History CodexEquus / TropesEToF

*** Princess Laska, Strazha and Vesna's half-sister, is based on Euphemia, being pink-haired princesses who are [[AllLovingHero compassionate to all peoples]] and staunch pacifists. However, Laska didn't commit the genocidal massacre that Euphemia did because the writer [[ForWantOfANail removed Lelouch's Geass "accident"]], and was instead rescued from being Geassed by [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Deer Autorists]] by her brother instead.

** In Sparkling Wing's entry, it's mentioned that had his mother, Queen Silver Clock, refused to let the public pressure into having a daughter, Sparkling Wing would have eventually inherited the throne and succeeded her expectations as a great King and mage. However, if that outcome happened, Sparkling wouldn't have met Luminiferous, and he wouldn't have done the good deeds that would ultimately allow him to become something even greater: An [[PhysicalGod Alicorn]].
** In the "Revenge of Apertus" event, Luminiferous makes it ''very'' clear to Changelingkind that if they hadn't let their grudge against Dragonkind influence their actions entirely, they would have been cured of their [[HorrorHunger Curse]] early. But instead, they tore an innocent loving family apart out of hatred, and stalled the discovery of a cure by a few thousand years.

** Had Irminsul let his son live instead magically purging him of his inner flaws in-utero, [[spoiler:High King Bogolenya]] would have become TheGoodKing and led mortal Deerkind into a GoldenAge as his father foresaw. Many people speculate InUniverse that [[spoiler:Bogolenya]] would have become "the bestest of friends" with Emperor Golden Scepter as well, since they're both divine royalty who embody a certain race and have similar divine portfolios. [[spoiler:Bogolenya himself acknowledges that Irminsul killed him in the womb trying to make him 'perfect' and 'flawless', so when they meet during the 'Final Ragnarok' arc via Symvíosi fusing Belyolen and Temnobog together, Bogolenya rips into Irminsul with a short yet effective TheReasonYouSuckSpeech for killing him with his vicarious ambitions]].

** The members of the Black Heron Corpse Investigation Team (BHCIT for short) are based on the [[Manga/TheKurosagiCorpseDeliveryService Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service team]]. Collectively, they are both teams of five university students who have the black heron as their call-sign, are regarded as creepy and eccentric weirdos who aren't used to them or their line of work, behave in a cynical, sarcastic, and morbid manner, and are very opportunistic and greedy because of [[PerpetualPoverty their floundering businesses and generally poor financial situations]]. They even rely on a former homicide detective-turned-social services agent for expenses and dead "clients" in return for doing odd jobs for him. However, they are also both compassionate people who are very unwilling to turn down a dead and living person in need, even at the cost of earning more money for themselves. For bonus points, their team names are heavily similar, with "Kurosagi" meaning "black heron" in Japanese. However, what would make them different from their character inspirations is that after they became Alicorn demigods, their nastier personality traits would [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome actually be taken into account]] and curbed by more experienced deities in the Shinseina pantheon, as they want the Black Heron group to become benevolent and proper deities by doing away with unsavory behaviors that would eventually spell not only their doom, but Equus's doom as well.

** Crystal Prism/Page Wheel and his neighbor/wing-pal/filly-friend, Midnight Bell, are respectively based on Peter and Mary from ''Anime/MaryAndTheWitchsFlower'', except they serve as a case of SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome that deconstructs various things in the movie, such as how Peter would react to being experimented on and turned into a magic-eating monster, how Mary would feel knowing she endangered another person with her lies, and how each of them would try to cope with everything that has happened after returning to normal life.

* ForeverWar: Wars and conflicts which raged for years, decades - even centuries, millennia and more - are possible on Equus and had happened both during and before the 'Ages of Known History'. [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome They are often]] [[WarIsHell as horrific as can be]] [[HopelessWar expected of bloodshed]] on such scales, [[{{Gotterdammerung}} causing the downfall of civilizations]] and often leave behind [[ShockingDefeatLegacy shocking]] and [[CycleOfRevenge terrible legacies]] that still haunts the present, for good or ill.

* FreudianExcuse: All over the place. Many characters in the Codexverse have reasons for why they ended up developing certain behaviors. [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome However]], this trope is usually deconstructed in that while their reasons are certainly sympathetic, they usually don't justify horrific actions, as people have opportunities to move past their traumas and become better individuals.

