Characters / The Shadow Wars

Unless otherwise stated, it should be assumed that all tropes applying to the canon versions of these characters also apply in this fanon.

WARNING! This contains massive SPOILERS for the series. Tropes specifically or especially applying to the characters in the Shadow Wars series include

The Mane Cast

Abigail Jacqueline "Applejack" Apple IV, the Element of Honesty

• Fights Like a Normal: Her psychic powers are not all that combat-oriented, so in battle she relies mostly on Good Old Bucking.
• Lightning Bruiser: Applejack is not only strong and tough, but also athletic, agile, and a very fast runner.
• Living Lie Detector: As in the Pony POV Series universe which inspired the Shadow Wars universe, and for essentially the same reasons: she is the Element of Honesty, and has looked long into the Pool of Truth.
• The One That Got Away: Landscape "Scape" Carrot, her fillyhood sweetheart, who ran off to seek adventure and wealth. He's the main reason why she's still single, despite being admirable, beautiful, friendly and the heir to a sizable amount of property — she pledged him her love, and still hopes that he may return.

Celestia Solaria Invicta, Sun Princess of Equestria, the Cosmic Concept of Fusion.

• Bash Brothers: Not only are both Celestia and Luna Physical Goddesses, but they can combine their powers of Fusion and Gravity to produce a "Supernova Flare" — essentially a directional gravity-pumped thermonuclear explosion.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Has sometimes taken the form of out-and-out warfare on an epic scale, given that they are both Physical Goddesses. Thankfully for Equestria, they are at peace — for now.
• Mama Bear: She normally detests violence, but will unleash her sunfire against those who threaten Ponykind.
• Equinity Is Infectious: Her long experience with Ponykind has caused a slow but noticeable change in her personality — even her Cosmic Self is becoming increasingly equinomorphic.
• Sibling Rivalry: With Luna, on a semi-regular basis. They always wind up fighting eventually — and they always reconcile. Since they are Physical Goddesses, the rivalry can be messy for mortals in the vicinity. This mirrors the dance between fusion and gravity which keeps the stars burning.
• Sibling Team: With Luna, whether as the Moon Princess of Equestria or the Cosmic Concept of Gravity, if needs be against the rest of the Universe.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With Luna. Atypically for the Solar-Lunar dichotomy, Celestia is the subtle schemer, Luna the (relatively) simple warrior.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Nightmare Corona, which fortunately has not manifested in this timeline.
• Time Abyss: Fusion is almost as old as the Universe itself, and she remembers aeons before Ponykind, and incarnations as many different life forms.

Fluttershy, High Lady and rightful Commander of the Pegasus Mandate, destined High Queen of the Changelings, the Element of Kindness

• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Her family on her mother's side includes Mad Scientist Dr. Ill Wind, her Evil Uncle Commander Windvane, her mother who Went Mad From The Revelation — and on her true sire's side, Hive Chrysalis. Is it any wonder Fluttershy doesn't like to talk about her family?
• Blue Blood: Fluttershy is by maternal descent of the highest birth possible among the Pegasi: she is a direct matrilineal descendant of Commander Hurricane the First. She does not at all like Pegasi aristocratic society and is none too comfortable with normal Pegasus culture either, so she deliberately avoids using any of her titles, the least of which is "High Lady" (indicating membership in the aristocracy). She prefers to be called "Miss" if somepony must address her by any formal title.`
• Break the Cutie: The effect of her encounter at age 16 with a seducer is to turn her from a shy filly into a paranoid recluse. She gets better with the love of her friends, especially Rainbow Dash and Rarity.
• Dark Secret: Fluttershy is half-Changeling. She also initially treats her seduction at 16 as a Dark Secret, not fully grasping that her friends would all love and respect her anyway.
• Dark and Troubled Past: And how. She's the illegitimate daughter of Queen Chrysalis by Sweetwing, she's rejected by everyone in her family (save her mother Sweetwing and her sire Chrysalis, but this makes matters worse at birth for this, which works out for the better because her uncle is an Expy of Adolf Hitler (which would have put her in line to be Geli Raubal if he hadn't rejected her, she discovers her Changeling heritage, though not precise parentage at 14, is seduced, deflowered and abandoned by an unscrupulous stallion at 16, and in conequence of all this spends the next few years hiding in her house from most of Ponykind. Without Rainbow Dash and Rarity, she probably would have gone utterly mad, and she knows this.
• Half-Equine Hybrid: Sort of. Fluttershy is half-Changeling, but Changelings are themselves the descendants of the Flutter Ponies, one of the Five Pony Kinds.
• Honey Trap: Fluttershy, for Discord, as Celestia planned it. And it works, amazingly well — Discord eventually becomes completely loyal to Fluttershy, and by extension to Equestria.
• I Am What I Am: Fluttershy's reaction to learning that she is half-Changeling is to decide that she is "Fluttershy. And Fluttershy is free."
• Insect Queen: Because she's a Changeling Princess, Fluttershy has the ability to store sperm for many years and give birth to absurd numbers of offspring. However, she chooses not to do this.
• Interspecies Romance: With Discord. They wind up marrying and producing a whole brood of ... whatevers.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Almost word-for-word revealed to Fluttershy by Queen Chrysalis, during the true events of The Return of Chrysalis.
• Parental Abandonment: Her mother went mad, her mother's husband rejected her as illegitimate, and most of her other relatives ranged from unpleasant snobs to genocidal madponies like Commander Windvane and his minion Ill Wind (aka Dr. Atmosphere). After getting her Cutie Mark, she was pretty much on her own.
• Power Incontinence: Fluttershy has to control her emotions or she may accidentally use The Stare, with potentially very severe consequences.
• Power Perversion Potential: Fluttershy by the end of the Shadow Wars is a Voluntary Shapeshifter married to another Voluntary Shapeshifter, Discord. The possibilities are obvious to all her friends.
• Remittance Mare: Her (absurdly wealthy) paternal family pays her a stipend to stay away from Cloudsdale as much as possible, because they are ashamed of what they consider to be her cowardly and un-Pegasus-like ways. She uses most of this money to run her animal shelter. Ironically, that same paternal family becomes infamous for Windvane's Rebellion and the nightmare Rainbow Factory, while she becomes an immortal Alicorn and one of the most beloved figures in the history of all Ponykind.
• Rightful Queen Returns: Happens twice to Fluttershy, despite her total lack of interest in ruling anyone or anything. Through her true father Queen Chrysalis she can claim rulership over a good chunk of the entire Changeling species, and through her mother Sweetwing she is the rightful heir to the Pegasus Mandate (if it had not in fact been absorbed into Equestria). This proves politically and diplomatically useful to Equestria down the road.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: After fighting Queen Chrysalis, Fluttershy increasingly gains control over this signature Changeling power, until she can partially or subtly shift her form, instead of only being able to shift her whole form or not at all as can most Changelings.

Beatrix "The Great and Powerful Trixie" Lulamoon, Backup Element of Magic and The Alicorn Illusion

• Believes Her Own Lies: Trixie's main obstacle to personal growth is that she has convinced herself that she desires neither love nor friendship, and thus isolates herself — when it's fairly obvious that she simply doesn't know how to get along with other ponies. She partially grows out of this, especially after she marries Piercing Gaze, but she's never really all that comfortable with most other Ponies in an intimate social setting.
• Dream Sue: Trixie is very much a Mary Sue in her own mind — beautiful, powerful and always not merely the heroine but the insufferably perfect heroine of her own story. This is why she constantly invents and applies new heroic epithets to herself. To some extent she seriously believes this, to some extent it is obviously a game she is playing in her mind to endure the vicissitudes of life.
• Magicians Are Wizards: True in general for unicorn stage magicians in Equestria, and Trixie is an exceptionally-powerful mage for one in her profession.
• Mistress Of Illusion: Trixie is a highly gifted illusionist, both in the mundane and magical senses of the term, and her Cosmic Self is the Alicorn Illusion, the Cosmic Concept of the eponymous Ideal. When she Ascends, she becomes the most gifted illusionist in the world. Trixie is the rare (mostly) heroic version of this character type.
• Mystical White Hair: Bluish-white, but otherwise fits the trope, as Trixie's magical talent is exceptional.
• Sex Equals Love: It is a measure of Trixie's naivete that she believes this regarding Piercing Gaze. It is a measure of Trixie's great good fortune that, in this case, she happens to be right.
• Stage Magician: Tremendously talented at every aspect of stage magic as practiced in Equestria; so skilled that she can invent whole new tricks on the spot when exhausted and under extreme emotional pressure.

