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My Little Pony: The Movie
The Witches of the Volcano of Gloom
From left to right: Hydia, Draggle and Reeka.
Hydia voiced by: Cloris Leachman (movie) and Tress MacNeille (series)
Reeka voiced by: Rhea Perlman (movie) and Jennifer Darling (series)
Draggle voiced by: Madeline Kahn (movie) and Jennifer Darling (series)
A family of three evil witches who dwell in a nearby volcano. The matriarch, Hydia, hates the ponies and wants to drive them from the valley. However, to her exasperation, the only help she has are her less-than-competent daughters, Reeka and Draggle. First appearing in The Movie, they attempt to drown the valley in a grotesque Blob Monster called the Smooze, and afterwards try to take revenge on the Flutter Ponies with assistance from the bees of Bumbleland.
In the timeline of My Little Pony (Generation 4), Reeka and Draggle have daughters named Grackle and Dyre. For tropes relating to them, see Friendship Is Magic: Expanded Universe.
- Abusive Parents:
- Hydia treats her daughters like dirt, constantly insults and beats them, and forbids them from calling her "Mama".
- Reeka and Draggle end up being no different in My Little Pony Generations, belittling and emotionally abusing their daughters.
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: They're firmly entrenched in this sort of view, treating happiness, love, sunlight, flowers and the like as horrific and miserable things while relishing wretchedness, wickedness, dankness and more or less anything that could be described as awful. This extends to their taste in food: rotten food and bugs appeal to them, while sugary foods are what the kids get when Hydia wants to punish them.
- Berserk Button: Hydia hates it when her daughters call her "mom" or "mother".
- Big Bad: Hydia in the movie; in "The End of Flutter Valley" she shares the spot with Queen Bumble.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: In "The End of Flutter Valley", Hydia shares the role of Big Bad with Queen Bumble, with whom she allies in order to stand a better chance of defeating the ponies.
- Big Eater: Reeka eats at every opportunity, although her preferred fare consists of worms, leeches and similar things.
- Big, Thin, Short Trio: Reeka is big (mostly in the sense of being fat), Draggle is thin, and Hydia is short.
- Bus Crash: In Issue 4 of My Little Pony Generations, Hydia is revealed to have passed away of unstated causes since her last appearance at the conclusion of "The End of Flutter Valley".
- By the Hair:
- Hydia manages to lift both Reeka and Draggle by their hair and throw them out of their house on two separate occasions.
- Characters seem to enjoy doing this to the witches, as the Flume even grabs Draggle by her ponytail in order to shake her off of it and whips her around by it.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: Hydia insists on her daughters calling her by name, and becomes angry whenever they call her "Mama".
- Card-Carrying Villain: They have a twisted sense of morality, indulging in destruction and chaos simply because they're evil, and not because they expect to gain anything like money or a power boost out of it. In fact, Hydia outright scolds and punishes her daughters for not being evil enough.
- Co-Dragons: Reeka and Draggle share the role of Hydia's agents and primary minions.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: As a byproduct of their view that Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad, Hydia tends to punish her daughters' failures by forcing them to do things like eat sundaes or donuts.
- Evil Matriarch: Hydia is Reeka and Draggle's mother, even though she hates being called such. She's also an evil witch who poses a legitimate threat to the heroes.
- Extreme Omnivore: At first, they come across as willing to eat anything, Reeka especially being fond of snacking on things no sane human would think of putting in their mouth, like live ants or leeches. Subverted later on as we find that things most humans would enjoy eating, like ice cream or donuts, are so disgusting to them that Hydia makes her daughters eat them to punish them.
- Fat and Skinny: Fat, short Reeka and tall, thin, gangly Draggle.
- General Failure: Hydia might have a longer tenure as a witch and a more impressive arsenal of spells at her disposal, but with regards to planning and tactics, she's no savvier than her daughters when forced to take direct command. Since she doesn't appear to have given them any training, instruction or guidance beyond barking orders and punishing their inevitable failure, it's not too surprising that they're incompetent and inept.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Having been ordered by Hydia to turn the Little Ponies' spring festival "dark, dank, and dreary", Reeka and Draggle decide to do "dank" by diverting a waterfall to flood the picnic grounds. Unfortunately for them, two baby ponies overhear Reeka and Draggle discussing their plans and manage to spray the diverted water back at the witches, causing them to be washed away and crash into a picnic table covered with pies.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Draggle, who messes up each and every assignment given to her; Reeka is surprisingly competent.
- Inept Mage: Draggle is extremely poor at the actual witchcraft part of being a witch, and can barely cast spells — something that her mother and sister never let her forget.
- Never My Fault: Hydia might enjoy barking orders but her plans fail at least as often due to her own lack of foresight or direction as her daughters' flaws. She'll still blame them for everything, of course.
- Pie in the Face: Reeka and Draggle's attempt to turn the Ponies' spring picnic "dark, dank and dreary" fails and the two witches end up crashing into a picnic table and pelted with pies. In addition, Reeka picks up one of the ruined pies and sticks it in Draggle's face afterward.
- Poke the Poodle: Early on in the movie Reeka and Draggle attempt to convince Hydia that they aren't do-nothings, but all of their "evil" deeds fall under this, such as frying a worm or pulling wings off a fly.
- Put on a Bus: Reeka and Draggle are absent from My Little Pony Generations as they're out on their monthly excursion, searching for a remedy for the curse that prevents them from using magic outside of the volcano.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Reeka and Draggle get one from their mother after their first failed attempt to ruin the ponies' celebration, ranting about how incompetent, inept and useless they are, especially compared to their much more achieved relatives.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: A light example. At the end of the film, they're banished to the volcano and a curse is put upon them that limits their magic; while they can use magic in the volcano and can leave at any time, they can't use magic anywhere in Ponyland. My Little Pony Generations reveals that in all the years since then, they still haven't been able to break it.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Reeka and Draggle are often more entertaining than the actual heroes. They remain sympathetic despite being antagonists since they're so terrible at being bad.
- Staircase Tumble: This happens to Reeka and Draggle three times in the movie; the first two times they're thrown out of the house by Hydia, and third time after they get free of the Flume.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Hydia firmly considers her daughters to be a pair of cretins, and doesn't miss any opportunities to remind them of this.
- Terrible Trio: Kind of. Reeka and Draggle definitely invoke this image with their displays of less than stellar skill, but their mother Hydia is a real threat.
- Took a Level in Badass: Reeka is more competent than her inept self in the movie, even managing to pull off a few plans on her own.
- Uncertain Doom: They're last seen being blown away by the Flutter Ponies, but it's never specified where to or what was done with them. It isn't until My Little Pony Generations that we find out their fate — save for Hydia (who's passed away in the intervening years), they're still around and still trying to break the curse keeping them from using magic outside the Volcano of Gloom.
