WMG / My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic Twilight Sparkle

aka: Friendship Is Magic Twilight Sparkle

Main Index
Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Spike

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Twilight's Past, Present, and Future

Twilight is a Messiah, in fulfillment of an as-yet-unrevealed prophecy, which is why Celestia took her on as her personal protege.

When Twilight was out of control during her entrance exam, Celestia saw that magic of immense power was underway. She entered the room and saw Twilight, and was the first to spot Twilight's cutie mark — a cutie mark that represents the Elements of Harmony (five smaller stars surrounding a sixth). Basically, Twilight's "special talent" isn't magic, per se, but rather wielding the Element of Magic. The cutie mark signifies that Twilight is Equestria's Chosen One, and Celestia identified Twilight as such, immediately taking Twilight under her wing to prepare the young filly to lead a new group to wield the Elements against Nightmare Moon and any other super-powerful villains who may appear.

• Given how often she has already saved the day, Messiah might as well be part of her job description.
• Celestia mentions that if Twilight succeeds in saving the Crystal Empire, she'll be one step closer to being ready...

Or, alternatively, Twilight is the key to Equestria's destruction, once again in fulfillment of another unforeseen prophecy.

Thus, Princess Celestia took Twilight Sparkle under her wing to ensure that the prophecy of her destroying Equestria is never fulfilled.

• Although Twilight Sparkle has saved Equestria three times as of the end of the second season, it's been shown in episodes like Lesson Zero and It's About Time that she could have the potential of plunging it into greater peril than Nightmare Moon, Discord and/or Queen Chrysalis combined.
  • Not to mention the "Pinkiecide" in "Too Many Pinkie Pies"...

Twilight will replace Celestia and Luna as ruler of Equestria.

Celestia and Luna don't have any heirs, so it's possible Celestia would leave Twilight to rule when the time comes for her and Luna to pass on, probably upgrading Twilight to an alicorn in the process. Plus, it would give a lot more meaning to Twilight's name if she was the one who raised both the sun and moon.

• Twilight becoming a princess makes perfect sense. When a master takes an apprentice, the apprentice will one day take on the same job as the master. Princess Celestia is basically adding Twilight to the line of succession, because she recognized Twilight's potential all those years ago.
  • That assumes both that Celestia plans to stop ruling at some ruling at some point, and that Twilight has an increased lifespan. Neither of those things have ever been implied. Celestia has strongly implied that she plans for Twilight to have different duties than herself.
  • It also kind of ignores that Luna is already better placed as a successor.
  • The phrase "adding Twilight to the line of succession", rather that "designating Twilight as her successor", should imply that Twilight would come after Luna, and probably Cadance. Also this is assuming becoming an alicorn grants the same kind of immortality or extremely long life that Celestia and Luna seem to possess.
  • With Twilight's formal ascension to Princess of Friendship, its looking really likely that Cadance and Twilight are going to be the replacements for Celestia and Luna if the latter two ever permanently abdicate, die, or etc. There's another WMG below on that theme.

Twilight Sparkle's Progeny will be extremely important for Ponykind in the future.

During the second part of the pilot, Nightmare Moon, at the cusp of victory said "You will never see your Princess, or your Sun again!" Obviously she meant the bright shiny thingy in the daytime... Or was she? What if that "U" was in fact an "O"? Being something akin to a Physical God in the first place, Nightmare Moon, and of course Celestia, could conceivably be able to look into potential futures, if not at will, then at least for the big things.

• Well Spike is already practically her son, and a dragon. He is potentially very powerful once he's grown up a bit.
  • Each of the Mane cast will have a foal (With Rainbow Dash having a son to incorporate the male demographic) and they will inherit their mother's element of Harmony to defeat a great evil.

Twilight's unusually high magical ability is based entirely on that one event in The Cutie Mark Chronicles.

The sonic rainboom didn't temporarily boost her magic; it granted permanent extreme magical power.

Twilight Sparkle was never supposed to hatch the dragon egg.

We have never seen another unicorn with an adopted dragon. Fluttershy had never seen a baby dragon before, and none of Twilight's schoolmates at the beginning of Elements of Harmony seem to have had adopted dragons. Furthermore, dragon eggs cannot be easy to come by: consider how the two adult dragons we have seen reacted to the thought of losing even a little of their hoards; now imagine how they'd react to someone trying to steal one of their eggs. More likely, the test was an Unwinnable Training Simulation: the purpose was for the testing board to see how a prospective student reacts to failure. And what happened when Twilight succeeded in doing the impossible? Princess Celestia took her on as her personal pupil. Clearly, Twilight's success made her unique.

• They were supposed to inflict some degree of magic on the egg, but not actually hatch it, which is why we don't see a bunch of unicorns running around taking care of dragons. But maybe Celestia had a dragon back in her day.
• That makes sense. The purpose of the test was probably to see what magical methods the prospective student would use to attempt to hatch the egg, how long it would take the prospect to give up, and how the prospect would react to failure.
  • This explains why the instructors started scribbling furiously on their clipboards after Twilight slumped and said "I'm sorry for wasting your time..." If she was really giving up, and had failed conclusively, there would be no need to write anymore than simply "REJECTED." Instead, they were recording how they reacted—that would be discussed and studied, and she would be contacted later to tell her how she did. That is, if she hadn't done the supposedly impossible.

Twilight hatched an unfertilized dragon egg

The only way for Twilight to hatch it was to magically infuse it with her own genetic material. Twilight isn't Spike's mother. She's his FATHER. Why do you think he doesn't have wings? And while most dragon breath just burns, freezes, or melts, his teleports things—while one of Twilight's near-reflexive magical abilities is teleportation!

Discord did take Twilight's element.

When they where about to enter the labyrinth, he took her horn and said himself he took her magic. What's more, he separated her from her friends at the very moment her determination convinced them to put their best…hooves forward (cheesy, but awesome). One could say Twilight's not the last to lose her 'element'; it's already been taken from her without brainwashing (because Discord's messing with them all). At least Discord may claim this…

Like the shattered 'Elements of Harmony' moment with Nightmare Moon, he's going to be proven wrong. Perhaps because Twilight will work out that they shouldn't be looking in the maze, but back where they began. Or something.

• What is Magic without Friendship?

Twilight was bullied as a filly.

In "Lesson Zero", she sees a group of fillies laughing while playing jump rope and thinks they are laughing at her before Spike snaps her out of it. Her Imagine Spot of Magic Kindergarten also involves everyone laughing at her. This may imply Twilight has had bad experiences of a similar nature in the past. Even before she entered the Magic Academy, her nerdy, studious nature would've made her a prime target for bullies. After becoming Celestia's personal pupil, she would've been seen as the "Teacher's Pet" by others at the Academy, and possibly resented for her natural talents. The constant bullying served to make her even more anti-social, and is what led to her idol-worship of Celestia as the sole individual at school who had a positive, non-antagonistic relationship with her.

• Of course, this also combined to make her way too critical of her own failings, which leads to...well, Crazy OCD Twilight.
• We saw in the "Cutie Mark Chronicles" that she had been bad at magic. They probably made fun of her because she screwed up her magic all the time.
  • All it shows is that Twilight couldn't hatch the egg until the Sonic Rainboom shocked her into a Power Incontinence moment, it doesn't really show her being 'bad' at magic in general. Prior to that we see that Twilight studied really hard (and always had - look at Smarty Pants) until her parents decided to try and enrol her in Celestia's school. Going by the other stories, it looks more like Twilight had already shown an interest and aptitude for magic, it's just that the Sonic Rainboom was - like rest of the mane cast - the trigger which confirmed it as her cutie mark talent.
• Agree with this WMG. Twilight's imagery of Magic Kindergarten show her as a filly, not as her older self. It was a flashback to something that really happened, and would explain her sheer terror of going back there. And as Applebloom in Call of the Cutie and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy in The Cutie Mark Chronicles found out, bullying can happen, even right under a teacher's nose.
  • Twilight must've been pretty big for a filly. Not to gainsay the concept of having other kids laughing at you for some reason as it happens, but it seems more like it's the humiliation of being an adult stuck back in kindergarten.
    • This. She was clearly an adult, and I am constantly irked by this mistake.

Adding to the above theory, Trixie was one of Twilight's bullies.

Trixie was supposed to be Celestia's student instead of Twilight. But when Celestia chose Twilight instead, Trixie got angry and decided to make Twilight miserable all school year long. Her main way of doing this was saying things like "Just you wait! One day you'll slip up and Princess Celestia will see that you're nothing but a pathetic little failure!" Eventually, Trixie graduated and Twilight decided to stay at school as a grad student to brush up on her studies. Twilight forgot about Trixie (although she did remember someone bullying her as a kid) but Trixie remembered Twilight, and, well...we all saw "Boast Busters"...

• Trixie only had one line to Twilight in Boast Busters: "That was an Ursa Minor?" She never says Twilight's name, and she specifically picks out every one of the mane cast except her at the show. The idea that the two have any sort of past together is purely fanon, and there is more evidence against it in the show than there is for it.
  • There is Word of God that Trixie was also a student at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. However, its pretty obvious that if she and Twilight were there at the same time they still didn't interact much, because there is zero recognition on Trixie's part.

Twilight gained the ability to use magic at an older age than usual.

It seems very likely that in Magic Kindergarten Twilight didn't know how to perform magic at the time, unlike the rest of her classmates. She seems to be a filly that was always intelligent, and possibly the most intelligent in her class, but she couldn't show what she could quote from a book. Perhaps unicorns develop control of magic at a certain point similar to puberty? Twilight might have been a late bloomer. She probably became a teacher's pet because that was the one pony who was nice to her in the classroom. Said teacher might have recommended to Twilight's parents to pull her out because she was being bullied.

As a filly, Twilight might have been shyer than in the series, and instead opted to spend time with family only. Her mother might have been a librarian who allowed her daughter to read any books of her choice after Princess Celestia raising the sun helped Twilight find happiness in herself. Even when she first learned magic, she used it more sparingly than usual as demonstrated in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" where she wasn't relying on magic for turning the pages as much.

The incident during the entrance exam occurred because Twilight had magic unicorns are born with repressed the whole time, and the sonic rainboom was all that was needed to stimulate that magic into being used. And it was because Twilight was studious as a filly that she knew how to cast those spells.

Twilight is going to be possessed by Nightmare Moon or someone similar and become the Big Bad at the end of the season.

