My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic / Tropes C to D

Tropes A-B | Tropes C-D | Tropes E-K | Tropes L-P | Tropes Q-S | Tropes T-Z

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My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic provides examples of the following tropes:

C

• Call-Back: In "The Best Night Ever", the Mane 6 remind us with a song their motivations for going to the gala which were first mentioned in "The Ticket Master".
  • Every episode page lists its call-backs.
• The Cameo:
  • During the prologue of "Inspiration Manifestation", various pony families are seen together setting up the fair, including Thunderlane and Rumble, Diamond Tiara and Filthy Rich, Sweetie and her (and Rarity's) parents (without their vacation clothes), and Dinky and Amethyst Star. Vinyl Scratch and Bulk Biceps are also at the fair. Rarity's upgrade to the mariachi band for the filly's party includes two orchestra members who played at the Grand Galloping Gala.
  • "Equestria Games":
    • The Saddle Arabians (from "Magic Duel") are part of the royal delegates, as well as Prince Blueblood (last seen in "Sweet and Elite") and Fancy Pants seated in the box below.
    • Practically every character who's ever appeared in the series can be seen in the audience, most prominently in this◊ shot, with a couple of other good ones here◊ and here◊.
  • Flash Sentry makes his second appearance in the series in "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 1", and this time he gets a line.
  • The rainbow that flies through Equestria in "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2" is seen by everypony who gave the Mane Six their keys — Coco Pommel, Spitfire and the Wonderbolts, Cheese Sandwich, Seabreeze, Silver Shill, and Discord last of all.
• Camping Episode:
  • "Sleepless in Ponyville" has the Crusaders go camping with their older idols to get a taste of the outdoors. "Campfire Tales" does the same.
  • The infamous "The Mean 6" has the Mane 6 plus Starlight go on a camping retreat next to the Tree of Harmony to spend time with each other after so much work at the School of Friendship. It eventually turns into a Horrible Camping Trip when they get separated and a series of misunderstandings are caused by their evil clones, resulting in a disagreement that almost ruins their friendship.
• The Caper: "Sparkle's Seven"^note Some sources "Twilight's Seven" features an over-the-top Ocean's Eleven style attack on the newly fortified Canterlot Castle.
• Cape Snag: Technically, a wing snag.
  • There was a slight cape snag in "Stare Master", where Scootaloo's cape caught on Fluttershy's fence.
• Captain's Log: During Season 1, Twilight's letters to Princess Celestia on the Aesop of the episode. Granted, unlike most examples, this happens at the end of each episode and they were used to deliver the episode's Aesop rather than exposit, but the basic idea is the same. Over the next two seasons, other characters get a chance to write about what they've learned — first in letters to Celestia, then in a shared journal.
• Card-Carrying Jerkass:
  • Even after his Heel–Face Turn, Discord delights in messing with others, especially Twilight due to her uptight, by-the-book nature.
  • Flim and Flam are a pair of Con Artist brothers who shamelessly swindle other ponies for a living, and generally act as Smug Snakes to those who try to stop their scams, gleefully taunting them about their successes. In "Viva Las Pegasus", they worked together with the good guys to get rid of another villain, then rejected all notions of turning over a new leaf and went right back to conning others.
• Care-Bear Stare: Essentially how the Elements of Harmony work, and how Twilight Sparkle restores her friends after Discord's Mind Rape in the first part of "The Return Of Harmony".
• Caretaking is Feminine: While the show is already an Improbably Female Cast, every "foal sitter" depicted has been female:
  • In "Baby Cakes", Mr. and Mrs. Cake notably only ask the members of the Mane 6 to foalsit their rambunctious twins at the last minute, before agreeing to let Pinkie Pie do it. While Pinkie herself has a very hard time adjusting to the responsibility (especially since the twins start developing their pegasus and unicorn powers at just the wrong moment), she eventually figures it out and agrees to be their regular sitter.
  • Princess Cadance was Twilight Sparkle's sitter when she was younger, and Twilight eventually acts as sitter for Cadance's child (and Twilight's niece) Flurry Heart in "A Flurry of Emotions".
• Carnivore Confusion: In "Over a Barrel", Pinkie Pie's song confirms that they're all vegetarians, but she mentions a hot-dog-eating contest in "Fall Weather Friends". That's veggie dogs... right?
  • In "Look Before You Sleep", they're shown making (and eating) s'mores. Modern day marshmallows contain gelatin, which is derived from animal hides and bones.^note Gelatin can also be made from horse's hooves, so the ponies might even be engaged in cannibalism! Historically, however, marshmallows were made from mucilaginous root extracts of the marsh-growing African mallow, Althaea officinalis, AKA the marsh mallow plant, and modern vegan marshmallows use fruit pectin to provide protein instead of gelatin.
  • In "Griffon the Brush Off", Fluttershy is being greeted from the lake by some fish smiling at her, which means that fish in Equestria are at least partially sentient (like Angel Bunny), and some of them are apparently friends with Fluttershy. Then in the beginning of "Dragonshy", we see Fluttershy feeding dead fish to her pet ferrets.
    • In classical mythology, Griffons ate mostly horses.
  • In an apparent inversion, in "Winter Wrap Up", Fluttershy delivers a load of vegetables to a couple of wild ferrets. A fan artist on /co/ named "shuffle" came up with a rather dark explanation for how this makes sense.
    • Fluttershy doesn't deliver the vegetables, one of her helpers does. Really, this is just another example of the poor organization of the event. When Fluttershy is shown feeding ferrets, she feeds them fish.
  • In "Fall Weather Friends", after Applejack ties up Rainbow Dash's wings, she says "Trussed up like a turkey!" The only way for her to make that comparison...
  • The ponies raise cattle, which vaguely makes sense because they can be milked. They raise chickens, presumably because eggs are a necessary component of many of the apple pastries they bake. But in "The Show Stoppers", we see that ponies farm pigs. Pretty sure ponies don't eat bacon... (Word of God says that the pigs needed somewhere to live, and ponies really like truffles.) Plus pigs can be used as "garbage trucks" — they eat the leftovers.
    • Fridge Brilliance: Swine manure is an excellent fertilizer for bushes and trees. What do the Apple family have in job lots?
  • In the scene where Applejack tries to decide what she is supposed to eat first in "A Bird in the Hoof", one of things on the table is a ham sandwich. Interestingly, there were no truffles in sight in spite of the fact that the guest of honor was the princess.
  • In "Owl's Well That Ends Well", Spike noted that owls do eat mice and he actually uses that knowledge in an attempt to frame Owlowiscious.
  • "Sisterhooves Social" shows Rarity making fried eggs.
    • Fried◊ eggs had previously appeared in the Canterlot Castle toy set and original version of Castle Creator.
  • Slightly oblique take on this, but the show makes very clear that Equestrians write on parchment rather than paper. They do seem to use a LOT of the stuff so questions must be raised as to where they get it. Maybe the cows will their skin to the state upon their natural deaths.
    • Or maybe...
    • Parchment can be made from plants, and that tends to be what people think of/mean when parchment is mentioned in fictional settings. Perhaps a case of Reality Is Unrealistic in people thinking paper is as common historically as it is now.
  • Season 4 shows us carrot hot dogs, so they are veggie dogs after all.
• Cast from Sanity: The Alicorn Amulet corrupts its user with every use, though the user can return to normal by taking it off (and only by themselves).
• Cast Herd: (Technically, cast Strings, Blessings, and Constellations) First off, you've got the Mane Six ponies and Spike. The Cutie Mark Crusaders form a Power Trio with a smaller version of the mane group, having an earth pony, pegasus and unicorn, with the latter also falling into Tomboy and Girly Girl. Big Mac tends to show up mainly around his sisters and the rest of his family; the same goes for Granny Smith. Even the background ponies fall into this, with Rose, Daisy and Lily Valley tending to show up around each other.
• Casting Gag: This isn't the 1st time Tabitha St. Germain and Cathy Weseluck's voiced characters were together crush-wise...^note Hint- Cathy's the little boy, Tabitha's the adult girl (see Actor Allusion above).Make that of what you will.
  • Most of Discord's episodes have "Discord" somewhere in the title, just like how most of Q's episodes had "Q" somewhere in the title.
  • The Latin American dub has Twilight's parents voiced by Mario Castañeda and Romy Mendoza — parents to Carla Castañeda, Twilight Sparkle's Mexican voice actress.
• Catapult Nightmare:
  • Happens to Rainbow Dash in the episode "May the Best Pet Win!", after being awoken from a crazy dream in which she is menaced by a mash up of several of her friends' pets.
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 1", Celestia does this when she gets the vision of Tirek returning. Luna then comes in to confirm it wasn't just a nightmare.
• Censored for Comedy: Every instance of the word "loser" is blanked out when "Boast Buster", "Call of the Cutie", or "Party of One" (though not "Sonic Rainboom", "The Return of Harmony, Part 2", or "Hearth's Warming Eve") airs on Treehouse TV. Needless to say, this makes sentences containing that particular word sound more dirty.
• Central Theme:
  • Friendship is Magic! The Power of Friendship is, of course, the central concept of the series; with the help and support of your friends, nothing is impossible.
  • Starting with Season 4, every season has had a shifting core theme reflected in many episodes, particularly season finales and premieres.
    • Season 4's theme concerned the spreading of friendship to others, and staying true to yourself under pressure. This culminated with the six keys given to the Mane Six by new friends they had made that unlocked the Chest of Harmony.
    • Season 5's theme was Cutie Mark Magic, as named by the toyline. The season premiere concerned Starlight Glimmer who could take cutie marks, the season finale concerned her traveling through time to stop the Mane Six from getting theirs, and the new Cutie Map regularly sent the Mane Six to places in Equestria that needed their aid, and it called on them via their cutie marks.
    • Season 6's theme is redemption. Starlight has performed her Heel–Face Turn and joined the main cast, and returning antagonistic characters like Trixie, the changelings, and the dragons, got a chance to reform and show their Hidden Depths, culminating with a group of reformed villains being the ones to save the day in the season finale.
    • invoked Season 7's theme, according to Word of God, is family, with many episodes spotlighting one of the cast and their relationship with family members, including parents, siblings, and in Twilight's case, niece Flurry Heart. There is also a major theme of legacy, expressed both through the family elements and the Pillars of Equestria, legendary heroes of the ancient past who spotlight in the season finale and a tie-in comic miniseries.
    • Season 8's theme is multiculturalism, with the focus on the Student Six and exploring the history of their races, Chancellor Neighsay's Fantastic Racism towards non-ponies, and the reveal that Cozy Glow is the Big Bad of the season adds a Humans Are the Real Monsters vibe to things.
    • Fittingly for the show's final season, Season 9's theme is closure and letting go of the past. Several episodes have their central conflict set in motion by something that happened in the past, or concern characters pondering their future, and the running story arc for the season is Twilight getting her life affairs in order as she prepares to to ascend to the throne of Equestria. The Big Bad of the season is her Evil Counterpart, a villain that in the ancient past declared himself The Emperor of Equestria, and now he's back to reassert his claim.
• Centrifugal Farce: The Dizzytron in "Wonderbolts Academy".
• Cerebus Retcon:
  • Spike was often the Butt-Monkey of earlier seasons, with Season 3 having several entire episodes revolving around him hilariously failing at things. In Season 4, Spike has a series-long character arc revolving around self esteem issues and feeling useless.
  • In "It's About Time", Cerberus leaves the gates of Tartarus, where the most evil beings in all of Equestria are imprisoned. The whole thing is Played for Laughs when Fluttershy tames him like a cute puppy. Then "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 1" comes along to reveal that Tirek, the most catastrophic threat Equestria has faced yet, managed to escape while he was gone.
  • In the very first episode, Twilight blew off her friend Moondancer's party to catch up on her studies. In Season 5's "Amending Fences", we see that Moondancer didn't take it well, and even later in Season 9, we see that in her panic over Nightmare Moon, she lost track of a library book that she never returned and accidentally cost the librarian her perfect record.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster: The show has made a balancing act of starting and ending each season with a dark two-parter episode, and sandwiching light comedy episodes in-between.
• Changing Chorus:
  • In "Winter Wrap-Up" from the episode of the same name, the first chorus says, "Winter wrap-up, winter wrap-up" only twice, but the second chorus says it three times, then three times again for the third, and the third one says, "'Cause tomorrow, spring is here" several times instead of twice.
  • In "Babs Seed" from "One Bad Apple", the second chorus pauses to add non-chorus lyrics, then when it resumes, it repeats the "She's just a bad, bad" line twice before ending.
• Character Exaggeration: Used lightly in later episodes (which focus more on individual characters, as opposed to the initial stories which focused more on the whole ensemble and their bonds) and so intensify some of their defining quirks for Aesops and obstacles. Perhaps most noticeable is Twilight Sparkle, after growing out of her Fish out of Water status in Ponyville; Twilight-centered episodes focused more on her overcoming her (originally more subtle) neurotics and fears of failure, establishing her as a Nervous Wreck. Most examples are kept balanced by proper Character Development, however, and their other traits are still used prominently, shielding them from Flanderization.
• Chase Scene: Complete with Benny Hill-esque background music. Twice. Another two chase scenes are in the style of Pepé Le Pew.
• Chaste Toons: According to Rarity, Princess Celestia has a nephew, which should raise an eyebrow considering that it would either imply that he is Luna's son (even though she spent the last thousand years sealed in the moon), or that there is another divine sibling we don't know about. Lauren Faust eventually explained by saying that he was a very distant relative on Celestia's mother's side, "about 52 times removed, roughly speaking".
  • In Applejack's and Rarity's case, they have children hanging around who are their little sisters rather than nieces, but play a similar role.
  • However, we have seen Pinkie Pie's and Rarity's parents and also Twilight Sparkle's parents. Twilight Sparkle's mom, Twilight Velvet, has also appeared in the toy line, though you wouldn't know who she is without recognizing her from the show.
  • We even have baby ponies, incidentally showing that pegasi, earth ponies and unicorns can mix and a pony can have any combination of the three kinds of ponies.
