Nearly every antagonist in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has been portrayed in a positive light by some fans. This is if nothing else somewhat more justified than in other fandoms, considering that the show runs on The Power of Friendship and many of its villains end up performing a Heel–Face Turn sooner or later.
- Gilda the Griffon from "Griffon the Brush-Off" is an obnoxious bully who thinks all the ponies of Ponyville (except her old friend Rainbow Dash) are "lame-o", and who literally scares Fluttershy to tears at one point. When her true colors are exposed at a party thrown by Pinkie Pie in an effort to get her to lighten up, screaming her head off at her so-called best friend and refusing to take her own medicine, she's quick to turn against Dash for being a "flip-flop" by sticking up for the other ponies, and leaves town in a huff. Fans were quick to portray her as a Jerkass Woobie wracked with guilt and self-hatred over alienating her oldest and best friend years before her return gave her actual such and redemption.
- "The Great and Powerful" Trixie's initial appearance in "Boast Busters" had fans protesting she was just a traveling entertainer whose audience was being unnecessarily mocking and hostile, and that she was justified in humiliating ponies in front of their friends and neighbors, and that she was unjustly punished by losing everything she possessed at the end of the episode. This ignores that Trixie is a boastful showoff who makes up stories for entertainment both on-stage and off-stage. After she was gone, there were many a fic that shipped Trixie with Twilight that absolved Trixie of any and all wrongdoing, placing the blame on the people of Ponyville for not bowing to her glory, or for Snips and Snails over leading the Ursa Minor to town so Trixie could defeat it.
- Even after Trixie's Heel–Face Turn, she still got this treatment a lot. Starlight Glimmer is one of the few close friends that Trixie has, bonding over the fact that they're former villains and Anti Heroes. However, episodes which feature Starlight and Trixie have Trixie's fans demonizing everything Starlight does in an attempt to absolve Trixie of responsibility. Episodes like "A Horse Shoe-In" and "No Second Prances" see Trixie's ego and need to feel superior cause massive rifts between her and Starlight, either because Trixie went behind Starlight's back or ignored the consequences of her actions. Even then, all of the blame will sometimes be shifted to Starlight (or even Twilight, depending on the episode) while also downplaying Trixie's own wrongdoings as if she did nothing wrong.
- Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna's Superpowered Evil Side created from the jealousy over ponies being more fond of Celestia's day and sleeping through Luna's night, gets this a lot from fans that see Celestia as a tyrant, treating her as just wanting to free Equestria from Celestia's rule, despite Luna herself admitting that what she did was wrong and becoming The Atoner in canon.
- Discord was a ruthless tyrant who plunged Equestria into a World Gone Mad/World of Chaos and brainwashed the Mane Six into hateful mockeries of themselves to turn them against each other, all for his own entertainment. Regardless, being a Faux Affably Evil trickster led many fans to depict him as a cheerful prankster who just wants a bit of fun in an overly-managed world, often going so far as to give him a Heel–Face Turn which is readily accepted by everypony. While this is exactly what happens in "Keep Calm And Flutter On" , he's still a huge jerk who is an antihero at best, which his fans continue to ignore.
- Fans latch onto the Flim-Flam Brothers' stylishness, catchy song, and that their Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 can actually produce quality cider. The fact that they're also a pair of aggressively greedy jerks who tried to completely and utterly drive the Apples out of business and gloated about it when they seemingly succeeded, and who are perfectly willing to sacrifice any semblance of quality in the name of quantity, tends to escape the minds of these fans.
- Queen Chrysalis. It is very common for fans to try to justify her actions on the premise that she just wanted to feed her children. While she did mention her duty to feed her subjects in her debut episode, she put more focus on how powerful she's going to become after devouring Equestria's love, and she proceeds immediately after to enslave all of Canterlot. Assuming that having to feed one's kids forgives mounting an armed invasion of a peaceful nation and overthrowing its government, this still doesn't erase the evident glee Chrysalis showed at the thought of enslaving Equestria. Besides being fairly clearly moved by power hunger as much as anything else, Chrysalis doesn't display the slightest shred of remorse for any of her actions and seems entirely incapable of empathy.
- There is also the fact that, despite its ubiquity in fanworks, the idea that the changelings are actually her children was nothing more than popular fanon with no canon support until Season 6, where a flashback by Thorax, a former Changeling of her hive, does show her watching over changeling eggs and hatchlings with the implication she at least raised them, but this along with prior mentioned theory of being their mother has been jossed with the appearance of Ocellus' parents in Season 8. "To Where and Back Again" also reveals that Chrysalis was using the changelings' hunger to fuel her own ambitions, keeping them in a state of perpetual starvation so that she could control them. When it is discovered that Changelings are supposed to share love instead of taking it to truly satiate their hunger, Chrysalis is the only changeling to disregard the notion and outright reject redemption entirely, as well as show her brutally punish (and possibly kill) any Changeling who questions her, and is implied to have starved them since young in order to manipulate them. Of course, this tends to be ignored by some of her fans, who refuse to see her as anything less than a noble queen and Good Parent willing to go to war for the sake of her hive, and who was wrongfully betrayed by her people.