Luna Selena Nyx, Moon Princess of Equestria, the Cosmic Concept of Gravity.

• The Atoner: Has made serious errors of judgement and suffered lapses of morality in her roughly 1500 years incarnate on the Earth (leaving out the millennium she was Nightmare Moon), feels tremendously guilty about them, and is determined to actively fight for good today to make up for the mistakes of her past. Most Ponies who know her well, especially Celestia and Twilight, think Luna is being too hard on herself.
• Bash Brothers: Not only are both Luna and Celestia Physical Goddesses, but they can combine their powers of Gravity and Fusion to produce a "Supernova Flare" — essentially a direction gravity-pumped thermonuclear explosion.
• Horrible Judge of Character: On at least two separate occasions, Luna has loved and trusted really major villains, namely Discord and King Sombra, with disastrous consequences for the world. These are among the actions for which she feels she must atone.

Pinkamena Diane "Pinkie" Pie, The Herald of Paradise, the Cosmic Concept Thalia, Element of Laughter

• Anti-Magic: One of the ways in which Pinkie Pie can warp reality is to disrupt the subtle quantum effects upon which effective magic depends. This is a very powerful ability in a world in which many creatures absolutely depend upon magic for their attacks.
• The Chosen One: Pinkie is the Herald of Paradise, whose mission is to prepare the way for the Ponies of Equestria (and more importantly, the Cosmic Concepts) to accept the restoration of the World That Was Lost. Her interpretation of this mission involves becoming the perfect party pony. As with most odd things Pinkie Pie does, this works. Almost everypony loves Pinkie Pie, and as a result Paradise becomes wildly popular.
• The Fettered: Perhaps to help her to keep her sanity despite her essentially-chaotic powers, Pinkie Pie is bound by a code of honor in some ways stricter than that of Applejack's. This is the main reason that Discord doesn't really like her: he senses that her personality is very Lawful.
• Reality Warper: One of Pinkie's specific powers. She can call upon the power of Paradise to choose which possible future timeline becomes reality, within certain limits (she cannot openly violate macroscopic causality, but she can certainly bend probability into a pretzel).
• Reincarnation Friendship: With Twilight Sparkle, whom she instantly recognizes as a reincarnation of G3 Minty, her best friend and the one who brought her into being through the Great Wish.
• Rule of Funny: This is the major limitation on Pinkie's Reality Warper powers. She can only warp reality when she's in a cheerful mood and when it would be funny (from her POV).
• Seer: Pinkie is a precognitive, though of the variety who sees possible futures. When her Reality Warper powers are active, she can often pick the one which will come true.

Rainbow Dash, The Element of Loyalty

• Big Damn Heroine: Both by personal inclinations and powers, Rainbow Dash is often the one who (literally) flies in ahead of everypony else to save the day.
• Fantastic Nuke: The Sonic Rainboom, especially later on when she comes to really master this ability.
• Oblivious to Love: One of the reasons that she neither winds up with Fluttershy nor Gilda is that she does not realize the mutual romantic attraction in either case until it's too late.
• Undying Loyalty: Her greatest virtue in general, expressed most strongly toward Fluttershy but also to the rest of the Mane Six, and more generally to all Equestria.

Rarity Belle, The Element of Generosity

• Broken Bird: Rarity is notably the most brittle and cynical of the Mane Six, in part because of her seduction, pregnancy and miscarriage in Fillydelphia as a tweenie.
• Dark Secret: Her seduction, abandonment, pregnancy and miscarriage at 12-13 in Fillydelphia. Because Rarity is a Social Climber in a very image-based field, it is not unreasonable that she fears its exposure — though her friends wouldn't think the less of her for what happened.
• Girly Bruiser: She's the most feminine member of the Mane Six, and she is also a courageous and lethal mistress of hoof-to-hoof combat. This aspect of her personality impresses Luna when she sees her fight the manticore:
  Skilled ... and brave, for all she's a dandy, the Moon Princess thought. ... Then, I've known dandies to be deadly fighters before!
• In Love with Love: Rarity is obsessed during the early part of her adventures with marrying the right pony, to the point that she convinces herself that she's in love with ponies she's never even met. Ironically, in the end she marries Spike, who isn't a pony at all.
• Insecure Love Interest: Surprisingly, Rarity feels this way at times toward Spike. Once she realizes just how heroic and noble he is, she worries that she is exploiting him.
• Interspecies Romance: With Spike the Dragon. They wind up married and producing a whole brood of ki-rin.
• One True Love: With Spike the Dragon.
• Social Climber: Rarity comes from a lower middle-class family, and has deliberately acquired aristocratic mannerisms as part of her campaign to rise to the top of her chosen field of fashion design.

Twilight Sparkle, The Element of Magic

• Birds of a Feather: With two characters in particular.
  • Applejack, who shares her fundamental seriousness and strong code of honor, and
  • Princess Luna, who shares the same strong code of honor and very high intelligence.
• For Science!: She was like this from the beginning, but it is amplified when she learns from Luna that the legends of an Age of Wonders were real. From this point on, she shares Luna's obsession with raising Ponies back up to their ancient heights.
• If It's You, It's Okay: Despite the fact that she is heterosexual by natural inclination, she winds up falling in love with and marrying Princess Luna, because of their strong Reincarnation Romance bond from their past lives and the fact that they are very much kindred spirits in their current ones.
• The Ingenue: Twilight is at the start the least romantically-experienced of her friends: she'd never even been kissed, which is uncommon for a 17-year-old even in the sexually-rather-conservative society of Equestria.
• Lady and a Scholar: Twilight comes from an old Canterlot family, dating back to the foundation of the new capital at Bahamut's Rest. While not The Socialite, she has the grace and manners of Equestrian gentry, which make a very favorable impression on most Ponies she meets. And she is obsessed with learning of every variety.
• Lady Wizard: Twilight comes from old gentry, has the manners that come with that background, and is the most magically-gifted Unicorn of her generation.
• Nerves of Steel: In dangerous situations, and only in dangerous situations, Twilight becomes very, very cool and calculating. This is one of the traits she shares with her earlier Aspect, Dusk Skyshine, and it is part of how Luna is able to recognize of whom she is a Reincarnation.
• Nervous Wreck: In embarrassing social situations, Twilight tends to funk out. She grows out of this after her first few years of adventuring, and by the time she is crowned a Princess has mostly overcome this character flaw.
• Reincarnation: Previous Aspects of the entity of which Twilight is an Aspect have been important Ponies in earlier eras of history. Specifically, Dusk Skyshine, Minty, and Clover the Clever.
• Reincarnation Friendship: Two important ones.
  • Pinkie Pie is intensely loyal to Twilight Sparkle because Twilight is the reincarnation of G3 Minty, the Pony who was not only G3 Pinkie Pie's best friend in a world of asexual immortals where "best friend" meant essentially the same thing as One True Love, but who also wished G3 Pinkie Pie into existence and is hence also in a way her mother.
  • Rainbow Dash doesn't know it, but she was Dash Firehooves, the best friend and war buddy of Duak Skyshine, Twilight's G2 incarnation. This is one of the reasons why Rainbow Dash bonds so quickly and completely with Twilight Sparkle upon first meeting her, despite their very different personalities.
• Reincarnation Romance: With the current incarnation of Moondreamer, the wife Dusk Skyshine had when they lived during the Age of Wonders. Princess Luna.
• Sheltered Aristocrat: Until she was 17 and was sent to Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle was raised in a family of the lower aristocracy, was mentored by Princess Celestia, associated (to the extent that she did with anypony) only with the similarly-aristocratic unicorns at her elite school, and was almost asocial.