• Cheap Gold Coins: Bits, despite most likely being named after horse tack, are these.
  • It's a pun on a word that was slang for 1/8 peso, back when English-speaking Americans frequently used pesos, but is now almost exclusively used in cliches like "give your two bits". World of Pun in action.
• Cheer Them Up with Laughter:
  • As the bearer of the Element of Laughter, Pinkie Pie's mission is to spread joy and laughter all over Equestria, although the results will vary, as her delivery of humour ranges from cheers to cringe. In the first episode, for example, she helps her friends overcome their fear of a scary forest by encouraging them to laugh at it.
  • In "Every Little Thing She Does", Pinkie herself is on the receiving end, albeit inadvertently. As she and Starlight Glimmer make cakes together, Pinkie is fuming over Starlight's behaviour earlier in the episode. Then she sees the mess Starlight is making of herself and breaks into a good-natured smile.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The show has one an entire season in the making. Discord has Mind Raped the Mane Six and Twilight has given up. She comes home to find Princess Celestia has been sending her scrolls all day. It turns out they're the letters that Twilight had been sending Celestia the entire previous season. They remind her what her friends mean to her and help her realize how to stop Discord.
  • Twilight and Cadance's "Sunshine, sunshine, ladybug's awake" song in "A Canterlot Wedding, Part 1" is the reason Twilight can determine that Cadance is really Cadance in Part 2.
  • The second season finale has Pinkie's "I never leave home without my party cannon!" statement return when she pulls it out of nowhere to wield against mooks. This took 17 episodes to return. Also a technique utilized half a season prior (in the ancient past in universe) to defeat the Windigos is used to defeat the Big Bad, only using The Power of Love in place of The Power of Friendship.
  • In the very end of "The Crystal Empire, Part 2", Luna pulls out a black book. There's no focus on it so you probably wouldn't pay attention to it until you rewatch the episode after seeing the Season 3 finale, where the book is sent to Twilight and she is asked to complete a spell in it.
  • In "Equestria Games", the anti-magic field later prevents magic-using ponies from helping out with magic during the ice cloud incident.
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2", the medallion Tirek gives to Discord as a sign of "trust" turns out to be Twilight's key, which Discord gives her after she shows she still considers him a friend after his betrayal.
    • Basically all the things each of the Mane Six had acquired from a pony/creature whose lives they've changed as a symbol of their respective element throughout all of Season 4 are these: Coco Pommel's rainbow thread, the Wonderbolts' medal, Cheese Sandwich's rubber chicken Boneless, Seabreeze's flower, and Silver Shill's first honestly-earned bit.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • The first episode introduces Applejack's little sister Apple Bloom in passing during the extremely crowded Apple Clan reunion. Later on, there's a brief shot of her with two other fillies. Later in the season, Apple Bloom plays a key role in the events of "Bridle Gossip", and gets the spotlight in "Call of the Cutie", which also officially introduces the other two fillies, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle.
  • Big Macintosh and Granny Smith from the family reunion; both became regulars.
  • When Twilight first arrives in Ponyville, a pink mare gasps and bolts. Turns out she's bolted to organize a welcome-wagon party.
  • An episode-specific example: "A Friend in Deed" introduces a donkey named Matilda early on. She turns out to be Cranky's lost love.
  • Near the beginning of "Keep Calm and Flutter On", Discord casts a spell that causes a group of beavers to become mean-spirited and they later appear near the end and build a dam that causes Sweet Apple Acres to flood.
  • Averted in "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2", bordering on subverted for some viewers. Scorpan helped defeat Tirek in the first place, so one would expect Celestia to send Twilight to... not look for him. Or even mention asking him for help at all. Odd.
    • In "It's About Time", Cerberus, guardian of Tartarus, appears as part of a small joke. He returns in "Twilight's Kingdom" and it is explained that his brief absence is what caused Tirek to escape in the first place.
  • All of Starlight Glimmer's previous quick background appearances throughout Season 5 tie together in "The Cutie Re-Mark" two-parter. In "Amending Fences", she saw how one missed event soured Moondancer on the idea of friendship. In "What About Discord?", she overheard the suggestion about using time travel to witness an event that had been missed. Finally, in this episode, Twilight recounting how the Sonic Rainboom brought the Mane Six together gives Starlight the information she needs to potentially stop their friendship before it ever starts.
• Chekhov's Skill/Hobby:
  • Turns out Fluttershy has a surprising knowledge of sewing, as evidenced when she was forced to tell Rarity what was "wrong" with her dress in "Suited For Success". This skill allowed Fluttershy and the others to finish Rarity's dress at the end of the episode.
  • Twilight Sparkle is shown as very organized in "Winter Wrap Up". It comes in handy when she's not allowed to use her unicorn magic to help clean up the winter weather in preparation for spring, but eventually learns the clean-up efforts of her friends and neighbors are horribly disorganized.
  • Applejack's herding skills in "Applebuck Season" resurface five episodes later in "Swarm of the Century".
  • In "Dragonshy", Rainbow Dash is shown playing with a ball and skillfully bouncing it off her head. Later, during the Iron Pony competition in "Fall Weather Friends", she uses her skill to easily win the ball-bouncing challenge.
  • Twilight spent the entire first Season writing reports back to Celestia with what she's learned about friendship. In "The Return of Harmony, Part 2", Celestia snaps Twilight out of Discord's spell... by sending back copies of all her reports, so that reading them will remind Twilight that friendship is worth fighting for.
  • In "Bridle Gossip", the Mane Six walk through poison joke plants despite Zecora's warning. The effect they have on Fluttershy is causing her to have a deep, manly voice, but it is eventually cured along with the others' ailments. Three seasons later in "Filli Vanilli", Big Macintosh loses his voice the day before he is supposed to perform with the Ponytones singing group. To save the show (and the group's subsequent appearances), Fluttershy drinks a poison joke potion from Zecora so she can sing in Big Macintosh's place behind the scenes while he lip-syncs.
  • In "Pinkie Pride", we see Pinkie's sister Maud Pie as a filly in a photo six whole episodes before Maud — now grown up — shows up in person.
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2", Celestia's reason for sending Discord after Tirek was that he could sense the magical disruption caused by Tirek's Mana Drain. When the Princesses transfer their magic to Twilight, Discord is able to sense it, but doesn't tell Tirek. And once Tirek drains Discord of magic, he can pinpoint Twilight's location without trouble.
• Chewing the Scenery:
  • Rarity. Oh so very much.
  • Also Luna, in "Luna Eclipsed", who combines Large Ham with No Indoor Voice, Gale-Force Sound and Flowery Elizabethan English in one package. It probably helps that both she and Rarity are both voiced by Tabitha St. Germain.
  • Pinkie Pie. Give her a big enough megaphone, and her yelling can push back mountains.
  • Kathleen Barr does it too. The relevant equation is Trixie + Stage = VOLUME.
  • You wouldn't think Fluttershy would ever chew the scenery, right? Wrong! Of course, she's suffered Sanity Slippage leading up to this.
  • In "Inspiration Manifestation", you can almost imagine Tabitha St. Germain desperately trying to hold back the maniacal laughter in her rant at the end, especially with the omnious bells chiming in the background.
  Rarity: ...until there isn't an inch of Equestria that hasn't been utterly transformed by my! creative! GENIUS!
• Chirping Crickets:
  • In "Over a Barrel", the crowd's reaction to Pinkie Pie's song is stunned silence, broken only by Spike's somewhat-desperate applause and the cry of a hawk.
  • In "The Cutie Pox", after Spike blabs about how Apple Bloom has contracted the titular disease, which scares nearly everypony in Ponyville into hiding, a tumbleweed blows by and a hawk can be heard screeching in the distance.
  • In "Baby Cakes", Pinkie's attempt to cheer the twins up with stand-up comedy elicits this. There's also the sound of someone coughing.
  • In "Equestria Games", following Spike's attempt at the anthem, the giant stadium is quiet, save for the cries of a lone baby, and Pinkie's echoing "Nailed it!".
• Christmas Songs: A whole album's worth, believe it or not. In 2015 Hasbro released "It's A Pony Kind of Christmas" which has ponified versions of several Christmas songs (as well as three original songs), though it does keep the word Christmas despite the fact that Christmas doesn't exist in Equestria.
• Chroma Key: Was apparently used in episodes 1 and 6 at least, judging by their story galleries.
• Chocolate Baby: Vaguely implied: Cup Cake (earth pony) gives birth to a unicorn and a pegasus. Her husband Carrot Cake (also earth pony) gives an explanation involving far-back genetics and a relative who isn't even related by blood. Once he finishes the explanation he gives the audience a nervous Aside Glance and says "That makes sense, right?".
• Chosen One: Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's very own student and Chosen One. As the bearer of the Element of Magic, she would be sent to Ponyville to unite five more Elements of Harmony (all of them mares her age) under her leadership, so that she could use her friends as test-cases for the inevitable moment she must lead all of Equestria as its new princess. It's later revealed in the Season 4 premiere that the Tree of Harmony, a mystical tree where the Elements of Harmony come from, foretold of a pony that bore a certain cutie mark that matches the six-pointed star shape of the Element of Magic, and it's implied but never stated that Celestia was searching for this pony to choose as her student.
• Circle of Friendship:
  • The Mane Six defeat Nightmare Moon in this exact way, though it takes the Elements of Harmony to create the "friendship beam". They do roughly the same thing to Discord at the end of Part 2 of "The Return of Harmony".
  • In the "Hearth's Warming Eve" episode, it's revealed that the founders of Equestria also used this, by accident, to destroy the Windigos, a group of spirits who feed off of The Power of Hate and were attempting to freeze the world. Instead of the rainbow from before, it forms a flaming heart that incinerates the Windigos. It would appear that weaponized friendship is the method of choice in Equestria for dealing with Eldritch Abominations.
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2", the Mane Six open the box produced by the Tree of Harmony, giving them Rainbow Power. Opening the box is done by standing in a circle around it and turning all six keys at once, giving it this effect. They then follow this up with a new Friendship-powered Wave-Motion Gun to defeat Tirek and seal him back in Tartarus. The ending implies their upgrade comes with the ability to do this at will.
• Circling Birdies: Whenever someone gets dizzy, be it from any kind of amusing blunt trauma or motion sickness, the character will have stars circling their heads for a short while.
  • Lampshaded in "Daring Don't"; when Rainbow runs into a tree where Fluttershy is helping some baby birds in their nest learning to fly, the chicks fly and circle around Rainbow's dazed head.
  • In "Feeling Pinkie Keen", Spike has Circling Stars when Twilight gets distracted by her spell and drops a rock on his head. Also happens to Twilight thrice: The first when she falls into a ditch, the second when an anvil falls on her head and the third when she crashes into the cliff after fleeing the hydra.
  • In the "Hearth's Warming Eve" episode, Rarity gets the stars variation during a Snowball Fight.
• City in a Bottle: Downplayed; "Village in a Bottle", actually. The opening of Season 5 ("The Cutie Map") features Starlight Glimmer and her isolated village where all of the residents have essentially been cut off from the outside world and only think about living with one another equally, where talents don't determine value or social standing. Starlight's defeat reforms the village and herself, but this doesn't stop her villainous past from being brought up ad nauseum.
• The City Narrows:
  • Trixie goes through an alleyway to find a shop that sells the Alicorn Amulet.
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 1", this is where Tirek begins stealing magic from unicorns.
• Civilized Animal: While previous pony cartoon series had been leaning towards Funny Animal from Tales onwards, Friendship is Magic fits this portrayal; the ponies can talk, live in houses, and in some cases have jobs, but are otherwise quite equine in behavior, eating hay, grass, and flowers and using their mouths (or occasionally magic or wings) to manipulate things.
• Clark Kenting: A.K. Yearling is Daring Do!
• Cliffhanger: At the end of the first half of every two-part episode. More specifically, the premiere episode of all three seasons, plus the second to last episode of Season 2. They also sometimes like to set up mini-cliffhangers going to commercial breaks.
  • For instance, this.
• Clothespin Nose Plug: ** Spike goes through a molting process in Moltdown which produces, among other things, a bad-smelling odor that attracts predators. Zecora uses two clothespins in order to not breathe in the stench.
  • When Twilight gets sprayed by a skunk, Spike washes her in tomato soup with a clothespin on his nose, along with a look of disgust.
  • In Hearts and Hooves Day, during the song "The Perfect Stallion," Scootaloo wears a clothespin on her nose while rejecting a dirty stallion with a garbage can cutie mark as "too smelly."
• Cloudcuckoolander: Pinkie Pie, in spades.
  Pinkie Pie: And then I said "Oatmeal, are you crazy?"
  • Subverted in "Family Appreciation Day". It turns out that Granny Smith actually isn't a senile old mare: the seemingly insane acts she performs, such as pep-talking glass jars or sweet-talking bees are actually required in order to make Zap Apple Jam.
  • Snails from "Boast Busters":
  "I like pudding..."
• The Coconut Effect: Being a setting populated by sentient equines, the show uses the old "two coconuts banging together" sound effect in interesting ways. For example things that would normally involve hand sound effects are replaced by the coconut sound effect to reflect the fact that the characters are hoofed creatures who are using their forelegs as a substitute for hands.
• Cold Opening: While all the episodes are almost exactly 22:00 each, the openings vary, with "The Crystal Empire, Part 1" being the shortest at 29 seconds and "Look Before You Sleep" being the longest at 2 minutes 51 seconds.
• Colon Cancer: The iOS game My Little Pony: Twilight Sparkle: Teacher for a Day.
• Color-Coded Wizardry: Though present since Season 1, the unicorns' magic has clear distinctions in their aura colors from "Lesson Zero" on, usually matching the color of the unicorn's eye color or cutie mark. For example, Twilight's is dark pink, Celestia's is bright yellow, and Luna's is clear blue.
  • Demonstrated in the episode "Sweet and Elite", when a unicorn with a pink magic aura picks up a bag and passes it to Rarity—the aura changes from pink to blue.
  • Also serves as a subtle hint in "A Canterlot Wedding", Cadance's magic is blue in Twilight's flashback, but green in the present day.