- The Unfavorite: Draggle. While both Draggle and Reeka are disappointments to their mother, Draggle is clearly shown to be the least favorite due to her struggles with magic and her greater emotional sensitivity. At one point, Hydia exclaims that "There are plenty of other witches! Why did I have to get Draggle?"
- Villain Decay: Hydia and her daughters prove much less of a threat to the ponies in the show than in the movie, letting the bees do all the work while the Flutter Ponies return and quickly kick them out. Justified as the Smooze is explicitly Hydia's strongest spell, and they still manage to cause a lot of damage.
- Villain Song: "We're Witches" in the movie, in which Hydia boasts about the long line of evil spell-casters from which Reek and Draggle are descended, and "Nothing Can Stop the Smooze", where they brag about the power of their destructive creation.
- Villainous Breakdown: In "The End of Flutter Valley", when the ponies return to Flutter Valley with the Sunstone, seeing her plans crushed at the last moment before victory causes Hydia to break down into fits and have to be carried off by her daughters while crying about how it just isn't fair.
- Villainous Legacy: In My Little Pony Generations, Hydia is long gone, leaving the act of getting revenge on the ponies in the hands of her granddaughters, Grackle and Dyre.
- Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Hydia is a wicked and scheming villain, and her minions are her two bumbling daughters with no motivation for villainy and no talent for magic.
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?:
- Hydia often berates her daughters by wishing that they were evil and competent like she wants them to be, often comparing them to their relatives who are accomplished villains.
- Reeka and Draggle developed the same attitude towards their own daughters, belittling them for failing to extract revenge on the ponies."We are so glad your dearly departed grandmother isn't here to see how you've turned out..."
- Wicked Witch: How they view themselves. While Hydia succeeds at this trope and Reeka can pass for one on a good day, Draggle, er drags a bit...
- Witch Classic: Downplayed in that none of them really dress like this, but Hydia comes the closest in design.
- You Owe Me: When calling on her family for aid on how to get revenge on the ponies, she reminds them that 'she helped them once' and now it's their turn to come through.
Ahgg
The witches' giant spider minion, whom they mostly use as heavy muscle and as a guard.
- Cyclops: He has a single gigantic eye in the middle of his forehead.
- Giant Spider: He's described as one such beast, and indeed mostly resembles a spider larger than a house, albeit one with a mammalian mouth and tusks and a single vertebrate eye.
- Pokémon Speak: He only ever says a distorted version of his name. This is a somewhat ambiguous case, however, as it boils down to him just screaming "aaahgg!"
- Removed Achilles' Heel: In "The End of Flutter Valley", Hydia gives him a potion that removes his normal weakness to tickling. This becomes an issue for the heroes when they find him guarding the valley entrance and Megan's previous strategy for getting past him — tickling him his legs — fails to work.
- Weaksauce Weakness: He's extremely ticklish, and tickling him on his legs can quickly render him helpless.
The Smooze
Voiced by: Jon Bauman
A living tide of purple ooze, which causes anyone it touches to become bitter and depressed. It's unleashed by the witches to cover Dream Valley, and seems entirely unstoppable in its advance.
- Achilles' Heel: Its only weakness when it's complete is Flutterpony magic, otherwise it lives up to Hydia's claim of being unstoppable.
- Blob Monster: It's a living mass of sludge large enough to cover large tracts of land, and constantly growing and reabsorbing body parts.
- Defeating the Undefeatable: The Smooze has an entire Villain Song about how unstoppable it is, and lives up to it, with even the Rainbow of Light being unable to stop it. The Flutter Ponies ultimately prove too much for it, weakening it enough for the Rainbow to finish off.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Smooze is a child-friendly one. A fully conscious and self-aware talking ocean of thick purple ooze, with hundreds of constantly moving faces, that is capable of traveling on its own, creating extra limbs whenever it likes, swallowing things whole, and throwing globs of itself at things. The worst of it is, the thing is all but unstoppable and indestructible.
- Hate Plague: Anyone splashed with Smooze becomes mean and ill-tempered. Everyone, interestingly, except Spike — although he only gets a little bit on his tail.
- The Juggernaut: The Smooze's only real vulnerability is the Flutter Ponies' magic, and even then it takes the Rainbow of Light to finish it off. Otherwise, it just crashes over everything and everyone in its path without so much as slowing down.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Outside of the Utter Flutter, absolutely nothing can stop or harm the Smooze — even the Rainbow of Light only slows it down for a little while.
- Unholy Nuke: The Smooze, Hydia's ultimate spell, is a sapient flood capable of wiping out entire kingdoms in a matter of moments and unstoppable by most anything.
- Worf Had the Flu: The Smooze is deactivated by the Rainbow of Light (though it buries it and a large part of Dream Valley) because it lacked Flume and was thus incomplete. Once it has it, nothing can stop it except the Flutter Ponies.
Season 1
Queen Bumble
Debut: "The End of Flutter Valley, Part 1"
Voiced by: June Foray
A bloated, arrogant, narcissistic bee queen whose greed leads her to conquer the homeland of the Flutter Ponies in the first story arc, with the aid of the Witches of the Volcano of Gloom.
- Adipose Rex: She's the queen bee and a huge glutton besides, so, naturally, she's enormously fat.
- Bad Boss: She's cruel, temperamental, demanding and narcissistic, and constantly belittles, tosses around, overworks and insults her minions.
- Bee People: She's an anthropomorphic queen bee leading a large hive of her kind.
- Big Bad: She shares this role with Hydia in "The End of Flutter Valley", as they scheme to steal the Sunstone and despoil Flutter Valley.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: She shares the role of Big Bad with Hydia in her episode. The two mostly work independently, but do so under a common plan and with the intention of coordinating their strikes in order to lure the flutter ponies into a trap and share the benefits of taking the Sunstone from Flutter Valley.
- Big Eater: Her appetite drives the whole plot of "The End of Flutter Valley"; she's such a glutton that she forces her hive to expand their territory and give her yet more flowers to eat.
- Heel–Face Turn: At the end of "The End of Flutter Valley", she's convinced to cease hostilities with the Flutter Ponies when Queen Rosedust points out that they'd be happy to share their valley's flowers if the bees stop trying to enslave them or steal their stone.
- Incoming Ham: "What's going on here? Can't you see I'm eating?"
- It's All About Me: She's not really evil so much as incredibly narcissistic. Even her Heel–Face Turn comes as a result of getting what she wants rather than actually repenting.
- Large and in Charge: The biggest of all the bees, to further cement her status as their leader. Justified since queen bees are visibly larger than other bees in real life.
- Large Ham: She’s rather loud and boisterous.
- Persona Non Grata: Queen Bumble and her swarm were banished from Flutter Valley by Queen Rosedust for her cruelty.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: She’s the queen bee and she leads her subjects in getting the Sunstone.