In season 1, the first non-Nightmare Moon episode focused on the Gala, which was the season finale. The first non-Discord episode of Season 2 focused on Twilight wreaking havoc. The season is going to keep pointing out Twilight's potential in not only her power, but in abusing it. Cut to a possession, involving Discord, NM, and any other villains who might show up along the way. She'll be healed by the Elements of Harmony, with Luna taking Twilight's place (even a callback to "The Return Of Harmony" with a 'You're the new Twilight!') when they face her.

On the Meta page, there's a theory about a villain who is the embodiment of order. That would be perfect for Nightmare Twilight's actions! Forcing everyone to do things efficiently, with no breaks, laughter, or lightness at all? That sounds like Twilight's OCD taken to its logical extreme.

The Sonic Rainboom boosted not only Twilight's magic, but her intelligence.

Even without her magic, Twilight is very smart and academically gifted. However, her flashback to her Magic Kindergarten classroom seemed to suggest that she was being singled out, not for being a nerd, but for being stupid.

Twilight may have been of average or below average intelligence when she was young, and only her determination to be a powerful magician like Princess Celestia was able to push her forward to the point where she was even considered for Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Then the Sonic Rainboom happened, and not only did her magic become awesomely powerful, but her mind was boosted to match.

She's terrified of being sent back a grade because that happened to her at least once as a filly. If it happens again, it means that her wonderful new life of being a brilliant student and powerful magician is falling apart, and she's going to go back to what she had before. If you've read "Flowers for Algernon," you know how serious that can get.

Twilight dropped out of magic kindergarten

Magic kindergarten is another option for unicorns, beside regular school. Twilight was ridiculed by the other students for her poor control over her powers, but her parents knew she had strong powers, because they went haywire whenever she got spooked. Instead they took her out of her school and had her try to get into the Royal magic school.

• In hindsight, that would fit nicely. Seeing young Twilight surrounded by books in the Cutie Mark Chronicles was understandable at the time, but seeing her studying alone, rather than at school, makes even more sense if her parents took her out of the school she disliked so much (for above reasons) and tried to get her into somewhere more appropriate. And less, y'know, depressing.

Twilight might become more powerful than the Princesses.

The Princesses' most powerful magic remains centered around their cutie marks, just as for most unicorns. The powers Luna showed (as Nightmare Moon) all have thematic associations with the moon: shapeshifting (lycanthropes), illusion (lunacy), weather (tides) and teleportation (gravity). If this idea held, Celestia's powers would revolve around light, heat and fertility (the equine reproductive cycle is triggered by how much sunlight they're exposed to!).

But Twilight's magic talent is magic itself. She could be an omnidisciplinary magician.

This would explain how Twilight was able to do more with the Elements of Harmony than she was, and why she'd get sent to solve problems that the Princess would otherwise be better suited to handle herself (as in "Dragonshy").

Twilight was an accidental Replacement Goldfish for Princess Luna.

While Twilight was studying under Celestia as a filly, Celestia began to notice similarities between Twilight and Luna. (Mostly the fact that they were socially awkward and rather Adorkable.) They weren't alike enough the fill the loneliness left after Luna's banishment, but enough to allow Twilight and Celestia to bond on a deeper level than most of her previous students. Twilight and Luna don't know, however, because Celestia feels guilty about trying to mentally replace her sister.

• It's possible that Luna knows or at least suspects - when she visited Ponyville in "Luna Eclipsed", Luna's tones with Twi hint at a frustration and sorrow beyond mere displeasure at how the populace treats her now.
• Its looking more like Twilight was a Replacement Goldfish for Sunset Shimmer now, although the factors listed above might have been a two-for-one special with Celestia.

Twilight will have a daughter who looks like Lauren Faust's ponysona.

Since Word of God is that Twilight was based off Lauren's mother, why not?

• That would require giving Twilight a canonical, MALE romantic partner, you, good sir/lady, should know better than that. Plus, that would require a time skip of at least 5 years, and sounds more like somebody's fanfic.

Twilight's attempt to stop the Parasprites from eating food DID save the population of Ponyville from a horrible death.

When you think about it, how long would it have taken the Parasprites to finish off Ponyville's entire food supply before realising that, in a sense, ponies are also food? They certainly don't seem picky regarding what they eat. By confining them to eat normally inedible matter, Twilight Sparkle may have doomed Ponyville's structures, but she saved its population from being torn apart by an unstoppable, hungry horde.

Future Twilight really did avert a disaster.

In the original timeline, wherein Twilight didn't travel back in time, Cerberus couldn't be returned to Tartarus because he drowned in a flood caused by the dam bursting, and Twilight didn't have access to Pinkie's ball stash because Pinkie was off getting a haircut at the time. All of Future Twilight's injuries were from fighting the monsters that escaped from Tartarus. Celestia told her where to find the time travel spells before she was devoured by monsters. The events we saw in the episode were the new timeline, where Twilight gets the warning from Future Twilight and enacts general readiness protocols, and the timeline warps probability to give Twilight the same injuries so that the Stable Time Loop is closed properly.

• Or more exactly, Twilight-Prime (aka Future!Twilight) was going to warn her about the whole bad future you proposed there. When Twilight danger-proofed Ponyville, she retconned the events of that future, making her Twilight-Prime. The other Twilights are going to either interpret her message differently or do the exact same thing. Lost yet?
• It is possible that probabilities were not in any way altered. This might just be the only permutation that result in the time loop breaking. Consider time lines:

(1)Disaster(2) Twilight Decides to go back in time(3) Twilight back in time and prevents disaster

This spawns a new timeline:(0a) Twilight receives information(1a) Disaster averted(2a)Twilight has no need to go back in time, and so does not go back in time and prevent the disaster(3a) Therefore 0a never occurs — the information to prevent the disaster is never received —and a disaster happens.

Repeat time line from 1. Each iteration of this loop is slightly different, and so Twilight might get more or less of the message in. The flower pot might miss; the dam might burst; but only one time line results in a break:

(0c) Twilight receives information(1c) Disaster averted, but accidents occur so that it appears Disaster not averted(2c) Twilight decides to go back in time(3) Twilight goes back to 0c

Twilight will become Celestia.

At some point, Twilight will transform into Celestia and travel back in time to defeat Discord the first time. She will then rule Equestria until the day she meets her younger self and takes her on as her protege, whom she will train until she is ready to transform and travel back in time, forming a Stable Time Loop. Peewee is really a young Philomena.

• Not likely since Pee Wee was Spike's pet then he returned him to his family.

Twilight would give What the Hell, Hero? speech to someone else for once.

For twice, she was lashed at, but how about if Twilight Sparkle calls them out for once? Bonus points if it was to Princess Celestia and/or Shining Armor.

• This could become her Start of Darkness thus leading to her Face–Heel Turn mentioned above.
  • Original poster here, she can also do this to her friends. She can lash them out for siding Princess Celestia and/or Shining Armor, calling Applejack a liar, Pinkie Pie mean, Rarity a greedy nag, Rainbow Dash a traitor, and Fluttershy cruel.

Possible triggers that begin Twilight's road to villainy.

• Related to the What the Hell, Hero? speech above, it can be something hypocritical the Princess, her friends, or her brother did.
• An even worse OCD freak out greater than in Lesson Zero and A Canterlot Wedding combined. With none of them letting her off the hook. Despite Twilight's apologies and asking forgiveness, they still reject her. Devastated by the fact that no one sees her as a friend/student/pupil anymore, she decides to become evil. The ponies who reject Twilight's apologies would get a What the Hell, Hero? speech from Princess Luna to her sister, Princess Candence to her husband, and/or The Cutie Mark Crusaders to the remaining five on how all of them were harsh on Twilight. Or the one delivering the speech is from Derpy Hooves of all ponies! After realizing what they've done, they went go see Twlight to for them to apologize, only to witness her turning evil...Nice Job Breaking It Everypony.
• Twilight will be tricked into turning evil, perhaps the evil force that turned Princess Luna into Nightmare Moon or King Sombra's "Door of Nightmares" would reveal Twilight that her friendship is shallow, and they're going to leave her once she's no longer useful to them anymore.
• Twilight will put on the Alicorn Amulet from Magic Duel either during or after her Heroic BSoD in anger and hatred. Thus the Alicorn Amulet doesn't just corrupt Twilight, it shatters the moment she puts it on and its magic transforms her into a raging being of destruction!

After defeating her Superpowered Evil Side, Twilight will face a Disney Death

To match with the three WMGs above, it'll be the greatest Tear Jerker ever. Bonus points if the princesses, her brother, and her friends are begging her to wake up.

Twilight's ultimate destiny is to manage the stars.

Celestia and Luna already control the sun and the moon. Twilight's cutie mark is stars, and the scene in "The Crystal Empire" where Celestia and Luna are addressing her, with the moon and sun images behind them, has the stars of Twilight's cutie mark behind her. If she becomes an alicorn as is rumoured, this could be the thing she's in charge of.

• But isn't Twilight's cutie mark a flash of light?

Twilight will literally sacrifice herself in the Series Finale.

Celestia's line about the importance of her understanding self-sacrifice may have been given because she's pulling a Dumbledore and needs Twilight to give her life to stop some threat to Equestria even bigger than Nightmare Moon, Discord, Queen Chrysalis and King Sombra put together. Whether she will face a Disney Death or get Killed Off for Real, only time will tell.

Twilight will be replaced as an Element Bearer

Bascially, following on from the above, Twilight will still be in the show (just in a reduced role), and they'll introduce another unicorn to take on her element (maybe a Surfer Dude type?).

• I'd rather have Trixie or Lyra. But either way, introducing any new character to replace Twilight will be met with instant hatedom.

Twilight was actually killed by The Elements of Harmony when she completed the spell...

...The rest of the episode was actually all a Dying Dream similar to the last cutscene of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Twilight was actually killed by The Elements of Harmony when she completed the spell...

...Only to rise from the dead after three days in a new and glorious form.

Twilight will adopt a Secret Identity in season 4

Due to becoming a very recognizable member of the ruling class it would logically be difficult for her to maintain an ordinary life in Ponyville with her friends. So she will become a Princess Incognito as a regular unicorn with a oddly similar name..Sunset Shimmer perhaps?

There will be an episode where Twilight screws up royally in some fashion

This is just my idea, but I was thinking that she's just trying to help someone with a MASSIVE problem (maybe trying to catch a criminal who is trying to bring about The End of the World as We Know It?), but just makes things worse. She tries to come up with a reason as to why she messed up and tells them that there's always a next time. Cue "The Reason You Suck" Speech from them:

"Twilight Sparkle, you might be an Element Bearer, you might be Celestia's pupil, and you might be the next princess to rule equestria, but that doesn't mean you're always right."