*** Even if they did admire some of her past plots and strategies, the Summer Court treats Chrysalis as a "failure of a queen" whose pettiness and grand ambitions ultimately cost her everything. After her fall, they decided to protect the newly-ascended Thorax and his purified Changelings from Chrysalis-loyalists by installing hidden agents within his hive. Once they found one, [[KickTheSonOfABitch they gave him to King Brachion]].

ḡ[[WMG:[[center: [- '''Tropes for ''Fanfic/CodexEquus'''''\\

[[WMG:[[center: [- '''Tropes for ''Fanfic/CodexEquus'''''\\

*** And as pointed out by one Codexverse reader, Crimson Star's also based on [[LightNovel/{{Slayers}} Rezo the Red Priest]], though it was stated to be [[https://www.deviantart.com/comments/1/805716067/4756140795 completely unintentional]] as the writer never watched ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'' at all. Much like Rezo, Crimson Star is a highly respected and skilled, yet blind sorcerer who was disfigured at some point in his life, and tried researching ways to cure his disability. However, unlike Rezo, who was a VillainWithGoodPublicity yet callously destroyed people's lives in order to cure his blindness, Crimson Star, who had been an InsufferableGenius prior to this point, was quickly stopped in his research and attempts to [[DealWithTheDevil summon demonic and eldritch forces in exchange for sight]] by his father, Golden Scepter. This would ultimately allow him to properly redeem himself for his previous arrogant behavior and [[TookALevelInKindness become a kinder stallion]].

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: Cutesaurs are dragon-sized sauropods with cutie marks, Earth pony-like magic, clawed limbs for grabbing things, and their TailSlap can ''break the sound barrier''. They even have their own kingdom, Sauropoda.

** The Changeling-Dragon blood-feud had spanned ''eons'', with countless generations of the two races fighting each other on-and-off in an endless CycleOfRevenge over [[ItsPersonal respective wrongs they had done to each other]]; the '[[ApocalypseHow Burning of Amorea]]' at the claws of the Dragons which [[ThisIsUnforgivable nearly drove Changelingkind]] [[TraumaButton to extinction]], and for the Dragons in particular the 'Time of Broken Scales' when the [[TheDreaded Changeling Summer Court]] eventually [[BestServedCold retaliated]] with [[GuiltFreeExterminationWar an]] [[KillEmAll attempted]] [[FinalSolution genocide]]. It's ultimately deconstructed in that both races' conflict and enmity for each other are ultimately only damaging themselves for little gain, as well as those who had completely nothing to do with the conflict, creating villains such as [[TragicVillain Princess Apertus]], [[FallenHero King Xestobium]] and [[MadScientist Dr Toxikon]]. And by the Fourth Age, it's becoming a HopelessWar that threatens to wipe out both sides and take the whole world with them.

* TheEpic: Invoked by deliberate design from the very beginning. Not only does the Codexverse seek to expand the world of Equus, it turns the dial on every event, character and aspect of the setting UpToEleven.

* ForeverWar: Wars and conflicts which raged for years, decades - even centuries, millennia and more - are possible on Equus and had happened both during and before the 'Ages of Known History'. [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome They are often]] [[WarIsHell as horrific as can be]] [[HopelessWar expected of bloodshed]] [[UpToEleven on such scales]], [[{{Gotterdammerung}} causing the downfall of civilizations]] and often leave behind [[ShockingDefeatLegacy shocking]] and [[CycleOfRevenge terrible legacies]] that still haunts the present, for good or ill.

* EveryoneHasStandards: The Taurus Giant Pantheon were so disgusted by Khakiston, the Giant divine of Warmongers, Military Dictators and Amoral Warriors, that they kicked him out of their ranks, with Terraton doing this to him quite literally out of the Taurus Peninsula. They might be domineering, aggressive and gluttonous at their worst, Terraton especially, but it seems even they can't stand the honorless brute that Khakiston is shown to be.