- Selective Obliviousness: Refuses to believe the Sunstone's burning the flowers until it starts a forest fire.
- Villainous Breakdown: After the Flutter Ponies escape her with the Sunstone, she becomes furious and desperate to regain it.
- Villainous Glutton: She's ravenous for nectar, eating the bees' entire supply of flowers and starting her crusade against the flutter ponies purely out of a desire to have more flowers to eat.
Pointer
Debut: "The End of Flutter Valley, Part 5"
Queen Bumble's primary henchbee once Sting defects.
- The Dragon: He's promoted to this after Sting defects. He's nowhere near as good at it as Sting was, thus why Sting offering to return to the role sways Bumble to end hostilities.
- Goggles Do Nothing: He's always wearing a pair of goggles for no particular gain or reason.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: A bee wearing a jacket, a pair of goggles, an aviator cap and absolutely nothing else.
- Mook Lieutenant: He serves as the leader of Queen Bumble's bees, leading the swarm when Bumble herself doesn't, and visually stands out from the otherwise identical bees.
Squirk
You ain't seen nothin' yet!
Debut: "The Ghost of Paradise Estate, Part 2"
An octopus-like monster who ruled Dream Valley long ago, when it lay beneath the waves. He seeks to bring it beneath the sea again, so that he may rule once more.
- Ancient Evil: He's so ancient — somewhere in the millennia range, although Pluma doesn't recall the actual number — that Dream Valley was part of the ocean when he ruled over it. Unlike most examples, he didn't become a Sealed Evil in a Can but instead waited for time to catch up with his archenemy and make him easy prey for him.
- Bad Boss: He's ridiculously abusive to his minion Crank, whom he constantly insults and beats.
- Catchphrase: SHADDUP! (hits Crank)
- The Great Flood: He wants to use the flash stone to flood Dream Valley and its surroundings and cover them entirely with water, in order to bring it back under the waves of the sea as it was in his time.
- Sea Monster: He resembles a huge, monstrous octopus, and wishes to drown dream valley to rule a new oceanic realm.
- Time Abyss: He's very, very old — Pluma estimates that his reign was several thousand years in the past, and he can afford to wait centuries for his plans to come to fruit as his enemies age into decrepitude because he has all the time he needs to see them through.
- Uncertain Doom: It's unclear what actually happens to him and Crank — the receding floodwaters drag them away into a maelstrom and down a hole, but their actual fate after that is unclear. It's not shown if they died, but they don't return to bother Dream Valley ever again.
- Victory by Endurance: How he captured Pluma's grandfather, who defeated him originally. Pluma's kind are Long-Lived, but Squirk is much more so if not altogether ageless, so he just waited until time made his enemy old and weak for him.
- Villain Song: "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet", where he gloats about all the wicked things he'll do once he's back in power.
Crank
Debut: "The Ghost of Paradise Estate, Part 2"
Squirk's lobster minion.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: He sports a pair of thick and bushy white brows, made all the more impressive by the fact that lobsters don't normally have hair of any sort.
- Butt-Monkey: He's consistently the butt of physical jokes — throughout the episode, he gets constantly punched around by Squirk, hit by errant flash stone beams, used as a rope in a tug-'o-war for the stone…
- Non-Mammalian Hair: Despite being a crustacean, he sports an impressive moustache and set of eyebrows.
- Uncertain Doom: Like Squirk, it's not clear what happened to him after he's swept off by the receding floodwaters beyond the fact that he never returns to Dream Valley.
- Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Whereas Squirk is a cruel, powerful, and threatening foe, Crank is a simpering toady who mostly serves the butt of jokes and the target of abuse from both his boss and their foes and subjects.
- Your Size May Vary: He's generally about half the size of the ponies, but in several shots he's drawn as no larger than a real lobster or as a considerably bigger than Megan and Pluma.
The Gizmonks
Gonk on the left, Glouda on the right.
Debut: "The Great Rainbow Caper"
A pair of Mad Scientist monkeys who kidnap Danny and Surprise to hold as ransom in exchange for the Rainbow of Light.
- Mad Scientist: They're obsessed with invention and experimentation for their own sake, gleefully creating complex machines for no real reason or gain, and sometimes without even knowing what they do.
- Mad Scientist Laboratory: Their base is essentially a giant laboratory filled with complicated machines in various states of completion, caged test subjects, and assorted trappings of mad science.
- Maniac Monkeys: A pair of monkeys whose obsession with invention and technical gadgets leads them to cover the Rainbow of Light and to kidnap innocents to hold as hostage for it.
- Pity the Kidnapper: After they capture Danny and Surprise to hold hostage, the two end up causing them so much trouble and mischief that by the time Megan and the other ponies get to them the two monkeys are begging them to take the two back.
- Pun-Based Creature: They're a pair of Mad Scientist monkeys obsessed with technology, inventions, and assorted gizmos, and are called the gizmonks.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The only real difference between Gonk and Glouda, besides somewhat different fur colors, is that Glouda has a bow holding her hair back.
Princess Porcina
"Look at me!"
Debut: "The Glass Princess, Part 1"
Voiced by: Tress MacNeille
A vain and somewhat scatterbrained porcine sorceress. She inadvertently threatens Dream Valley when she uses her magic cloak to begin transforming everything into glass so that she can have more mirrored surfaces to admire herself in. Porcina repents when she realizes she's actually hurting people and changes everything back.
- Adipose Rex: While it's not specifically referenced in the episode, she's noticeably quite corpulent.
- Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: Her magic is all in the cloak she wears around her neck, and she captures the ponies to reweave it.
- Anti-Villain: She's extremely naive and unaware of the full magnitude of what she was actually doing, while being manipulated by her genuinely evil minions.
- Brought Down to Normal: Her cloak ends up torn in half, removing her powers. She admits it's probably better this way.
- Heel–Face Turn: By the episode's end, she recognizes her foolishness and vanity for what they are and willing changes her ways and helps fix the damage she did.
- Heel Realization: When about to turn Megan and the ponies to glass, Porcina is struck by the fact that her actions, which she never really considered in depth before, have been condemning innocent beings to death for the sake of her vanity, and that it's simply not her right to make such decisions.
- Magic Mirror: In addition to a great deal of regular mirrors to admire herself in, she owns a hand mirror that she can use to look at anything happening in the world.
- A Million Is a Statistic: This is ultimately what drives her Heel–Face Turn. It's one thing for her to turn people to glass by the dozen when they're just images in a mirror and many miles away from her but, as she finds out, when her targets are undeniably living, breathing, scared creatures right in front of her eyes, she simply can't bring herself to decide that they must die.
- Pig Man: An anthropomorphic pig.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Her cloak makes her capable of turning all of Ponyland and everyone in it into glass with relative ease.