  • "The Crystal Empire, Part 1" introduces Black Magic that has a unique black-and-purple-and-green aura regardless of the user's own magic aura color.
  • In "Magic Duel", the Alicorn Amulet gives Trixie a red magic aura instead of her usual blue color.
  • In "Princess Twilight Sparkle" the invading Everfree forest changes Rarity's blue and Sweetie Belle's green magic auras to strange blue dots as it causes things go out of control.
  • When under the influence of the Inspiration Manifestation book in "Inspiration Manifestation" Rarity's blue magic aura becomes bright green.
• Comic-Book Adaptation:
  • Has its own page.
  • While not comic books of their own, at least eleven short comics have been printed in a German My Little Pony magazine published by Panini.
  • A licensed My Little Pony/Transformers: Prime Comic Creator Kit manufactured by Buzz Products and distributed by Singapore Airlines includes at least three short MLP comics.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • In the episode "Boast Busters", a unicorn named Trixie comes to town claiming to be incredibly powerful and capable of vanquishing the dreaded Ursa Major. Most of the ponies don't buy it, but two young colts fall for her story and proudly defend her. Spike tells them that unless they actually see her pulling off the feats she claims, they shouldn't believe her. They take this as a cue to find an Ursa Major and bring it to town so Trixie can defeat it in front of everypony. Bad idea.
  • In "The Show Stoppers", The Cutie Mark Crusaders enter the school talent show hoping to get their cutie marks, but each tackles something they're not suited for (and that another one of them is perfect for). They do actually win an award, but don't get their cutie marks. They realize they failed to get their marks because they neglected their true talents, but decide that their actual calling in life must be comedy, since they won Best Comedy Act.
  • Done once again by Scootaloo in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles":
    Scootaloo: Argh! These namby-pamby stories aren't getting us any closer to our cutie marks! They're all about 'finding out who you are' and boring stuff like that!
    • Let's just save time and say the CMC pretty much embody this trope every time they appear in the show, because instead of cultivating the talents they're actually good at, they spend all their time trying every random activity they can think of. Like Wile E. Coyote, they've gotten so obsessed with the short-term goal ("catch the roadrunner"/"get a cutie mark") that they've lost sight of why they wanted to accomplish the goal in the first place.
  • In "Party of One" Pinkie Pie throws a birthday party for her toothless pet alligator Gummy, and her friends have a delightful time, though she's a little overeager during the party. The next day, she invites them to an after-birthday-party party that afternoon. All five of her friends decline the invitation. The viewer is led to assume they turn her down because two parties in two days is too much partying, but they're actually planning a surprise party for her own birthday, which she forgot due to being wrapped up in her own plans for the second party. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash collaboratively lie, hilariously building the worst excuse of the bunch.
    Pinkie Pie: Something strange is definitely going on around here, Gummy. Sure Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had to house-sit for that vacationing bear, but what are the chances all my other friends would have plans this afternoon too? Rarity (the fashionista) has to wash her hair? Applejack (the farmer) has to pick apples? Twilight (the student) is behind on her studies, and has to hit the books? The more I think about it, the more those are starting to sound like… *gasps* excuses!
  • Even before that, in the second episode..
    Fluttershy: Why Rarity, it's so lovely!
    Rarity: I know! (Whips her restored tail) I'll never part with it again!
    Fluttershy: No, your necklace.
• Common Tongue: Seemingly every creature in Equestria and beyond speaks Ponish.
• Companion Cube:
  • "Over a Barrel": Applejack's apple tree Bloomberg gets this treatment. She buys it a private sleeping car in a train and reads it bedtime stories. Spike gets into the act when he bunks with Bloomberg to get away from the girls' night-time chatter, and apologizes in advance to the tree if he starts snoring. (This may be justified if he snores fire, however.)
  • "Party of One": Pinkie Pie has a nervous breakdown when she thinks her friends don't want to come to her parties anymore. She sets up a pile of rocks ("Rocky"), a sack of flour ("Madame Le Flour"), a bucket of turnips ("Mr. Turnip"), and a piece of lint ("Sir Lintsalot") as her new friends, and tries to throw a party with them. Pinkie Pie does their voices so well that she even gets Rainbow Dash to argue with the rocks. The most noticeable sign of Pinkie's deepening depression and insanity is that at first, she pretends that "Rocky", "Madame Le Flour" and the rest are talking to her by nudging them back and forth to create the illusion of movement. When they give her the Armor-Piercing Question, she loses any sanity she had left and her party guests seem to start moving on their own. And then the camera zooms out to reveal that the "party guests" are still inanimate, as always...
  • In "The Return of Harmony", Rarity is brainwashed by Discord into thinking a boulder is actually a giant diamond. She becomes increasingly obsessed with and protective of it, and starts calling it "Tom".
  • In "Lesson Zero", Twilight Sparkle introduces her cherished childhood toy "Smarty Pants": a raggedy old stuffed pony doll with a notebook and quill. Twilight casts an enchantment spell that makes everypony in town be attracted to the doll, leading to a large fight between all of them over it. After the spell is lifted, every pony loses interest and leaves the doll behind, except for Big Macintosh who is (for some unexplained reason) still attracted to it and ends up running away with it.
  • In "Pinkie Pride", Pinkie's rival Cheese Sandwich has a rubber chicken he calls "Boneless", which he talks to and carries with him on his travels around Equestria.
  • In "Maud Pie", the titular character has a small pet rock ironically named "Boulder". This is the third rock-based companion cube depicted in this series.
    • When we meet Maud's boyfriend Mudbriar in "The Maud Couple" it is revealed that he has a pet stick named "Twiggy" who is apparently friends with Boulder.
  • Downplayed Trope in "Inspiration Manifestation". Rarity considers the book to be an actual person, which Spike admits is pretty creepy. That said, she's never seen trying to interact with it, nor is she all that upset when the book is destroyed. (Though that's mostly because she didn't need the book by that point.)
  • In "A Horse Shoe-In", Starlight Glimmer keeps a potted plant on her desk that she named Phyllis and acts like it's sapient; talking to "her" and asking for advice. She also got very upset when Trixie threw the plant into a trash can.
• Composite Character: With the sole exception of Applejack, the six mane characters are a composite of a "G1" pony and a G3 pony. Rainbow Dash, for example, has the wings and personality of the pony Firefly, and the color scheme (more or less) of the G3 Rainbow Dash. Faust couldn't use the names of the original "G1" ponies, due to Hasbro having lost the trademarks to all of them but Applejack and Spike, so the use of more recent ponies for extra inspiration is her Writing Around Trademarks. Full explanation here.◊
  • Discord is a very literal example of this, being a mish-mash of just about every creature known to man.
• Compressed Adaptation:
  • The Novelizations in general, since many of them are either storybooks that come with toys or short stories published in different countries' magazines.
  • The Canadian live show. It managed to squeeze part of "The Ticket Master", part of "Applebuck Season", part of Part 2 of the pilot, part of "Winter Wrap-Up" and part of "The Best Night Ever" into a 30-minute play (which took place over an entire year).
• Compulsive Liar: Since Applejack represents the Element of Honesty, her exact opposite ends up being one of these as shown when Discord corrupts her into lying about everything and when Chrysalis makes a clone of her who lies.
• Cone of Shame:
  • In "A Bird in the Hoof", Celestia's pet bird Philomena gets one to stop her from plucking her feathers.
  • "Leap of Faith" shows the background pony Sea Swirl wearing a Cone of Shame. Makes one wonder why a pony has to wear one — a unicorn, no less, that could easily circumvent the cone with magic.
• Conflict Ball: Shows up in a few episodes. "Look Before You Sleep" particularly comes to mind.
  • Merriwether Williams's use of this trope seems to be the main criticism against her writing style.
• The Conscience:
  • Spike often attempts to provide common sense to Twilight Sparkle when she is more apt to ignore her own in favour of book smarts.
  • In "Inspiration Manifestation", Owlowiscious functions as this for Spike.
• Continuity Cameo: The villain of the Season 4 finale should be instantly recognizable to anypony familiar with the original series.
• Continuity Creep:
  • Season 3 experienced a higher level of continuity from previous seasons, due to several episodes acting as continuations of previous episodes. (e.g. "Magic Duel" from "Boast Busters", and "Keep Calm and Flutter On" from "The Return of Harmony").
  • Season 4 continues the trend with "Princess Twilight Sparkle", "Three's A Crowd", and "Twilight's Kingdom" building off "Keep Calm and Flutter On"; "Flight to the Finish", "Rainbow Falls", and "Equestria Games" building off "Games Ponies Play"; and the entire season's story arc from "Magical Mystery Cure".
  • Season 5 is just choc full of them: "Bloom and Gloom" completing the CMC/Luna trilogy, "Tanks for the Memories" picking up from "May the Best Pet Win!", "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" from "Griffon the Brush-off", "Amending Fences" from "Friendship is Magic"...
• Conversation Cut: Used several times throughout the show:
  • In "The Elements of Harmony", as Twilight Sparkle is reading the last known location of the Elements of Harmony, the scene dissolves from the library into the location as she (and the other ponies) say "...the Everfree Forest!" Pinkie Pie does another one at the end of the episode:
    Pinkie Pie: Hey, you know what this calls for? (transitions to Ponyville) A party!
  • Pinkie Pie pulls another one in "Applebuck Season" as the ponies try to figure out how to show their appreciation to Applejack for saving Ponyville from a stampede. This cut apparently lasts a week.
  • The cold open in "Green Isn't Your Color" is basically a series of these.
• Constructed World: Despite a few slip-ups of writing such as a few mentions of France, Equestria is part of a world that is very different from our own with its own features.
• Continuity Nod: Quite a few, which is unexpected for a show where the episodes are supposed to be watchable in any order.
  • In "Applebuck Season", Applejack explains to Twilight that her huge family was only in town for the Sun Festival (the pilot episode), which is why she's the only one left on her farm that's strong enough to harvest the orchard after Big Macintosh hurts his back.
  • During "Dragonshy", Rainbow Dash mentions the ferocious manticore that Fluttershy befriended during the pilot episode.
  • In "Griffon the Brush Off", Rainbow Dash says in a playful and friendly tone, "Pinkie Pie, you are so random!". A few episodes later, in "Swarm of the Century", Rainbow Dash says the same thing in an irritated voice.
  • In "Suited For Success", Rarity is creating the dresses that she and her friends will wear for the Grand Galloping Gala announced in Episode 3. Some of these dresses can be seen in later episodes (Rarity wears hers at the beginning of "A Bird In The Hoof"). The Gala itself is the season finale.
  • In "Feeling Pinkie Keen", Fluttershy remembers the jumping advice that Pinkie Pie gave to her during "Dragonshy" and, thanks to it, manages to escape from the Hydra chasing her. In the same episode, Twilight Sparkle uses the same approach that Rainbow Dash used when facing the dragon in "Dragonshy" on said Hydra.
  • In "A Dog and Pony Show", Applejack mentions that Rarity won't even touch mud unless it's imported, a nod to the mud masks in "Look Before You Sleep".
  • In "Green Isn't Your Color", Rarity states that she "vants to be alone" when she is upset over Fluttershy's popularity. She said the same thing in "Suited For Success", after a failed fashion show made her a laughingstock in Ponyville. While sorting through dresses for Fluttershy to try on, she tosses aside several outfits which appeared in prior episodes.
  • In "Call of the Cutie", Rainbow Dash gives Apple Bloom a little bit of Karate training. In "The Show Stoppers", Apple Bloom incorporates Karate into her "dance".
  • At the beginning of "A Bird in the Hoof", the dresses from "Suited For Success" can be seen hanging in Fluttershy's closet. In a later scene, Rarity is wearing hers.
  • In the first episode, one of the dresses Rarity has Twilight try is a Statue of Liberty outfit. In "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", we learn that a pony version of the Statue of Liberty actually exists in their world.
  • The straight-haired version of Pinkie Pie seen in "Cutie Mark Chronicles" reappears in "Party of One" when Pinkie Pie convinces herself everypony is avoiding her because they no longer like her parties.
    • Also briefly in "The Best Night Ever" as she tries to straighten it for the Gala. But because she's happy, it goes poofy again immediately.
    • And once again in "Magical Mystery Cure", where she is miserable due to being stuck with Applejack's destiny.
  • In "Sonic Rainboom", Rainbow Dash mentions that she's broken the rainbow barrier once before, "a long time ago". In "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", we get to see how it happened.
  • In "The Best Night Ever", the Wonderbolts recognize Rainbow Dash from the events of "Sonic Rainboom". The entire episode also serves as one giant nod to everypony's Imagine Spots about the Gala way back in "The Ticket Master". During her attempts to befriend the animals at the garden, Fluttershy remembers the advice Twilight gave her in "A Bird In The Hoof". Additionally, this episode features the dresses created in "Suited For Success" and has a brief appearance of Pinkie Pie's straight hair from "Party of One".
  • And Zecora, debuting in "Bridle Gossip", establishing the context for her cameo one episode later in "Swarm of the Century". She's also mentioned (but not seen) in "Stare Master"; visiting her for tea is Twilight's reason for going into the Everfree Forest that night.
  • In "Boast Busters", Snips and Snails are shown to be awe-struck by Trixie's magic skills. In "The Show Stoppers", they attempt to stage a magic show of their own.
  • "The Return Of Harmony, Part 2" features two short segments with several clips taken from previous episodes, when Twilight and Applejack's memories are being restored.
  • In "Lesson Zero", Twilight's messed-up bird nest from "Winter Wrap Up" can be seen.
  • Another nod to "Bridle Gossip" was made in the Season 2 episode "The Cutie Pox". Seems Zecora hasn't forgotten her initial treatment by Ponyville's inhabitants.
  • In "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" Pinkie Pie says she used her Pinkie Sense (from "Feeling Pinkie Keen") to save the construction workers. She then immediately gets a twitch and pushes Rainbow Dash out of the way of a falling flower-pot. Pinkie Sense then gets brought up again during "It's About Time", where Pinkie is doing a fortune telling routine. Twilight asks Pinkie to use her Pinkie sense to predict the coming disaster, but Pinkie says she doesn't use her Pinkie sense for that. Pinkie then immediately gets a twitch and a flower-pot falls on Twilight.