All Of Them

• Heroic Lineage: Applejack comes from a Badass Family dating back to the Time of Thrones (as recognized badasses) and all the way back to Saint Sweetheart from the Cataclysm. Fluttershy is the matrilineal senior descendant of Commander Hurricane the First; and her sire was Queen Chrysalis, making her a direct heir to two royal lines. Pinkie Pie is the descendant of Princess Iolite Quartz from the ruling family of the Crystal Empire and was sired directly by Paradise. Rainbow Dash is descended from Commander Hurricane the First's daughter Pansy. Rarity Belle is descended on her father's side from Princess Luna and Path Finder; on her mother's side from Melody the Songsmith from the Cataclysm. Twilight Sparkle is descended from Princess Luna by two known lineages (Path Finder and Night Watcher) and is also a direct descendant of Clover the Luck-Dancer and Clover the Clever, her ancestor by the second Clover sired by none other than Commander Hurricane the First.

Other Major Heroes

Landscape "Scapegrace" Carrot

• Lima Syndrome: He was a captive of Hive Evergloom for ten years but ended up their leader after they were attacked by Hive Chrysalis. His time with changelings means he has the best understanding of their nature and is a big factor in uniting the other hives to join the ponies in the war against Nightmare Hunger.
• The Lost Lenore: To Applejack, ever since he left to seek his fortune and never returned to Ponyville.
• Love Interest: To Applejack. He's the reason she doesn't seek love with anypony else.

Claire Quartz "Least Noticeable" Pie, The Opener of the Way to Paradise

• Cute Monster: A giant invisible multi-headed fluffy pony who likes to cuddle.
• Combat Tentacles: Claire's tongues. Though they're sensitive, so she doesn't really like to use them for this purpose.
• For the Love of Many: She winds up in a polyandrous marriage with five partners. As Claire's strong sexual morals are against pre-marital and extra-marital sex, and all the sex between her and the Flappies is demonstrably marital, she sees nothing wrong with this. Nor is she complaining ...
• The Ingenue: Claire is an extremely innocent Pony at the start of her adventures.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: She speaks in distorted tenor to basso bleats, gasps, snorts, raspberries and half-words. Her immediate family understands her just fine, but most strangers can't.
• Interspecies Romance: With Little Flappy, the Byakhee. And eventually four of his kin, marrying all five and forming a polyandrous Flock.
• Lovecraft Lite: Claire is a friendly Lovecraftian Horror.
• Terrifying Rescuer: To the Great and Powerful Trixie. And Bulk Biceps. And pretty much anypony she rescues who doesn't know what she is. Her usual method of rescuing somepony is to open a portal, reach through and grab them with several of her invisible tentacular tongues, and pull them through. This often results in a lot of screaming.
• Thinking Up Portals: How Claire normally travels — she opens a temporary Gate and steps through.
• The Unintelligible: To most Ponies, though those familiar with her can make out a lot of what she tries to say. She can also transmit radio and subspace signals; she just has problems speaking within the normal Pony vocal register.

Mare Memory, The Librarian of Dream Castle

• Badass Bookworm: The librarian of Dream Castle, a mare who loves all learning — and aristocratic descendant of a long line of noble warriors.
• Do Not Go Gentle: The essence of her message to other Ponies is that they must fight back against their annihilation, never forgetting what a great species they are. Fortunately for Ponykind, her students include Wind Whistler.
• Heroic Sacrifice: She dies saving the lives of Wind Whistler and Firefly. And she suspects that they are both important to the salvation of Ponykind.
• Hot Librarian: In her youth.
• The Idealist: Despite watching her species being exterminated, she never loses her belief in the ultimate power of Love and Friendship.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: On the line leading to Twilight Sparkle. Mare Memory was Wind Whistler's intellectual mentor, Wind Whistler was Celestia's, and Celestia's is Twilight Sparkle's.
• Mentor Archetype: To all the fillies of Dream Castle, but particularly to Wind Whistler.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: She dies saving the lives of Wind Whistler and Firefly.
• Parental Substitute: After the death of her mother Wind Dancer, Mare Memory is this to Wind Whistler. Fire Eyes is already dead, but the fillies of the Time of Extermination are far less attached to their fathers, whom they only see at the annual Festivals, than would be the case in future ages.
• Wasteland Elder: As one of the wisest and most knowledgeable leaders of the Ponies of Dream Castle.

Maud Pie, The Guardian of Paradise

• Emotionless Filly: Her affect is extremely flat. Only ponies who know her very well can read her expressions and body language. In this she is the opposite of both her full sisters, Claire and Pinkie, who are very expressive (even though Claire is invisible).
• Extreme Omnivore: She can eat and obtain energy from pretty much anything, including inorganic substances. She avoids eating animals largely out of cultural biases (Equestrians avoid carnivorism).
• Fantastic Science: Maud is a geologist, in a world where ley lines concentrate magical energies to refine precious metals and grow crystals in situ.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Maud is extremely hard to damage; her nervous system generates paramagnetic force fields.
• No Social Skills: ... or is at least unwilling to waste them on most Ponies.
• Super-Strength: As a small filly she is as strong as a full-grown mare, and as a full-grown mare she can punch through solid stone and throw boulders greater distances than a siege engine.

Wind Whistler, the Voice of Reason

• Berserk Button: Hates those who don't think of the potential consequences of their actions.
• Condescending Compassion: What her attitude toward Discord evolved into over the 2500 years she has been prisoner within his mind. She once hated him for destroying Paradise Estate and murdering her family; having seen Discord's thoughts from the inside out, she mostly just pities him for being such a pathetic fool.
• Emotionless Mare: Seems that way to most other beings. One of the reasons she cherishes the memory of Megan is that Megan was one of the very few people who ever grasped that she actually has fairly strong emotions, she just won't let herself be ruled by them.
• Enlightenment Superpowers: She's had 2500 years to develop her powers of concentration, which were already quite respectable, into something inequinely awesome.
• Enraged by Idiocy: Absolutely despises entities who don't think the consequences of their actions through, part of the reason she dislikes her fellow captive Four-Dimensional so.
• Fighting from the Inside: She's distracted Discord at key moments in several of his fights, and was thus indirectly in part responsible for both of his petrifications.
• Genius Bruiser: She's one of the smartest — and one of the deadliest — Ponies who ever lived.
• Interspecies Romance: Wind Whistler finds Green-Glint-Of-Copper-Shade attractive, mostly due to heis personality, and sometimes wishes hee wasn't an asexual Elder Thing. They have a strongly sentimental friendship instead.
• Last of Her Kind: There are four entities left alive on this world who personally remember Paradise Estate, and she's the only one who remembers it from its days of glory. She's also the last of her culture — the last Pony to remember the Time of Extermination and the unique society of survival it generated.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: To Discord. The more so because he restructured her brain into something vastly super-equine — and was then too lazy to use most of it. Wind Whistler is not even remotely lazy.
• Nerds Are Virgins: Averted, as Wind Whistler had dozens of lovers in her 3500 years incarnate on Earth, bore dozens of foals over that time, and is in consequence a common ancestress of all modern Ponies.
• Odd Friendship: With Destruction.
• Servile Snarker: Toward Discord, who is well aware that she has no respect for him, but can only enforce his will on her by denying her access to some of his own capabilities — which also cripples himself.
• Sharing a Body: An unusual variant. Wind Whistler is the original inhabitant of the body which the recently disembodied spirit of Discord possessed and warped into his own. He was unable to completely evict her.
  • What's more, Discord's habit of absorbing or possessing his enemies means that she's far from alone in there; she's just one of the two smartest spirits his body contains. And she's not the most powerful one — that's his brother, Destruction.
• The Spock: To Discord, as she was to everyone in the days of her corporeal existence.
• Super-Intelligence: As a mere Pony, she was a super-genius capable of transcending the limitations of her culture and education, absorbing the knowledge of the more advanced civilization of 20th-century Earth and leading the fight to reclaim the Earth for Ponykind. With access to Discord's semi-divine intellect, she has become possibly the smartest entity on the planet, smarter even than Twilight Sparkle. Too bad for her that she's trapped inside Discord.
• Time Abyss: She was born over 6000 years ago, spending over 3500 years of it incarnate alone in her own body, and the last 2500 years of it a captive within Discord's. She has seen Ponykind rise and fall and rise and fall and rise again.
• With Due Respect: Mostly despises Discord, to the extent that she doesn't simply feel sorry for him, and tends to display this through extremely subtle sarcasm.