- Vain Sorceress: She's quite obsessed with her own personal image.
- Villain Song: "Look at Me!", a song she shares with the Raptorians, where she sings about her vanity and plans to make the whole world admire her.
The Raptorians
"First I'm going to turn you all into glass, then I'm going to shatter you one by one."
Debut: "The Glass Princess, Part 1"
Voiced by: Cam Clarke, Charlie Adler and Townsend Coleman
Porcina's birdlike lackeys, the Raptorians prove to be much smarter than their boss, with much more dangerous schemes.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Don't be fooled by their comedic antics, these guys are nasty pieces of work.
- Co-Dragons: All three of them serve under Porcina as equals.
- Dragon-in-Chief: They do all the heavy lifting and plan to overthrow Porcina, ruling Ponyland themselves.
- Eviler than Thou: They only obey Porcina because they're using her and intend to overthrow her when she's no longer of any use. They're much worse than she is.
- Eyes Out of Sight: The tall raptorian's eyes are always covered by his droopy hair, except for a few moments where he holds it up to see better.
- Feathered Fiend: They're part-bird and evil.
- Karmic Death: They die the same death they casually condemned others to, and are turned into the same substance they coveted.
- Lack of Empathy: As Porcina herself points out, they've never felt anything for anyone or anything but themselves.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: They're birds with the heads of dogs.
- No Name Given: While Shrawk, the head of the group, is named in the episode, the other two are never referred to by name.
- The Starscream: When Porcina refuses to turn the ponies to glass, they betray her and steal her cloak to use themselves.
- Villain Song: "Look at Me!", a song they sang along with Porcina, where they confide to each other their plans to betray her once they get what they want out of their deal. Their half of "Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave" also has them describe their plans to deceive Porcina for their own ends.
- Would Hurt a Child: They threaten to turn Megan and her group into glass and shatter them all one by one, once they have all interfered too much in their plans.
Knight-Shade
Debut: "Bright Lights, Part 1"
Voiced by: Unknown
Erebus' pony minion, Knight-Shade is tasked with using his music to lure ponies for Zeb to drain of shadows. He is not, however, very happy with his situation.
- Being Evil Sucks: He's shown to have serious self-loathing issues due to what he's been forced to help Erebus do and turns on him the moment the heroes give him a way to escape.
- Evil Diva: When introduced, he's a shady pop singer using his fame to lure victims for his boss.
- Deal with the Devil: He made one with Erebus to be a star, only to find out too late that the price was to work for Erebus for the rest of his days to lure new victims to him. By then, it was too late and he had become Erebus' slave.
- Good All Along: It turns out that he's basically Erebus' slave, and only works for him because he's being forced to do so.
- Inconsistent Spelling: His name is variably spelled Night Shade or Knight Shade.
- Michael Hackson: He is the pony equivalent of Michael Jackson.
- My God, What Have I Done?: He's guilt-ridden over helping Erebus, and hates himself for it, but until the heroes help him he had no way of actually doing anything about it.
- Never Accepted in His Hometown: He's still remembered and resented in his hometown for having helped Erebus consume everyone's shadows there. The only person left there who doesn't loathe him is his own mother.
- Tears of Remorse: After being captured by the heroes, he starts crying these as he admits only helped Erebus because he was forced to.
- Trapped in Villainy: He never intended to help Erebus, just get help b.ecoming a musician, and almost instantly tried to quit when he realized Erebus was using him... but Erebus threatened to steal his shadow and leave him with no chance to ever save his home town unless he worked with him. Until the heroes decided to help him, he was pretty much Erebus' slave.
Erebus
"There's nothing quite like shadows... to brighten up your day!"
Debut: "Bright Lights, Part 2"
Voiced by: Jim Cummings
A shadow-eating cloud demon.
- Achilles' Heel: Erebus is extremely powerful and the heroes largely spend the first encounter with him running away... but actively using his powers rapidly burns through his energy and he needs a constant stream of shadows to sustain it. Megan's plan to beat him exploits this by preventing him from recharging, forcing him to exert himself, and then getting the fast and hard-hitting Flutter Ponies to outmanuever him and then Utter Flutter the shadows out of him.
- Blow You Away: At full power, he blow powerful winds from his mouth and turn himself into a whirlwind.
- Cast from Stamina: All of Erebus' powers are this and the only means he has of recharging is to steal more shadows. Thus, while he's very powerful, prolonged battles aren't his strong suit.
- Cumulonemesis: A living, roughly humanoid cloud who delights in stealing shadows to power himself and can magically control wind and lightning in battle.
- Elemental Embodiment: He's an elemental embodiment of smoke and shadows.
- Fog Feet: Outside of a single scene where he manifests a foot to kick Zeb, his body tapers into a cloudy tail below the waist.
- Orcus on His Throne: Erebus leaves most of his grunt work to Zeb and Knight-Shade while staying at his lair. Justified, as he burns through his power very quickly and thus can't afford to do too much himself.
- Phlebotinum Dependence: Erebus is powered up by feeding on shadows, but his power is finite. He needs to constantly feed on shadows or he grows weak.
- Shock and Awe: At full power, he can shoot thunderbolts from his fingertips.
- Uncertain Doom: It's not clear what end he makes — he's last seen depowered and small enough for Mayor Camembert to pick up with one hand, and nothing is said of his fate afterwards.
- Victory by Endurance: The ponies escape their first confrontation with him by exploiting this trope. Erebus is very powerful, but burns through his energy quickly and needs shadows to maintain it. Megan's plan to ultimately defeat him is to keep him fighting without recharging long enough for him to exhaust himself, something the extremely fast and hard hitting Flutterponies prove very good at.
- Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Erebus is a greedy and corrupt cloud wizard who likes to eat pony shadows, thereby removing the happiness from the pony in question, and Zeb is his stupid and lazy zebra aide.
- Villainous Glutton: He's portrayed as having a very literal appetite for the shadows he constantly consumes, commenting on how good he thinks they'll taste and repeatedly demanding that Zeb feed him.
- Villain Song: "There's Nothing Quite Like Shadows", where he and Zeb sing about how much they like stealing shadows and anticipate doing this to the heroes.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: It's implied his victims' shadows disappearing is merely an outward symptom of Erebus taking something else, implied to be part of their soul that allows them to feel positive emotions.
Zeb
Debut: "Bright Lights, Part 1"
Voiced by: Tony Rosato
Erebus' zebra minion. Zeb oversees the capture of shadows, stealing them from people Knight-Shade lures in, before delivering them Erebus.
- A Dog Named "Dog": His personal name is simply his species' name with the last two letters lopped off.