CodexEquus/TropesAToB ([[AbusiveParents/CodexEquus Abusive Parents]]) | CodexEquus/TropesCToD | '''Tropes E to F''' | CodexEquus/TropesGToH | CodexEquus/TropesIToJ | CodexEquus/TropesKToL ([[LaserGuidedKarma/CodexEquus Laser-Guided Karma]]) | CodexEquus/TropesMToN | CodexEquus/TropesOToP | CodexEquus/TropesQToR | CodexEquus/TropesSToT | CodexEquus/TropesUToV | CodexEquus/TropesWToX | CodexEquus/TropesYToZ]]]]-]

** It's mentioned in Prince Sparkling Wing's backstory that two ponies he helped out were Lady Sweet Song and Lord Cerulean Heart, who are based on [[Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet Juliet and Romeo]], respectively, in that they were heirs of two feuding noble Houses who fell in love with each other despite their families' grudge. However, [[SparedByTheAdaptation things ended differently]] - Sparkling Wing exposed the root of the noble Houses' petty grudge against each other, saving Sweet Song and Cerulean Heart from running away and committing suicide together just to escape their families' hatred, and uniting the noble Houses as [[AdultFear their parents each couldn't bear the thought of losing their beloved children]].

** After reconciling with his Prophecy domain and realizing the cyclic nature of things, [[Music/StevieRayVaughan Moon Ray Vaughoof]] (now [[MeaningfulRename Prince Canticum Lunae Cahaya]]) transforms into an eldritch deity for real. In his case, Moon Ray/Canticum Lunae is a cyclic god whose appearance shifts between three cycles: The Alpine Cycle, the Equus cycle, and the Silicon cycle. These cycles rotate based on the conditions of certain planes, whether astral, cosmic, or planetary. His most consistent traits are his electric guitar Cutie Mark, his purple mane and tail, his SkunkStripe, a [[HolyHalo multi-layered halo]], ten wings, a purple wing gradient, and (unusually) a pair of great antlers. Despite this, however, Moon Ray/Canticum Lunae defies the standard BlueAndOrangeMorality by [[ProHumanTransHuman developing a greater understanding and appreciation of all life]].