  • During the musical number in "Sweet and Elite", Rarity attends an opera in the same dress she wore at the Grand Galloping Gala.
  • In "A Friend In Deed", Rainbow Dash is shown in Twilight's library reading a Daring Do novel, a hobby that she picked up in "Read It And Weep". We see her with a Daring Do novel again while hanging out next to the pool in "Too Many Pinkie Pies".
  • All of them are listed on the recap page for every episode.
  • In "The Return of Harmony, Part 1", Sweetie Belle corrects Apple Bloom by telling her "victoryful" isn't a word. Scootaloo asks "What are you, a dictionary?". In "Family Appreciation Day", Apple Bloom rapidly lists synonyms for "embarrassed", prompting Scootaloo to ask her the same question (even the same recording was used).
  • Possibly the most subtle one is from the Season 3 finale, "Magical Mystery Cure". Check how long it takes for Rainbow Dash to clear the skies after Rarity has been screwing up Rainbow Dash's job.
  • One worth mentioning is the insane pony that barks like a dog in "It's About Time". Fast-forward to "Just For Sidekicks" in Season 3, and we catch a glimpse of the same pony who has since recovered a great deal and is on her way to being fully sane.
  • "Inspiration Manifestation": Spike mentions Owlowiscious' bow tie that Rarity made for him in "Owl's Well That Ends Well".
    • During the prologue, various pony families are seen together setting up the fair, including Thunderlane and Rumble, Diamond Tiara and Filthy Rich, Sweetie and her (and Rarity's) parents (without their vacation clothes), and Dinky and Amethyst Star.
  • "Equestria Games": In the episode, Shining Armor is wearing his captain's armor for the first time since "A Canterlot Wedding".
    • Derpy, despite not competing herself, is still part of Ponyville's delegation, as shown in "Rainbow Falls", probably as an emergency replacement in case it's necessary.
    • Pinkie Pie is the only person in the audience who enjoys Spike's rendition of the Cloudsdale anthem. She even shouts "Nailed it!" at the end. This is an inverse of the scene from "Over a Barrel", where Spike was the only person in the audience to enjoy Pinkie's "You Gotta Care, You Gotta Share" song.
    • Spike wishes that Twilight had some way to turn back time. Twilight does, in fact, know a spell that does something quite similar, and she looks like she's seriously considering using it.
    • Twilight being brutally honest with Spike regarding the torch-lighting ceremony could be considered a nod to the previous episode's Aesop.
    • Spike's in-universe Memetic Mutation of the "easy peasy" couplet.
    Spike: Easy peasy Cider Squeezy!
  • "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 1": Spike once more reminds us he's the hero of the Crystal Empire—twice.
    • Twilight is freaking out again, this time over her role as a princess. Cue another freak-out aria about freaking out.
    • Tirek's brother Scorpan is shown in the story flashback to go off with a unicorn wizard; though the name is not said, this is clearly meant to be Starswirl the Bearded, based on similar imagery from "Three's A Crowd".
    • Once more, Fluttershy is the only one of the Mane Six to find Discord's antics rather amusing.
    • After Rainbow Dash says, "In your dreams!" Discord replies with, "Oh, I never dream of such things. Ask Princess Luna." This is a reference to Luna's ability to walk into other ponies' dreams as seen in "Sleepless in Ponyville" and "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils".
    • When Celestia explains where Tirek came from, it's found in the same book from the first episode and told in the same style, right down to the first shot of the original episode.
  • "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2": All the ponies who gave the keys to the Mane 6 over the season are shown as the rainbow flies through Equestria.
    • This is the second time this season we've seen Shining Armor in uniform, and the first time since "A Canterlot Wedding" that he's been shown performing his duties as Captain of the Royal Guard.
    • Cerberus' escape from Tararus in "It's About Time" is directly mentioned, and cited as the most likely reason Tirek was able to escape.
• Converging-Stream Weapon:
  • Princess Celestia using the elements of Harmony on her own to banish Nightmare Moon in "Princess Twilight Sparkle" is presented this way, with the other five Elements channeling their power into the Element of Magic for a massive beam.
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2", the Mane Six's new friendship-powered Wave-Motion Gun manifests this way, blasting Tirek with six individual beams of light before they combine into one powerful blow that defeats him, takes back the stolen magic, locks him back in Tartarus, and releases Celestia, Luna, and Cadance from Tartarus when their own magic is restored.
• Cool Airship: Airships are often seen in the possession of the very wealthy. One episode showed an airship used for a luxury cruise that operated very much the same way as modern luxury cruise ships of today.
• Cool Chair:
  • Discord fashions himself quite an evil-looking throne — a dark gray and deep red color scheme, a stylized skull shape with pointed teeth at the top, and a huge pair of antlers sprouting from the skull for added demonic imagery — and plops it right in the middle of Ponyville so that he can observe the chaos he's wrought firsthand.
  • In "Equestria Games", the four princesses each have their own elaborate thrones at the Games, emblazoned with stylized renditions of their cutie marks. This is similar to the VIP seating for the heads-of-state at the Olympic Games, including the leader of the host nation.
  • At the end of "Twilight's Kingdom", Twilight gains a castle in Ponyville after the library is destroyed. It contains seven thrones arranged in a circle — a full-sized one for each of the Mane Six, set with their cutie marks, and a smaller seventh one for Spike next to Twilight's.
• Cool Horse: All of the ponies could count.
• Cool House: All six ponies live in some sort of Cool House (not surprising given that one of the show's jobs is to sell the playsets those houses are based on).
  • Twilight lives in a library built into a giant hollow tree, with an observatory on top, a balcony a little farther down, and a bizarre laboratory in the basement.
    • The library is destroyed during "Twilight's Kingdom", but she eventually gets an even cooler house to replace it: a castle built of crystal and styled to resemble the old tree.
  • Rarity lives at her business, the Carousel Boutique, which is styled to resemble an ornate antique merry-go-round, complete with horses.
  • Pinkie Pie lives at Sugarcube Corner, a bakery whose roof resembles a heavily decorated gingerbread house with two cupcakes stacked on top.
    • Oddly, the apartment itself is kind of bare, for reasons speculated upon in this wiki's Wild Mass Guessing page (Pinkie has one all to herself).
  • Fluttershy lives in a large sod-roof cottage near the Everfree Forest. The entire property, inside and out, is filled with houses and shelters for an assortment of small animals, plus the house itself is covered with beautiful plants. It's reminiscent of a Hobbit hole.
  • Rainbow Dash lives in a floating house made of clouds... that looks like a small Greek palace, with rainbow waterfalls on either side.
  • Applejack and her family live in a house/barn on the edge of their sprawling apple orchard.
  • Applejack's old clubhouse becomes one after Apple Bloom fixes it up for the Cutie Mark Crusaders' use in record time. It has a drawbridge-style ramp that can be pulled up and even sprouts an observatory in later appearances.
• Cool Train: The Friendship Express Train.
  • The Crystal Empire's royal train takes this to new levels, apparently being made of crystal.
• Costume Porn: Almost anything Rarity designs (with some glaring yet justified exceptions), particularly the dresses she and her friends wear to the Grand Galloping Gala.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot:
  • In "The Ticket Master", after Twilight receives two tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala, all of her friends (and eventually everyone else in Ponyville) attempt to "convince" her to give them the extra ticket. Twilight eventually sends both tickets back to Princess Celestia, saying that if she can't bring all of her friends, then she doesn't want to go either. Celestia's reply is "Why didn't you just say so in the first place?", after which she sends extra tickets for all of the Mane Cast (and Spike).
  • In "Swarm of the Century", after spotting the parasprites for the first time, Pinkie Pie starts scrambling around town for random musical instruments, without telling anyone else why. The rest of the town has been preoccupied with preparing for Celestia's visit, so they chalk it up to Pinkie being Pinkie. Once Pinkie's led the parasprites out of town, Twilight acknowledges that if she or one of the others had stopped Pinkie to ask her about the instruments, they could've avoided the town getting overrun by the parasprites.
  • In "A Bird in the Hoof", Fluttershy, being a Friend to All Living Things decides (without asking permission) to look after Princess Celestia's "sick" bird. Fluttershy struggles to nurse the bird back to health, but apparently "fails" as the bird seemingly turns to ashes. It then turns out that the bird is actually a phoenix, afterwhich Fluttershy learns that if she had just asked Celestia first, she would have known ahead of time.
  • "Lesson Zero" has Twilight's friends realized that if they had taken Twilight's worries seriously from the start (even if they did think she was blowing things out of proportion) they could've acted to help Twilight and avoid the hilarity that ensued at the episode's end.
  • A Canterlot Wedding, Part 2" has the villain point out their Near-Villain Victory was possible because Twilight's friends dismissed her warnings as jealously to Twilight's ashamed friends.
    Queen Chrysalis: It's funny, really. Twilight here was suspicious of my behavior all along. Too bad the rest of you were too caught up in your wedding planning to realize the suspicions were correct!
    Applejack: Sorry, Twi. We should have listened to you...
    Twilight Sparkle: It's not your fault - she fooled everypony.
  • At the end of "One Bad Apple", Applejack tells Apple Bloom and Scootaloo that the whole situation regarding Babs Seed could've been resolved if they had just listened to Sweetie Belle and told Applejack about it.
    Applejack: You know, this all could have been avoided if you all just came to me in the very beginning.
    Sweetie Bell: That's what I kept on saying!
  • The fifth Season episode "Brotherhooves Social" has Apple Bloom devastated over not being able to participate with Applejack in the Sisterhooves Social. Big Macintosh overhears Granny Smith telling her that that it shouldn't matter who her partner is as long as they both represent the spirit of the social. He dresses in drag and a wig and pretends to be Apple Bloom's cousin "Orchard Blossom" so he can participate with her. After Big Mac is disqualified for unsportsmanlike conduct, the judges point out that his "Orchard Blossom" getup was pointless because there never was a rule barring stallions from the social.
• Countrystan: The yaks live in a place called Yak Yakistan. It is a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Central Asia with some European elements like a festival called Yickslurbertfest.
• Cowardly Lion: Obviously, this trope applies to Fluttershy. Perhaps not so obviously is how it pertains to Rarity. Rarity is often depicted as selfish, egotistical and more then a little bit snobbish. But she is the Element of Generosity. She wants everything, but she chooses to give it instead, because she knows that is the right thing to do. In fact, Rarity is the pony who most often has to really try to do the right thing, instead of it being just natural for her.
• Crapsack World: Equestria temporarily became this during "Return of Harmony, Part 2".
• Crazy Cat Lady: Pinkie Pie is worried that Rarity might become one in "Suited for Success".
  Applejack: Well, we can't just leave Rarity like this.
  Pinkie Pie: She'll become a crazy cat lady!
  Twilight: She only has one cat.
  Pinkie Pie: Give her time...
  • Goldie Delicious is one in "Pinkie Apple Pie".
• Crazy-Prepared: Pinkie Pie never travels anywhere without her Party Cannon, and has balls and eye patches stashed all over Ponyville in case of "ball emergencies" or "eye patch emergencies".
• Crazy Workplace: The weather factory. The ponies there have the fantastical jobs of making snowflakes by hoof and producing clouds and rainbows. Justified because ponies are responsible for the weather in their world, so they must do this as the weather doesn't handle itself.
• Creator Cameo:
  • Director Jayson Thiessen is the voice of the Canterlot Royal Guard soldiers in "A Bird in the Hoof" & "It's About Time", of the Ponyville Hospital security guard) from "Read It and Weep", of the big muscle pegasus (Bulk Biceps) in "Hurricane Fluttershy", and of the teacher from "The Crystal Empire, Part 1".
  • King Sombra of "The Crystal Empire, Part 1" and "The Crystal Empire, Part 2" is voiced by storyboard supervisor "Big" Jim Miller.
  • The mule in "Applebuck Season" and "Hurricane Fluttershy" is voiced by co-director James "Wootie" Wooton.
  • One of the animators Holly Giesbrecht slipped in her OC pony Holly Dash into the background for a brief moment in "Swarm of the Century".
  • In "A Canterlot Wedding" Sibsy's ponitar makes an appearance as a wife arguing with her husband about a hooficure... until Princess Cadance uses her magic to alter the situation for the better. Sibsy, a.k.a. Sabrina Alberghetti, is a storyboard artist for the show.
  • Series composer Daniel Ingram voices the stallion getting a scarf in "Rarity Takes Manehattan".
• Credits Gag: In "Keep Calm And Flutter On", the credits list Tabitha St. Germain as the one who provided the voice to the gravy boat. It should be pointed out that the gravy boat was mute, except for panting like a dog.
• Cringe Comedy: The show occasionally delves into this.
  • The most clear-cut example is probably the episode "Maud Pie", where Pinkie's sister visits town and the cast has a horrendously difficult time attempting to get to know her better due to her extreme stoicism.
  • "Equestria Games" has the scene where Spike interrupts a medal ceremony to insist on singing the gold medal-winner's anthem. Only after Shining Armor announces this to the crowd does Spike realize that Cloudsdale (not Ponyville) won the gold for that particular event. Spike doesn't know any of the words to Cloudsdale's anthem. As he ad-libs, the camera cuts multiple times to the audience, who are just as embarrassed as Spike is. One unicorn even yanks his top hat down to cover his entire head.
• Crossover:
  • The Mane Six and Spike appear as guests in the iOS game Monopoly Hotels, which also has Dummied Out unfinished coding for an appearance of the same kind by Princess Celestia.
  • Some of The Hub's promotional materials feature characters from this show and other Hub shows (often reaching Massive Multiplayer Crossover levels), including The Adventures of Chuck & Friends, Batman (1966) Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Dan Vs., Fraggle Rock, G.I. Joe: Renegades, Littlest Pet Shop, Pound Puppies, Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures, The Super Hero Squad Show, Transformers: Prime, The Twisted Whiskers Show, Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?, and The WotWots.
    • A whole lot of their commercials, which mostly consist of Stock Footage from the shows blended together with new audio.