- Furry Confusion: "Bright Lights" in general does this a lot, but Zeb is the most notable example — in a world of otherwise purely non-anthropomorphic equines, his bipedalism, clothes (complete with shoes over his hooves) and handling things with hooves that might as well be hands seriously stick out. Generation One included another Zebra in the toyline, Zig Zag, but she was non-anthropomorphic like the Ponies
. - Humanoid Female Animal: Gender Inverted with Zig Zag, the Zebra Pony Friend from the toyline. Zeb is a humanoid male Zebra, whereas Zig Zag is a non-anthropomorphic female Zebra.
- Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Erebus is a greedy and corrupt cloud wizard who likes to eat pony shadows, thereby removing the happiness from the pony in question, and Zeb is his stupid and lazy zebra aide.
- Villain Song: "There's Nothing Quite Like Shadows", where he and Erebus sing about how much they like stealing shadows and anticipate doing this to the heroes.
Grogar
"Today, Dream Valley. Tomorrow, all of Ponyland"
Debut: "The Return of Tambelon, Part 1"
Voiced by: Michael Bell
An Evil Sorcerer ram who rules as an unmitigated tyrant over the dark city of Tambelon, alongside which he was banished to the shadow world long ago, but which will soon return into reality. For tropes about his G4 counterpart, see Friendship Is Magic: Historical Figures.
- Ancient Evil: He was imprisoned in the Realm of Darkness 500 years ago, and has since been gathering his strength in order to return to the world.
- Bad Boss: He's harsh and demanding to Bray, and openly tyrannical and slave-driving towards his troggle soldiers — which ultimately leads them to rebel against him.
- Breakout Villain: Next to Tirac, Grogar is one of the most popular and well-known G1 villains out there. Many fans put him in G4 fan works, and in season 9 he finally appears. Not in the flesh, however.
- Boring, but Practical: Downplayed but still present. Most of Grogar's offensive magic; lightning bolts and capture beams fired from his horns, are not particularly amazing, but nevertheless very effective in subduing/overpowering the heroes.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Grogar spends most of his serial easily defeating the heroes whenever they try to face him in battle, and does not appear to be more than inconvenienced by their attempts to fight or ambush him. In the end, the heroes need to defeat him indirectly without facing him head-on.
- Dimension Lord: He's the ruler of the Realm of Darkness.
- Evil Overlord: He's Tambelon's cruel and tyrannical sorcerer-ruler, and aims to conquer the entire world.
- Evil Sorceror: He's a very powerful, and extremely cruel, dangerous, and tyrannical wizard.
- Gruesome Goat: A fearsome Evil Sorcerer ram who wants to conquer the world.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: When his victory is approaching, he makes not taking part in his victory celebration punishable by being banished to another dimension.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Grogar's banishing ritual ultimately proves his undoing. He starts it to banish his prisoners to the Realm of Darkness, but once his magic is taken away he loses the ability to control it and, when it activates at midnight, it overwhelms him and drags him back to his otherworldly prison.
- Kryptonite Factor: The bell in Tambelon, when rung, will destroy his bell and thus his power, and is about the only way he can lose.
- Large and in Charge: He is larger and taller than any of his minions, and the heroes.
- Near-Villain Victory: His minions are actually pretty competent, and the ponies are completely helpless against his power for most of the serial, as he captures nearly anyone who could stand against him, even the flutterponies. It's not until the ponies and Megan discover his one weakness — the Bell of Freedom — that there's any real hope.
- Oh, Crap!: He has a clear moment of panic when he hears the bell that is his Kryptonite Factor being rung and another when he sees his banishing ritual boil over, before he's overwhelmed by his own magic and banished to the Realm of Darkness.
- Rage Breaking Point: He reaches this when the ponies and the humans escape his dungeon while his banishing spell is still in process, causing to decide to kill them by furiously firing at them with magic lightning, over and over again.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Grogar has solid blood-red eyes.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: He was imprisoned in the Realm of Darkness along with Tambelon for five hundred years before he manages to return. He's sent back into his prison at the end.
- Sorcerous Overlord: He's a powerful wizard who rules over an entire city, and aims to extend his rule to all of Dream Valley.
- Take Over the World: His ultimate goal is to conquer the world. He nearly succeeds.
- Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Grogar is fearsome, powerful, cunning and very dangerous. Bray, his chief lackey, is a bumbling and cowardly fool.
- Villainous Breakdown: When the heroes escape at the end, he goes berserk and starts firing lightning at them with intent to kill instead of his capture beams.
Bray
Debut: "The Return of Tambelon, Part 1"
Voiced by: Frank Welker
Grogar's donkey henchman.
- Bumbling Sidekick: A villainous example. Bray is cruel and sadistic like his master, but comically foolish and incompetent.
- The Bully: He is cruel and sadistic towards the heroes, mocking them whenever they are captured, surrounded or helpless, but as soon as they are in a position to fight back, he runs away.
- Oh, Crap!: Like Grogar, Bray has a clear moment of panic when he hears the bell that is his master's Kryptonite Factor being rung and another when he sees Grogar's banishing ritual boil over, before they are both overwhelmed by Grogar's magic and banished back to the Realm of Darkness.
- Dirty Coward: Bray is terrified of incurring Grogar's wrath, and is only confident when the heroes are in a defenseless position, always fleeing whenever they are in a position to fight. Probably justified, as Grogar is a Bad Boss, and Bray is just a donkey who lacks his master's powers, and the physical strength and Boom Sticks of the Troggles.
- Undying Loyalty: To Grogar, despite the ram's mistreatment of him.
- Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Bray is a bumbling and cowardly fool. Grogar, his master, is a fearsome, powerful, cunning, and dangerous Evil Sorceror.
Troggles
Debut: "The Return of Tambelon, Part 1"
Grogar's trollish minions.
- Boom Stick: They're armed with lances that shoot weaker versions of Grogar's lightning bolts and capture beams from their tips.
- Flat Joy: When Grogar forces them to celebrate their victory over Ponyland, they only make half-hearted celebratory sounds.
- Horns of Villainy: They all wear horned helmets.
- Mooks: Grogar's army of nameless flunkies, much weaker than he is but useful for enforcing his rule in a widespread way.
- Slave Race: They were conquered by Grogar long ago, and have been forced to serve him ever since.
- Slave Liberation: They've been scheming against Grogar ever since he enslaved them, and in the end join the heroes in rising up against him.
Frazzits
Debut: "Mish Mash Melee"
Colorful, teardrop-shaped ectoplasmic creatures kept sealed in a barrel in the dell dwellers' home. When released, their personality-altering effects almost cause disaster until the ponies are able to seal them back in.
- Palette Swap: Due to their simply designs, the frazzits all look like one another except recolored red, orange, green, blue or purple.
- Personality Swap: The frazzits are able to reverse the personality traits of anybody they "rain" upon.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: They're kept sealed inside a barrel by the dell dwellers, lest their antics cause disaster. The ponies release them by accident, and have to put them back in their can to set things right.