- King Sombra gets some of this in fan works. In canon, he was a full-fledged example of Dark Is Evil, and he enslaved the ponies of the Crystal Empire to rule over them as a despotic mad-stallion. He is killed at the end of his first appearance, his next appearance in the series proper was a "what-if" scenario where he was even worse: In that story, he's waging a war against Equestria with mind-controlled soldiers/slaves, and it's implied that it's taking everything Equestria has just to hold him back. In spite of this, some fans latch onto Sombra as a misunderstood character. There are some who even treat the more sympathetic traits of his comic counterpart as canon, despite season 9 decanonizing them.
- Lightning Dust is a reckless flier who cares only about her own personal advancement, and was responsible for an incident that nearly got the Mane Six killed. It should be noted that there were many very heated discussions how much of the blame falls on Lightning Dust note Many viewers sympathize with Lightning (especially after seeing her heartbroken when she got expelled), some even going as far as to blame Spitfire and Rainbow Dash for Lightning's reckless decisions. This is despite the indifference, inconsideration, and smug self-superiority that Lightning showed towards everyone around her, including those who were supposed to be her superiors in the Wonderbolts. (While the Wonderbolts are Mildly Military, backtalking a superior officer was still a very dumb move on Lightning Dust's part.) Note that in the original ending Lightning wasn´t expelled but became Rainbow's wingpony while remaining her friend.
- In The Washouts, Lightning Dust returns as the leader of the titular team, having decided to start her own stunt group after her expulsion... and still hasn't learned her lesson, believing that while she might have risked lives, it wasn't worth her expelling her over. Lightning Dust is even willing to put Scootaloo through a dangerous untested stunt simply out of her rivalry with Rainbow Dash. Yet once again, Lightning Dust was put in leather pants over Rainbow Dash "ruining" what Lightning Dust had, ignoring that Lightning put a child in mortal danger out of spite.
- Wind Rider from Rarity Investigates is often written as Lightning Dust's loving father who only tried to frame Rainbow Dash because it was her fault that his daughter lost her dreams. Never mind that he tried to get Rainbow Dash kicked out for nothing besides the fact she was close to breaking his record. Fans who like both and don't go for the father/daughter idea have them form their own "Wonderbolts" and have them give a Humiliation Conga to the actual Wonderbolts. Or sometimes, Wind Rider is seen as the reason Lightning Dust is reckless. (Once again from the father/daughter route) Either way, both of these pegasi are treated like innocent woobies, and fans demonize the actual Wonderbolts and Rainbow Dash and use the episode "Rainbow Falls" as proof that Wind Rider is the only good Wonderbolt.
- Even Tirek, the Satanic Archetype that he is, gets the leather pants by fans thinking that, like Discord and Diamond Tiara, he just wanted friends and felt betrayed when his brother joined the ponies and ignored him. These same fans are quick to ignore the fact that he drained the life force out of most of Equestria's population, could have had Discord's friendship but instead betrayed him without a second thought, and in a bad future in the S5 Finale, blasts the entire world while growing to increasingly terrifying heights and not giving a care that ponies are being hurt by his actions. Fans will give him an excuse that his parents were at the very least neglectful or raised him The Spartan Way, his brother was the cause of his evil.
- When he's not being demonized for all hell, Prince Blueblood receives sympathy from fans, claiming that expecting chivalry from him is unreasonable and that Rarity was just a gold-digger that Blueblood was trying to shake off, forgetting that he's a rude, narcissistic, stuck-up, selfish, and spoiled jerkass who insulted Applejack's food and used Rarity as a pony shield to protect himself from flying cake, and not apologizing for his actions after Rarity called him out on his behavior.
- Silver Spoon, the Beta Bitch to Diamond Tiara's Alpha Bitch gets a large amount of fan sympathy. On the show she's portrayed as a follower, but fans forget that she's a willing accomplice to Diamond Tiara, lacking a Freudian Excuse which Diamond eventually got, liking to portray her as a Beleaguered Assistant and have Silver Spoon often question how much their Villainous Friendship means. Fanon Silver Spoon will express remorse when the CMC are bullied, and the one Pet the Dog moment she had in canon is treated like an everyday occurrence.
- The Sphinx from the Somnambula story in Daring Done? often gets this treatment, being portrayed in many fan works as a giant Cute Kitten that was just playing a game with the South Equestrians or a creature of habit that just works on a different morality. This conveinently ignores that the Sphinx is openly malevolent within the episode, forcing the South Equestrians to give up their crops for no apparent reason and kidnapping the prince when he stands up to her. She's also a very Sore Loser, as she nearly rescinded her deal to release the prince simply out of spite towards Somnambula.
- Cozy Glow wildly gets this treatment as many fans refusing to accept a child being so irredeemably evil without explanation. Nearly all her fan works invent sympathetic backstory or genuine positive traits, which there's no evidence for in canon, in order to "prove" her redeemable and bash the heroes for how they treated her. This overlooks Cozy was at a School of Friendship, learning friendship, with teachers, the CMC and the Young six who treated her like a friend. Despite all this, she still had no remorse for betraying them and used the Magic of Friendship for evil. She was intelligent enough to be fully aware her action were evil yet proudly declared herself a villain and willfully commit the same evildoings for which Tirek and Chrysalisnote were identically punished without any remorse, and refused redemption/friendship when offered by the heroes and even after realizing it's merits.