The Celestia who spoke to Twilight just before she became an alicorn was actually part of Twilight herself

In the star-filled realm, Celestia seemed to know a lot about Twilight's life that she shouldn't really have known. Celestia isn't literally watching Twilight all the time, after all. Rather, the Celestia-like figure who spoke to Twilight was an aspect of Twilight's own subconscious, or a manifestation of the Element of Magic itself. Of course, everything Celestia said about being proud of Twilight was still true.

Twilight Sparkle actually died when she cast her version of the change destiny spell

When the elements of harmony bombard Twilight Sparkle with their magic in response to the spell she just wrote, she is reduced to a smoldering black streak on the floor in the shape of her cutie mark. From there we see her in an ethereal plane with Princess Celestia. In this theory, Twilight Sparkle actually died from casting what she thought was the finished Change Destiny spell, and Celestia is actually guiding her into a happy fantasy of being a princess in the afterlife. Everything from that point forward is just Twilight's afterlife fantasy, while in Ponyville her friends are in mourning, having indirectly helped cause the death of their dear friend in a magical accident.

In relation to the above, Twilight did die, but only briefly

She was actually killed in the blast, but it also sent her spirit to another dimension where Celestia was. When Celestia gave her wings, she was restored to life, returning her to Equestria.

Twilight is the Avatar.

At first, it was just a for-fun guess, but the more I thought, the more it fit. For whatever reason, the Avatar Spirit relocated to Equestria.

Twilight bursts of power bares resemblance to the Avatar State, she wields immense power on her own, and as of MMC, encompasses all the powers of each 'race, perhaps a translation of bending. Building off of the most recent Avatar, Avatar Korra, they follow the personality pattern that any given Avatar has a major personality difference from the last. Korra's impulsiveness may reflect Twilight's dependance on plans and order. Also, they both have incredibly strong bonds with their friends (As all known Avatars seem to have with their friends), and both have faced off with the very spirits of chaos (Discord and Vaatu, respectively).

Speaking of Vaatu, the same is true for Princess Celestia and Raava, the spirit of order and Vaatue's eternal rival. Both have done battle with and imprisoned the spirits of chaos, both are primarily white and of immense power, and their voices even sound alike. Perhaps what first drew Celestia to Twilight was the presence of Raava (being the Avatar Spirit) inside her.

The old Twilight was permanently killed by Celestia.

The alicorn that appears at the end is actually a being that Celestia created with Twilight's memories.

Twilight died, but was brought back as an angel

Normally ponies who died wouldn't come back, but since she died creating an important spell and Celestia wanted her to be able to use it,she was brought back as an angel-like being. The whole alicorn/princess thing is just a cover story to avoid worrying her friends.

Twilight is half-blind for most of the series.

Prior to becoming an Alicorn, Twilight goes through an episode where she meets her future self, goes bonkers trying to figure out what her future self was trying to tell her, and by the end of the episode realizes she was trying to tell herself there was nothing to worry about. During her mental breakdown, she decides to "monitor EVERYTHING(TM)" and in the process, looks directly into the sun through a telescope. Pinkie Pie then gives her an eyepatch, which she wears for the remainder of the episode. In one of the later seasons, Twilight and Rarity infiltrate Flim and Flam's Friendship University, during which Rarity disguises Twilight by giving her an eyepatch, which she wears over the same eye. There exists a Youtube video in which a fishes' eye (sans the rest of the fish) is used to demonstrate what happens when you try to look at the sun through a telescope (the lenses focus the light into a focal point, which literally burned a hole through the fish eye). We can therefore conclude that Twilight literally burned her eyeball out of her head and has been wearing a glass eye ever since.

Twilight's Mental State

Twilight has OCPD, not OCD.

To clarify, OCD is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, where the victim has uncontrollable recurring obsessive thoughts, and/or equally uncontrolled ritualistic behaviors (hair pulling, touching certain items, etc.) that they perform to try and ease those obsessive thoughts. The victim is fully aware that the thoughts and actions are irrational, they are just simply unable to stop them, which causes a downward spiral of increasing anxiety and depression.OCPD is Obsessive Compulsive "Personality" Disorder... the patient does not have uncontrollable impulses or thoughts. OCPD is a condition in which a person is "preoccupied with rules, orderliness, and control." A person with this personality disorder has symptoms of perfectionism that usually begin in early adulthood. This perfectionism may interfere with the person's ability to complete tasks, because their standards are so rigid. People with this disorder may emotionally withdraw when they are not able to control a situation. This can interfere with their ability to solve problems and form close relationships.Some of the other signs of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder include:

• Excess devotion to work
• Lack of flexibility
• perfectionism
• Not wanting to allow other people to do things
• Not willing to show affection(friendship troubles?)
• Preoccupation with details
• Preoccupation with rules and procedures to the point that the key part of the activity is gone(the sleepover)
• "Obsession with making lists" (hello!)

The only two symptoms she shows questionably are

• Miserliness (then again—- a book for a child's birthday? Really, Twilight?)
• Obsessive collecting and accumulation of useless stuff (though her book hoarding might qualify.)

Still one does not need to show ALL the symptoms to be diagnosed, just MOST.

Most importantly, while a person with OCD is perfectly aware of their condition (which is a source of frustration and shame), a person with OCPD is often completely unaware that their behavior is abnormal and in fact considers their own behavior the norm and other people's as aberrant.

Twilight has a very mild form of Asperger Syndrome.

Not the usual stereotype that is usually portrayed, but she did seem a tad "off" in certain episodes. She has a wealth of knowledge, especially on magic, but at the same time she seems socially naive. In "Look Where You Sleep", she needed a reference guide on how to throw her very first slumber party, and "Boast Busters", she had some trouble predicting other ponies' reactions (She assumed that they would hate her for using magic to show-up Trixie). Perhaps the main reason why she didn't have friends aside from Spike before moving to Ponyville was that she simply didn't "get" other ponies. Keep in mind, she's still fairly confident in what she does and acts fairly normal otherwise, but how much could it be behavior learned through books and lessons rather then actual pony-to-pony interaction?

• As someone with Aspergers, I can vouch for this one, as that's a pretty good description of what it's like to have it.
  • Of course everyone is a little atypical, but she does have a very polite, somewhat authoritative and very businesslike way of speaking, even with her friends. Addressing everyone like you're at a business meeting is certainly a somewhat autistic trait. I doubt anyone would ever bother to diagnose her as such though, some of the others have issues that cause them far more distress (though you never know, she might have been far worse as a child and had some really good child development Pony help her get over most of her issues).
  • Considering that she has a goddess as a personal teacher, It wouldn't be surprising if Princess Celestia had a degree in foal psychology in addition to raising the sun and moon.
  • I found after skimming Typelogic that most of the quirks listed in this WMG show up as natural behaviors characteristic of the INTJ personality type.
    • Nah, she's more of an INTP, and besides, INTJ=/=Asperger's. Far from it, really. In reality, since she's just a character in a show, MBTI doesn't describe her as well as it does most people.
  • Twilight seems to be more in line with a mild case of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder than Asperger's. Note her obsessive making of checklists, and the way she sorted her nestmaking material, as well as the way she reacts poorly to things going off-script.
    • Some amount of obsessive compulsiveness is actually common in Asperger Syndrome though. Considering that one of the main difference between OCPD and AS is that OCPD doesn't have as much impaired social skills and Twilight definitely has some social impairments, I see no reason why OCPD is more likely.
  • Well, the show's all but said it outright as of this writing, at least to anyone who has or knows anything about Asperger's Syndrome. It's not likely to EVER be addressed in-show, unfortunately, because...
    • 1: Asperger's isn't something you can explain to a six-year-old child in a 22-minute cartoon.
    • 2: Many of the adults watching don't understand the disorder enough to explain it themselves.
    • 3: No one has a problem with Twilight being an aspie. It's half the reason we love her!
    • It's not impossible to explain Asperger Syndrome in a children's program. There was an episode of Arthur that covered the subject. But My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic isn't really the correct show to do that.
  • Fluttershy has more towards having Asperger's than just being shy and having a freaky knowledge of sewing. In some of the episodes she definitely has more going on with her than shyness, and considering that its is known that she is older than at least Pinky Pie it seems unlikely that this has do to immaturity. Regarding social empathy, she seems to show this more with animals (including spike) than with other ponies, so I don't think this is a full counter-argument. She is also shown being physically weak for a pegasus, which is often associated with Aspergers, and sometimes her actions seem odd in a non-shy way and sometimes even inconsiderate, even though she is shown to be the most benevolent pony. In some episodes she seems more autistic instead of just being shy than in others, but this may depend on the script writer. Even if she isn't autistic, she definitely has some complex pyscological problems. Depending on how you interpret Hubworld's description of her it may imply that she is more than just shy. Also I think this is interesting, it seems that "neurotypical" people seem more likely to pick out Twilight Sparkle as the ones with Aspergers (assuming that exactly one of the ponies has the disorder) while people with Asperger's seem more likely to pick out Fluttershy, from what I have seen across the Internets.
    • Expanding on the above, I think it's possible that both Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy both have a case here. Just from the latest episodes alone, TS makes a strong case for herself in "Lesson Zero", and both get a moment or two in "Luna Eclipsed". Twilight Sparkle just is easier to identify (and this is from somebody who has Aspergers), while Fluttershy seems to have something more similar to Avoidant Personality Disorder.
  • As someone with APD I can second that Fluttershy shows many of the symptoms and personality quirks.
• Being a troper with Aspergers myself, I think that this is possibly correct. While I'm not saying Twilight doesn't show any signs of it, she seems to show more signs of simply being a reclusive nerd than anything, thus having almost No Social Skills, which can happen to anyone. To be frank, if anyone in this show has Aspergers, it'd probably be Fluttershy. Hence why I added that as a WMG below, in her section.
• Actually, I would think she has Nonverbal Learning Disorder (NLD) rather than Aspergers. Growing up in a household where my dad and brother were diagnosed with it, it seems more plausible. As the troper above says, she's more of a reclusive nerd than anything else, which fits more with NLD than Aspergers. People with NLD are very vocal with their knowledge, which isn't necessarily subject specific. They also are likely to become agoraphobic and appear more "difficult" than anything else.
  • NVLD isn't even a diagnosis: All it is is saying that someone's PIQ is a standard of deviation higher than their PIQ, and it is most commonly associated with AS. It's supposed to imply things, but it doesn't have to.
• As someone with Asperger's, I'd say it's very likely that Twilight has it, and possible that Fluttershy has it (though I don't agree with the interpretation—I think she's just comically shy), but I don't believe either of them have been diagnosed (if the condition is even recognized in Equestria). Twilight's mild obsessive compulsiveness (I say "mild" because she doesn't count how many steps she takes to her mailbox), general social awkwardness, bad predictions of others' behavior (not only in Boast Busters, but all the time with Celestia, whom she'd spent a good deal of her life with), occasional paranoia (as in A Canterlot Wedding, where she thinks Shining Armor doesn't care about her anymore), nervous breakdowns (not just the obvious ones like Lesson Zero or It's About Time, but when she ran away crying in Winter Wrap-up I got a very strong vibe), and obviously increased intellect are a very fitting description—while Fluttershy's personality, if not just for comedic effect (we don't question why Pinkie does half the things she does), seem more likely to be another disorder, or are possibly even due to trauma earlier in life.
• I think at this point it's a definite yes that Twilight has AS. The above aforementioned knowledge Twilight possesses, plus her lack of social skills and Twilight's emotional state go to support this. However, one of the biggest ones nobody above has pointed out is her interests. They revolve almost entirely around books. Another common trait of AS sufferers is a single minded fixation on a single subject - whether it's sports, video games, cartoons etc, etc. As mentioned on the TV Tropes article, not all AS sufferers show the exact same symptoms as each other, but this plus Twilight's other mannerisms make for a very strong case. Also, fun fact - we are an Asperger's Syndrome suffer. Which Pony do most people compare us to?
  • Whatever disorder she might have, she appears highly-functional enough that nobody would have ever bothered to make a diagnosis; which is common enough in the real world to be called Truth in Television.
• Another thing I've noticed is that she tends (or at least used to) pace around the library when she's worried about something (like schedules). This could be a form of "stimming" (repetitive behavior used to calm oneself). But this isn't a major thing since everyone "stims" at some point, especially when stressed, and pacing is rather mundane.