The Flories
Their cute forms
Their true forms
Debut: "Fugitive Flowers, Part 1"
A band of malevolent plant entities who escape from their subterranean prison during the episode "The Fugitive Flowers". In their dormant state, they look like cute, pretty flowers, but they can suck the life out of the ground, killing everything else planted there to grow into hulking monsters. They manipulate Posey and the other ponies into protecting them against their captors, the Crabnasties, and then devour Posey's garden to go on a rampage. Finally, they get imprisoned again.
- Cute Is Evil: Yeah, see how sweet and pretty these little flower-people are? They're basically invasive weeds on magical acid.
- No Name Given: They individual glories are never specifically identified; if they have personal names, they're never used.
- One-Winged Angel: They start out small, cute, and very weak, but once they regain their strength they transform into huge, much more monstrous and much more powerful forms.
- Plant Person: They're at the far plant end of this, and aside from their humanoid shapes are fully flowers with a plant's needs — they thrive on water and fertile soil. They also appear to be weeds, specifically, given the way they drain the soil of life as they feed.
- Villainous Glutton: They're driven by gluttony, thinking of little beyond their desire to feed and gorge themselves on water and fertile soil. They care very little about what their hunger hurts as they feed, and will gladly turn fertile lands into sterile wastes to fill their stomachs.
- Walking Wasteland: A more subtle variety; when they feed, they destroy everything around them, killing huge swathes of plantlife to feed themselves.
- What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: They exploit this, playing on how they look cute and innocent whilst in dormant state, in contrast to the uglier (and more intimidatingly named) Crabnasties, to portray themselves as the "good guys". Not that the Crabnasties didn't help them out by accident.
King Charlatan
Debut: "Baby, It's Cold Outside, Part 1"
A penguin who has the magical ability to launch freezing Eye Beams. Disdaining any being who cannot survive the cold like his penguins can, he attempts to freeze the entire valley to drive away or exterminate anyone who cannot withstand the Endless Winter, granting his people superiority over all.
- Evil Is Deathly Cold: His brand of evil is very strongly associated with the cold. He rules in the far north of the world, is served by cold-weather creatures such as penguins and yetis, can emit Eye Beams to freeze people solid, and wants to freeze over the entire world to rule over its glaciated ruins.
- Eye Beams: He can fire icy beams from his eyes that can freeze their targets solid.
- Fantastic Racism: He looks down on anyone that isn't a penguin, deeming them weak for their inability to withstand the icy cold.
- Feathered Fiend: He's an evil penguin.
- Heel Realization: When he accidentally freezes his own son, he at first tries to excuse himself by claiming it was Edgar's own fault and he was weak, but then he realizes he loves his son and cries over his son's frozen form, which thaws him out.
- Humanizing Tears: After spending most of the time as a cruel penguin with a cold heart, he shows some emotions when he cries after accidentally freezing his son.
- Ice Palace: He lives in a castle of ice built in the high arctic, complete with a yeti-guarded ice maze around it and deathtraps featuring giant rolling snowballs and pit traps filled with dry ice Spikes of Doom.
- An Ice Person: He fires Eye Beams that can freeze people solid. With the help of a device that amplifies his power, he can unleash an Endless Winter.
- Misplaced Wildlife: A penguin who rules over what is explicitly identified as the far north.
- My God, What Have I Done?: While it takes a talking to for it to sink in past his attempts to rationalize things, he ultimately has this reaction to accidentally freezing his own son.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: He claims penguins are the Master Race, and any creatures who cannot survive the cold are weak and unworthy.
- Personality Powers: Matching his ice-based magic, he's arrogant, disdainful of others, and emotionally distant and cold towards his son.
- Polar Bears and Penguins: Despite being a penguin, his realm lies in the far north of the world.
- Polar Penguins: A penguin with ice powers who lives in an ice castle.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: He has this approach towards morality — sticking to the laws of ethics is for people who don't dictate them, as far as he's concerned.When you are king, you may decide what is and is not right. But I am king now, and what I say is law!
- Social Darwinist: He has a fairly straightforward worldview. Cold is good; therefore, creatures that thrive in the cold are strong; therefore, creatures that don't are useless weaklings that need to adapt or die out.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: He attempts genocide against all other races.
The Abominable Snowman
Debut: "Baby, It's Cold Outside, Part 1"
A monstrous yeti in King Charlatan's service. The snowman guards the maze surrounding the king's palace, and attacks the ponies and Megan when they try to cross it.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: A white-furred yeti with pronounced, duckbill-like lips and blue skin around its eyes. It's part of a faction associated with arctic cold, and serves as a guardian monster around its king's palace.
- Beast in the Maze: It guards the icy labyrinth around King Charlatan's palace, chasing down intruders and pelting them with improvised projectiles.
- Improvised Weapon: It attacks the ponies by snapping icicles from the maze's ceiling and throwing them like javelins.
Crunch the Rockdog
Debut: "Crunch the Rockdog, Part 1"
A monstrous canine earth elemental that despises anything "soft", Crunch goes on a rampage seeking to petrify the entirety of Dream Valley.
- Guardian Entity: The Mountain King created him to be this for his Heart Stone. Unfortunately, he forgot to give him a heart, resulting in him being a cold rampaging beast.
- Heel–Face Turn: He ultimately turns good. He was evil because he literally didn't have a heart until the heroes got a piece of the Mountain King's heart to give him one, granting him the sense of empathy and kindness he lacked before.
- Lack of Empathy: He was created without a heart, and thus has no sense of compassion or empathy. He gets better when given a piece of the Heart Stone to complete him.
- Mook Maker: He can create minions in the form of living boulders with rough faces simply by trampling regular rocks.
- Rock Monster: He's a giant dog made out of rock.
- Taken for Granite: Everything and everyone he touches turns to stone, and he seeks to petrify every living thing.
- The Sociopath: Crunch is literally lacking a heart, and thus incapable of feeling empathy, compassion, or any other type of positive emotion. He gets better when he's completed with a piece of the Heart Stone.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: One by one the Dwindling Party is turned to stone before a giant dog-thing that seeks to destroy them just because it hates anything it considers "soft", which basically means "not as evil as itself".
- Villain Song: "I Hate Soft", where he sings about how much he hates softness of the body and softness of the soul and wishes to see the whole world turned to hard rock.
Crunch's Minions
Debut: "Crunch the Rockdog, Part 1"
Living boulders created by Crunch as minions, they essentially serve as the hound's own hunting hounds, chasing down his victims ahead of him.
- No Name Given: No name is ever given to these animated boulders.
- Mooks: Weaker minions to a major villain, the rolling heads are disposed of fairly easily once the heroes get a bit clever.
- Rock Monster: They're living boulders with crude faces.