Wisedreamer, aka White-Beard the Grey, The Minor Cosmic Concept of the Fire of Hope.

• Cool Old Guy: To pretty much everyone, including Celestia and Luna, hilariously enough as their Cosmic Selves are older than his.

Minor Heroes

Strudel "Apple Strudel" Apfel

• Immigrant Patriotism: Having experienced life as a Pony in the Griffon Empire in his youth, he is one of the most patriotic Apples, which is saying something because they are in general a very patriotic family.
• Retired Badass: A kindly old Germaneic-Equestrian baker — who used to be a explosives and poisons expert for the Night Watch, and knows how to make both kinds of weapons from the contents of an ordinary farmhouse kitchen.

Apple Fritter

• Badass Adorable: Apple Fritter is neotenous even by the standards of her species. She is also a tough, hard-fighting survivor.
• Returning War Vet: She hoped that her fighting days were over after she came home from the Cannibal Swamps. She was wrong.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: To Big Mac, who has eyes only for Cheerilee.

Bulk Biceps

• Divine Date: He senses that Fluttershy is more than a normal mortal Pegasus. It doesn't stop him from loving her.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: With Fluttershy, though Fluttershy is actually tall for a Pegasus. She's only small in comparison with Bulk's immensely-broad frame.

Snailsquirm/Glittershell ("Snails"/"Glitter") Glisten Carrot

• The Ditz: Even by comparison with her best childhod friend, Snips.
• Glamorous Wartime Singer: With her good friend Sweetie Belle, they become iconic singers of the Shadow Wars.
• Idiot Hero: She's not too bright, but she's quite idealistic, her heart's in the right place and has long, strong legs and dance training resulting in her having considerable agility and kicking power for a Unicorn.
• Nice Girl: Generally helpful, kind and polite to everypony she meets.
• Transgender: True MTF dysphoric, with a female brain in a male body. Even in Equestria, this causes her a lot of problems growing up. A lot of her fillyhood is occupied with her coming to realize that she's a filly and deciding what to do with this self-knowledge.

Carry

• The Big Guy: A big, strong ling whose original job was picking up heavy objects and moving them.
• The Heart: He loves and cares for Compound and Cowl, and is the one who supports Compound most both physically and emotionally when she shows signs of collapsing under the stress.
• Power Trio: With Compound and Cowl.

Compound

• Death Seeker: Compound's attitude after she fails at the (impossible) task of keeping High Queen Hunger's Warriors alive through brilliant logistics when they are badly outclassed and outnumbered.
  No more guilt. No more awareness that her mistakes would kill other lings. Compound breathed a sigh of relief when she first realized this. When she failed, she would die, and justice would be served.
• Humble Heroine: At no point does Compound fully grasp how awesome she is in repeatedly acting without regard to her own safety to save the lives of her fellow Changelings. In part this is a Changeling cultural thing, but only in part.
• The Leader: Compound is an amazingly-effective natural leader, when she grows past her submissiveness and timidity. She leads her Power Trio, she takes command of a lost squad of Provisional Warriors, and in the climax leads thousands of Changelings to safety from the dying Hive Hunger-Prime. By the end of the story, she's been suggested for promotion to future Royalty in the Hives of Kindness, because everypony and everyling (including the High Queen Kindness herself) has noticed this about her.
• A Mother to Her Men: Compound has a strong sense of responsbility and cares for anyling under her command. She outright loves Cowl and Carry, in all senses of the word save the nutritional, and she comes about as close to feeding Carry love in one scene as is physically possible for one Changeling to do to another.
• Power Trio: With Cowl and Carry.
• The Smart Girl: Compound is a highly-intelligent Changeling, whose original job, "Theoretical Infiltrator," means the equivalent of "Intelligence Analyst" in Equestrian or Human terms.

Cowl

• The Heart: He is the weakest of the three physically and emotionally, and often must be aided by them.
• The Load: At times, though he's stronger than he seems.
• Power Trio: With Compound and Carry.
• Salaryling: He was the Changeling equivalent of a low-level office worker before he was sent into the Provisional Hive Defense Swarm.

Ditzy "Derpy Hooves" Doo

• Action Mom: Ditzy is a professional courier whose specialty is delivering messages and packages to extremely dangerous destinations, and later a special agent of the Night Watch reporting personally to Princess Luna. She is also from time to time a Companion to Doctor Whooves. If she hadn't acquired the skills, she wouldn't still be alive.
• Department of Child Disservices: The local magistrate nearly took Dinky away from Ditzy at least once due to this. One of the reasons Ditzy is happy to accept Princess Luna's patronage despite the risks of the job is because Princess Luna's influence can keep anyone from taking away her Muffin.
• Hidden Depths: She's a sweet, loveable klutz with limited social skills. She's also an ambitious single mother willing to literally risk her life to make money for the future of her child, a determined survivor who routinely carries packages to the most dangerous destinations, a Companion to Doctor Whooves, and a highly-skilled fighter trained by a series of mistresses of the martial arts, including Princess Luna herself.
• Horrible Judge of Character: How Ditzy wound up pregnant and alone in her mid-teens, and how she gets into quite a lot of emotional and social trouble over the course of her life.
• Mama Bear: Don't threaten her little Muffin, or one may find more about her Hidden Depths than one ever wanted to know.
• Teen Pregnancy: Ditzy's only around five years older than the Mane Six; Dinky is only a couple years younger than the Cutie Mark Crusaaders. This is because Ditzy was seduced in her mid-teens.

Sweetie Finemare, Doctor of Physics

• Expy: Of Richard Feynman
• Gender Flipped: Sweetie is a mare.

Green-Glint-Of-Copper-Shade, Elder Thing former Security Guard

• Mauve Shirt: Given that hee becomes friendly with a major character, Wind Whistler, hee's no longer just a Red Shirt.
• Nice Guy: The big reason Wind Whistler likes herm is that hee's "sweet."
• Red Shirt: Originally, which is how hee wound up getting consumed by Discord — hee was guarding the proto-Smooze.

Piercing Gaze, Co-Owner of the Baltimare Hippodrome

• Benevolent Boss: His staff at the Hippodrome think so.
• Chivalrous Pervert: A mares' stallion, but only seeks out experienced mares who know what they want — until he meets Trixie.
• Ladykiller in Love: Romantically obsessed with Trixie after their encounter.
• Love Interest: To The Great and Powerful Trixie.
• Self-Made Stallion: Has worked his way up from being an itinerant stage magician's assistant to co-owning a major theatre in a big city.
• Stage Magician: This was his original role in show business.

Mitta Gift of Sunny Towne

• Friendly Ghost: Not as friendly as her daughter, Ruby, but basically benevolent toward mortals — very much unlike most of the Ghosts of Sunney Towne.

