http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DeconstructedCharacterArchetype/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic
The cartoon is fond of deconstructing common
cartoon character archetypes.
- Twilight Sparkle resembles a common Smart Girl protagonist, but her intellect and no-nonsense behaviour are exaggerated to the point of being a Obsessively Organized perfectionist prone to mental breakdowns over the smallest slight, meaning she is just as often reliant on her friends' support as being the Only Sane Man to arguments.
- Rainbow Dash, at first, is the typical blustery tomboy show-off stock for girl's shows. In several episodes though, she's shown to be crippled by fear of failure when stress gets to her, is nowhere near as confident as she projects, and is embarassed for liking nerdy and/or girly things because of her image. A major factor in her Character Development over the seasons is her getting over these problems and mellowing out as a result.
- Pinkie Pie deconstructs the Plucky Comic Relief by often taking her comedy to genuinely obnoxious and even hurtful levels, and because she is intensely emotionally dependent on people liking her, especially her friends. Any comedian will tell you how dangerously addictive making others laugh can be.
- The episode "Too Many Pinkie Pies" also deconstructs Pinkie's Fun Personified and Genki Girl nature. In order to have more time for fun with her friends, she uses a magic pond to copy herself. Unfortunately, Pinkie accidentally ends up making far too many; and worse still, the clones are Flanderised versions of her with none of her own tact or love for her friends. They have no other goal than mindless "fun", and they end up causing havoc and destruction. It shows that if they don't have the aspects like good sense, thoughtfulness and compassion to counterbalance their wackier traits, then a one-dimensional Genki Girl or Fun Personified character would be obnoxious — or even flat-out terrible — at best to deal with in real life.
- Lightning Dust is a deconstruction of The Unfettered. As Spitfire notes, Lightning regularly pushes herself to the limit in order to improve her flying skills. But this attitude also makes her reckless in her determination to reach new heights, even willing to do dangerous things that can so easily harm others.
- The Changelings are a deconstruction of the Always Chaotic Evil trope. Love is a primary part of the Changelings' diet and it sustains them much like how food sustains a pony. The reason why they acted so predatory was because they were deliberately starved and misled by Chrysalis into believing that in order to survive, they must steal love from others. Once Starlight reveals a benevolent alternative way to love-feeding through Thorax that is also a much better way of sustaining them, the other Changelings quickly turn on Chrysalis and disown her as their leader, while also making it pretty clear that they're willing to fight back if she ever shows her face again. Furthermore, the Changelings have to deal with Fantastic Racism afterward from the other nations because of how predatory they were under Chrysalis’ rule. Thorax, who became the Changelings’ new king after Chrysalis’s expulsion, sadly accepts this as a consequence of his predecessor’s actions and dedicates his rule to building trust and repairing the relationships his people have with the other nations.
- Discord offers a few deconstructions of his own:
- Token Evil Teammate: Though he was a former villain who underwent a Heel–Face Turn, he only went so far as becoming a Wild Card and never actually became good. He was friends with only one of the Mane Six, the others still didn't like or trust him, and he preferred to Troll and annoy them instead of actually helping them when they sought him out in a crisis (though his trickery does indirectly help Twilight). In the Season 4 finale, with Discord trusted to capture the new villain Tirek, Tirek instead manipulates him into helping him take over Equestria. Celestia even lampshades they trusted Discord too much and overestimated what The Power of Friendship meant to him. It is further deconstructed on Discord's side as well by showing the difficulties in being on a team where you're still suspected ends up damaging the progress made. While Fluttershy is genuinely friends with him, the others don't care too much for him. He does try and help, but being a Spirit of Chaos means being a Trickster Mentor is how he does it (and a later episode does show that not being chaotic would eventually kill him.) Tirek is able to manipulate him in the first place because he acts affable, considerate, and friendly with Discord while even asking what Discord wants. So while Celestia says they trusted him too much and overestimated what friendship meant to him, the others outside of Fluttershy did not give much of an attempt to be friends with Discord in the first place and thus Discord fell for Tirek's flattery since he acted more like a friend to him than anyone outside of Fluttershy and even then, seemed more understanding. The trope then gets reconstructed as Discord is hit with multiple My God, What Have I Done? moments as Tirek goes on a rampage, and ultimately realizes he does value friendship with the ponies, and makes a heartfelt apology to them.
- Trickster Mentor: It's clear his lessons for the most part are just excuses used to mess with others since he's Reformed, but Not Tamed, as shown in "Three's a Crowd" when he was disappointed his antics didn't ruin Twilight and Cadance's bonding day. Another example is in “What About Discord”, when Discord takes advantage of Twilight having a three day "book-sort-cation" to have a fun weekend with the rest of the Mane 6, and intentionally makes a bunch of inside jokes about it just to make Twilight jealous and driven to tears over having to miss out. Upon Discord’s confession about “teaching Twilight a lesson about jealousy”, the rest of the Mane Six have an In-Universe Harsher in Hindsight Moment over the weekend and they get pissed off at being used as tools to make Twilight have an emotional breakdown. This all peaks in the Grand Finale when it's revealed that he, impersonating Grogar, was the one who bought the remaining villains together to set them up for their defeat at the hooves of Twilight in order to show her she has what it takes to become the next ruler of Equestria. This backfires as it enables the villains to become a genuine threat beyond Discord's ability to keep the situation under control and causes Twilight to lose said confidence and believe her accomplishments were all staged. While the scheme was sincerely well-intentioned, none of the main characters, not even Fluttershy, are willing to forgive him until he risks his life to save them because of how badly the whole thing screwed everybody over.