    • Club Hub lets you bring this trope to your room by mixing and matching characters from various shows that air on the channel.
    • From the Web Games The Fabulous PonyMaker and/or Rarity's Bridal Boutique, one of the available cutie marks is The Aquabats!' mascot, and some of the available parts look Transformers-y (the former game even has said parts together as one of its costume Easter Eggs, complete with sound effect).
  • The officially licensed merchandise has included a couple of crossovers you'd never expect to see on My Little Pony Frienship Is Magic merchandise.
    • The shirt and hoodie Pinkie Peek A Boo and the art print Everypony respectively show Pinkie Pie and Doctor Hooves using portals from Portal.
    • The shirt Derpy 209 shows Derpy Hooves with the ED-209 from RoboCop.
    • "Tricks are what a foal does for money."
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
  • Pinkie Pie is a Cloud Cuckoo Lander and loveable marefoal whose special talent is throwing parties. Normally her use of Cartoon Physics is limited to visual gags in the show, but when she starts using it to save ponies' lives from a crumbling construction site, relentlessly pursue a pony who can fly, and to pull a cannon out of nowhere during a fight, she becomes an unstoppable borderline Reality Warper.
  • In "Equestria Games", Spike shows himself to be inept at his assigned tasks in the Games, for varied reasons, but when his abilities are really called for, he steps up and delivers without batting an eye.
• Crowd Song: "Winter Wrap Up" from the episode of the same name, "At the Gala" from "The Best Night Ever", "The Heart Carol" from "Hearths Warming Eve" and "The Flim Flam Brothers" Villain Song from "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000". There's also "Smile" from "A Friend In Deed", and from "Magical Mystery Cure", "A True True Friend" becomes one at the end, as well as the "Behold, Princess Twilight Sparkle" song.
• Crown of Power: Magic, one of the Elements of Harmony, is adorned on a crown while the other Elements take on the form of pendants.
• Crush Blush: Spike blushes after receiving a kiss from his crush Rarity.
• Crystal Landscape: Season 2 introduces the Crystal Empire, an entire city of crystal architecture. In the Season 4 finale, Princess Twilight Sparkle receives her own crystal palace.
• Crying Critters: The Earth Ponies cry just as much as the pegasi, unicorns, and alicorns.
• Crystal Spires and Togas: The Crystal Empire has the look down, but whether they are that magically advanced remains to be seen.
• Cucumber Facial: First appears as part of the sleepover in "Look Before You Sleep", in which Rarity accurately explains its purpose; Applejack eats hers, of course. Later, Rarity has them in the spa scene of "Green Isn't Your Color", and when sleeping on the train in "Over a Barrel".
• Cue O'Clock: In "Baby Cakes", Pinkie Pie glances at a wristwatch with a picture of her face at the top while waiting for her chance to play with the Cakes' newborn twins some more.
• Cultural Translation: The Japanese dub inserts a few references to Japanese culture. For example, in "Applebuck Season", Applejack mishears "tasuke (help)" as "shiitake", a kind of Asian mushroom. In "Feeling Pinkie Keen", when Spike backs out of Twilight's house with the sound of a truck backing up, the Japanese dub adds him saying "Bakkushimasu, gochuui kudasai (Backing up, please be careful)", a sound clip that accompanies large vehicles backing up in Japan. In "The Cutie Pox", instead of speaking French, Apple Bloom talks in formal Japanese. In "Putting Your Hoof Down", the old pony who cuts in front of Fluttershy mishears Fluttershy's "warakomi" (cutting) as "waraboshi" (wooden chopsticks).
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In "Sleepless In Ponyville" the "fight" between the Headless Horse and Princess Luna is very one-sided.
  • And of course, there's the disappointing showdown between Princess Celestia and Queen Chrysalis in "A Canterlot Wedding".
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2", Twilight and Tirek's first fight is evenly matched, but once the Mane Six get their hooves on the Rainbow Power, a few beams of magic is all it takes to shrivel and seal up Tirek once and for all and get Celestia, Luna, and Cadance back from Tartarus.
• Curtains Match the Window: A few ponies, such as Derpy or Scootaloo, have the standard version of this. It also turns up in a different form starting in Season 2, with several unicorns often having the auras seen when using their magic match their eye color. Examples include Rarity, Sweetie Belle, and Trixie when affected by the alicorn amulet (but not without it, when her magic is a brighter shade than her eyes)
• Cute and Psycho: Fluttershy once provided the page quote. Pinkie Pie, Princess Luna and Twilight Sparkle would all probably benefit from a trip to the therapist's couch as well.
• Cuteness Overload: The Brony Community constantly joke that they die from Fluttershy's cuteness.
  • Similar reactions occur with Sweetie Belle and Baby Applejack.

D

• Dance Party Ending: These are inevitable when Pinkie Pie is on your team.
  • The ending to Season 2 was this. At the reception of the wedding, Twilight Sparkle nods to Pinkie Pie, who, with a sound like a squealing teddy bear, dashes behind a DJ station and proceeds to pull up Vinyl Scratch/DJ Pon-3, who then starts the music, and with it, the party.
• Dangerous Interrogative: Celestia, of all ponies, gives a very menacing "What?" in "A Royal Problem" when Starlight switches Cutie marks (and thus powers) between Celestia and Luna to stop the sisters from fighting, then says she can't reverse the spell for 24 hours...even if she wanted to.
• Darkest Hour: While the villains of the show often pose a threat, sometimes the cast comes so close to the brink of defeat that it seems nothing can save them.
  • "The Return of Harmony", the Season 2 premiere. Discord has Mind Raped the Mane Six to break their friendship so they can't use the elements, Twilight has passed the Despair Event Horizon and is leaving Ponyville, and Discord is running unchecked around Ponyville. It takes Celestia's intervention to restore Twilight's hope and encourage her to restore the others.
  • "A Canterlot Wedding", the Season 2 finale. Chrysalis has occupied Canterlot Castle, Celestia is defeated and imprisoned, the Mane Six and Cadance are captured, Shining Armor is still Brainwashed and Crazy, and the Changelings are rampaging through Canterlot. Fortunately Chrysalis gets tossed an Villain Ball when she takes her attention off the heroes, allowing Twilight to free Cadance, then her to free Shining Armor and unite their powers to banish the Changelings from Canterlot.
  • The Season 4 finale "Twilight's Kingdom". Tirek has banished the magic-less Celestia, Luna, and Cadance to Tartarus, the Mane Six, Spike, and Discord, have been drained of their magic, along with hundreds of other ponies across Equestria, Golden Oaks Library has been blown up, and Tirek has the power of four alicorn princesses and has grown to monstrous sizes. It took a Deus ex Machina to save the day this time, as otherwise the show was pretty much over by this point.
  • The Season 6 finale "To Where And Back Again". The Mane Six and Spike, Celestia and Luna, Cadance, Shining Armor, and Flurry Heart, were imprisoned and replaced by the changelings and no one knew but Starlight, Thorax, Trixie, and Discord, and in the process of infiltrating the hive the last two got captured, and then Starlight and Thorax were cornered in Chrysalis' throne room and at her mercy. The only reason the heroines got out of it was because Starlight was able to convince the changelings to do a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Then of course there was the series finale "The Ending of the End." Celestia, Luna, Discord, had been drained of their magic, Starlight and the Pillars of Equestria had been defeated, Canterlot Castle is in ruins, and Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy are so jumped up on the magic of Grogar's bell that seemingly nothing can stop them. And to top it all off, they've spread so much distrust and division between ponies that the windigos have returned, bringing with them a massive winter storm that could plunge Equestria into an ice age. The calvary this time came in the form of every other creature in Equestria arriving to help the Mane Six defeat the Mean Three, and a combined rainbow blast from the Mane Six, the Student Six, and the Pillars, to depower them and destroy Grogar's bell.
• Dark Is Not Evil: A recurring theme, lampshaded in "Bridle Gossip" and "Luna Eclipsed".
  • Averted in the stories involving Queen Chrysalis and King Sombra.
• A Day in the Limelight: Every member of the primary cast get their fair share of star time throughout the series run. But more often than not, one or more members of said cast get featured more prominently than others. For those keeping tab:
  • Mane 6 collectively: "Bridle Gossip" (Shared w/ Apple Bloom), "Swarm of the Century", "Over A Barrel", "The Best Night Ever", "Hearth's Warming Eve", "Castle Mane-ia", "Trade Ya", "Castle Sweet Castle", "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" (Shared w/ Princess Luna)
    • Twilight Sparkle: "Friendship is Magic (Parts 1 & 2"), "The Ticket Master", "Boast Busters", "Winter Wrap Up", "Feeling Pinkie Keen" (Shared w/ Pinkie Pie), "The Return of Harmony (Parts 1 & 2)", "Lesson Zero", "Luna Eclipsed" (Shared w/ Princess Luna), "It's About Time", "A Canterlot Wedding (Parts 1 & 2"), "The Crystal Empire ("Parts 1 & 2") (Shared w/ Spike), "Magic Duel", "Games Ponies Play" (Shared w/ Rainbow Dash), "Magical Mystery "Cure", Princess Twilight Sparkle ("Parts 1 "& 2"), "Three's A Crowd", "Twilight Time" (shared w/ the Cutie Mark Crusaders), "Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3" (Shared w/ Rainbow Dash), "Twilight's Kingdom (Parts 1 & 2"), "The Cutie Map ("Parts 1 & 2"), "Amending Fences"
    • Applejack: "Applebuck Season", "Look Before You Sleep" (Shared w/ Rarity), "Fall Weather Friends" (Shared w/ Rainbow Dash), "The Last Roundup", "Apple Family Reunion", "Spike At Your Service" (Shared w/ Spike), "Bats!" (Shared w/ Fluttershy), "Simple Ways" (Shared w/ Rarity), "Leap of Faith"
    • Rainbow Dash: "Griffon the Brush Off" (Shared w/ Pinkie Pie), "Fall Weather Friends" (Shared w/ Applejack), "Sonic Rainboom", "May The Best Pet Win!", "The Mysterious Mare Do Well", "Read It And Weep", "Wonderbolts Academy", "Games Ponies Play" (Shared w/ Twilight Sparkle), "Daring Don't", "Rainbow Falls", "Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3" (Shared w/ Twilight Sparkle), "Tanks for the Memories", "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" (Shared w/ Pinkie Pie)
    • Pinkie Pie: "Griffon the Brush Off" (Shared w/ Rainbow Dash), "Feeling Pinkie Keen" (Shared w/ Twilight Sparkle), "Party of One", "Baby Cakes", "A Friend in Deed", "MMMystery on the Friendship Express", "Too Many Pinkie Pies", "Pinkie Apple Pie" (Shared w/ the Apple Family), "Pinkie Pride", "Maud Pie", "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" (Shared w/ Rainbow Dash), "Party Pooped"
    • Fluttershy: "Dragonshy", "Stare Master" (Shared w/ the Cutie Mark Crusaders), "Green Isn't Your Color" (Shared w/ Rarity), "A Bird in the Hoof", "Putting Your Hoof Down", "Hurricane Fluttershy", "Keep Calm And Flutter On", "Bats! (Shared w/ Applejack)", "Filli Vanilli", "It Aint Easy Being Breezies", "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", "Discordant Harmony"
    • Rarity: "Look Before You Sleep" (Shared w/ Applejack), "Suited for Success", "A Dog and Pony Show", "Green Isn't Your Color" (Shared w/ Fluttershy), "Sisterhooves Social" (Shared w/ Sweetie Belle), "Sweet and Elite", "Rarity Takes Manehattan", "Simple Ways" (Shared w/ Applejack), "Inspiration Manifestation" (Shared w/ Spike)
  • Spike: "Owl's Well That Ends Well", "Secret of My Excess", "Dragon Quest", "The Crystal Empire (Parts 1 & 2") (Shared w/ Twilight Sparkle), "Spike At Your Service" (Shared w/ Applejack), "Just For Sidekicks", "Power Ponies", "Inspiration Manifestation" (Shared w/ Rarity), "Equestria Games", "Princess Spike"
  • Cutie Mark Crusaders collectively: "Stare Master" (Shared w/ Fluttershy), "The Show Stoppers", "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", "Ponyville Confidential", "One Bad Apple", "Twilight Time" (shared w/ Twilight Sparkle), "Appleoosa's Most Wanted"
    • Apple Bloom: "Bridle Gossip (Shared w/ the Mane 6), "Call of the Cutie", "The Cutie Pox", "Family Appreciation Day" (Shared w/ Granny Smith), "Somepony To Watch Over Me", "Bloom and Gloom"
    • Sweetie Belle: "Sisterhooves Social" (Shared w/ Rarity), "For Whom The Sweetie Belle Toils"
    • Scootaloo: "Sleepless in Ponyville", "Flight to the Finish"
  • Apple Family collectively: "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000", "Pinkie Apple Pie" (Shared w/ Pinkie Pie)
    • Granny Smith: "Family Appreciation Day" (Shared w/ Apple Bloom)
    • Big Macintosh: "Hearts And Hooves Day" (Shared w/ Cheerilee)
  • Others:
    • Princess Luna: "Luna Eclipsed" (Shared w/ Twilight Sparkle), "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" (Shared w/ the Mane 6)
    • Cheerilee: "Hearts And Hooves Day" (Shared w/ Big Macintosh)
  • On a different note, the background ponies are generally silent with occasional brief lines, but once in a great while they'll get a bit of extended dialogue, usually (but not always) all in one scene. Specific examples include:
    • "Friendship is Magic, Part 1" for Twinkleshine.
    • "Applebuck Season" for the flower trio Daisy/Flower Wishes, Rose/Roseluck and Lily Valley.
    • "Bridle Gossip" for the flower trio Daisy/Flower Wishes, Rose/Roseluck and Lily Valley.
    • "Call of the Cutie" for Time Turner/Dr. Hooves.
    • "Green Isn't Your Color" for Lyra as well as for Bon Bon.
    • "The Cutie Pox for the flower trio Daisy/Flower Wishes, Rose/Roseluck and Lily Valley.