* TheEmpath: All over the place. And it's not just mortals - several deities have this power, too, especially if their concepts involve Love, Diplomacy, or something similar.
** Princess Brightglow, as an Alicorn goddess of Peace, has empathic powers that help her with diplomacy by allowing her to read people. This combined with her [[PlayingWithFire ability to read heat differentials]] makes it difficult to lie around her. Emperor Blackthorn finds her an amusing diversion, and often tests her limits whenever she goes on diplomatic meetings with the Changelings.
** While he doesn't have the traditional reading abilities of typical empaths, Crystal Prism, the young Alicorn demigod of Change and Rebirth, is still technically an empath, in that [[{{Seers}} he can receive prophetic visions if he displays strong sentiments towards someone before going to bed]]. This allows him to glean information about specific people in how they feel and what they're about to do.
** Zmluva, Mier and Válka's youngest hybrid son, is the Deer god of ''Empathy''. As such, he's a powerful empath, capable of "walking in another's shoes" and making others do the same, and [[EmotionBomb force other people's emotions onto his enemies]]. However, he's such a NiceGuy who only wants peace that he won't fight unless he ''absolutely'' has to.
** Implied with Princess Cadence who, as the Alicorn of Love, inspires tame affection.
** The Jotunn Love goddess Elske, is an incredibly powerful empath. Notably, emotion/love-manipulating magic has no effect on her, and she can pierce through even the most stoic of people to reveal their hidden feelings beneath. She perceives negative emotions and intentions as a "rot" on people's hearts, and unlike Cadence, she inspires hot-blooded passion that has resulted in wild orgies in the past.
** Divine Deer twins and co-rulers Belyolen and Temnobog both have empathy, except they use them according to their portfolios - Belyolen uses his empathy to alleviate suffering and induce good feelings, while Temnobog uses his empathy to prolong suffering. Temnobog also admits that his brother's empathy is partially why he felt so close to him as fawns, because Belyolen saw a miserable, abused sibling who wanted love instead of the dark abomination everyone thought Temnobog was.
** All of the Four Terrors (and presumably, their four lost siblings as well) have empathic powers, which they inherited from their father.
*** Bolezn, one of Temnobog's surviving sons, inherited his empathy from him. While not great in power or skill like his dark father or his nephew, Zmluva, who specializes in Empathy as a ''concept'', Bolezn can sense his victims' inner greed and gluttony as they covet other people's valuable possessions, which helps him appeal to their secret desires in order to weed out the wicked from those with strong morals and humble hearts.
*** Yarost, Bolezn's oldest brother, is also an empath, except he focuses on Fury and Hatred, as those two emotions are what he embodies as an evil Deer god. He tempts the wicked and morally weak by subtly stoking their anger and appealing to their inner spite and desire for revenge, and spares those who resist their darker urges. He also used this for positive purposes, such as making Crystal Prism realize his trauma-based anger was unhealthy by appealing to his grudge against Noble Grace and Bubbling Beaker and increasing his anger to unhealthy degrees.
*** Phykti, Temnobog's eldest daughter and Yarost's younger sister, is also an empath like her siblings, except she focuses on her domains, Cruelty and Despair. She uses her power to sense developing inclinations for cruelty in mortal Deer, and to try tempting them into indulging in cruelty unless they resist her.
** One of Pokhot's sons, Prince Stoltur Skjöldur, is this. As an Evil god of Pride, he has empathic abilities that allow him to sense and encourage feelings of pride in people, often to dangerous degrees. His entry notes that he got his empathy from Pokhot, who is an empath herself. He can also psychically rid people of their pride indefinitely, though he hates doing this since it turns them into little more than Empty Shells.
** Guiding Light, a member of the Black Heron Corpse Investigation Team and a minor death god of the Shinseina pantheon, has ''Empathy'' as one of his domains, [[PersonalityPowers which suits his rather blunt nature]]. Originally, he developed empathy to [[LivingLieDetector detect lies]] because an old Kirin he trusted was bribed to keep a deep secret regarding the fate of his childhood's missing family for many years, and only learned it after his mentor died, [[TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening causing Guiding Light to awaken his power out of a strong hatred of dishonesty in general]]. Post-Ascension, he became capable of doing things like [[BarrierWarrior form barriers made of positive emotion]] to ward off dark magic and curses that both invoke and thrive off of negative emotions (though he can only repel them, as only Lovely Bones can eliminate them entirely through [[HolyBurnsEvil divine purification]] and her domain of {{Forgiveness}}), and [[EmotionBomb force criminals and villains to develop regret for their actions by projecting their victims' emotions onto them]]. It's noted that he initially didn't like messing with people's emotions on purpose, but has since acknowledged and accepted the necessity if there's no other way to make a villain see the error of their ways and atone. As the Alicorn demigod of Truth, he can also use empathy to cure unhealthy denial by talking to people and gradually bring their repressed emotions to the forefront, allowing his friend, Felt Actor, to give them emotional closure through Catharsis.
** Golden Scepter's entry describes him as a powerful empath - while he can feel the emotions of all sapientkind, his empathy is more profound with Ponykind, since he embodies all of Ponykind in general, as well as its best and worst traits. He's also infamous for "[[EmotionBomb emotion-bombing]]", which he used to either show villains and other evildoers the harm they've done to their victims, or to force absolute loyalty to him during the Imperium era, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone the latter which caused him to be disgusted with himself upon learning of it]].
*** In a Codexverse drabble, it's revealed that he's so powerful that Golden Scepter could sense the sheer hatred projected by a being who's traveling to Equus in space several light years away. This being is later revealed to be King Exosus, a fellow antediluvian Alicorn survivor of the "[[{{Gotterdammerung}} Twilight of the Alicorns]]" who has an ''insanely'' deep grudge against Golden Scepter.
*** In a Codexverse quote, however, after learning of Temnobog's emotionally abusive childhood at the hooves of the Elternteil Deer pantheon, he has acknowledged that even if he cam empathize with him, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome it does not equal a full understanding of the struggles Temnobog had gone through]]. Despite this, he would assure Temnobog that [[YouAreNotAlone even if he doesn't fully understand what happened, he'll still help Temnobog because he won't abandon someone in need, Evil or not]].
*** This trope is discussed with Sparkling Wing, who noticed that there's quite an abundance of both mortal and divine individuals who have empathetic powers.
----> '''Prince Sparkling Wing:''' I've noticed something... [[LampshadeHanging I think we have too many empaths on this planet]].\\