Ruby Gift of Sunney Towne

• Cute Ghost Girl: Averted, as she knows exactly what she is, and she is actually quite dangerous to mortals if she chooses to be so.
• Friendly Ghost: The friendliest to mortals of all the Sunney Towne Wraiths, though she can accidentally harm mortals. Notably, she has never intentionally fed on the living or used her
• Glamour Failure: Even in her Life Aspect, Ruby is icy cold (because she draws ambient thermal energy from her environment to drive her powers), and she (especially her eyes) often glows with golden light. Her eyes sometimes become blank golden glowing orbs when she uses her powers or simply gets angry. Her loss of self-control is often accompanied by a smell like "burned omelette" — as most of the (vegetarian) Ponies perceive burned flesh.
• Horror Hunger: All the Ghosts of Sunney Towne are tempted to consume the living. This includes Ruby Gift. However, she refuses to feed from other sapients, especially Ponies.
• Life Drinker: Ruby and her kin feed from Life Energy. This can come from animals or even plants, but the higher the life form the richer the energy. Ruby for moral reasons refuses to feed on other sapient beings, especially Ponies. She has broken this rule only once, and never killed a Pony with her Life Drinking power.
• Mind over Matter: Ruby manipulates the mortal world through telekinesis, channeled through the ectoplasmic body she manifests. This is not Unicorn Telekinesis, as she was an Earth Pony in life. She can channel her power most controllably through her hooves or mane, just like living Earth Ponies.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The Sunney Towne Ghosts are Wraiths bound and empowered by the curse of Nightmare Moon, which feeds them energy from the Shadowverse and enables them to attack and kill the living. All save Ruby were slain and cursed by Nightmare Moon; Ruby was killed first (by her father Grey Hoof) and Nightmare Moon slew the others to avenge her. Alone of the Sunney Towne Ghosts, Ruby can Pass On any time she wants to do so — she chooses to stay to redeem her kin.
• Parental Betrayal: Ruby was murdered by her father Grey Hoof.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: Entirely Averted; the daughter of a pre-industrial civilization with little privacy in sleeping arrangements, Ruby is quite aware that Grey Hoof and Mitta Gift were passionately in love; she misses the romantic affection they used to show toward one another.
• The Power of Love: Ruby loves her kin, especially her mother Mitta Gift, and (with considerably mixed emotions since he was also her slayer) her father Grey Hoof. This is the emotional force that binds her to Sunney Towne, and makes her determined to save her kin from damnation).
• Undeath Always Ends: It hasn't yet, but Ruby actually knows how to pass on. The problem is that she also knows that her kin are damned, and she is determined to show them the path to redemption.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Ruby's natural state is invisbile and intangible. She has two standard forms she assumes to interact with mortal Ponies. In her Life Aspect, she looks as she did in life — a gray-coated, yellow-maned teenaged filly. In her Death Aspect, she looks like a horrific charred skeleton that is still somehow able to walk and talk.

Chert ("Pie Chart") Pie, Eldest Maternal Uncle of the Pie Sisters

• Honest Corporate Executive: An ethical and competent corporate Chief Financial Officer.
• Intrepid Merchant: When he was a young stallion, he joined an itinerant caravan and traded with them all over Equestria.
• Uncle Pennybags: In middle age he's wealthy and helps the Pie Sisters achieve their dreams; he's the one who helps fund Maud's studies of geology, and in old age he finances Claire, Marble and Limestone's startup, The Pie Sisters Incorporated (Pinkie, being what she is, has little need for mundane wealth).
• True Love: Caravan mistress Trail Dancer, whom he never marries but to whom he is nonetheless faithful — she bears him five foals!!

Cloudy Quartz Pie, Mother of the Pie Sisters

• The Chosen One: Selected by the Paradise Entity to bear three very special daughters: Maud, Claire and Pinkie Pie.
• Girly Girl: Compared to many mares in the Pie Family, including her great-grandmother Surprise the Nth, mother Goldie, sister Foidolite and daughters Maud, Claire and Pinkie, she is very classically feminine.
• Happily Married: To Igneous Rock, after bearing the Paradise Entity the three eldest Pie Sisters.
• The Ingenue: When Igneous Rock first falls in love with her, she is extremely innocent.
• True Love: Igneous Rock.

Foidolite ("Pie Fighter") Pie, Eldest Maternal Aunt of the Pie Sisters

• Action Girl: Courageous, a brawler, and in the end willing to fight to the death for her family.
• Coltish Short Hair: Her most common style, the other one being a crest.
• Mama Bear: Dies saving the lives of her husband Rough Neck, and one of her daughters by distracting an attacking Shadowdrake.
• Nay-Theist: Well aware that the Paradise Entity is real, as she is its great-granddaughter. She just thinks it's "too wussy for her to worship."
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Par for the course between her and her husband Rough Neck. All their children were conceived after "epic disagreements."
• Suffer the Slings: Pie Fighter is highly-skilled with the tail-sling.
• Tomcolt: And never grows out of it, even when she's married with children.
• True Love: Rough Neck, her husband, whom she gives her life to save.

Golden "Goldie" (aka "Granny") Pie, Maternal Grandmother of the Pie Sisters

• The Atoner: For the evil deeds of her ancestor, Harmonia Pie.
• Childhood Friend Romance: With her True Love, Jasper Quartz.
• Happily Married: To Jasper Quartz, until he predeceases her.
• The Medic: Goldie is a healer, herbalist and midwife. She is excellent at first aid and can even do surgery, though she'd prefer not to as she's not as well-trained or equipped as an actual surgeon.
• Protective Charm: She has woven potent wards around the Pie Farm — capable of checking Discord himself — and led a ritual which kept the Night Shadows from attacking Dunnich during the Return of Nightmare Moon.
• The Talk: Gives her eldest daughter Cloudy Quartz Pie, aged 16, an incredibly embarrassing version of this when Cloudy and Igneous Rock declare their love for each other.
• White Magic: Most of Goldie's magic focuses on aid, healing, meditation and protection.
• Widow Witch: Since her husband Jasper was killed by a dragon in YOH 1493. However, instead of being wicked, she is benevolent, honorable and kindly.

Igneous Rock

• Code of Honor: A virtuous farmer who is hard-working, true to his word, and protects and supports his loved ones.
• Good Is Not Soft: Igneous is a very good and honorable stallion, and as tough as the rocks he farms.
• Happily Married: To Cloudy Quartz, after she has finished bearing the Daughters of Paradise.
• Papa Wolf: Fights a dragon in order to protect his children, whether by blood or marriage.
• Parental Substitute: Igneous is not the biological father of Maud, Claire or Pinkie Pie, only of Marble and Limestone Pie. He nevertheless loves the eldest three Pie Sisters as if they were his own.
• True Love: With Cloudy Quartz.

Silent Shadow

Straight Arrow

Summer Lightning

• Army Scout: She's a Guards Ranger, an Equestrian military operational specialty oriented toward patrolling and locating threats rather than main force combat.
• Fragile Speedster: An agile and skilled Pegasus, but small and lightly built.
• Lust: Her obvious character flaw is Lone Madness induced nymphomania.
• The Sneaky Gal: Summer is quite stealthy.

Surprise ("the Nth") Pie

• Happily Married: To Reliable ("Relly") Oak, for some eight decades.
• Mad Mathematician: Her behavior is a bit odd, even by the standards of the Pies.

Blackcherry Lee ("Cheerilee") Punch, Dedicated Teacher and Backup Element of Laughter

• Cool Teacher: Dedicated, highly-competent and beloved by her students. She helps shape the minds of several future heroines of the Shadow Wars, most notably Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle.
• Hot Teacher: [[Spoiler:Big Mac]] certainly thinks so.
• Nice Girl: Caring, kind, sweet and loves children.
• Promotion to Parent: Happens to Cheerilee at age 9, when Ceymi kills her father Falcon Punch and her mother Strawberry suffers an emotional breakdown. Someone has to take care of little Berryshine, her 3-year-old kid sister.
  I'm strong, Cheerilee told herself. Mommy's weak right now, so I'll have to be strong until she's better. I can be strong.