Twilight Sparkle is an epileptic.

In Cutie Mark Chronicles, Twilight Sparkle went on the magic rampage in response to some energy flux produced by the sonic rainboom. This flux worked similar to flashing lights for a sufferer of Epilepsy, causing her to use magic uncontrollably while convulsing in air and levitating. Princess Celestia may have used magic to force the haywire synapses to calm down.

• I think that her reaction, and the reactions of the faculty indicate that the rainboom simply caused her to be startled and thus released her magical potential in an uncontrolled manner. This would mean that the event was a reaction to stress, not a symptom of a chronic condition.

Twilight Sparkle was permanently corrupted by Discord.

In "Lesson Zero," she's completely out of her mind and behaving like Discord himself: Teleporting around at random, trying to cause fights between ponies, using mind control when her first attempt failed and generally acting very chaotic.

Now, remember, Twilight only broke mentally, while the others were mind controlled. And she wasn't magically cured, either. She just seemed to spontaneously recover emotionally.

Perhaps this was Discord's intention all along, not to just sow chaos, but to corrupt Celestia's apprentice and take her for his own. He did seem to fixate on her during the two episodes.

Twilight is suffering a relapse into OCD as a result of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

After the way Discord broke her and her friends due what was apparently her fault, Twi developed a guilt complex and an obsession with making things as orderly (ie, not Discorded) as possible. By the time we see her in "Lesson Zero," she's basically become a Type A Stepford Smiler due to her experiences, and her fear of failure does the rest.

• Also, she only really snaps once her friend laugh at her problem. Look at the library scene in "The Return Of Harmony, Part 2" and why she lost it then makes much more sense.

Twilight has a psychotic Split Personality.

In "Lesson Zero," she's seen talking to her reflection in the water, with differing expressions very much akin to Gollum. Her darker split showed herself throughout various points in the rest of the episode. We just haven't seen her return yet.

Twilight Sparkle has or had a problem with Alcohol

Much of Twilight Sparkle's behavior can be explained by a problem with alcohol. In the first episode, we see Twilight's reaction to an annoying situation is to pour herself a stiff drink, as we can see in the party scene where she gets handed hot sauce instead of alcohol. In "Sonic Rainboom," we see her cleaning up after a wild night of "studying"; it's likely that she got drunk and trashed her own place. Furthermore, her dancing during her birthday is consistent with being bombed out of her mind.

Clearly she is not a social drinker, meaning she likely gets drunk only in private. That makes her being an alcoholic more likely.

Twilight is severely mentally unstable and a danger to everypony.

She went insane in "Lesson Zero" because she was stressing out about time and friendship reports. You could say that her insanity there does have some potential for Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome, if you take on the idea that friendship is a magic of its own.

However, in "It's About Time", she went insane trying to prevent a disaster, eventually coming to the crazed decision to stop time. Such an act would condemn everypony to a Fate Worse than Death, and it had nothing to do with her magic talent being suppressed - in fact, she was planning to use it for her own means.

Therefore, whereas everypony else suffers from occasional bouts of Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome, Twilight doesn't - she's insane all on her own. The fact that she's apparently a genius only ups the danger factor.

• Did you read Asylum?

In the Crystal War Timeline, Twilight is clinically depressed.

Between the dashing of her foalhood dreams, and the murder of her brother and sister-in-law by Sombra, she's had it really bad.

Relationships and Responsibilities

Twilight Sparkle is an intern for some sort of government agency.

She receives direct correspondence with higher government, is well studied in a variety of magic, to the point of being an elite "mage." She is sent on direct assignment, and she is ordered to make strong connections out in a backwater country town. If a government agent ever needed to lay low, a town like that would be a haven. She somehow has knowledge of magic that can temporarily alter and change a cutie mark, which is a highly personal marking that could be used to positively identify individuals. Knowledge of such magic would not be so odd if it weren't for the strong personal connections to a cutie mark; nopony would EVER want to change their cutie mark unless they had a direct need to. she has an almost adept skill in teleportation, which no other unicorn has been observed doing, and she is likely highly educated, having taken the equivalent to some level of college education at a prestigious university. She has the credentials, the skills, the connections, and the orders.

• She's not skilled enough; she's still learning her magic, and it takes her a lot of effort to pull feats such as quieting down the Ursa Minor and changing a cutie mark. But perhaps when she grows older, stronger and more skilled, she could qualify.
• From her cutie mark story, Celestia runs a magic school. After Twilight demonstrated that she was really powerful & it would be dangerous if her powers went out of control, Celestia took her in as her personal student.
  • Also note that as Celestia's protegé, she seems to have been given some authority of her own, was personally requested to take care of the dragon in "Dragonshy" (which I think would normally require a military intervention or... a specialized agent, also see the mayor's WMG right below), and in "A Bird in the Hoof" she seems to have enough authority to give the royal guards an order (told the guards Fluttershy was an authorized subject in the party) and being given status reports (Philomena's disappearance and once again, the dragon in "Dragonshy")
  • If by "government agency", you mean the ruling monarch, then this not only canon, but very obviously so.

Twilight Sparkle likes Applejack and Fluttershy more than she likes Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, or Rarity.

In the episode "The Ticket Master", Twilight thinks aloud to Spike about what to do with her tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala. During the monologue, we see images over her head representing what she's contemplating, and she is concerned that if she gives away both of her tickets instead of keeping one for herself, she would still have three disappointed friends.

The three ponies that she imagines pouting or crying when they get the bad news are (from left to right) Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity. That means her first thought is to give the tickets to Applejack and Fluttershy, suggesting she likes them better than the others.

I would call this a visual Freudian Slip, and that Twilight Sparkle is unaware of this, herself (and Spike, who didn't see what the audience saw, doesn't realize it either).

• This was only the third episode, and it's really a nice bit of realism. Applejack and Twilight did the most amount of bonding in the pilot, and Twilight is obviously impressed by Fluttershy's easy defeat of the manticore as she references it in Dragonshy. She might have identified with their motives a little more as well, scholarly interest and improving their business. (As opposed to showing off, showing off, and giving themselves diabetes.)
• I'd say it has more to do with them being birds of a feather than anything they've done. Twilight, Fluttershy, and Applejack all have introverted personality types, and they all prefer things to be straightforward and logical.
  • Applejack, introverted?
  • 'Introverted' does not automatically mean 'socially awkward', although in Twilight's and Fluttershy's case it does. Applejack is self-confident and good with ponies when she needs to be, but outside of family situations is entirely content to be by herself for long periods of time, doesn't require regular external validation from other ponies to remain happy, and has visible I Work Alone tendencies. Rainbow Dash and Rarity, on the other hand, actively gain energy and enthusiasm from being in crowds and basking in the approval of other ponies, and become uncomfortable if they don't get it at least occasionally. And Pinkie, of course, literally goes insane from withdrawal if deprived of frequent social contact.
• Applejack's reason—replacing Granny Smith's hip—is pretty close to being objectively the best reason, and she did have first dibs on her side. This explains Twilight's line when she becomes upset at Applejack's pie-bribery attempt later: "In fact, I'm less sure now than I was this morning!"
  • Fluttershy also gave Twilight a bit of a reason to take her. Fluttershy is timid, shy, and easily hurt by others. Of all her friends, Fluttershy is the one she'd be most afraid to hurt because she'd be the most likely to take it badly. So it's likely Applejack was her first pick because her reason was her family and Fluttershy because she really didn't want to hurt her.
• Spike may know all about it! In "Lesson Zero" he constantly interrupts Twilight's imagine spots by physically interacting with them to push them off stage. He might have seen the whole series of images over her head and said nothing.
• Reiterated in "Hearth's Warming Eve". While the Mane cast are playing their roles as historical figures in Equestria history, their personalities are clearly cutting through, and Twi, AJ, and Fluttershy clearly get along as well, being the blue oni to the reds of the other three.
• The group literally represents Power Trio of Beauty, Brains, and Brawn to a tee, which is why the three work so well together.

Twilight Sparkle and Trixie are related.

In "Cutie Mark Chronicles", we see Twilight's parents. Note the physical similarities between Twilight's dad and Trixie, specifically their coat colors and cutie marks. Perhaps Twilight and Trixie are siblings?

• Or perhaps Trixie is Twilight's aunt and Older Than She Looks. (Obviously, Twilight's dad doesn't like talking about her because of the whole using-magic-to-trick-people thing.)
• Twilight's parents go through a very harsh divorce, and in a very convoluted and spiteful custody battle, Celestia steps in and rules neither parent should have Twilight after how they acted, taking Twilight in as her own. Later, Twilight's dad remarries and has Trixie. They are half-siblings.
  • Trixie looks older than Twilight, maybe it was the other way around and Trixie's mom was their dad's first wife. And Trixie was raised solely by her mother which explains a few things.
• If Twilight and Trixie are related, they're probably cousins. It's the easiest possibility and most probable out of what's been mentioned on the merit that it doesn't have any unpleasantness. This is a kid's show, after all.
  • Calling it now: cousins on Twilight's father's side. However, as they didn't seem to know each other beforehand, they may not be first cousins. (That, or Nightlight and his sibling simply aren't on the best of terms.)