** Some of Golden Scepter's sons also have this power, having inherited it from their father.
*** As part of his divine domain of Animals, Prince Fanged Paw developed empathic and [[{{Telepathy}} telepathic]] abilities that allow him to calm and tame even the deadliest and most ferocious monsters, making him an excellent beastmaster.
*** Prince Written Word inherited psychic empathy from his father, but becoming the divine embodiment of Truth enhanced it beyond its typical emotion-reading abilities. Much like Elske, the Jotunn goddess of Love, he exhibits a comforting empathic aura that ebbs negative emotions and calms people down (though he can turn it off anytime). He can also [[DetectEvil see a person's state of being through their emotions]] - as a person becomes more dishonest, corrupt, and insidious, [[EvilMakesYouMonstrous their negative emotions show up in the form of a rot that makes their body resemble a decayed, rotting corpse in his eyes]], even though the person in question is still very much alive.
*** Prince Crimson Star's entry notes that one of the abilities inherited from his father is far-reaching psychic empathy. However, it didn't stop him from becoming an InsufferableGenius due to his ego being inflated by constant praise for being a prodigy, leading to him mistreating anyone he deems beneath his intelligence, including a few of his brothers. Only after he was blinded in a carriage accident, [[JerkassRealization realized his mistakes]], and went through hell did he gain his empathy for others back. In one incident, when he and Night Shade went to Trench Bull's boarding school to investigate a sudden eruption of psychic energy and came across the [[ClosetPunishment Chokey]], he experienced the sheer fright and despair left behind by the psychic residue of every Pony and non-Pony student that was trapped in there. This nearly led to a [[HeroicBSOD breakdown]] until Night Shade dragged him away to a safer place.
*** Prince Steel Barricade is [[{{Technopath}} a technological variant]], sensing and empathizing with the emotions of technology as they form their own sapience. Though it's unknown when exactly he developed it, he believes it showed up during a stay in Machina, [[spoiler:where he sensed the (unconfirmed) budding emotions of [[HumongousMecha Colossus]], Crazy Ant's guardian mecha]]. This power partially influenced Steel Barricade's support for Synthetic Automatons, but he kept it a secret because most of his family, especially Golden Scepter, are against them. However, it would be revealed anyway when, while helping his father and Corona Neo fight the hateful Alicorn king, Exosus, Steel Barricade experienced the agonized suffering of the Synthetic Automatons working under Exosus, revealing that many of them were forced to turn against mortal sapientkind by Exosus himself to justify his genocidal hatred. This influenced Golden Scepter to rethink [[FantasticRacism his own views on Synthetic Automatons]] and let go of his grudges in order to defeat Exosus for good. Naturally, this ability got the attention of many Machinery/Technology-based deities, who believe that Steel Barricade has potential to go beyond technological empathy and learn how to [[{{Telepathy}} psychically communicate with technology]] if he chooses to.
** Prince Sparkling Wing is described as an empath who is capable of [[LivingLieDetector exposing lies and falsehoods]], and seeing what people really think of each other, making him very hard to fool. He can also [[EmotionBomb send out an empathy wave that calms anger and instills "love and peace" in his targets]] to defuse hostile situations. His most unique empathy-related ability is [[{{Seers}} looking into the past]] via people's emotions, allowing them to experience their memories as if he had personally been there. The fact that empathy is getting extremely common among divine and mortal individuals on Equus has not been left without comment from him, since he sees it as rather odd.
---> '''Sparkling Wing:''' I've noticed something... [[LampshadeHanging I think we have too many empaths on this planet]].\\
'''Golden Scepter:''' Perhaps... but should there come a time where hatred, paranoia, violence, and suffering are most prevalent, [[ThePowerOfLove then empathy might be the best and most powerful weapon we have]].