- Uncertain Doom: They're last seen rolling down and on top of Crunch. What happenes to them afterwards, or when all of Crunch's magic is undone, is not stated.
Beezen
An evil wizard who sells the ponies a can of magic paint, which brings their furniture to life, in a bid to steal their home.
- Evil Sorcerer: He's a selfish sorcerer who uses his magic to callously create life and take it away in order to benefit himself, and attempts to run the ponies out of their house to claim it for himself.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: He's ultimately defeated when the magic paint he sold the ponies is tipped over his own wand, bringing it to life and turning it against him.
- Magic Wand: His power resides in his magic wand. With hit he can shoot magic blasts and perform powerful sorcery, but without it he's helpless.
- Uncertain Doom: He's last seen being chased down by his angry and animated wand, and it's not shown what happens to him afterwards.
The Furniture
The furniture of Paradise Estate, brought to life by Beezen's magic paint. They chase out the ponies after they get fed up with them, but are then enslaved by Beezen and work together with the ponies to retake Paradise Estate.
- Animate Inanimate Object: The magic paint brings anything it's used on to live, including assorted furniture, household implements, a baby buggy, floorboards, fence posts, the house gate and the like, all of which gain faces, personalities, speech and motion. They cooperate with the ponies at first, but eventually get fed up with them and decide that they can run the household just fine on their own.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: In the climax, Beezen undoes the magic animating each and every last one of them, returning them to their inert, unliving states. The ponies don't remark on this in any way beyond noting with some relief that everything is back to normal, despite having just witnessed what was effectively the mass murder of the people they were fighting side-by-side with minutes before.
The Monster
Debut: "Through the Door, Part 1"
The archetypal monster of fairytales, represented here as a dragon in a wig, the Monster is released into Ponyland when the Golden Door is opened, but turns out to not be such a bad guy after all.
- Anti-Villain: He doesn't especially enjoy being a monster, and he lacks much in the way of actual malice, but he antagonizes the heroes and menaces the land because that's the role he's been given.I was born to be a monster,
The fates gave me no choice.
I've got the monster's nose
And the monster's toes
And the monster's gravelly voice. - Being Evil Sucks: A lifetime of being every story's evil monster hasn't been kind for him — by the time he meets the ponies, he's cripplingly lonely and profoundly unhappy.
- Breath Weapon: He can breathe fire — or, strictly speaking, snort it from his nostrils.
- The Darkness Gazes Back: The monster is first seen as a pair of eyes peering from the darkness beyond the Door.
- Our Dragons Are Different: He resembles a cartoony European dragon with minuscule wings, a long neck and a shock of curly hair. Curiously, he's never actually referred to as a dragon.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: According to legend, he once terrorized Ponyland before being sealed in the Land of Legends by a wizard.
Season 2
Lavan
His original form.
His crystallized form.
Voiced by: James Earl Jones
"I have become the most powerful being on Ponyland!"
The ruler of the lava demons, Lavan steals the magic of the princess ponies in order to make himself the most powerful being alive. This causes Ponyland's magic to act chaotically and begin breaking down, requiring the heroes to defeat him in order to prevent disaster.
- Bad Boss: He treats his minions terribly, blasting them with magic for every failure or simply if he happens to feel like it, and relishes his power over them.
- Big "NO!": He lets one out when he sees the Princess Ponies reflect his attack back to him.
- The Dreaded: The Princess Ponies know who he is and, despite their confidence in their power, their reaction to him showing up is to run. The Moochick is also aware of him, and implies he sees him as a great threat as well. Even Megan admits that he has them dead to rights unless they manage to get to the Villain-Beating Artifact.
- Evil Overlord: He relishes being a tyrannical dictator, and treats his lava demon subjects horribly for no other reason than because he can.
- Godhood Seeker: His goal is to steal the power of the Princess Ponies' wands and become an all-powerful crystal being. He succeeds, and the level of power he obtains proves he wasn't exaggerating and he only loses because he was still learning how to use his new power.
- Hand Blast: He can fire beams of heat from his hands. After his transformation, he trades up to powerful rainbow-colored energy beams.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The Princess Ponies use their recharged wands to reflect his own attack back at him, killing him.
- It's All About Me: His plan will cause a magical cataclysm that will destroy Ponyland? He doesn't care so long as he gets the power he wants.
- The Juggernaut: Nothing the heroes can throw at him once he goes One-Winged Angel does more than slow him down. He only dies when his own attack is reflected back at him.
- Killed Off for Real: He's destroyed by the Princess Ponies reflecting his attack back at him. This is notable, besides being a surprisingly grim fate for a character in a show based on the My Little Pony toys, because killing off characters was something very rare in TV cartoons in the 1980s.
- Large Ham: Oh yes, and an enormous one at that. He shouts every word he says, putting relish and emphasis into even the smallest statement and pausing between words to snarl or drawn in breath. James Earl Jones clearly had a blast with this character, with special mention going towards his Villain Song, "Here's to Power", which he sings right after (temporarily) succeeding in gaining the power he wanted from the Ponies' wands. Practically every single line of it consists of him utterly devouring the scenery.
- Lava Surfing: When he invades the surface world, he arrives by riding on a wave of lava atop a stony surfboard.
- Light Is Not Good: His crystal form is white and has rainbow-colored magic, and all in all much nicer looking than his original form. He's one of the single most vile beings in the entire series.
- Literally Shattered Lives: He gets blown to bits when his attack is reflected back at him.
- Living Lava: Lavan is made out of magma and referred to as a lava demon who has weaker underlings of the same species. They're shown to be foes with another race called ice orcs. Lavan ends up turning himself into crystal and then being blown up.
- Oh, Crap!: His reaction when his own attack is reflected back at him.
- One-Winged Angel: He transforms from a lava demon to a crystal being. The change in appearance is only a bonus, however, as what he really wanted was the gigantic boost in power it came with.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Upon transforming into his crystal form, he becomes so immensely powerful he risks destroying all of Ponyland by existing.
- Power Incontinence: It's stated that Lavan was still learning to control his stolen power, and still hadn't mastered it fully by the time he was defeated.
- The Unfettered: Absolutely nothing will stand between Lavan and the power he wants. Killing innocent people? No problem. His plan will destroy Ponyland? He doesn't care.
- Villain Song: "Here's to Power", in which he sings about how much he loves about holding power for power's sake and giving orders for the sake of bossing people about.
The Dragon Gang
Debut: "Spike's Search"
A trio of dragons that Spike latches onto when seeking adult dragons to learn from, this group soon turns out to be little more than greedy thugs.
- Broken Pedestal: Spike is initially very eager to meet new dragons and to learn from them, and is extremely disappointed when he learns that they're selfish, cruel jerks.
- No Name Given: They're never named in the episode, and for that matter are never identified as anything more specific than "dragons".