    • "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" for Amethyst Star.
    • "The Last Roundup" for Derpy Hooves.
    • "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" for Caramel/Chance-A-Lot.
    • "Putting Your Hoof Down" for "Boxxy Brown" as well as for Cherry Berry.
    • "A Canterlot Wedding" for Twinkleshine, Minuette, and Lyra Heartstrings.
    • "Rainbow Falls" for "Dizzy Twister" and Crescent Moon.
    • "For Whom The Sweetie Belle Toils" for Lemon Hearts and Noteworthy.
• Deadpan Snarker: Twilight Sparkle, of course, making various sarcastic remarks and frequently having the snarker's facial expression.
  • Spike, Discord, and Rainbow Dash apply as well, but to a lesser extent than Twilight.
  • Rarity's been getting in her share of snark too.
• Death Glare: Of all ponies, Fluttershy has one. She's used it to stare down a dragon, a cockatrice, and a few chickens.
  • This helps explain part of her shyness — she can't really control it and doesn't want to be overbearing. As Discord, who usually is immune, can tell you.
  • Pinkie Pie in "Party of One". She spends a big part of the episode with a Death Glare on, especially when she confronts Applejack at her farm, or by the end of the episode before the surprise party.
  • It turns out that it becomes Fluttershy's default expression whenever she has to deal with her shiftless, lazy brother, Zephyr Breeze, combined with an acidic tone of voice that one wouldn't usually associate with Fluttershy.
• Death World: Equestria is this to the breezies, when even falling accorns are a serious enviromental hazard.
• Decapitation Strike: Non-lethal example: In the two-parter "To Where And Back Again", the Changelings launch a coordinated strike and capture pretty much every powerful pony in Equestria within a week, allowing them to use their shapeshifting powers to take their place.
• Declaration of Personal Independence: In "Somepony to Watch Over Me", when Applejack suddenly develops an overwhelming case of Big Sister Instinct, her little sister Apple Bloom rebels against it. She tries to deliver a cart of apple pies, to prove that she's capable of taking care of herself. But the delivery route winds up being more dangerous than Apple Bloom thought, and Applejack has to rescue her from a hungry chimera. At the end the two sisters come to a compromise: AB realizes she isn't quite as independent as she thought, and AJ admits that trying to coddle her sister was doing more harm than good.
• Decomposite Character: G3 Rainbow Dash was split between the Friendship is Magic version of Rainbow Dash (who has her name and look) and Rarity (who has her fashion-conscious personality and accent (albeit a "transatlantic" accent instead of a wholly British Accent).
• Deconstruction: This show does this a lot.
  • "Lesson Zero" deconstructs Twilight Sparkle's OCD problems.
  • "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" deconstructs Rainbow Dash's arrogance and pridefulness.
  • "Hurricane Fluttershy" deconstructs Fluttershy's issues with her shyness. Also, "Putting Your Hoof Down" deconstructs her role of an Extreme Doormat.
  • "One Bad Apple" deconstructs the issues of bullying.
• Defanged Horrors: Episodes that are meant to be scary usually go for this.
  • Special mention has to go for the episode "Bats!", in which Fluttershy becomes a batpony referred to in the episode as "Flutterbat". While she herself actually gains fangs in this example, the episode makes it clear that she is no threat to other ponies, as (due to being magically crossed with a "Vampire Fruit Bat") she only eats fruit.
• Defeat Equals Friendship: Averted surprisingly often. While Princess Luna (AKA Nightmare Moon) was redeemed at the end of her story arc, it's really rare for show antagonists to befriend the Mane Six in the end. In the show's official companion guide Jim Miller & Meghan McCarthy discuss this, noting that, while they want to teach kids that some bad people will be your friends if shown kindness, others will still be jerks no matter how kind you are to them. Even so, a few of them do become friends in later seasons, through other means.
  • Gilda is the second villain after Nightmare Moon, and is not redeemed at the end of her episode. However, she does come around several seasons later, when Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash travel to her homeland to help the other Griffons.
  • The Flim-Flam Brothers were run out of town at the end of one episode, came back later with another scam, and were run out of town again, not having learned their lesson that time either.
  • Queen Chrysalis and the other Changelings were forcibly ejected from Canterlot by Shining Armour and Princess Cadance's magic.
  • King Sombra was destroyed in his episode.
  • Lord Tirek was sent back to prison in Tartarus.
  • Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon usually end their stories humiliated by their own actions, but are nothing more than schoolyard bullies anyway. Still, for being recurring antagonists in the series , very little has been done to redeem them. Played more or less straight when they are finally redeemed in "Crusaders of the Lost Mark". Although it takes a bit more than just defeat to redeem Diamond Tiara, losing the election was the start of her Heel–Face Turn.
  • Babs Seed is a more-or-less straightforward example, even though the CMC can't really be said to have "defeated" her per se.
  • Trixie left town humiliated at the end of "Boast Busters", but by the end of her second appearance, "Magic Duel", she is genuinely remorseful for how she let things get out of control under the Alicorn Amulet. She makes peace with Twilight Sparkle and leaves Ponyville this time by choice.
  • While Discord ended his first arc Taken for Granite and definitely not redeemed, he returned in "Keep Calm and Flutter On" and was brought around to the good side. "For the most part."
    • Referenced by Discord at the climax of "Return of Harmony, Part 2". Discord, not realizing the Mane Six had shaken his control and reconnected with the Elements of Harmony, sarcastically dared them to use the Elements to defeat him, saying "Fine, go ahead; friend me. Just make it quick." Ironically, he would be reformed by Fluttershy later on, being literally defeated by friendship.
• Demoted to Extra: Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon suffer this following Season 5, not saying a word since their big reform in "Crusaders of the Lost Mark".
• Department of Redundancy Department: In "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", Rarity says the ponies have been "BFFs Forever".
  • Also, the Astronomical Astronomer's Almanac to All Things Astronomy.
  • In Episode 10, Fluttershy claims to have "tried begging, and pleading, and beseeching, and asking politely" to control the parasprites.
• Depending on the Writer: Some aspects of pony culture change from one episode to another. The usage of "somepony", "nopony" and "everypony" fades in and out depending on how much the writer is paying attention (or cares).
  • Also, in some episodes such as "The Show Stoppers" and "Green Isn't Your Color", the pony audience applauds by stamping their hooves on the ground, which makes a lot of sense. In other episodes, such as Hoity Toity in "Suited For Success", they applaud like humans: clapping their hooves together with their front legs in the air, despite how unsuited pony anatomy is to that movement.
  • While it plays somewhat into the complexity of the cast's personalities, some facets of the characters are exagerrated from episode to episode if it helps with the Aesop or humor value, to the point that almost every character can alternate between The Straight Man and a complete Cloud Cuckoo Lander on different occasions. Applejack, in terms of her rowdiness for example, can range anywhere from being the most level-headed and approachable of the Mane Cast or something of an over-assertive Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Twilight Sparkle similarly can have her neurotics subtle and justified due to being an Only Sane Man or... well...
• De-Power Zone: In the Season 6 finale "To Where and Back Again", the area around the changeling hive serves as this to the rescue team, thanks to Queen Chrysalis's throne, which was carved out of an ancient dark stone that absorbs all non-changeling magic (even Discord's magic is rendered non-functional because of it).
• Depth of Field: From the fourth season onward, the animation gets enhanced by emulating depth-of-field applied to the background whenever there's a close-up shot of a character. Previously, this technique was reserved for some Rack Focus tricks.
• Descriptiveville: Multiple locations, based around horse / pony puns, mainly:
  • Equestria, which holds a majority equine population.
  • Ponies live in Ponyville.
  • Fillydelphia.
  • The Pegasus-only city, Cloudsdale.
  • Manehattan.
  • In "It's About Time", Rainbow Dash makes a passing mention of a place called "Las Pegasus", subsequently visited in Viva Las Pegasus and Grannies Gone Wild.
• Determinator: Despite her Shrinking Violet personality, Fluttershy is definitely shown, time and time again, to have some real tenacity.
  • Try not smiling around Pinkie Pie. Let's see how long you last. She'll make you, even if it takes months.
• Determined Homesteader: Granny Smith's family founded Ponyville.
• Devastating Remark:
  • Exploited by Rarity. One of the Diamond Dogs refers to her as a "mule". Cue Rarity playing it for all it's worth, with watering eyes, as she says, lip quivering, "Mules are ugly. Are you saying that I, too, am ugly?" When the other Diamond Dogs investigate why she's crying she takes it to Inelegant Blubbering, "He called me ugly!" Turns out she was acting the whole time to make it a case of Pity the Kidnapper.
  • The Cutie Map has summoned Starlight Glimmer and Sunburst to go on a mission together. Sunburst asks Starlight if she's excited to be going on a mission with him, and she replies with a very Blunt "No". Sunburst looks like the bottom just dropped out of his world. Starlight, to her credit, and demonstrating a huge degree of Character Development for her, quickly amends her statement to say that she's fine with going on a mission with him. It's where they're being sent that has her down. When Sunburst realizes that it's Sire's Hollow, their hometown, he suddenly shares Starlight's misgivings.
  • In "Tanks for the Memories", Rainbow Dash is in a funk because she doesn't want her tortoise, Tank, to hibernate. When Fluttershy says to her, "Your winter is going to be pet-less!", Rainbow Dash bursts into tears.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • Applejack says this in "Swarm of the Century", when the voracious parasprites, instead of eating her apple crop, ate her barn instead.
  • The two things that Discord hadn't planned for were Celestia breaking Twilight out of her Heroic BSoD by sending her the letters her student had sent her the entire previous season and Twilight somehow reuniting her friends and breaking them out of Discord's Mind Rape so they could use the Elements Of Harmony to defeat him. The former is likely an Unknown Unknown he couldn't have expected and the latter is a Known Unknown: he knew about who was involved but hadn't forseen how they could do anything to stop him at that point.
  • After Chrysalis' true form was revealed in front of Celestia and her plans explained, it was obvious that Celestia wasn't going to stay still about it. What wasn't obvious was that the queen of the Changelings had already gathered enough strength to beat the Princess. Not even Chrysalis expected that!
  • Done heartbreakingly so in "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2", when Discord turns against the other ponies and captures the Mane Six (save for Twilight). Discord mentions that they should have seen it coming, only for a heartbroken Fluttershy to admit she hadn't at all — she was so convinced her friendship with him was ironclad, she never thought he'd turn his back on her. This turns into an Ironic Echo when Discord himself is betrayed by Lord Tirek and Applejack tells him the same exact thing.
• Didn't Think This Through: Spike in "Equestria Games", in an attempt to prove his worth as a hero of the Crystal Empire, offers to sing the Ponyville anthem. Unfortunately, the anthem to be sung was the one where the winners are from, in this case, Cloudsdale, which Spike has absolutely no idea what the words are. It was too late to back out now and was immediately put on the spot. He wound up ad-libbing the anthem off-key and horridly, that all the ponies in the stadium found it cringe-worthy (except to Pinkie Pie for some odd reason...).
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Twilight Sparkle leads her new-found friends into battle successfully against Nightmare Moon, a Sealed Evil in a Can Mad God.
  • Celestia and Luna rose up against and defeated a spirit of chaos to free Equestria from his tyranny over 1000 years ago. While they are Physical Goddesses in their own right, Discord is a near-omnipotent Reality Warper whose power far outclasses theirs, so it still counts.
  • The mane Cast eventually manages to do the same.
  • The ponies that founded Equestria managed to take out the Windigos, a group of powerful spirits threatening to freeze everything that was feeding on their hatred. As always, this involved blasting it with weaponized friendship.
  • The Mane 6 eventually enable the Crystal Ponies to break free and do this to King Sombra.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Spike and Fluttershy have both hummed or sung the theme song, as has Fluttershy's hummingbird friend Hummingway. The bat from "May the Best Pet Win!" uses sound waves to play the theme tune on wine glasses... and then uses its sonar to shatter them.
• Digital Destruction:
  • On iTunes, the episodes are slightly stretched, losing bits of the left and right sides of the screen. The first 28 episodes also have noticeably faded color, with following episodes still being a bit off.
  • According to a review, the first two German DVDs look gray-washed compared to iTunes.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil:
  • Averted. Hasbro has been very forgiving in allowing episodes to be uploaded to YouTube (now within hours of being broadcast the first time), used in remixes and video parodies, and the like. There have been cases where some episode videos have been taken down, but they are not sustained efforts, and suspected to be Trolling from other sites (since anypony can submit a "takedown request" under any name at YouTube). Hasbro's may be a case of having no idea what to actually do about it: one Hasbro exec even acknowledged they haven't seen anything like this in 25 years. Without Hasbro's laissez-faire approach, it is unlikely the show would have had the following that it did.
    • The Merchandise-Driven nature of the show probably contributes to this. The true revenue source is the toys, not the cartoon, so distributing the cartoon online is basically giving Hasbro free advertising. Now that DVDs of the cartoon are being sold around the world, Hasbro has a little more incentive to clamp down on distributing the show, but their only real action seems to have been the shutting down of a major archive which stored every single episode in HD.
  • Strangely, while they seem to be okay with the sharing of the actual episodes, Hasbro has come down hard on fan parodies such as Friendship is Witchcraft. It's not strange if you consider the fact that the actual show is geared towards kids of about 6, and there are a lot of parents who don't monitor what their kids do online, thus could easily stumble upon the more vulgar fan parodies. People fail to realize that Friendship Is Witchcraft can be legitimately offensive to people (not just for being uncouth), just like Derpy is and was to the Moral Guardians. It makes perfect sense that they come down on that harder than they do the actual show.
• Diligent Draft Animal: The show has a plethora of characters, from the Mane Six to the background ponies doing all kinds of jobs, all the while being the ones managing the course of nature. Their cutie marks amplify their personalities and talents. Each pony race is given duties and tasks to manage nature such as:
  • Most of the Earth Ponies like Applejack have agricultural or mercantile backgrounds. Pinkie Pie, born from a rock farm, is dedicated to cheering up Equestria through baking and party planning, while her sister Maud is a geologist who has a fascination for rocks.