Twilight Sparkle is a graduate student.

All the other ponies of the Mane Cast have jobs of some sort. Applejack is a farmer, Rarity is a fashion designer, Fluttershy is an animal caretaker, Rainbow Dash is a meteorologist, and Pinkie Pie is a caterer. This explains the reason why impressing Celestia is so important to Twilight Sparkle. If Celestia gets it in her head, she can flunk Twilight Sparkle for any reason.

• It naturally follows that "The Magic of Friendship" is her thesis topic.
  • I'm a graduate student, and watches Twilight Sparkle's antics for stress relief. This is What Grad-School is Actually Like.

Twilight Sparkle had friends before the events of the series.

The three unicorns early in the pilot know who she is and invite her to Moondancer's party, and Spike had a present for Moondancer. Lyra Heartstrings was nice enough to wave hi to Twilight running by and looked surprised/disappointed at being ignored. And there's Pony Joe from "Best Night Ever" who tells her "Long time no see!"

It's likely she didn't spend her entire time growing up in Canterlot without friends, but she eventually became more involved with her studies and decided at some point that she didn't need friends. This may or may not be why Celestia decided to use her in part of her Batman Gambit in the pilot.

• She is an INTJ personality type. Any friends she would've had would have been just as bright and nerdy as she was. The reason she didn't have friends in the first episode? The few she had had already left her to her obsession with her studies. The "Friends" section of the page linked above describes it thusly:
  "The INTJ is not likely to choose to spend time with people who they feel don't have anything to offer the INTJ. They especially like to spend time with other Intuitive Thinkers, and also usually enjoy the company of Intuitive Feelers. These personality types love to theorize and speculate about ideas, and so can usually relate well to the INTJ, who loves to analyze ideas."
• Alternately, she had friends but didn't recognize them as such. The more we see of Twilight's past, the larger her Canterlot social circle seems to have been. If we accept any of the above theories that she has some sort of personality disorder (or especially Asperger's), it's seems likely that Twilight had friends and didn't realize it.

Twilight was a networking magnet at one point before she came to Ponyville.

After all, it is likely that many of the students at Celestia's school are there to make connections with ponies from other prominent families or otherwise gain political advantage at court. Furthermore, Twilight Sparkle was already Celestia's prize pupil before the beginning of the pilot. It may have been that many of the other ponies were hoping to befriend her to gain advantage.

In fact, that may have been why Twilight was so unsociable. She was probably tired of everypony pretending to be her best friend when they really wanted an in with the princess.

• This has a bit of Fridge Brilliance in it. Twilight's friends in Ponyville didn't seem to know that Twilight had a major connection to Celestia in the beginning, and thus had no reason to try to suck up to her. She realized that at some point, which is why she let them bond with her.

Twilight Sparkle was adopted.

Twilight's parents were never really developed outside of their appearance. They never say anything, we don't know what their occupation is, and we don't know if Twilight inherited her overwhelming magical power from them, so there was a possibility she was adopted, most likely left on their doorstep or given over to them by Princess Celestia.

• Theory One: She was left on their doorstep by a mysterious mare.
• Theory Two: Her real parents were killed by an evil, love-less pony and she was left there by an elderly male pony who is the headmaster stand-in for Celestia at the magic academy and her destiny is to dispose of said evil pony using her powers of love and friendship!
• Theory Three: She was left on the doorstep of Canterlot castle where Princess Celestia discovered her, but since they didn't have the facilities to care for a foal, Celestia handed the foal over to the ponies who would be her parents. If they're actually close with the Princess or not, like if they work for her or something, is open for debate.
• Theory Four: Princess Celestia is actually her mother. She had an affair with a very talented unicorn, and gave birth to Twilight after. Worried about how the public would react to all this, she went out in secrecy and gave her up to the ponies who she selected to be the parents of the foal. Again, it's debatable if she knows them personally or not.
  • More plausible after the Season 3 finale.
• Theory Five: Twilight is the third sister of Celestia and Luna. If Celestia controls the sun, and Luna controls the moon, then Twilight is meant to control the stars. Celestia sent Twilight away for her own protection after Luna's rebellion. The final episode will show Twilight becoming an Alicorn and taking her place in Canterlot alongside her sisters.
  • She's an Alicorn and the series isn't ending yet. We'll see how this goes.
• Theory Six: (taken from a fic) Celestia made filly Twilight as a golem for reasons I don't currently remember, and Celestia secretly gave her to her new parents after she realized she couldn't use Twifilly for whatever it was she made her for.
  • You may be referring to the theory that Twilight's body was constructed by Celestia, to be a vessel to hold Luna's spirit after she destroyed Nightmare Moon; presumably destroying Luna's body in the process. There are more than a few fan fics that take this idea and run with it.

Twilight Sparkle is a descendent of Clover the Clever.

During "Hearth's Warming Eve", it was revealed that Star Swirl the Bearded was the mentor of Clover the Clever. In the flashback/play, it was also shown that the Fire of Friendship manifested through Clover's magic, causing her eyes to glow white, very similar to how Twilight looks during her most intense spells as well (like her magical awakening and using the Elements of Harmony). Given this similar effect, added with Twilight Sparkle's specific choosing of Star Swirl as her Nightmare Night costume, it isn't unlikely that Twilight is descended from Clover.

Alternatively, Twilight is a descendant of Princess Platinum.

It would explain the Season 3 finale.

Twilight has had no training as a librarian.

The state she keeps that library in...

Twilight actually has two families

Before becoming the Princess' student she had one family: Her mom, dad, and possible brother. However, as she focused more on her studies in Canterlot, she spent less time with her biological family, and spent more time with Celestia and Spike, and they became a second family to her. Celestia became her second mother, and Spike became her second brother. She doesn't outwardly call the two her second mother and brother though, due to not wanting to ruin their strong friendship, and out of fear that they wouldn't think the same as her.

Twilight's family are titled nobility

Granted, from what we've seen they don't act much like it (perhaps knighted just a couple generations ago?), but look at the facts:

• She's the personal student of the ruler of Equestria.
• She had a member of the royal family, a winged unicorn no less, as a babysitter.
• Her brother is Captain of the Royal Guard.
  • As an addendum, said brother said his dress uniform belonged to their uncle, suggesting a tradition.
  • Far from having been knighted only a few generations ago (knighthood is not hereditary), they are actually very high-ranking members of the nobility — probably dukes, but certainly no lower than marquesses — and have been since time immemorial. The reason that they do not seem stuck up or excessively formal is that they are not status-conscious; they are so confident of their place and rank that they feel no need to put on airs. Their attitude is that, howsoever they act, that's just how a duke's family is supposed to act.

Despite the introduction of Shining Armor, Twilight still sees Spike as her little brother

Based on dialogue from previous episodes, it's implied that Spike and Twilight always had a strong bond:

• "Owl's Well That Ends Well" had Spike afraid that Twilight didn't love him anymore. He really cares about her opinion and would do anything to please her, which shows that they must have some kind of affection for each other. It also shows that he loves his job as Twilight's assistant, and won't let anyone take away his job. Also, Twilight was the only one that went looking for him after he ran away, and the only pony (with some help from the owl) that saved him from the dragon. She also says that no one could ever take his place.

And that knew each other ever since they met:

• "Secret Of My Excess" mentions how for every birthday he had, Twilight was the only one that gave him a gift. Sure he only got a book, and he didn't seem to thrilled about it, but that proves that these two stuck by each other.
• Another small example would be when Twilight takes him to the pony doctor. She takes him there as if he were just any normal filly or colt. She didn't even consider that because he's different, that they he may be treated differently. That alone seems touching.

• "Dragon Quest": In the end, when spike says the ponies are like family to him, they all, including Twilight, give him a hug, showing that they feel the same way. And the picture of baby Spike with Twilight in the final scene from "Dragon Quest" implies that she did know him from the moment he was hatched◊.

Now, as for Shining Armor, look at it from Twilight's perspective. Spike is her loyal friend. He's always willing to help her out when she really needs it, and was there for her when she first arrived in Ponyville, and has lived with her ever since. But that's the thing. She sees him everyday.

For Shining Armor, it was different. He was someone that she could look up to. He was a mentor to her, and her very first friend. He taught her things like how to fly a kite, and helped her with her magic. Spike wouldn't be able to do this. Not only would he be a baby, but in the flashbacks, Twilight didn't have her cutie mark yet. So he didn't exist yet! Shining Armor was probably her only friend before she became Celestia's pupil, and thus also before she met Spike. Twilight mentioned they drifted apart, and that's probably when the drifting happened - when Twilight became Celestia's pupil. And also, she said she hasn't seen him since she moved to Ponyville. She misses him. The song is meant to add more depth to that: it was to let the audience know what their relationship was. For Spike, we already know. Just watch "Owl's Well That End's Well" and "Dragon Quest." They're like family to each other. He's like her l.b.b.f.f (little brother best friend), and those episodes worked fine without a song because we didn't need them.

• An alternate theory that could also be accepted is: Word of God suggested that Celestia took to the initial raising of Spike, given the general lack of pony knowledge on dragon raising, only giving her to Twilight as an assistant when both were mature enough for it. Hence, the Twi/Spike relationship - prior to being sent off to Ponyville - would be more formal, and becoming more sibling as they both learned to adjust to Ponyville. This would also be consistent that leaving Shining (whom she still probably saw every day while at Canterlot), her relationship with Spike would be upgraded to the sibling nature to make up for not being around Shining.

In case you're still skeptical here:

Spike:You're more than friends. You're my family.

She loves her brother like a friend.She loves Spike like a brother.

Shining Armor and Princess Cadence are Twilight's real parents.

Note several things:

• She looks far more like Cadence then she does either of her parents
• The whole "Why is a princess foalsitting her?" issue.
• The unusually powerful magic.

Twilight is really the daughter of Star Swirl the Bearded, cast forward in time by a magical accident.

Well, he certainly seems to have been the magical genius of his time judging by all the spells he's credited with creating, she clearly has a bit of a fascination with him, and we know for a fact that Star Swirl was experimenting with time travel magic (from "It's All About Time"). So this guess is at least as plausible as the "descendant of King Sombra" one above...

• Alternatively, since age modification spells are canon, he came to the future through a different route, and is one of Twilight's recent ancestors.