- Our Dragons Are Different: Tall and imposing but not more than about twice Megan's height, wingless, bipedal, crocodile-bellied, and capable of breathing fire.
- Protection Racket: They're implied to be running these for the villages around Dream Valley, demanding donations of food and burning down towns that are slow in complying.Dragon leader: We generously offer to protect the citizens of a nearby village for a token consideration — a selection of their best foodstuffs, and delicacies. But the townspeople... have been slow to respond to our magnanimous offer, so a little visit is in order.
- Villainous Glutton: They're chiefly motivated by gluttony, which drives their actions and also serves as their main weakness. They burn down towns to steal their food, decide to attack Paradise Estate when they hear there's good food there, and start greedily gorging themselves on the treats they find there — gorging so greedily, in fact, that they completely fail to notice the trap the ponies are springing on them.
The Goblins
The brothers.
The parents.
A family of argumentative goblins who own one of the horseshoes the ponies need to heal Mimic.
- Gonk: The goblin siblings are comically ugly — besides all being short, squat and green, one has broad and frog-like lips, another a projecting beaklike mouth, and the third a stump-like, flat-topped head.
- Horned Humanoid: They all have small horns on their heads. Most have two, but the flat-topped brother has three.
- Our Goblins Are Different: The ones encountered here are large, burly green humanoids who tower over Megan, and tend to be ugly and deformed in various unique ways — one has horns and flat-topped head, another flabby wide lips, and a third an almost beak-like snout. They live underground and are greedy, hostile and argumentative beings, stealing from others and refusing to ever give anything away.
- Sibling Rivalry: The three goblin brothers are constantly fighting, arguing, insulting each other and competing for their mother's attention, much to her grief. As it turns out, this is because the magic horseshoe they stole allows them to hear each other's thoughts, which is what keeps setting off their fights.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The goblin mother, the only female in the group, wears a pink dress and bow, an apron, and low high heels. Her husband wears a sailor outfit.
- The Voiceless: The father has no voice lines. While his wife and sons are all quite chatty, he never speaks a word on screen.
The Castle Guardians
Their true forms
Debut: "Flight to Cloud Castle, Part 1"
A salamander and an undine who guard a flying castle and the maiden who sleeps within it.
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: The salamander resembles a simple bipedal lizard wearing nothing but a hat.
- Alchemic Elementals: A salamander and an undine, one controlling fire and the other water. The rest of the ensemble is absent — although, notably, they fight against an earth-controlling gnome.
- Ear Fins: The undine has a pair of ridged fins for ears.
- Fiery Salamander: One of the defenders is a humanoid salamander capable of conjuring fire.
- Making a Splash: The undine can control water, mostly in the form of blasts of it that he shoots at the heroes.
- Our Mermaids Are Different: One of the defenders is a trident-wielding merman, referred to as an undine, with green skin and finlike ears, who stays in the castle's moat to watch for intruders.
- Playing with Fire: The salamander in the castle can throw fireballs around and raise up walls of fire with a snap of its fingers.
- Prongs of Poseidon: The undine wields a trident, which he uses to shoot jets of water.
- Was Once a Man: They were once two human(oid) men, named Andrew and Ferdinand, who were turned into monsters by Ariel's father and set to guard his daughter. Once she's woken, the spell is lifted from them as well.
Somnambula
Her youthful form
Her true form
Debut: "Somnambula, Part 1"
An old sorceress who drains the life-force of living beings through their dreams to retain her youth and power.
- Antagonist Title: She's the Somnambula of her focus two-parter's title.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: She tortures her songbird to make it obey her.
- Big "NO!": She lets one out when Slugger breaks her crystal and returns her stolen youth and magic to her victims.
- Evil Old Folks: Her true form is that of an elderly woman, and she's a black-hearted witch who'd suck the life out of every pony in Ponyland for youth and power.
- Hot Witch: Her young form is very beautiful.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: She uses an illusory circus to lure her victims, presenting each with something that they can't resist partaking and losing track of time in and where they'll keep obliviously playing and fooling around in even as they rapidly age as Somnambula steals their lifeforce.
- Mana Drain: Instead of simply stealing the life and youth from the unicorns like she does from most of her victims, she instead drains away their magic to increase her own magical power.
- Master of Illusion: Her powers focus on creating extensive and very lifelike illusions. As her power increases, she eventually becomes able to make her illusions into physical reality.
- Meaningful Name: "Somnambula" means "sleepwalker", and her Evil Plan is to put her victims into a dream-like trance as they experience their greatest desires as she drains their life away.
- No Immortal Inertia: As soon as Somnambula's crystal is broken, she instantly loses her stolen youth and returns to being an old crone.
- Orcus On Her Throne: Somnambula largely remains in her lair until the climax. Justified, as her power until then isn't suitable for combat (her only means of keeping the Big Brother Ponies out of her Circus of Fear being a scary looking locked door) and gradually increases as time goes on due to her draining her victims, meaning until then she wasn't strong enough to do much by brute force. Even at her strongest, she's not much of a fighter, largely relying on manifested monsters and chains to defend herself, so it being a last resort is justified.
- Rapid Aging: Victims of her draining age rapidly while Somnambula herself grows younger.
- Reality Warper: At her strongest, she turn her illusions physical and real, allowing her to essentially conjure whatever she wishes into existence.
- Vain Sorceress: While she's also after a power up, she's very keen on regaining her youth and beauty. Any time she's in her old, ugly form she keeps her face covered and when her spell is broken reverting her to normal, she runs away covering her face in shame.
- Vampiric Draining: She retains her youth by sucking the life out of others, as well as turning unicorns into a Living Battery to enhance her own power.
- Wicked Witch: She's a witch who drains the life out of others to power her magic and keep her young.
The Duchess
Debut: "The Prince and the Ponies"
The crude and ill-mannered ruler of a palace near Paradise Estate, who tries to capture the baby ponies to keep as pets for her spoiled daughter.
- Ambiguous Species: It's not made clear what species she, and the other humanoids in her episode, belong to. They're chiefly a stand-in for humans, but have pointed ears and aren't much taller than the ponies — the Duchess herself is shorter than Megan.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: She kidnaps and chains the newborn twin ponies to keep as pets for her daughter, who also abuses the newborn twins when she plays with them.
- Final Boss: She's the final threat faced in the series.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Her attempt at enslaving the newborn twins as pets for her daughter leads to Prince Phillip taking the thrown back from her.The Duchess: You just had to have a pet, didn't you?
- The Usurper: She had Prince Phillip imprisoned so that she could take over, as she's actually just the palace cook.
- Would Hurt a Child: She has the Newborns kidnapped, chained and used pets. This proves to be her undoing, as Phillip is able to use this deed to shame her guards into turning on her.
