]
* TheBait: In ''Blood and Iron'', since the zombies that were periodically attacking her commune were already focusing their efforts on her, her role in Sunset's plan is to go out in the open to lure the undead horde into Sunset's trap.
* {{Foil}}: To Sunset. Both are very powerful unicorns, both are extremely dedicated to a goal (equality or alicornhood) and won’t shut up about it, and both have gone back on their ideals when faced with imprisonment (Starlight using her family’s wealth and connections, Sunset [[spoiler:using dark magic]]). The main difference is Sunset is more aware of her failures and much less of a hypocrite.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Starlight is one in much the same way she is in canon, since her motivation for making everypony equal is pretty obviously a way to make sure nopony’s better than her rather than actually helping ponies, as she claims. When she robbed a bank to give the money to the poor, claiming entirely altruistic reasons, she kept three quarters of the money for herself.
* UnskilledButStrong: She has plenty of raw magical power, perhaps as much as Sunset herself, but she doesn’t have any proper training in how to use it effectively. In contrast to Sunset, who can use a wide repertoire of spells as the situation demands, she's limited to basic telekinesis, shield spells and crude blasts of force. Her temper problems don't help, either.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Rising Fire]]
A lich leading the undead army assaulting Starlight's commune in ''Blood and Iron''. [[spoiler:She is originally from the Sombra timeline seen in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E25TheCutieRemarkPart1 The Cutie Remark]]", having come to the "main" timeline to seek revenge on Starlight for having retconned hers out of existence.]]

* {{Necromancer}}: She is highly skilled in necromancy, having created an army of powerful, unique undead and turned herself into a lich.
* OurLichesAreDifferent: She is a fully self-aware and intelligent skeletal undead with a great deal of magical power, and is consistently referred to as a lich. She does not appear to have a phylactery, though.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Her motivation. [[spoiler:She comes from the timeline from "The Cutie Remark" where Equestria is at war with Sombra. Her world was destroyed when Starlight and Twilight changed the timeline afterwards, and everything she's done -- including becoming a lich, travelling to another timeline and raising an undead horde -- has been in order to kill Starlight in revenge.]]
* WingedUnicorn: She started out as a normal unicorn, and gave herself batlike wings of skin and metal, alongside an alicorn's stature, as part of her transformation into a lich.

!!Other Canterlot residents

[[folder:Princess Celestia]]
* AndThenWhat: She uses this in ''The Lunar Rebellion'' to deliver an intellectual beatdown on Apple Tree by asking how he means to implement his reforms and deal with their fallout and side effects, illustrating that his positions -- while valid concerns -- are also immensely complex problems without the easy solutions he advocates.
* SinkOrSwimMentor: In chapter 7 of ''The Lunar Rebellion'', she purposefully refrains from interfering in a fight between Shadow and Sunbeam, hoping they will learn to work things out themselves. [[spoiler: It backfires disastrously, the argument escalating nearly to the point of violence rather than simmering down and continuing to erode their confidence in her leadership.]]

[[folder:Princess Cadence]]

[[folder:Shining Armor]]
* ObliviousToLove: It took him a surprisingly long time to realize that Cadence liked him that way. It took Musette saying to his face in so many words that Cadence had a crush on him for him to catch on.

[[folder:Musette]]
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Like all fey, she has a rather... odd... way of looking at the world, mostly centered around obligations, contracts and exchanges, where fulfilling agreements supersedes everything else. [[spoiler:For instance, she made a contract with Vinyl Scratch after Vinyl idly said she'd "die" to be as good a singer as a famous performer, with Musette interpreting the contract to mean that she'd make Vinyl that good at the cost of her life -- it's not ''her'' fault Vinyl didn't choose good terms! Of note is that Musette has come to genuinely like Vinyl and truly doesn't want to kill her -- but she made a deal, and she simply can't conceive of not honoring their "agreement".]]
* CannotTellALie: As a fey, she cannot say anything she knows to be untrue, and she cannot go back on her word. She can, however, doge questions, misdirect and lie by omission. [[spoiler:This is how Shining Armor figures out what she is: he asks her directly if she is a muse. Her refusal to answer yes or no and constant attempts to redirect the conversation give him his answer]].
* TheFairFolk: She's a muse, a kind of fey that feeds off of the psychic energy associated with artistic creation and that as such lives by inspiring mortals to create artworks. Like all other fey, she CannotTellALie, is hurt by ColdIron, and has [[BlueAndOrangeMorality a decidedly alien view of morality]].
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Visually, she looks to be in the same age range as Shining Armor and his friends. In reality, as an immortal fey creature, she's ''much'' older than that -- it's not stated exactly how old, but she's implied to be in the same age range as Princess Celestia.

!!Others

A lich leading the undead army assaulting Starlight's commune in ''Blood and Iron''. [[spoiler:She is originally from the Sombra timeline seen in "The Cutie Remark", having come to the "main" timeline to seek revenge on Starlight for having retconned hers out of existence.]]

By the time of the main story's present, she has displaced the Council of Thirteen and has become the Archon of Freeport.

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