  • Pegasi are the athletic type are the ones who keep the weather under control. Rainbow Dash, while initially seen as slacking off, is the top speedster and can often get the job done, and lazes off to restore her energy; timid Fluttershy is Ponyville's animal caretaker, but her brother Zephyr Breeze is a slacker who got his calling as a hairdresser and later as a Royal Guard; while Derpy Hooves/Muffins is the resident mailpony.
  • Unicorns are the scholarly and/or the upper management type who learn and use their magic in several ways, with telekinesis as a multitasking perk. Rarity uses her magic to make clothes with a gem-encrusted streak, while Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, Trixie Lulamoon, and Starlight Glimmer discover and practice their magic for boon or weapon purposes; Twilight Sparkle started out as Ponyville's librarian, and at the eventually ascended as the Princess of Equestria and now has the job to raise and set the Sun and Moon alongside other royal duties.
• Disney Death: Chief Thunderhooves in "Over a Barrel", when he is struck down by an unknown assailant during the war between the Buffalo tribe and the Appleloosians. A taste of the apple pie splattered on his face revives him, though.
  • Princess Celestia's pet bird, Philomeena, burns to ashes in "A Bird in the Hoof", but it turns out she is a phoenix and just started a new lifecycle.
  • Apparently averted with King Sombra, who appears to have actually died in "The Crystal Empire, Part 2". No solid confirmation on that, though.
• Disney Villain Death: Queen Chrysalis and her army in "A Canterlot Wedding, Part 2" most likely apply. Although they eventually returned, the distance they fall is greater than both of Twilight's near-fatal falls (as listed below) put together (especially when you look at the changeling falling directly toward the ground).
  • According to the comic, they survived and began to plot revenge.
  • Averted with Twilight in "Elements of Harmony" and "Feeling Pinkie Keen", and with Rarity in "Sonic Rainboom" and "Secret of My Excess" (sharing with the Wonderbolts in the former and Spike in the latter). They are saved from their respective falls.
• Disapproving Look:
  • Done a few times by Twilight Sparkle a few times on the show.
  • Owlowiscious gives Spike several over the course of "Inspiration Manifestation".
• Discard and Draw: The Mane 6 unlock Rainbow Power after Twilight sacrifices her magic in the Season 4 finale.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Some ponies appear to be under the impression that Princess Celestia practices this. She does not.
  • Nightmare Moon's vow to bring about The Night That Never Ends was because her pony subjects enjoyed the daytime her sister brought, but didn't appreciate the nights she created, which means no crops grow, nopony gets any natural heat, and everypony either freezes to death or starves! Nightmare Moon would have inadvertently killed everypony just to get more attention! Though come the finale of Season 5 we get to see Nightmare Moon's rule first hand, and it seems that both plants and ponies are thriving, as much as one can under the rule of a tyrant; maybe Equestrian vegetation can survive on moonlight.
  • Fluttershy may have gone a little too far when applying her assertiveness training in "Putting Your Hoof Down".
  • Applejack once called Mr. Beaverton Beaverteeth a nuisance. His response? Building a dam to flood Applejack's home, followed by using several swear words against her. Luckily, Fluttershy was able to convince him to stop.
  • "Magic Duel" is all about this. Twilight exposes Trixie's lies about her having defeated an Ursa Major (which has the unfortunate effect of ruining Trixie's career, but Twilight had no intention of doing that) and shows herself to be more powerful than "The Great and Powerful Trixie". Trixie returns with a magic-boosting amulet and humiliates Twilight's friends, including Dash and Pinkie magically, defeats Twilight, and banishes her from Ponyville. She then takes over the town, enslaves the ponies, tortures Snips and Snails by making them drag her around on a wheel-less wagon, and generally goes Caligula. It turns out that most of the crazy is caused by the evil amulet, and losing it makes her regain her senses after a while.
  • It's also revealed that similar disproportionate retribution happened to Trixie herself. Since a single lie told to shut up hecklers lead to her entire career and reputation being completely ruined, an apparent stint of poverty and homelessness and being forced to do manual labour to scrape a living. While revenge against Twilight is unwarranted, as she didn't really do anything, it's hard not to see how she could be frustrated by her bad fortune even before putting the amulet of insanity on. And unlike Twilight's situation, which goes away once Trixie has been stopped, none of that has been changed...
  • This was actually the main driving point of "Lesson Zero"... in Twilight's mind. She ends up freaking out, thinking that because she forgot one letter to Celestia, she was going to get sent back to Magical Kindergarten.
• The Dissenter Is Always Right:
  • In "Bridle Gossip", almost all of Ponyville believes that Zecora is an "evil enchantress", fearing her so much that everyone hides indoors every time she comes to visit. When the main six all come down with mysterious maladies, most of them assume Zecora put a curse on them. Twilight Sparkle and Apple Bloom are the only ones who remain skeptical; Twilight in particular pokes holes in her friend's reasoning, and insists that curses aren't real. By the end, Zecora is proven to be innocent, and in fact, she's trying to brew a cure for the main six's ailments. Ironically, this happens almost immediately after circumstantial evidence finally convinces Twilight that Zecora really is dangerous.
  • In "A Canterlot Wedding, Part 1", the main six are called to help plan Princess Cadance's wedding. Twilight Sparkle, the only one of the group who knows Cadance from her childhood, is taken aback when Cadance doesn't seem to remember her—and she gets more suspicious as Cadance exhibits Bridezilla behaviors quite unlike the kind pony Twilight remembers. But Twilight's suspicions fall on deaf ears as the rest of her friends, and the groom and Princess Celestia, just write off Cadance's behavior as the effects of pre-wedding jitters. Just as Twilight begins to doubt herself, Cadance captures and imprisons her, proving Twilight was right to be suspicious all along. The followup episode reveals that the real Princess Cadance had been captured and replaced by the shapeshifter Queen Chrysalis. And when Chrysalis is on the verge of victory, she rubs salt in the main six's wounds by lampshading how no one believed the one pony who was correct about her from the start.
    Queen Chrysalis: It's funny, really. Twilight here was suspicious of my behavior all along. Too bad the rest of you were too caught up in your wedding planning to realize those suspicions were correct!
  • In "Keep Calm and Flutter On", the main six start off convinced the villain Discord can only be changed through force, watching him with their Elements of Harmony at the ready to turn him back to stone if needed. But Fluttershy quickly realizes that trying to impose authority on Discord only gives him more pleasure in defying it. So, against the constant urges of her friends, she treats him with unconditional trust and kindness. This actually works, much to the surprise of everyone—most of all Discord himself, who's just manipulated the main six into a situation where they can't use their Elements on him again, only to realize he cares about Fluttershy too much to take advantage of his new position.
  • In "Bats!", a swarm of vampire fruit bats infest Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack argues the bats are too destructive and need to be driven away, while Fluttershy is the only one who argues that these bats are an important part of the ecosystem, so they should set aside a bat sanctuary instead. When the group goes with Applejack's plan, it has the unexpected side effect of turning Fluttershy into a vampony. Shenanigans ensue as the group tries to get Flutters back to normal. Afterwards, Applejack apologizes for not listening to her, and the group builds the bat sanctuary like she suggested in the first place.
  • In "What About Discord?", Twilight becomes jealous when all her friends had fun with Discord over the weekend that she spent indoors re-shelving her library, and she gets particularly upset at all the inside jokes they keep laughing at. She eventually thinks Discord put her friends under a spell—and when she says this aloud, her friends are offended that she would suspect Discord like that. Twilight finally admits her jealousy and apologizes. And as Discord gloats that Twilight has learned a valuable lesson, he lets slip that he really did (non-magically) manipulate Twilight's friends into excluding her over the weekend, specifically to make her feel jealous. The others are not amused.
  • In "No Second Prances", Twilight is mentoring the former villain Starlight Glimmer, and she disapproves of Starlight befriending another former bad-pony, the Great and Powerful Trixie, suspecting that Trixie might be manipulating Starlight for her own ends. Starlight eventually gets fed up with Twilight's meddling and calls her out on being so suspicious of Trixie. Twilight is suitable ashamed—and then Trixie lets slip that she really did just befriend Starlight for the sole purpose of getting back at Twilight. (Although she grew to genuinely appreciate her bond with Starlight.) It's an odd case where Twilight the dissenter is both right and wrong: Twilight still apologizes to Starlight for trying so hard to control her, while Trixie apologizes to Starlight for living down to Twilight's low expectations of her.
  • "Sounds of Silence" features a village of Kirin who, when angered, transform into creatures of fire called Niriks. In the backstory, a particularly nasty argument turned destructive, and the Kirin tried to prevent a reoccurrence by bathing in the magical Stream of Silence, which rendered them speechless and suppressed their emotions. But Autumn Blaze found she couldn't stand living this way—and when she stumbled upon a flower that could reverse the effects of the Stream of Silence, she tried to share it with the rest of the village. The other Kirin rejected this, and gave Autumn Blaze the ultimatum to either bathe in the Stream again, or be banished. Autumn chose banishment. In the episode proper, Applejack and Fluttershy arrive and attempt to reconcile the two sides—but even they're divided, with Applejack taking Autumn's side while Fluttershy agrees with the rest of the village. In the end, Autumn Blaze wins the rest over by demonstrating how to go full Nirik without becoming a danger to herself or others, thanks to healthy anger management techniques.
• Distinguishing Mark: Cutie Marks, almost unique for every pony, and they're also Power Tattoos, giving special magic that relates to the personal meaning of the mark, and its appearance is a Rite of Passage, meaning that the pony has had some kind of personal growth about what they want to do in life.
• Distracted by the Sexy:
  • In "Sonic Rainboom", some pegasus construction workers gawk at Rarity's magically-granted butterfly wings, and one of them ends up dropping the jackhammer he was working with off a cloud in his distraction.
  • In "Rainbow Falls", Soarin' smacks into an obstacle and crashes when he sees two cheerleaders while he was flying.
  • In a flashback in "The Perfect Pear", Bright Mac (Applejack's father) and his friend Burnt Oak were having a plow race, and Bright Mac saw Pear Butter (Applejack's mother) in the next field... and accidentally ruined Grand Pear's water silo when veering off course.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength:
  • Derpy Hooves. She's also The Klutz. Needless to say, it's a recipe for disaster.
  • In "A Canterlot Wedding", Queen Chrysalis is shocked to find that consuming the love between Princess Cadance and Shining Armor has given her enough power to defeat Princess Celestia in a one-on-one Wizard Duel.
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2", Twilight has trouble performing even the most basic magic after the power transfer, blowing up the door to the Golden Oaks Library simply by trying to open it and briefly rapidly teleporting to random spots all across Equestria. It isn't until Tirek comes after her that she gets a handle on her power, if only because she's no longer trying to hold it back.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • In the episode "Bridle Gossip", the poison joke plant robs Twilight of her magic powers. This is shown by having her unicorn horn go limp.
  • One Lower-Deck Episode has younger ponies fretting about when they're going to get their cutie marks, which is much like kids wondering what they're going to be when they grow up or when they're going to enter puberty, depending on your interpretation.
  • Rainbow Dash's depression over her pet going into hibernation is a metaphor for dealing with a loved one's death. Word of God stated it was deliberate.
• Do I Really Sound Like That?: According to this interview, Andrea Libman, the voice of Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie (non-singing), Daisy (in "The Mysterious Mare Do Well"), and Pumpkin Cake, isn't very fond of listening to her own voice. She's perfectly happy to listen to sound-alike fans though.
• Domain Holder: King Sombra seems able to warp the Crystal Empire. He morphs it into a Mordor, made it vanish through space and time, and built Alien Geometries rooms in the Crystal Castle.
• Don't Ask, Just Run: As seen in the episode "The Best Night Ever", when Fluttershy bursts into the room — disheveled, wild-eyed and chasing a horde of scared animals while demanding their love — and Princess Celestia herself tells you to run, you'd better do it.
• Double Aesop:
  • The episode "Bridle Gossip" does this with the lesson of not judging books by their cover. The main plot of the episode focused on the cast misjudging a zebra they knew nothing about, believing she put a curse on them. The doubled Aesop comes in when Twilight (who, ironically, had been denying the idea of a curse) dismisses the book that ultimately proved to have their cure due to misreading its title, "Super Naturals" (as in herbal remedies), as "Supernaturals" (as in the supernatural that she'd been debunking).
  • The Season 4 episodes where the Mane Six receive their keys to the chest at the Tree of Harmony seem to involve both the Mane character and a Character of the Day learning a lesson related to their respective Elements of Harmony.
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2", Discord learns that friendship truly is magic, and Twilight learns that friendship is more important than the combined magic of all the alicorn princesses.
• Double Meaning: It's easy to assume that Twilight is the Element of Magic simply because of her incredible magic potential; the real reason behind this is because she is friendship personified.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Didn't expect to see this trope, did you? Completely averted in "A Canterlot Wedding" storyline, where Shining Armor being tricked and Mind Raped into marrying fake-Cadance is treated with all the horror and disgust that is appropriate for the situation. Of course, as the people involved are his baby sister and real fiancee.
• Double Take:
  • In "Party of One", Rainbow Dash first casually says "Hi, Pinkie Pie" to a disguised Pinkie... before freezing on the spot with her mane and tail hair completely straight when she realizes (she was trying to avoid her today...).
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2", Tirek has a delayed reaction on passing before the window mural showing Twilight rising as an alicorn, stopping in mid-evil gloating.
• Dope Slap:
  • In "Hurricane Fluttershy", Twilight Sparkle gives a dope-slap to Spike (flattening the green fin atop his head) for being Innocently Insensitive to Fluttershy.
  • "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 1": AJ does one to Spike when he complains about the simple job Twilight does at the beginning of the episode, then tries to backpedal on his statement.
    • Rainbow Dash tossing Discord's "alicorn princess" crown from his head is also quite close to this.
• Down on the Farm/Everytown, Equestria/Flyover Country: Ponyville tends to be regarded as this, especially in Canterlot.