Twilight is supposed to rebuild the Castle of the Two Sisters and set up shop there.

Just as Cadence spent most of her time in Canterlot being groomed to save the Crystal Empire, Twilight was sent to Ponyville with the express purpose of taming the Everfree Forest and making it her own personal domain.

• When the heck was Cadance even implied to be in grooming for taking over the Empire?

Twilight is descended from King Sombra.

As far as we can tell, Sombra was an unusual unicorn in life, but still just a unicorn, so there's no reason he couldn't have descendents. Twilight is also a pretty unusual unicorn, and she took to Sombra's dark magic disturbingly quickly.

• That's really kind of stretching it, considering that being a magical prodigy is basically Twilight's shtick in the first place and so there's no reason to think that she wouldn't learn that trick just as fast as any other and that the two don't otherwise seem to have anything in common at all.

Twilight's Powers

Twilight Sparkle controlled the stars that aided in Nightmare Moon's escape.

If we assume that Twilight is being trained to become a goddess herself, she may unconsciously be controlling those particular stars with her worries. Nightmare Moon would have never been freed had Twilight not worried so much and done what Celestia told her.

Twilight learned how to teleport from Nightmare Moon.

The first time we see her teleport, she states that she didn't know she was doing it. A Dog and Pony Show implies that she can copy any spell she sees. In part 2 of the pilot, Twilight jumps into Nightmare Moon's whirlwind just before it teleports away in a similar manner as how Twilight teleports later. It's also possible she didn't realize she could copy spells yet, which explains why she was surprised she could teleport.

• The first time we see her teleport is when she fakes out Nightmare Moon (in a moment of understated brilliance). So no.
• The first time we see she teleport is after she was teleported by Nightmare Moon. While she was surprised to teleport by accident in The Ticket Master, Twilight having learned the spell from Nightmare Moon is still a valid theory.

Twilight's teleportation has latent time travel effects.

In The Ticket Master, when Twilight is chased by the mob of earnest ponies, it is roughly mid to late afternoon. When she teleports spontaneously, she arrives in her library at night time. Granted she had no direct control over that teleport, so this could mean two things:

• Her teleportation can also, with focus she is currently incapable of, be used as a form of time travel separately from distance.
• The longer distance a teleport is, the more effort it takes and the more time passes between the teleport.^note For instance, teleporting short distances as seen in Applebuck Season yields negligible dilation, perhaps 1*10^-1122 minutes or less per foot. When teleporting longer distances, the dilation compounds, say on the Fibonacci numbers. In which case a mile would be roughly one hour and forty minutes of dilation, meaning if it were 19:30, easily plausible for that daylight in the spring or summer time, it would be 21:10 when she arrived at the library assuming it was exactly one mile away. If it were one mile and one foot... two hours and forty three minutes. It should be noted, however, that the effect could easily be nullified by using multiple jumps in quick succession. The one mile traveled in two jumps rather than one will take less than a second, not counting the pause between the first and second jump.
  • Hey, maybe this is why she hasn't used her teleportation ability at all since episode four?
• So it's like the TARDIS in "The Eleventh Hour", where what was supposed to be a quick trip 5-minute trip to the moon and back ended up taking 10 years?
• I'd imagine it's more like the teleportation used in the Dragonriders of Pern novels. Like the titular dragons/riders, Twilight can teleport through space and time, to whatever destination she can envision. Also as with the Pern novels, the greater the jump through either dimension, the more taxing it is on the one being teleported. Teleporting without a clear destination in mind also tends to have major drawbacks for the user. Thankfully, the show has avoided the ones involving getting crushed to death after reappearing inside of a solid rock cliff.

Twilight Sparkle is able to turn Unicorns into gods.

The only shown characters thus far having a horn as well as wings are Princess Celestia and Luna. In "Sonic Rainboom" Twilight uses her magic to give Rarity wings and turns her into a god for 3 days. She just doesn't use her abilities because she's to busy showing off.

• Doubt it, those seemed more like Daedalus style fake wings. Though Rarity certainly may have thought she was a god.
• Given that Twilight only had the energy to do it once, and created incredible fragile (if beautiful) wings, it's possible that as she grows older and gets better at magic, she'll be able to master the spell and give proper wings to ponies.
  • Also, it's pretty clear that Celestia and Luna have wings because they are goddesses; they are not goddesses because they have wings.
  • The Alicorns don't just have wings; they have all the powers of a pegasi (enhanced speed, cloudwalking, flight, weather control). The wings just represent that they are pegasi. Rarity didn't have the other powers, just flight.
  • It is hypothesized that Cadence isn't a true alicorn, but "just" a winged unicorn. God-like, but not as godlike. Rarity would've have been that kind of goddess.
  • And now this WMG has been Confirmed, Jossed, inverted, subverted, reverted, and with a double-inside-out half-twist did the hokey pokey and turned itself about, seeing as how a) Twilight Sparkle can turn a unicorn into an alicorn (as that's exactly what she did with herself, using Star Swirl's apotheosis spell) but b) Cadance is explicitly a 'real' alicorn, and so Rarity was just a unicorn pony with magical prosthetic wings.

Twilight Sparkle is immortal.

Specifically, From a Single Cell. Come on, you saw how much punishment she took in Feeling Pinke Keen.

• They're all apparently invulnerable. Hell, everyone except Fluttershy was slammed into a rock surface hard enough to crumble it in "Dragonshy", and both Dash and Rarity (as well as the Wonderbolts) survived more than 1600 Gs of acceleration at the climax of "Sonic Rainboom".

The spell Twilight cast to give Rarity wings also gave her the instinctive knowledge to use them.

We were shown both in "Sonic Rainboom" and in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", and in other episodes as well, that pegasi have to be trained to fly, and that this is a lengthy process often lasting years. Pegasi typically attend flight school and, apparently in many cases, summer flight camp as well. Clearly, learning to use their wings properly is a major educational endeavor.

Yet Rarity seemed to pick up flying right away, and did well enough that she was a real contender to win the "Best Young Flyer" competition without training.

When you think about it, this makes sense: a spell to give a pony wings that only lasted for three days would be useless if it took years of training to learn to use those wings. The spell would also have to give the recipient the knowledge of how to use those wings as well.

That may have been what made the spell so difficult to cast: the caster, as a unicorn, presumably has no flight training herself, but has to impart years worth of such training in a matter of moments.

Twilight's power loss in "Bridle Gossip" was psychosomatic.

She was perfectly able to use her magic to brush her hair. But the moment she noticed her floppy horn, she dropped the brush. She never even tried to use her magic again. This suggests that her "lack" of magic was not a side-effect of her "curse", but rather her imagining the "curse" had drained her magic.

The opposite of Twilight's element is Science.

If Discord had brainwashed her into opposite, she would be acting like GLaDOS. And that would have scared Discord beyond the point of madness.

• Doesn't Twilight always act like that?
• This doesn't work because Twilight makes it pretty clear in "Feeling Pinkie Keen" that in Equestria, science and magic are one and the same. The closest you get to the opposite of Twilight's element is Pinkie Sense, and Pinkie is about as evil as a vegan cupcake.
  • Implying vegan cupcakes aren't horrible affronts to the natural order.

Twilight's new spells this season...

All have fairly reasonable explanations. A spell for memory and a wide area compulsion spell? It's obviously because she's basically a college student. A spell that allows her to somehow instantly recall any information would be the wet dream for anyone as studious (or even not) as Twilight, especially when it probably doesn't come with the problems that real Photographic Memory has.

As for the Want-it-Need-it spell? She used it during registration days. She'd zap some useless class with the spell and drive dozens of unicorns to want something like underwater basket weaving while she gets the cream of the crop picks of classes without even the need to go on the waitlist.

• The mundane uses for a want-it-need-it spell at university are ENDLESS if the item in question is finite and you're alone enough to dispell it. Noisy roomate/aide? Get them interested in a book, dispel it when they're finished. Cafeteria has a food you really like in limited quantity, and only one left? Cast the spell on a food item next to it, then remove the spell once you've got the food you wanted on your tray. Since she's obviously a grad student, its probably useful in TA work to get the lazy undergrads to focus on their tests. And so on.

In Lesson Zero, Spike was not Breaking the Fourth Wall, he was moving items Twilight manifested into reality.

Remember when Twilight manifested out of nowhere a mustache on Spike in "Boast Busters"? She's doing the same here, but she's too preoccupied worrying about her failure to send a letter to Celestia to notice. Those three Fourth Wall setups Twilight believes as only imagination in her head are really physical manifestations Twilight brought into reality due to a lack of control. Spike may have pushed a CONCRETE backdrop Twilight apparated behind her, rolled a MANIFESTED 3-d movie screen with Twi right behind it, and popped a LITERAL thought bubble that appeared around Twilight's head with qualities like a water bubble. We've seen Twilight magick before out of fear back in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, when the Sonic Rainboom scared her into completing her exam with Glowing Eyes of Doom; it's possible Spike Breaking the Fourth Wall may have been a Continuity Nod to Twilight's unknown magic ability.

• Adding to this: Rarity's couch is actually something similar, she's just simply more aware of it. The cushion she's seen sitting on at the very end is possibly another version of this.
  • Alternatively, Twilight was aware of it. She was doing what happens when "Drama Queen" meets "Reality Warper".

Twilight wasn't pushing herself to the limit in "Boast Busters"

Her straining came from her struggling to keep her magic from going out of control. She lives in a world made of cardboard. She must always take constant care not to break something or someone, never allowing herself to lose control even for a moment, or somepony could die.

• Supported by her uncontrollable outburst in "Cutie Mark Chronicles", and that she doesn't seem THAT tired after it.
• And some Fridge Brilliance too. Of course Twilight has to be careful. Despite how powerful she is, you don't want to invoke Mama Bear when the cub is the size of a multi-story building.

Twilight's special talent is not manipulating magic; her talent is CREATING magic.

She's utilizing an instinctive ability for magical fusion to create possibly unlimited amounts of mystic energy using her unicorn magic as a base fodder/catalyst. A lot like nuclear fusion, only instead of fusing atomic nuclei she's fusing unicorn magic, and instead of releasing nuclear energy Twilight is releasing/creating pure magic.

Usually Twilight only uses her horn in this process, a habit that limits the initial amount of conversion that can take place and also helps in focusing the new magical energy. This is due to her training in unicorn magic and belief that she is merely manipulating her own latent energies, she is not aware that she is making her own magic.