** As the Alicorn god of Humility, Blue Suede Heartstrings has psychic empathy. His entry notes that he can produce an empathic aura that ebbs prideful feelings, which makes him a relaxing presence to beings like Stoltur, who embodies the bad aspects of Pride. He can "[[EmotionBomb emotion-bomb]]" people by psychically forcing them to feel the suffering they have caused with their arrogance, but he only does the latter when his targets need a little more convincing to change their ways, as he generally hates hurting people like that and sees it as far from the only option.
** One of the abilities that Canteros, the god of Requited Love and Reconciliation, inherited from Amareros is powerful empathy. Like his father, he can sense the presence of Love and encourage it, radiate an aura of pure Love that can weaken/kill entities that thrive entirely on negative emotions, and "[[EmotionBomb emotion-bomb]]" people who reject love and/or break commitments to people they claimed to love. When used in conjunction with his telepathic abilities as the god of Reconciliation, he can help people feel more at ease with revealing their own flaws and other truths, allowing them to reconcile with those they had hurt. It's revealed that he caused Temnobog's famous reconciliation with Belyolen to happen by "nudging" the former's deeply-buried desire to be loved from underneath his resentment and anger, making Temnobog more open to receiving his older twin brother's tearful confessions and pleas to stand down. He also "nudged" certain empathetic individuals towards Temnobog, such as Upepo, Golden Scepter, and Kaldr, so the dark stag would receive a circle of friends that will help him recover from the Elternteil Deer Pantheon's emotional abuse.
** Due to embodying Joy, Bossa Nova Heartstrings has empathic powers that allow him to detect feelings of joy and project an empathic aura that fills people with joy and happiness. While he normally uses his empathy to help bring comfort to those who are dying, his joy-based empathy makes him a powerful person when facing entities that thrive solely on negative emotions, as said entities can be weakened and/or killed by positive emotions. Naturally, given his domain, he often gravitates to those who spread joy. He can also "[[EmotionBomb emotion-bomb]]" those who willingly rob people of their joy as punishment for their actions, and also curse them to feel their victims' suffering indefinitely unless they genuinely repented.
** Sola Mors has great psychic empathy due to embodying Empathy as a concept, though it's noted that her powers are weaker than Bossa Nova's and Blue's due to being "younger" than them as a divine. While she has typical emotion-reading abilities, she mostly focuses on lonely people, including the dying, so she can help comfort them. She can also create an empathic aura that calms anyone in its vicinity and fills them with warm love that dispels their loneliness and [[YouAreNotAlone makes them realize that they aren't alone after all]]. She can EmotionBomb her targets, usually as a punishment for those who emotionally abuse innocent people and make them feel lonely to lower their self-worth. In addition, she can curse people by forcing them to feel the suffering and despair they inflicted on their victims indefinitely until they repent and change their ways, though only when they truly warranted it. This is something that Bossa Nova taught her, [[LaserGuidedKarma having done the same thing himself on the bullies and teachers who drove her to suicide]].
** Like [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Primarch Angron]] pre-Butcher's Nails, Prince Red Blade has psychic empathy, except here it's due to being the Alicorn demigod of Temperance, and his empathy is much more powerful. He can produce an empathic aura that ebbs negative emotions like rage, envy, and lust, and encourages people to become kinder and more virtuous. This aura also makes him a calming and relaxing presence for both his hot-tempered brothers and those who are inclined to anger, such as Yarost, the Bogolenya Deer god of Fury and Hatred. Like his father, Golden Scepter, he can "[[EmotionBomb emotion-bomb]]" people with the suffering they have inflicted on others with their actions.