  I'm smart, too. Daddy always said I was smart, and I can always figure out what to do.

  I have to, now. Someone has to be strong and smart, and that's me, now.
• Single Mare Seeks Good Stallion: But finds only arrogant, selfish users, in Canterlot academic circles. She finally finds exactly the sort of stallion for whom she was looking in her childhood friend Big Mac, back where she started, in Ponyville.

Thermal Soar

• Destructive Romance: The love he shares with Starry Eyes, aka Princess Ceymi of Hive Chrysalis leads to his own death and tremendous emotional suffering for Princess Ceymi.
• Fantastic Science: Thermal Soar is a geologist and prospector, in an area where finding an Ancient Artifact is not uncommon, on a planet whose natural processes include ley lines and the growth of ores and crystals.
• Hidden Depths: In addition to being a crusty old prospector, Thermal has a doctorate in geology, is a profound philosopher, and is in love with a beautiful mare, Starry Eyes, aka Princess Ceymi of Hive Chrysalis.
• The Lost Lenore: Becomes this for Princess Ceymi.
• Love Across Battlelines: Princess Ceymi is supposed to be his enemy. Instead, she is his One True Love. This causes serious problems for both of them.
• Prospector: Thermal supports himself by prospecting the Palomino Desert — and, unfortunately, the fringes of the Badlands — for various mineral resources. Sometimes he finds more than he expected.
• Together in Death: After her death, Thermal Soar's spirit joins forces with Princess Ceymi and the Ghost Swarm to thwart the evil plan of Queen Chrysalis, aka Nightmare Hunger, to foment hatred between Ponies and Changelings from Limbo. After they defeat her, they jouney off together in quest of new adventures in the world of the dead. You can't keep a good adventurer down!

Morally Ambiguous Major Characters

Lady Tourmaline Elbaite Boron of the Crystal Empire, "The Loyal Tourmaline"

• Badass Bookworm: An erudite scholar, a master mage, a skilled healer and poisoner, and tough-minded enough to kill a fully-armed guardspony with her Honor Blade on one occasion, and directly confront the Imperator Sthenarkos, aka Morion Quartz on the battlefield, both times to save the life of her One True Love Crimson Quartz.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: She's a Lady (of the Crystal Empire); her name is Tourmaline; and her most defining characteristic is Undying Loyalty.
• Fling a Light into the Future: Lady Tourmaline is exiled with a wagonload of vital books and other documents from the Secret Archive of the Great Library. This crucial knowledge, much of it from the Age of Wonders, helps to jump-start the Realm of Equestria on its own climb upward to higher civilization, even as the fall of the Crystal Empire robs the world of access to the Library for over a millennium.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Tourmaline is a courteous, honorable, intellectual and refined lady. She is also a master mage, skilled poisoner, and overall Badass Bookworm, who is utterly fearless and quite ruthless when it comes to fighting for Crimson Quartz.
• Undying Loyalty: Her loyalty to Prince Crimson Quartz is unshakeable, even as he descends into madness and evil. In the end, Crimson, in his last unselfish act, exiles her so that she will be spared being brought down by his own fall at the hands of the Two Ruling Princesses.

Ceymi, Princess of Hive Chrysalis

• Becoming the Mask: Happens to Ceymi with her cover identity Starry Eyes, to the point that she can't easily abandon the role. This is an occupational hazard of the best Infiltrators, to the point that the Changelings have specific terms in their language for the possible consequences Split-Mind and Love-Lock.
• Combat Pragmatist: Unlike most characters in this universe, she feels absolutely no desire to make dramatic speeches before attacking, and she uses whatever weapons or tactics seem most likely to bring her victory. In a Large Ham world such as Equestrian Earth, this makes her a very deadly assassin.
• Canon Immigrant: Ceymi originated from Phoenix_Dragon's story Without a Hive.
• Doomed by Canon: Ceymi is destined to be slain by a manticore in the Everfree Forest.
• Emotion Eater: Like all Changelings, she needs love as part of her metabolic processes. Ceymi is highly-skilled at feeding so subtly that her hosts are rarely aware she is doing anything unusual.
• Heel–Face Turn: After her death, she comes to realize that Queen Chrysalis has betrayed her own Hive. She forms the Ghost Swarm of some of the evil Queen's other victims and recruits Thermal Soar to her staff. Their defeat of the ghost of Queen Chrysalis, aka Nightmare Hunger spoils her evil plan to foment hatred between Ponies and Changelings in the future, allowing the Reconciliation to take place unimpeded, and becomes the Spirit Guardian to the whole Changeling Kind.
• Heartbroken Badass: After the killing of Thermal Soar by Queen Chrysalis in her presence, Ceymi is emotionally-shattered, though she conceals it well, and she is careful never to give the Queen the motive or opportunity to do anything like this again.
• Heroic Safe Mode: Ceymi is such a skilled Infiltrator that, when suffering what is almost a psychotic breakdown, she is able to conceal the fact from Queen Chrysalis by assuming her own normal personality as a Mask.
• Love Across Battle Lines: For Thermal Soar. She denies this to herself for a long time, with tragic consequences for both of them.
• Mind Control: The Stare, like all Changeling Royalty. Her high intelligence and strong will make her second only to Queen Chrysalis herself in this ability.
• Noble Demon: She serves Queen Chrysalis, but is herself as honorable and kind as is possible given her allegiance.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: After Thermal Soar's death.
• Spirit Guardian: After her death, to the entire Changeling Kind.
• Together in Death: After her death, Ceymi is forgiven by the spirit of Thermal Soar, who becomes one of her most beloved allies in the campaigns of the Ghost Swarm.

Destruction

• Odd Friendship: He really admires Wind Whistler, and enjoys hanging out with her. She returns the sentiment.
• The Slacker: A lazy Chaos God who has absolutely no interest in performing his function, and after being consumed by Discord seems interested primarily in hanging out with his pals at the Chess and Game Club.

Discord

• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Like most of the Draconequii, his moral code makes little sense in Pony terms. The fact that he was raised Pony and hence understands and in some ways feels bound by Pony morality creates emotional strains that make him even less sane than he would be otherwise.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Goldie Pie outright says that Discord's Fatal Flaw is that he hates to work at anything. For example, he could get through Goldie's wards if he really tried, but he won't put in the effort.
• Evil Former Friend: Two major examples.
  • To Celestia and Luna, initially. Starts to resume the friendships when he undergoes his third Heel–Face Turn.
  • To the Mane Six as a whole, during the period he betrayed them and allied with Tirek.
• Face–Heel Turn: Three major examples.
  • When he started throwing monsters at the ancient Ponies.
  • When Dissy Awoke and began the Age of Discord.
  • When Discord betrayed Equestria for Tirek.
• Fatal Flaw: Pinkie's grandmother Goldie Pie outright states that his biggest weakness is his laziness, above his aversion to severe cold and the even the Elements of Harmony.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Discord, given his mercurial nature, is especially prone to this. When one takes the history of Equestrian Earth as a whole, he's switched from evil to good and back again more than once. In some of the alternate timelines, especially those most inspired by the Pony POV Series, he's been extremely evil or good. As the Shadow Wars progress, his love for Fluttershy and his hatred for the Shadows tend to make him an increasingly reliable ally.
• Heel–Face Turn: At least four times counting his Cosmic life.
  • First, when he befriended Celestia at the Dawn of Ponykind.
  • Second, when he incarnated as loveable, firendly Dissy.
  • Third, when he befriended Fluttershy.
  • Fourth, when he renounced Tirek.
• Interspecies Romance: Every romantic love he has ever known, necessarily, since he is the only one of his kind on the Earth.
• Kill It with Ice: Like in the Pony POV Series, Goldie Pie mentions that this is one of his weaknesses.
• Love Interest: Two major ones in his life.
  • He loved Princess Celestia, before they awoke to their true identities.
  • He is falling in love with Fluttershy.
• Love Redeems:
  • His love for Celestia brought him to Pony Earth, where he discovered that equinity is contagious.
  • His love for Fluttershy is causing the return to dominance of a more Dissy-like personality.
• Morality Pet: Fluttershy, to an even greater extent than in the TV series. Even more so when they have a whole family of whatevers.
• Non-Linear Character: Most Concepts try to make sure they think in a linear fashion when incarnate, out of fear of possibly insanity. Not him (he is mad though).
• Oblivious to Love: As a young adult, totally missed the fact that Luna had a gigantic crush on him, even as he was falling in love with Celestia.
• Psychopathic Stallionfoal: Discord is not so much devoted to evil as he is amorally and irresponsibly playful; he doesn't care if he hurts most beings, as long as he has fun.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: As "Dissy," before he Awoke to his true identity, he was bound by normal Pony morality and hence did not use his powers to harm anypony. He was best friends with the fillies Celestia and Luna.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: To Princess Celestia, whose hatred he earned by destroying Paradise Estate and subjecting the world to a thousand years of Chaos.