• The Dragon: Discord temporarily becomes this in the Season 4 finale "Twilight's Kingdom Parts 1 & 2", in which he betrays the ponies and joins forces with Lord Tirek and assists him by capturing all the ponies of Equestria and handing them over to Tirek. However, Discord does experience a Devour the Dragon in which Tirek betrays him back and drains all of his magic, rendering Discord powerless, causing him to regret his betrayal against the ponies and joining back with them.
• Dragon Hoard: Dragons are greedy by nature and hoard things as an instinctive behavior. While their avarice is not restricted to treasure, they are especially covetous of gems — because these are dragon food.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: In "Owl's Well That Ends Well", Twilight lectures Spike about all the trouble he's been causing because he's jealous of Owlowiscious, telling him "This is not the Spike I know and love!". A dejected Spike interprets this as meaning Twilight doesn't love him anymore, which prompts him to run away from home.
• Dramatic Spotlight: In the songs "Winter Wrap Up" (it's even the page image) and "Find a Pet".
  • Also parodied in "Party of One": Pinkie Pie draws the (wrong) conclusion that her friends have all turned against her from her interrogation of Spike, and declares so in a Dramatic Spotlight. Then it turns out the light comes from the lamp she used to interrogate him with, as he turns it off.
  • Gustave Le Grand has a similar lamp on hand for his Eclairs.
• Dream Intro: Episode "May The Best Pet Win!" begins with Rainbow Dash flying and seeing Twilight's pet owl Owlowiscious. Suddenly, Owlowiscious starts growing body parts of the other pets (Angel Bunny, Gummy, Winona, and Opalescence), which scares Dash so much that she actually falls into a seemingly endless black void, causing her to wake up from this nightmare
• Dream Land: Dreams are mostly self-contained, but are shown to exist together in a shared dimension consisting of night-blue clouds dotted with star-like lights, where dreams float as bubbles or are accessible through doors, where Dream Walkers can move from dream to dream at will.
• Drop-In Character: Done frequently. Though an Ensemble Cast show, whoever is the central character of the episode in question will frequently find themselves badgered by uninvited guests. Aloof Twilight Sparkle is naturally the most frequent victim to this, most often from Pinkie Pie (who has a tendency to bring a party load of other Drop In Characters along with her) and Rainbow Dash, who often crashes into someone's house.
• Drunk on Milk: The episode "Over a Barrel" suggests that salt licks are the equivalent of hard liquor.
  • We don't know what Twilight thought she was drinking in the pilot, but the scene pretty much speaks for itself.
  • Spike acts like he's getting drunk on doughnuts with extra sprinkles in "The Best Night Ever". Then again, he's a baby dragon that eats gems. Different foods affect him differently than ponies.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: The German dub of the show has Twilight Sparkle introduce herself to Rainbow Dash as simply Twilight in the first episode to keep the lip flaps in sync. This is all well and good... until Rainbow refers to her by her full name towards the end of the scene.
• Dub Name Change:
  • The Japanese version changes a number of character, place and item names:
    • The Mare in the Moon is referred to as "Moon Pony" ("Tsuki no Pony"), a possible reference to the East Asian legend "Tsuki no Usagi (Moon Rabbit)".
    • Sweet Apple Acres is referred to as Sweet Apple Farm.
    • The Everfree Forest is named "the Forest of No Return".
    • The Grand Galloping Gala is simply called "Dance Party".
    • Poison Joke is called "laughing grass".
    • Parasprites are called Pakupakumushi ("Munch Munch Insects").
    • The Running of the Leaves is called the Falling Leaves Marathon.
    • Hummingway is called Hemingway, presumably to avoid copyright issues due to a character from Final Fantasy IV also named Hummingway.
    • Smarty Pants is called Oshare-Pants-kun (Stylish Pants).
    • The Mare-Do-Well is called Dark Mare, possibly to fit better as a homage to The Dark Knight.
    • "Family Appreciation Day" is called "Family Speech Day".
    • The Zap Apples are called "Biribiringo" which is a combination of the Japanese words "biribiri" (an onomatopoeia for electricity) and "ringo" (apple).
    • The CMC's newspaper alias is changed from Gabby Gums to Gabby Chat.
  • In the Italian dub:
    • Chief Thunderhooves is renamed Capo Zoccoli Tonanti ("Thundering Hooves"), while Little Strongheart is Piccola Anima Coraggiosa ("Little Brave Soul").
    • Spitfire and Soarin' are named Saetta and Fulmine (grammatically feminine and masculine terms, respectively, for "Lightning Bolt").
    • Among Pinkie's family, Igneous Rock is renamed Rocco (a common male name that sounds like the word for rock), Cloudy Quartz is Quarzina (a feminine diminutive of "Quartz"), Marble Pie is Marmorina Pie (a literal translation) and Limestone Pie is Calcarea Pie ("Calcarous Pie").
    • Philomena to Philamena.
    • The Mare-Do-Well is named Misteriosa Cuoredoro ("Mysterious Heart-of-Gold").
    • Prince Blueblood is Principe Sangueblu (literal translation).
    • The changelings are referred to as mutanti ("mutants"; Italian folklore has no equivalent of changeling myths and consequently lacks a native word for changelings).
    • The diamond dogs become cani stanadiamanti ("diamond-finding dogs"; "stana" refers to finding hidden things in general but literally means "remove from a burrow", referencing their digging habits).
    • Timberwolves are lupi del legno ("wolves of the wood", using the word for the substance rather than for a woodland).
    • The bugbear is called an orsinsetto (a portmanteau of "insetto", meaning insect, and "orso", meaning bear)
    • In the Power Ponies Show Within a Show, Maretropolis is Nitropolis (pun on "nitrire", the Italian word of whinnying), the Masked Matterhorn is Magicornia Mascherata ("Masked Magicorn"), Zapp is Lampo ("Flash"), Fili-second is Millisecond, Mistress Mare-velous is Miss Meravigliosa (a literal translation), Radiance is Raggio di Luce ("Ray of Light"), Saddle Ranger is Furia Alata ("Winged Fury"), Humdrum is Imbranat ("Imbranato", meaning idiot or fool, with the last letter lopped off), and Mane-Iac is Crinimal (a pun on "crine", meaning a horse's mane, and "criminal")
    • Boneless is Pollastro (a colloquial term for a chicken).
    • Cloudsdale is Nuvola City ("Cloud City").
• Dub Pronunciation Change:
  • In the Romanian dub, Celestia's name is pronounced with a "ch" sound instead of an "s" one, although the first two Equestria Girls movies keep the English pronunciation. In season 2, Cadance is called "Ke-dens" instead of "Kay-dens", but future seasons translate her name to Cadența. Philomena is pronounced "Filamena" instead of "Filamina". In the case of places, Manehattan is pronounced the same as Manhattan, while Equestria is pronounced "Ek-ves-tri-a".
  • In the Italian dub, Cadance is pronounced "Ca-dance" instead of "Kay-dance"
  • The latter half of Rainbow Dash's name is pronounced "Duh-sh" instead of "Deh-sh" in the Italian, Polish, French and Latin American dubs.
• Duck Season, Rabbit Season: Pinkie Pie does this to a produce-selling pony and Iron Will in "Putting Your Hoof Down".
• Dude, Not Funny!: Spike is an in-universe example. He makes jokes at the most inopportune moments much to the chagrin of his friends.
  • Rainbow Dash's pranks are also seen as an In-Universe example. She sometimes pulls pranks at the wrong time and often gets yelled at for it. Incidentally she uses this to notify that pranking Fluttershy is anything but funny (they have otherwise been pranking every other character). This is what later tipped off Pinkie that Gilda has all of Dash's jerk, but none of her heart.
  • Meta-wise, this is the reaction Derpy spawned and why her scene was altered.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: The show being about the everyday life of the cast intersected with Saving the World arcs, this comes up in quite often; for example, it's much harder to make a plot about learning to Be Yourself despite social pressure when social pressure is nearly nonexistent because everypony considers you a hero.
  • All six of the Mane Cast (and Spike) are essentially living superweapons, having fought against Nightmare Moon, Discord (then being very publicly knighted by Celestia for the latter), Sombra, and the entire changeling army. Rarity is quickly becoming a well-know fashion designer, Fluttershy had a brief but successful career as a model, Rainbow Dash is the fastest pony alive and won the Best Young Flier's competition (saving three ponies in the process) after performing a Sonic Rainboom (another feat only She can perform), and Twilight, in addition to being the protege of the princess is also part of the royal family through her brother. All of them had star roles in the biggest performance of the "Hearth's Warming Eve" tale in Equestria. Still, no one even seems to recognize them, and upperclass ponies are exceptionally snobby around them, dismissing all six because of where they live.
  • Even the residents of Ponyville fall into this, as while they hold the Mane Six in very high esteem it's "only" for their far more mundane day jobs and not, you know, saving the town from a rampaging Ursa Minor, being choked by dragon smoke, or Cerberus. Yes, that Cerberus.
  • Fluttershy seems to get this harder than anypony else, since she's such a quiet-voiced Shrinking Violet. As said above, she's a national hero, was a famous model, and shows compassion to just about every pony she meets. The one time she's seen mingling with ponies in town to do shopping they treat her particularly nasty, going far enough to actively scam her on the price of goods and even butt her out of line. No wonder she tends to prefer the company of animals over other ponies...
  • Played for Laughs for Spike. He tends to do a lot of menial labor for the Mane 6, without any hesitation, and yet they hardly thank him, and generally order him around or ignore him. While in spite of it all, they do on occasion give him some respect (it never lasts long), in "Owl's Well That Ends Well", the owl manages to gain more respect and attention from the Mane 6 in one day than he did in his time in Ponyville. He then gets a stained glass window to commemorate his assistance in defeating Sombra and saving the Crystal Empire... and then it takes a turn right back to this trope when he's not invited back to assist the Ponies in getting the Empire approved for the Equestria Games.
  • This is briefly averted for Twilight in Season 4's opening. Being a princess in her own right, she's well respected and looked to for advice during a crisis, and the guards are prompt to ask for her command. This is further shown in Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell, which reveals that stories of her magical ability have been spreading throughout Equestria. Then comes "Rarity Takes Manehattan" where she can't even get Rarity a taxi, and "Daring Don't", where Daring Do still doesn't seem to recognize any of them.
  • After several seasons of being the resident Butt-Monkey, this is finally averted for Spike in "Equestria Games"; it turns out that he's known throughout the Crystal Empire as "Great and Honorable Spike the Brave and Glorious", is seen as a Living Legend and receives preferential treatment, since he played the key role in retrieving the Crystal Heart.
    • On the other hoof, the rest of the Elements of Harmony besides Twilight are supposed to be Equestria-wide heroes. Why do they have to sit way down in the stands below Mayor Mare, Fancypants, Fleur Dis Lee and Cherries Jubilee?
• Dynamic Entry: Rainbow Dash does this a lot, from her very first appearance on the show. Pinkie Pie has occasionally been known to do likewise.
  • Spike gets a couple on Twilight in "Feeling Pinkie Keen".
• Dysfunction Junction: A light example. Every mane character has had her turn at going completely around the bend, some more extreme than others. Particularly, it tends to happen when a character finds their special talent, marked by their Cutie Mark, just not working how they'd expect.
  Twilight Sparkle: "All the ponies in this town are CRAZY!"
  • "The Return Of Harmony" has all of the Mane Cast (excluding Twilight) go insane at once.
  • Aside from the various (and numerous) breakdowns, each character has some pretty serious personality quirks that cause them serious issues. Fortunately, Character Development has them recognizing and managing their dysfuctions, growing into more stable and functional ponies as the series goes on.
    • Twilight Sparkle is a neurotically obsessive perfectionist and control freak, who measures her self-worth by the approval of her mentor, Princess Celestia, and always assumes the worst possible outcome for all perceived short-comings. She suffers a full-on psychotic breakdown in "Lesson Zero" as the result of her over-exaggerated sense of failure.
    • Pinkie Pie, aside from her hyperactive, exaggerated Genki Girl, and Cloud Cuckoo Lander traits, has a desperate need to be appreciated, to the point where she is is incapable of handling any perceived rejection. This results in her frequently violating others' personal space and privacy, and in extreme cases causes her to revert to a profoundly depressed and introverted state, most notably in "Party of One".
    • Applejack's stubbornness and inability to handle failure causes her to badly overextend herself on multiple occasions; and culminates in her deciding to leave Ponyville entirely, and abandon her friends, after failing to take first place in a major competition in "The Last Roundup".
    • Rainbow Dash covers a profoundly insecure personality with exaggerated bravado. Pierce that shell, and she becomes a whimpering ball of performance anxiety with a sense of failure nearly as exaggerated as Twilight Sparkle's. She's shown to be very emotional and sensitive on the inside, when she isn't covering it up with bravado. When her parents are introduced in a later season, it's made immediately obvious why she is this way.^note When she was growing up, they put her up on a pedestal while endlessly praising her to the point of obsession for every tiny thing she did, no matter how insignificant, and they wouldn't leave her alone about it unless she constantly agreed about how awesome she was. They are good people and had good intentions (they thought they were just being encouraging to their daughter), but hoo boy. No wonder the poor girl is insecure. It also doesn't help that, while she was dealing with the constant excess praise from her parents, she was also dealing with being bullied.
    • Fluttershy's extreme introversion, crippling shyness, and general door-mat-ness hides a violent temper and pathological need for the affections of "lesser" creatures, as demonstrated in "Best Night Ever".
    • Rarity is possibly the least dysfunctional of the Mane Six, but repeatedly lets her greed and vanity get the best of her, completely overshadowing Rainbow Dash's attempt at a Day in the Limelight in "Sonic Rainboom", and sabotaging her attempts to charm the Monster of the Week in "Dragonshy".
    • Even Secondary characters are not free from serious character flaws. Princess Celestia is not above manipulating the Mane Six, among others, for her own amusement). Princess Luna is at least as insecure and desperate for affection as any of the Mane Six, as well as still suffering huge amounts of guilt over her time as Nightmare Moon. Spike's issues can be mostly dismissed as simple immaturity, but suffers his own breakdown when he believes he may no longer be number one in Twilight Sparkle's affections in "Owl's Well That Ends Well".

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