* EverythingsBetterWithRainbows: Rainbow Ponies are a mutated sub-type of pony that are generally treated as heroes and mystical figures of legend. This is because, aside from their beautiful, prismatic appearance, they have the ability to control light, energy, and rainbows. The most famous Rainbow Pony is Rainbow Dash, the fastest pegasus and performer of the Sonic Rainboom, [[AchievementsInIgnorance though she remains completely ignorant of her heritage]]. It's averted with Lady Prismis, an evil Rainbow Pony sorceress who was known as "The Baleful Spectrum", but thankfully it wasn't enough to tarnish the Rainbow Ponies' overall reputation.

** Quite a few characters were inspired by those from ''Anime/CodeGeass''.

** Prince Written Word, Golden Scepter's thirteenth son, is based on Primarch Lorgar Aurelian. Like Lorgar, Written Word would idolize his divine father and essentially worship him as a god, and became a priest to preach to his subjects the virtues and benevolence displayed by his father. And like Lorgar, his religious activities were eventually exposed, causing him to be disciplined by his father. However, the similarities would stop there - because Golden Scepter was gentle yet firm in explaining to his son the folly of promoting public worship of him and his family, Written Word never turned evil. Instead, he would realize the true value of faith as a unifying, empowering force after doing some soul-searching outside his home, which would lead to him Ascending after he inspired the residents of a backwater Pony kingdom to have faith and trust in each other. Written Word would also become a staunch enemy of Demonkind and corruption in general due to witnessing the horrors perpetuated by both, making him more similar to [[FanFic/TheRoboutianHeresy RH!Lorgar]] in terms of character.

** There's "Tinies", which is popularly used by the Giants and other large races such as the Jotunn Deer and Nature Giants (though they use the "smallfolk" variant instead). Even the more benevolent Giants tend to use this, which makes them InnocentlyInsensitive. Changeling Queen Supia, a gigantic royal {{Kaiju}}, doesn't like using them because it indicates that the person in question has a superiority complex towards smaller and "inferior" races.

** The rise of the 'People's Empire of the Cloven' takes cues from the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, but with considerable differences. Before the Retcon that had the Clovenists replace the Hooviets, the Hooviet's 'Roedinan Revolution' was much closer to their real-life counterparts.

** An interesting case with Temnobog, who grew from an emotionally abused fawn treated as nothing more than garbage and an evil "cast-off" of his radiant twin brother, Belyolen, to a dark god who spreads evil and suffering through the Deer realms. However, the first time he devoted himself to spreading evil was just to spite Belyolen and usurp his brother's place as leader of the then-newly-formed Bogolenya Deer pantheon. But learning the truth of both of them being divine "equals" who literally cannot live without the other, combined with Belyolen revealing that he always loved him and pleading to his brother for reconciliation, moved Temnobog to finally bury the hatchet. Nowadays, while he is still feared for what he does, he's also respected, since he uses evil for constructive purposes and to motivate mortals into becoming stronger to oppose evil.
** Blood Fang was speculated InUniverse to have become the feared conqueror he is today out of the altruistic desire to give his nomadic family a home by taking over places with fertile lands like Hyrule. However, if one would go further back, it would be revealed that he was once a mortal Earth pony named Blood Feather, a former bully who would become a steadfast ally of Gleaming Shield and Radiant Primrose in one of their early incarnations. However, he was possessed by the spirit of Demise, a greater demon, [[HeroicSacrifice and committed suicide with Gleaming Shield's sword so he'll free himself and save his friends]]. A few gods reincarnated him out of pity, but it turned out that a portion of Demise's evil stayed with him, ultimately giving rise to Blood Fang.

* FromZeroToHero:

** The Old Orosian Gods were basically the Greek Pantheon and held dominion over the Taurus Peninsula. Their JerkassGod attitudes towards their mortal followers ultimately got them killed, and the benevolent gods that survived reforming as the much nicer Pramanthan Pantheon.

* FutureBadass: By the Fifth Age, [[spoiler:''everyone'' has Ascended to godhood thanks to the Church of the Stars and other benevolent factions, and have advanced enough that they are finally able to reach the stars. They're also able to defeat and kill the Void Sovereign, a god who is implied to be ''billions'' of years old, thanks to their combined divine, technological, and military might]].
* TheFutureWillBeBetter: The Fifth Age is depicted as this in ''Codex Galactica'' entries. [[spoiler:Thanks to the Church of the Stars ''finally'' coming clean about the [[OmnicidalManiac Void Sovereign]] and what happened during the first 'Void Aeon', everyone was able to Ascend to godhood and make huge technological progress necessary to reach the stars. Once that happens, the Void Sovereign breaks free from his prison and tries to destroy Equus for good, but everyone has become so powerful by this point that the battle is tipped in their favor this time, with Diamond Tiara/Queen Elpis serving as their vanguard as the Bearer of Hope. They defeat and kill the Void Sovereign, saving the galaxy from his threat, and are able to expand to and/or colonize other worlds afterward]].