Prince Crimson Quartz, aka King Sombra

• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: Crimson's original purpose in summoning the Night Shadow becoming King Sombra was to gain the power to restore the glories of the Crystal Empire — instead, he merely became a sadistic tyrant.
• Demonic Possession: Crimson's form as King Sombra is the result of the fusion of Crimson and a powerful Night Shadow, making him an especially-mighty Nightstallion.
• Face–Heel Turn: The main story arc of Corruption at Nightfall is Crimson's descent into darkness.
• Kick the Morality Pet: After his Face–Heel Turn, he is sexually unfaithful and verbally abusive to his beloved mistress and most loyal follower, the Lady Tourmaline.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: His story begins when he is a little colt, and as he grows to stallionhood he displays and idealistic and noble personality.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: His personality distinctly darkens after his evil brother Morion maims him and rapes his One True Love Lady Tourmaline.

Morally Ambiguous Minor Characters

Cloud Kicker

• Blue Blood: She's another matrilineal descendent of Comamnder Hurricane the First, and hence has a claim to the Pegasus Mandate.
• Deus Sex Machina: According to her own accounts of her life.
• Ethical Slut: In her own mind. Her track record shows that she abuses her friends, both serious and casual, in pretty much every way possible short of rape in pursuit of her sex drive, despite her famous "rules."
• Lust: Her entire social life revolves around this. To the point of damaging her friendships.
• Mind Virus: Afflicted by The Taint — an interdimensional memetic virus that affects the Shadows Who Make and hence her own characterization — and spreads it to any who are in sufficiently-prolonged contact with her. The effect is to spread her sexual obsessions to others, or at least prevent them from seeing the peculiarities of her behavior.
• The Pornomancer: Or so she claims. There is just enough truth — and enough lies — in her stories of "banging" everypony around her that a lot of ponies dislike her.
• Sex Is Cool: Her governing philosophy of life.
• Stalker with a Crush: To Fluttershy. Ironically, this is one of her purer loves.
• Take That!: To the version of her in The Life and Times of a Winning Pony.
• A Threesome Is Hot: One of her major sexual obsessions.
• Unreliable Narrator: Of any story in which she claims to have had sex with anypony.

Harmonia Pie

• Asshole Victims: Harmonia Pie makes a point of only slaying and eating brigands and other major criminals, to avoid perceiving her own actions as wholly evil. This is one of the biggest reasons she gets filed under "Morally Ambiguous" rather than outright "Villains".
• Benevolent Boss: Generally paid and treated her workers well, which was one of the (non-evil) secrets of her success.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Averted; though a multiple murderer with a horrific total body count, Harmonia is honest in her business practices.
• Happily Married: Her marriage to Adventurine Miter is disconcertingly affectionate and loving, given Harmonia's more shocking actions.
• Hereditary Curse: Is one from the POV of her descendant Goldie Pie, who is tormented by dreams of her.
• A Hero To Her Hometown: Harmonia's return to South-Dunnich in YOH 1277, and her multiple successful business ventures, save the dying community, giving it the lease on its economic life that allows it to survive into the 16th century of Harmony. Without her, there would have been no South-Dunnich by the time of Luna's Return. (This is also true of Absalom Whateley, one of the two characters on whom she is based).
• Black Magic: The Food of Life enchantment requires the sacrifice of another Pony, whose life force is drained to provide those who eat the Food with a conditional immortality which must be renewed by regular consumption of such Food.
• Honest Corporate Executive: Her purely business ethics are impeccable.
• Horror Hunger: Her life, and that of her beloved husband Adventurine; her daughters Prosperpina, Crucible and Cupcake; and her best friend Honesty Miter and her immediate family, are utterly dependent upon slaughtering a steady supply of Pony victims to be made into the Food of Life.
• I'm An Equinitarian: Harmonia Pie's "Food of Life" requires that the user eat cupcakes of which Ponies are the most important agreement.
• Immortality Immorality: She knows how to extend her life indefinitely — by engaging in equine sacrifice and cannibalism.
• Self-Made Woman: Harmonia not only develops an improved gold refining process which integrates chemical, mechanical and rock-farming techniques, but her overall administrative and economic skill lead her to not only enrich herself but the whole town of South-Dunnich.
• Shout-Out: To Fanfic/Cupcakes - in this fanon, Harmonia's culinary habits are from whence the legend originated and why it became attached to the Pies of South-Dunnich.
• Tragic Villain: Harmonia's original desire was to discover a means of immortality, so that she could end the suffering inflicted upon Ponykind by death. Instead, she discovered a means of immortality achievable to a few only by killing many more Ponies. She spent the rest of her life in a futile attempt to learn how to make Food of Life without requiring equine sacrifice.
• Unholy Matrimony: With Adventurine Miter, her literal partner-in-crime.

Trapcastle

• Being Evil Sucks: Her political maneuverings allowed her to survive — but most of her friends died, and she "won" the privilege of working in the Royal War Room under the mad Queen Hunger: a lonely and paranoid existence.
• Contagious Heroism: When she thinks Queen Hunger may kill Compound, Trapcastle teams up with Cowl and Carry to save her old friend.
• Corrupt Bureaucrat: Her method of advancing herself in the Hive under High Queen Hunger. She avoids sticking her neck out even when this might have prevented the Great Changeling War.
• Good Is Old-Fashioned: She more or less says this explicitly to Compound after revealing she's secretly been her friend:
  "It's not a compliment," said Trapcastle bluntly. "Not in this situation." Trapcastle sighed in exasperation. "This isn't a time for purity," Trapcastle explained. "No time to be a hero. The heroes are all dead or dying. They're gone, like Solitary. You're one of the last really good lings left, Compound."
• Love Redeems: Trapcastle's love for Compound forces her to finally take a stand, save Compound, and help save the survivors of Hive Hunger-Prime.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: What she predicts will happen to Compound if she makes waves, and it is confirmed for her when Compound's career is ruined by Compound's own report.
• Safety in Indifference: She believes that her lack of concern for anyling else will keep her from getting hurt. When she believes Compound has been killed, she learns how wrong she was.
• Silly Adult, Idealism Is For Nymphs: Her attitude toward Compound's idealism, before the War.

