Most of the main cast of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic have shown themselves to have some Hidden Depths, as part of the general effort to create varied and interesting female characters.
- Rarity is probably the most extensive of these. On the surface, she is a Drama Queen fashion designer who wants to marry a prince and become a very important pony. As we learn more about her, though, it becomes increasingly clear that a lot of that is a mask; her dramatics are entirely intentional, as she deliberately acts in an extreme manner for the sake of being a Large Ham, and knowingly BEING a large ham. She "hates" dirt, and tries to avoid it whenever possible... but when it comes down to it, she's more than willing to get dirty if it serves her means. She seems prissy and proper, but her first reaction on being confronted with a manticore is to kick it in the face.
She is deeply loyal to her sister, even while she gets annoyed with her sometimes, and also has some Mama Bear tendencies towards Spike. - Fluttershy is an extreme Shrinking Violet and Friend to All Living Things who can talk to animals and understand them, but she has "The Stare", which can bend animals to her will. She seems like a really weak flier, but it is mostly lack of confidence; she can fly perfectly normally when she's pressed, and is a great buckball player. She also has considerable knowledge of fashion and is apparently so beautiful as to be a top-tier fashion model. And when push comes to shove, and she has to protect someone, she can be quite the Mama Bear, though in a mostly nonviolent manner.
- Genki Girl Pinkie Pie throws parties all the time... but also seems to suffer from pretty severe separation anxiety and is afraid that if she isn't the funnest pony to be around, her friends will all abandon her. She also apparently is good at memorizing large amounts of information, such as everyone's birthday, as well as being able to build various party-related equipment and having the ability to (imprecisely) predict the future.
- Both Rainbow Dash and Applejack struggle to be the absolute best at everything they do, especially in terms of athleticism. In Rainbow's case, it seems to be that she ties success to affection, and believes that if she's not the greatest, her friends will leave her. Applejack, on the other hand, is tied to a close-knit family, and will go to extreme lengths to make sure her promises to her family are kept.
- Twilight Sparkle can fall into some bad cases of Obsessively Organized behavior, particularly when it comes to assignments given to her by Princess Celestia, as well as getting lost in her work or obsessing over things she perceives as tests. She also is pretty good at most anything she puts her mind to, and has strong leadership instincts.
- On any normal day Spike the dragon is just The Reliable One and Twilight Sparkle's assistant. However when he's put on the spot, he becomes hyper-competent enough to take on a giant timberwolf to save his friend, or jump from pegasus to pegasus mid-air to melt a massive hunk of ice before it crushes an entire audience.
- Princess Celestia, the immortal ruler of Equestria, has quite a bit of this. While she is normally The High Queen, it turns out that she finds formal events boring, gets nervous and twitchy whenever her charges are in danger, really wanted to be an actress when she was younger (even though she's terrible at it), and was a Stepford Smiler for a thousand years because she was hiding her grief over sealing her sister in the moon.
- Even antagonists aren't immune. While Chancellor Neighsay is a nauseatingly bigoted racist who only seems to be pointing out the School of Friendship's perceived flaws as an excuse to prevent it from letting non-pony students attend, he admittedly does find valid flaws to cite. School Raze also reveals that his desire to protect children from harm is genuine, implying he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist rather than merely a Politically Incorrect Villain.