While using just her horn is an ingrained habit, it is by no means necessary. She can, and has on at least on occasion, used her entire body as a focus for magic making. During the episode "Feeling Pinkie Keen" Twilight battles with, and eventually admits the limits of, traditional logic. At the climax of this struggle between reason and the Pinkie Sense, Twilight becomes enraged and levitates a few feet into the air before exploding into white hot flame.

This is the result of unintentionally using her whole body as a magic fusion focus without immediately expending said energy into a spell; the energy was released in a blast of light/heat/and acoustic energy which lifted her off the ground and momentarily transformed her into living torch. Thankfully, Twilight calmed down quite quickly and her trust in traditional logic shut down the full body reaction almost as soon as it started.

The fact remains, however, that every time she uses magic, Twilight is using unicorn magic, which can already manipulate the heavens, to create a power able to affect literally anything she puts her mind to. She's repeatedly turning the starter key to a bomb that could rewrite reality, or possibly just destroy it.

• So Twilight is a sourcerer
• To add to this: S4 promo material has shown a scene likely from the first episode, where the ponies gaze in awe of a new stained glass window featuring Princess Twilight. In this window there are two books represented. One is clearly Star Swirled's, from Season 3, and the other is clearly one that features Twilight's cutie mark. If we take what Celestia said in MMC, that Twilight has actually created new magic, this window suggests that Twilight's the Princess of Magic, and she will now be creating new spells - something nopony's done since Star Swirl's day - as part of her new responsibilities. This also would explain why in the same promo ads, Spike seems always to have a book and quill by his side, as to record Twilight's spells as she comes up with them.

Twilight is actually an aspect of Celestia.

Due to banishing Luna to the moon Celestia could no longer use the Elements of Harmony. She knew that her sister would eventually return, more than likely still possessed by Nightmare Moon, so when she felt that Nightmare Moon would be returning she spun off a part of herself and gave it to a pair of (child/pony?)less adults who would raise her in secret and she would return for her at a later time when she was old enough to be trained in magic. The test with the dragon egg was just to see if she was as powerful as hoped. It went beyond her expectations and she immediately started training Twilight herself. It turned out that due to her natural ability and that she was a (if not the only) student of Celestia, that she had little to no social interaction with most anyone else and that caused Celestia to send her away to Ponyville in order to do several things at once.

1) Force her to interact with others and break out of her shell thereby becoming more mature and learning to take responsibility for things.

2) Due to her being the Ruler of her kingdom she had no chance to find anyone who would be able to use the Elements of Harmony and used Twilight to do so, with Twilight hopefully either finding a group to do so or leading them herself.

3) Figure out a way to use the elements to rescue her/their sister.

4) As the ruler of the country she had been brought up in a tense atmosphere. She had to do/act/say everything perfectly at all times and never had time to make friends herself. This was her best way to both do her duty and to give herself some measure of happiness that had been denied to her before. That is why she comes down to ponyville all the time to see the Mane Six as she considers them personal friends as well and lives vicariously through Twlight's letters.

Twilight's cutie mark is naturally plausible

Unicorns have magic relating to their talents or cutie marks. Twilight's talent is magic. This can be seen as odd at first but it makes sense that magic and or sorcery is a rare talent. There were probably others with magic as there talent.

• Which means she could be destined to be a great wizard.

The Want it, Need it spell was created by Twilight Sparkle.

One day, while playing with her babysitter, Twilight sees her cast a love spell on an arguing couple. A few years later, she gets into Celestia's school and began developing her power and working on customized spells. At one point, she came across a pair of ponies arguing, and, in an attempt to stop them, she cast an improvised spell, intended to mimic the effects of the one Cadence used. She got it slightly wrong.

Twilight's special spell is her Horn Beam.

Her brother has the ultimate shield, she the sword. Between them they shall vanquish Equestria's enemies. In keeping with her personality, it can be adjusted to have different properties.

Twilight will don the Alicorn Amulet at some point.

At some point, there will be some dire threat that will require Twilight to use the amulet to enhance her magical powers. For whatever reason, the Elements of Harmony will not be available, perhaps because they are stored in Canterlot and there will be no time to get there, or perhaps one or more of Twilight's friends will be unavailable, perhaps held prisoner by the enemy, or for some other reason. Of course, once Twilight puts it on, she will become incredibly powerful; it made Trixie more powerful than Twilight, and Twilight is already the most powerful wizard in Equestria, with the possible exceptions of Luna and Celestia. Imagine how powerful she would be with the amulet. Then imagine how difficult it will be for her friends to get her to take the amulet off once she has dealt with whatever the original threat was.

• Alternatively, she may put it on either during or after her biggest Heroic BSoD yet thus corrupting her even more than it did Trixie!

Despite Trixie wielding the Alicorn Amulet, Twilight could still have won their duel.

Overall, Trixie's tricks seem to be within the range that we could expect Twilight to be able to handle. Even the most impressive—lifting the library, the shield around Ponyville, and the age spells on Snips and Snails—aren't beyond her (at the beginning of the third season she blasted the library into the air and she has actually used aging magic before, when she hatched Spike. The glass dome is harder to place, but Shining Armor managed a more impressive barrier around Canterlot and Twilight is more powerful than he is.)

However, has mentioned on Twilight's character page on this site, Twilight doesn't handle surprise well. At all. Most of her mistakes in magic come from when she tries to improvise magic or use magic without mental preparation beforehand. And I very much doubt she was expecting a character from a one-off episode to show up again. She lost because she gave up before she pushed past the wall to access the greater amount of her power.

Of course, we couldn't expect Twilight to beat a pony wielding the power of an alicorn... if the Alicorn Amulet refers to the power of a Celestia/Luna alicorn. However, the only alicorns we've seen have been good ponies, so why would the amulet turn those who wear it evil? Perhaps it isn't referring to the race of ponies, but the material used to create it. My guess is that the Alicorn Amulet was created by cutting the horn off of a powerful living unicorn (as the horn is also called an 'alicorn'), adding that power to the one wearing it. The pain and agony of its creation drives whoever wears it slowly insane. The design of an alicorn on the amulet is because Celestia and Luna are the greatest symbols of strength in Equestria, not because it gives might on their level.

• Twilight aged Spike^note Who has his own age changing abilities, so he isn't the best example by accident, which is a different matter than doing it on purpose. Twilight is no where near omnipotent, and the show has gone out of its way to show that proficiency in one thing does not translate to proficiency in another. She hits her limits and makes mistakes fairly often. Trixie, for all her other faults, casts her spells correctly and without error. Even if Twilight had more raw power, without control she would have just made things worse.

Twilight Sparkle is the most powerful generalist, not the most powerful specialist.

Various episodes have pointed out that most unicorns don't know a wide variety of magic. Be it through lack of interest or ability, most unicorns only learn a small bit of magic, and are only good at magic related to their special talent. Twilight is noted exception, being able to learn how to cast spells just by watching others cast them, as well as successfully casting spells just by reading a book.

However, this generalization comes at a price. While she has more raw power than, say, Rarity, she can't mimic the full size of Shining Armor's shield spell because he's spent his life working on just that one spell. It is his talent, the end result of everything he wants, the spell that he pours his entire being into. Twilight just doesn't put that kind of work into it. While she can outdo him at other spells, she just doesn't have his talent for that spell. Likewise, she probably knows more types of magic than any other unicorn, possibly including even Celestia, but she doesn't have their talent or interest for their kind of magic, and therefore not their skill or ability with that magic. Even if she has more magical muscle, she won't necessarily have their control.

Twilight had the Fledgling's Forbearance spell cast on her when she was a foal.

While her magic wasn't "destroying a building" levels of powerful(we hope), considering the struggle Pumpkin Cake, a standard unicorn, gave Pinkie in Baby Cakes and how much more powerful Twilight is, her parents(not her foalsitter Cadance, otherwise she might have thought of it earlier when dealing with Flurry Heart), could have had the spell cast on her to keep it under control. During her flashback in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, filly Twilight briefly struggles to turn a book page with her magic, even though Sweetie Belle is shown in later seasons to be able to do a lot more with her magic. This could have been because the spell is still in effect, and she has to expend some more deliberate effort to override it and do what a normal unicorn could do with less effort. This could also be why she struggles so much with the entrance exam—it would take a lot of effort to override the spell and release that much magic(which the spell is there to prevent), and ends up only being possible because she was jolted into a fight-or-flight reaction by the sonic rainboom. Considering what happens afterward with her out-of-control magic, this could have been enough to break the spell completely. If it wasn't, then the spell wore off when she grew up and was no longer a "fledgling" per se, in which case this will also happen to Flurry Heart when she grows up.

Alicorn Twilight

The series finale will focus on Celestia turning Twilight Sparkle into an alicorn.

Celestia is going to turn Twilight into an alicorn so she can serve as a part of the godhead who governs the time between night and day. The problem is that after the transformation Twilight would no longer be able to be with her friends anymore. Celestia will serve as the main antagonist of this Wham Episode. In the end, Twilight manages to convince Celestia to turn her back, at least for now.

• Twilight does become an alicorn, but this guess is otherwise deconfirmed — the change does not occur in the series finale, she does not move away from her friends until the actual finale, the change isn't reversed and Celestia isn't antagonistic.

At some point in the series, Twilight will become an Alicorn.

But she'll still be the same size as she was before, and nothing much will really change in the show once it happens. Maybe Celestia will change Twilight into one if she decides she wants someone to take her place after sometime, or maybe she'll become one on her own because of how strong her power is. Call it far fetched, but it's just one of those things that someone can see happening in there favorite series.

• Confirmed one all points.

If Twilight does become an Alicorn, it will be for her the equivalent of going Super Saiyan.

"She'll be that much closer to being ready...", "Next level of your studies"

Twilight is going to be going through a lot this season. The main speculations are that she's going to become the Princess' successor, an Alicorn, or both. In terms of the second alone, something about that strikes me as it being along the lines of her going Super Saiyan! Therefore, she doesn't permanently change, which would then make sense because if she were to become one permanently it could spell a far too early end for the series. Celestia and Luna seem to be born as Alicorns, so it would take a long time before Twilight could permanently become one.

Imagine this Crowning Moment of Awesome for the season finale with the villain (either Sombra or Discord, by the looks of it):

"I'm a proud pony who calls Equestria home, and I'm here to defeat you. I am the pony you've heard of in legends, pure of heart, and awakened by fury. That's what I am. I AM THE ALICORN, TWILIGHT SPARKLE!!!

Or, for more comedic effect...

Sombra/Discord: You—you're different! What happened?! What in the fiery depths of Tartarus are you?!

Twilight: (smirks) Can't you tell? It's just like Trixie said...