* TheFutureWillBeBetter: The Fifth Age is depicted as this in ''Codex Galactica'' entries. [[spoiler:Thanks to the Church of the Stars ''finally'' coming clean about the [[OmnicidalManiac Void Sovereign]] and what happened during the first 'Void Aeon', everyone was able to Ascend to godhood and make huge technological progress necessary to reach the stars. Once that happens, the Void Sovereign breaks free from his prison and tries to destroy Equus for good, but everyone has become so powerful by this point that the battle is tipped in their favor this time, with Diamond Tiara/Queen Elpis serving as their vanguard as the Bearer of Hope. They defeat and kill the Void Sovereign, saving the galaxy, and are able to expand to and/or colonize other worlds]].

** [[Music/StevieRayVaughan Moon Ray Vaughoof]] would realize the the importance of forgiveness when, after nearly attacking an abusive mare for [[OffingTheOffspring killing her own foal]], he was sent to learn about fairness and mercy towards the dead under Malus Manes. Taking the advice to heart, he proceeds to forgive everyone who wronged him in life, including his [[HardDrinkingPartyGirl first ex-wife]] and his [[AbusiveParents alcoholic father]]. This not only leads to Moon Ray Ascending as a god of ''Forgiveness'', but also preaching the lesson of forgiveness to others, setting off a chain of events that would [[KarmicJackpot reward him greatly]] every time he lets go of something that was either troubling him or holding him back.

** After nearly attacking an abusive mare who [[OffingTHeOffspring killed her own child]] in a rage, Moon Ray Vaughoof would be lectured by the Three Deaths for his insubordination. This caused him to realize that he had to forgive the people who wronged him in life in order to move on, so he forgave the helicopter pilot who caused the crash that killed him (causing said pilot to break down crying) and his ex-wife Crystal Light for leading him deep into vice and exploiting him to satisfy her own drug cravings. And with the help of the Trimortidae, he gathered his courage to confront his father, Sunny Mane Vaughoof, and forgive him for his foalhood abuse, even [[PunctuatedForEmphasis punctuating it for him]] in case his father decided to ignore him. It's heavily speculated InUniverse that being forgiven by his youngest son left Sunny Mane quite shaken.
---> '''Moon Ray Vaughoof:''' I forgive you.\\
'''Sunny Mane Vaughoof:''' What?\\
'''Moon Ray Vaughoof:''' You heard me, old mane. You've been a shitty parent and you kept scaring us and everypony with that anger of yours, that much I know. But if you hadn't met Ma, me and Big Brother Fields would've never been born, and I'm thankful I had such a wonderful time while alive. I ain't forgiving you just to let you off scot-free for your shenanigans, oh no. You still ain't off the hook yet. I'm forgiving you because I've let your mistakes rule me and define me for FAR too long. So when I say 'I forgive you', I mean it, Pops. And if you think you can just shut me out, I'll say it again and again: I forgive you, Pops. '''''I. Forgive. You.'''''
*** This is later weaponized once Moon Ray [[DeityOfHumanOrigin Ascended to godhood]] immediately after forgiving his father, becoming the Alicorn god of ''Forgiveness''. With his PsychicPowers, Moon Ray can see what's preventing someone from reaching forgiveness, and help them through their problems so they could forgive those who wronged them. He can cure people of the effects of [[ThePowerOfHate spells fueled by negative emotions]], but he can also nullify both wrongful punishments (which makes him ideal for dealing with [[HangingJudge corrupt and/or puristic judges who often abuse their positions to condemn innocent people]]) and magically-binding contracts. In addition, Moon Ray can also [[HealingHands heal physical/mental/emotional wounds]], and weaken/kill malicious magical/psychic entities like Tulpas (especially those whose existences involve encouraging hatred and other negative concepts). However, there's a catch: Moon Ray's domain works if he's truly and genuinely forgiving. If he forgives someone superficially, his domain won't work. Also, contracts made by older and more powerful deities, such as Ispita, a "Titan"-ranked goddess, will not be affected.
* ForTheEvulz: Usually averted. As a rule of thumb, a majority of villains and/or criminals in the setting have some sort of motive or justification that makes sense, at least to themselves. Those who pursue senseless, banal evil for its own sake are generally seen as particularly abhorrent, and usually deconstructed as being at least a little [[AxCrazy mad]], dysfunctional or just plain [[StupidEvil idiotic]].