Major Villains

Chrysalis, Queen of Hive Chrysalis, The Avatar of Hunger

• Bad Boss: Judging by her treatment of Princess Ceymi.
• Big Bad: She's behind all the Changeling attacks on Equestria. She is also the Big Bad from the point of view of the other Changeling Hives, whom she is picking off one by one because they cannot unite against her.
• The Caligula: Always a bit mad, Chrysalis really loses control when she accepts the Night Shadow and becomes High Queen Nightmare Hunger. Then, when the war turns against her, she seemingly loses all touch with reality.
• Dark Messiah: Queen Chrysalis presents herself as this for her whole Kind.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Her favorite method of killing is to drain a victim so rapidly that he explodes.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Chrysalis is a sadistic, treacherous megalomaniac.
• Hive Mind: All Changeling Hives are this. Subverted in that it is less intelligent than are the component Changelings.
• Hive Queen: Chrysalis is the Queen of a eusocial Hive, albeit one composed of a Kind which possesses individual personalities.
• I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Chrysalis uses a variant of this on Ceymi. Chrysalis needs to neutralize Thermal Soar anyway, because he knows the location of Hive Chrysalis. But she is also well aware of the fact that Ceymi is in love with him, and furthermore that she also has feelings for other Ponies. So she kills rather than keeps Thermal Soar, and kills him right in front of Ceymi, to send her a message - do my bidding more completely, or I'll kill more Ponies whom you care about.
• Sadist: She enjoys harming others for its own sake, and considers the worst flaw of her Kind the fact that Changelings must subsist on love, rather than pain.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Her most common complaint. Of course, her own jealousy of any strong subordinates is part of the reason why.
• Take Over the World: Chrysalis wants to lead the Changelings to total domination over all other Kinds and species.

Nightmare Delusion, The Evil and Insane Humanoid-Trixie

• Embodiment of Vice: Like all Nightmares. Her particular Vice is Insanity, a corruption of Illusion's Virtue of Imagination.
• Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: Like all Trixies, she despises most people as silly, sleazy and stupid. Unlike most Trixies, she concludes from this that she should wipe out most of her own species.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Literally, and the more so because — lacking a competent mentor — Trixie never developed her skills as a stage magician to the same extent as most of her alternates.
• Pure Is Not Good: The most virginal of all the Trixies — because she's never known love.
• Sour Prude: Far more so than most Trixies. Delusion despises the very concept of sexual love.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Like all Nightmares. An especially nasty one, because this particular Trixie neither knew Wisedreamer nor Piercing Gaze, and hence developed into a Psychopathic Womanchild.
• Tragic Villain: Most of the Trixies become snarky heroines or at worst jerks; this one becomes a full-blown Apocalypse Maiden, mostly because she was never befriended by anyone she could really respect and then did poorly in the exact same event that served as the other Trixies' Call to Adventure.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Bluish-white, but otherwise fits the trope.

Ill Wind, Ph.D. in Thaumic Engineering, styling himself Dr. Atmosphere

• Benevolent Boss: To his team, whom he considers his personal friends. Though he winds up having to kill two of them when they wish to defect, which he fears may have represented him crossing his Moral Event Horizon.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Ill Wind genuinely loves his wife Metal Shriek and their foals. He also mostly likes his cousin Windvane and is a Reasonable Authority Figure to his Team.
• Eunuchs Are Evil: Ill Wind is not precisely a eunuch (he has been rendered effectively impotent by his cousin Fluttershy's accidental Stare), and he was to say the least not very nice before this happened (it happened because he tried to rape a 12-year-old Fluttershy under the delusion that she was trying to seduce him), but the emotional effects of his impotence have definitely contributed to the loss of his sanity and growth of his evil obsessions.
• Magitek: Ill Wind's specific field of engineering, as is not uncommon in Equestria where science and sorcery are routinely mingled.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Given that his magnum opus involves building a machine that automates the task of mass equine virgin sacrfice in order to overthrow the Realm of Equestria and install the New Pegasus Mandate as the Master Race ... yes.
• Moral Myopia: Common to the New Pegasus Mandate Flock, but especially noticeable in an otherwise educated and rational Pony who has traveled all over the world and met many kinds of sapient beings. He is capable of genuine Love and Friendship — but only for other Pegasi who agree with his ideology. All others are sub-equines or traitors, and killing them is a positive duty to the Flock. Glory to the Flock!
• One True Love: Metal Shriek, whom he winds up marrying and siring foals upon.
• Unholy Matrimony: The marriage between Dr. Ill Wind and Metal Shriek. They truly love one another, and even have foals.
• Villain Protagonist: Of Love Amongst Monsters, the story of how the prototype Pegasus Device was built, told from his own warped moral viewpoint.

Random Flag, aka the Crawling Chaos, Nyarlathotep

• Big Bad: He is coordinating the rebellions of all three Pony Kinds and attacks on Ponykind by other species, for the benefit of the Shadows.
• The Corrupter: This is his standard technique: he strives to turn Ponies (and other beings) against each other.
• Evilly Affable: He can pretend to be very friendly to other sapients, but is really at least as full of hatred for all the life of the Mane Multiverse as are the Shadows he's chosen to serve.
• Expy: Of Randall Flagg, Stephen King's incarnation of Nyarlathotep from The Stand and other works.
• Treacherous Advisor: Random Flag does not believe that the New Pegasus Mandate can possibly destroy the Realm of Equestria — they are just a weapon he's throwing at Equestria to weaken her before the real attacks commence.

Tirek, the Annihilator, the Undying

• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: His purpose is to annihilate Ponykind, and he can't be permanently slain.
• Last of His Kind: Since the destruction of Vipra-La, Tirek is now one of the last two High Viprallans known to exist.

Vaster, Lord of the Great Dark

• Final Boss: His defeat by Cosmic Celestia means the end of the Shadow Wars. At least until he can mass new forces to invade the Mane Multiverse somewhere else.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Like all the Great Shadows, Vaster began his rise, countless aeons ago, as an alternate version of a Windigo. When he was able to possess the original Shadowverse version of the Cosmic Concept of Destruction and consume that multiverse's version of Discord, he became the most powerful Shadow, and gained the initial advantage that resulted in the Great Shadows corrupting and consuming the Cosmic Concepts of their multiverse.
• God of Evil: The dominant Shadow Cosmic, leader of all the Shadow Cosmics and ruler of the Shadowverse.
• Multiversal Conqueror: Vaster leads the Night Shadows to conquer and drain one universe after another, in a never-ending war for survival which he insists is the highest destiny of any beings.
• Shadow Archetype: Of the Creator of the Mane Multiverse. His name even means "Destroyer."

Windvane, styling himself High Commander of the New Pegasus Mandate and Leader of the Flock

• Evil Uncle: To Fluttershy, a contrast especially notable because Fluttershy is an example of Incorruptible Pure Pureness even by Equestrian standards.
• Expy: Of Adolf Hitler. Unlike Hitler he is of high rather than low birth, but many of his other attributes are similar. Justified, in that it suits Random Flag's sick sense of humor to model the New Pegasus Mandate Flock directly on the German National Socialist Worker's Party (the Nazis) from our world.

Minor Villains

Schwarzwaeld ("Blackie") Fuchs

• Casanova Wannabe: When under his own control, Schwarzwaeld is terrible at seducing mares.
• The Mole: Doubly so.
  • Blackie is an agent for Comrade Steellion, planted in the Manehattan Project.
  • Blackie is a host of Discord, the Big Bad of his era.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Schawrzwaeld's motivation for betraying the West to Steellion.

Metal Shriek

• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Horribly Averted; Metal Shriek was a notable beauty who was terribly scarred in an accident involving molten metal. Her body is still beautiful, but her face has become a thing of nightmare.
• Depraved Bisexual: Played with in that she used to be very promiscuous, and is highly murderous, but was not both at the same time.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Loves her husband Dr. Ill Wind, and their foals.
• Facial Horror: Metal Shriek has had molten steel splattered into her face in an industrial accident.
• Nightmare Face: Her face has pits burned down to the bone, which have been covered with indifferent success by skin grafts. It is obviously uneven and discolored, and its expressiveness is mostly limited to her still-lovely eyes.
• Unholy Matrimony: With Dr. Ill Wind.
• Wrench Wench: A highly-skilled machinist.