Discord/Sombra: (at breaking point, knowing what's coming) No you bucking don't!!

'''Twilight:''' I am the hope of the omniverse. I am the light bulb in the darkness. I am the bacon in the fridge for all living things that cry out in hunger. I am the alpha and the amiga. I am the terror that flaps in the night. I AM TWILIGHT SPARKLE, and I am an Ali-

(Sombra/Discord magic blasts her in the face)

Twilight: (leans forward unharmed, smirking) —corn.

Twilight will remain an alicorn

But she will not just be handed a entirely new hooffull of responsibilities right off the bat. She will have to be trained for a unspecified amount of time before she can become a true princess and rule something. She will stay in Ponyville and receive this training with little interference to the show and her friendships. During which time we will learn more about the nature of alicorns and princesses.

• Alternatively, she might just decide to stay. And who's going to make her leave?
• Confirmed. Twilight remains in Ponyville after transforming and only gains responsibilities gradually over the course of the show.

Alicorn Twilight will be canon... for one episode.

The episode in which she gets turned into an Alicorn will have her experiencing the powers and training into becoming a Princess. But after a while of thinking, she declines. She would rather be with her friends than be a princess.

• Jossed. She seems to remain an an alicorn for the foreseeable future.

Twilight always was a potential alicorn, and what we saw in the Season 3 finale is simply her finally unlocking that potential.

This would explain her extraordinary magical talent as well as why Celestia (assuming she knew about it) took her on as a personal student so early. It also fits with the pacing of her "transformation sequence" — first she has her epiphany and spontaneously creates and casts her own new spell, then the Elements of Harmony suddenly blaze to life, and then she finds herself on some sort of astral plane talking to Princess Celestia, but it's only upon returning to Ponyville that we find out she's suddenly acquired wings. It just feels less like a change imposed from outside and more like a brief "now you're ready to be what you truly are" montage. And finally, of course, the whole theme of at least the first part of the episode was ponies' destinies (and that denying or messing with them only causes trouble)...

• Arguably confirmed in one of the tie-in books; Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell reveals that Candance is also an "ascended" pony (a former pegasus, in fact) who became one by managing to rescue an artefact that wielded The Power of Love and turn it against a villainous pony, turning herself into an alicorn with love-based magical powers as a result.

Cadance and Twilight are intended to eventually succeed Celestia and Luna.

We have two matched pairs of alicorn sisters (even if one is related only by marriage), both of them organized along complementary themes. Celestia and Luna are Day and Night, and Cadance and Twilight are Love and Friendship. But while Day and Night are complementary, and both of them are necessary, they're also zero-sum. One of them cannot ascend unless the other one simultaneously descends. It is day or it is night, its not both. (Yes, yes, solar eclipses. Ponies can't live under one forever. Moving on.) And they're both yoked to each other — Day without Night is a burning hell, Night without Day is a frozen one. (Celestia handles the interregnum by temporarily assuming control of both the sun and the moon, remember, not just by having eternal day.) But Love and Friendship, OTOH, are not zero-sum. Not only can they both exist at the same time in the same ponies or exist separately from each other without harm, they can build off of each other. They can synergize. Add in that its kinda hard to be exemplars of Love and Friendship without being, well, loving and friendly, and you have a pair of alicorn sisters infinitely less likely to result in one of them having to banish the other one to the moon for a thousand years. Not only are their respective portfolios engineered to have no real points of conflict, the personalities they need to carry those portfolios are much less likely to want conflict. Celestia and Luna are raising a next generation of alicorns who are, by both nature and nurture, infinitely less likely to make the same mistakes that they did. And isn't that what you're supposed to do when raising the next generation? Raise them to not make the same mistakes you did? (Even if they're going to find mistakes of their own to make, but, that's life).

Twilight is the Alicorn of the Stars.

Fits with the sky theme, she has them in her cutie-mark, and the plane where she was transformed was filled with them.

Twilight can switch between alicorn and unicorn forms.

Her alicorn form is basically her Sonic-esque Super Mode. She needs the Elements of Harmony and her friends to assume alicorn form, but can disengage alicorn form at any time when in it. She'll obviously stay in unicorn form most of the time, only assuming alicorn form when a large power boost is needed.

Twilight is going to be a HORRIBLE princess.

As a unicorn, Twilight only had to worry about keeping the library neat and having friendship reports written. As a princess, however...well, just to make a long story short, royal life will be too much for her to handle. She'll either suffer a mental breakdown, or just snap.

• She will re-injure her eye, go mad with power, and become a cannibal. That is, she'll be a one-eyed one-horned flying purple pony eater.

Twilight can choose not to be immortal.

Most people are assuming that because she's an alicorn, and Celestia and Luna are immortal, Twilight will be immortal with no way to change this. Actually, remember the age spell from "Magic Duel". Aging ponies is something reserved for the most powerful mages, but the spell has to be applied periodically year after year otherwise the user will age normally. This way, Twilight can choose to age and die with her friends instead of suffering from loneliness forever.

• Alternately she can use the age spell on her friends and prevent them from dying (until they don't want to be immortal anymore).

Twilight will control the planets.

Controlling the planets is the least work-intensive job; the planets will orbit without need for intervention, but will drift out of the right path if left to their own devices, so Twily just has to nudge them back into the right pattern every month or so. It seems a good placement for a new princess.

Twilight's "Alicorn Power" will relate to the spell that led to her becoming an alicorn.

With the release of Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell, we learned that Cadance is actually a former pegasus who was transformed into an alicorn by being able to use a powerful magical artefact based on The Power of Love. This suggests that not only can any pony become an alicorn if they become attuned to a sufficiently powerful source of magic, but that their unique "alicorn power" will be derived from whatever magic transformed them — Cadance was transformed by a love magic artefact, and so she wields power over love magic. As Twilight's ascension to Alicornhood came about as a result of her using Starswirl the Bearded's Destiny Swapping Spell, logic suggests her unique power will have its basis in the spell that caused her to ascend. This could manifest as the ability to manipulate destinies/fates, to control time, or even to move freely between dimensions.

• An alternative to the above, perhaps it could manifest as a link to the other Mane cast, since it is their 'destinies made one'.

Twilight can't fly yet at the end of Season 3.

She was only gliding on her stiffened wings and the natural air currents, and Shining Armor gave her a balcony-launch a la Cadance. In Equestria Girls, she complained about her new wings getting in the way and showed difficulties with using them.

• Or, perhaps Twilight can only fly at full speed, but has not mastered hovering or more gentle flight. Like she run, but can't walk or crawl.
  • In more aeronautical terms, she has figured out how to glide, and has started to master flapping to create straight axial thrust, but has not yet mastered thrust vectoring.
  • She can fly just fine. She just can't land. Justifiable since it is generally agreed that landing is the hardest part of flight — most crashes occur during this phase. Supported by the fact she crashes three times in the first episode of Season 4.

Twilight could be genetic.

• Even though I can't find it, I remember a comic where Twilight show off her wings to her parents and they start arguing about Twilight's mom sleeping with a pegasus and Twilight just watches on. (That is the comic author's fanon, not mine. Bonus points if you can find that comic).

Twilight never became an alicorn; the spell she solved in Magical Mystery Cure either killed her or knocked her into a coma.

Could explain how the events of both Equestrian Girls as well as season 4 seem a little off to some people. It's either Twilight's Dying Dream or what's she's experiencing during her coma.

Twilight will temporarily become a unicorn again in a future episode.

Maybe the villain will say "Tired of all the princess responsibilities? Well, now you can be the regular old unicorn you miss being so much!" Then he'll take away her wings. But then her alicorn status will be restored at the end. (I was going to put this under "future plots", but that page is overbloated as it is.)

They only made Twilight a princess so they could claim a tax break.

Twilight has been shown time and time again to be fallible at being a decent person, so why else would she be a princess of friendship of all things? I'm not sure exactly how this would work, I'm just relying on the magic of Artistic License – Economics.

• Jossed: The other princesses spent a lot of time and energy developing her character, and she took over Princess Celestia and Princess Luna's duties after they retired.

Other

Twilight's library turns pink in the spring.

For a brief two weeks after Winter Wrap-up, the tree's foliage turns a light shade of pink. Due to being a Cherry Tree. Unlikely, but it would be cool if it did.

Twilight is blind in her right eye

When she damaged her eye in It's About Time it should have been irrepairibly damaged to the state where Twilight would be unable to see out of it.

• Doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it, so Jossed.

Twilight was looking under H.

She thought it would be categorized as "Harmony, Elements of" (libraries tend to do that) instead of "Elements of Harmony".

Forget Lyra: the one with the human fetish is Twi.

Simple enough. She paid no attention to the pony Flash Sentry, met and was quickly infatuated with the human one, and only after did she notice the pony Flash.

Sparkle is actually Twilight's middle name, not her last.

This is the reason why nopony else in her family has the name. Her family name? We may never know for sure.

• Considering that the only characters shown so far to use Western-style family names are the Pies and Shys, it's likelier that Twilight's family simply uses Family Theme Naming in the same way as the Apples do.

Twilight has a severe dairy allergy.

Her line in "Party Pooped" about being afraid of quesadillas due to them being "cheesy" was funny. However, how many times do you remember Twilight consuming dairy products in the series? Her fear probably stems from eating a quesadilla as a filly and having a near-fatal reaction. As for her liking vanilla ice cream, well, there are non-dairy ice cream substitutes like frozen yogurt, so maybe that's what Twilight actually likes.

Twilight inadvertently inspired Pinkie Pie to use the Mirror Pool to make duplicates of herself.

In Season 2, Episode 20 "It's About Time" Twilight becomes so paranoid about an impending disaster that she flips out and tells Pinkie she decided to "Monitor. Everything," to find out what in the hay is going to happen. Pinkie responds with "Makes sense to me. :)" By Season 3, Episode 3 Pinkie wants to know about anything fun happening anywhere in Ponyville, what does Pinkie decide to do? Create duplicates of herself to Monitor. Everything. (At least everything fun). Granny Pie may have told her about the legend of the Mirror Pool, but Twilight is who accidentally encouraged her to use it.

Twilight was born on August 7

She was destined to become the Princess of Friendship from the very beginning.

• "Sweet and Elite" put her birthday at shorty before the Grand Galloping Gala, which is implied to take place in spring given "The Ticket Master" mentions it's when every flower in its garden blooms. So either jossed or nature works oddly here.
  • Friendship Day is celebrated in April in both South Africa and Singapore, so this fixes this issue. Alternatively, ponies use botanical magic to make flowers bloom artificaly for the spectacle sake.

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