Western Animation / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

And magic makes it all complete!
^{From left to right} Back row: Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Front row: Rarity, Spike, Princess Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie.

"When I took the job, I braced myself for criticism, expecting many people — without even watching the show — to instantly label it girly, stupid, cheap, for babies or an evil corporate commercial. I encourage skeptics like this to watch My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic with an open mind. If I'm doing my job right, I think you'll be surprised."

— Lauren Faust

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was the flagship work in the fourth generation of the long-running My Little Pony franchise, incorporating self-aware humor, a more streamlined art style, and strong characterization. It lasted nine seasons, from 2010 to 2019.

The show starts with a two-parter, in which main character Twilight Sparkle, an asocial bookworm pony, comes out of her shell and bonds with five other ponies in order to use The Power of Friendship to overcome a prophecy of doom. After saving the world with the magic of friendship, the show takes on an episodic adventure-of-the-week format, where Twilight relays weekly reports to her mentor on how friendship helps her and her friends.

The first season was helmed by Lauren Faust, a highly accomplished, Emmy Award-nominated animator — for example, she was the writer and director of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Friendship is Magic is her attempt to rescue the genre of girls' cartoons by presenting a clever show with a strong and diverse cast of female characters who aren't preoccupied with fashion and boys. Her goal was to create an intelligent show for girls that boys and grown-ups could also watch without wanting to shoot themselves. As the substantial Periphery Demographic can attest, she seems to have succeeded. Following the end of the first season, Faust stepped down as the show's executive producer, but she continued to work with the show as a consulting producer through production of the second season.

Tie-in media includes a mobile game, a comic series, the spinoff My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) (set between seasons 7 and 8), and My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip.

General trope examples:

• Aesop
• Aesop Amnesia
• Artistic License Biology
• Break The Cutie
• Broken Aesop
• Dark Fic
• Deconstructed Character Archetype
• Deconstruction Fic
• Disproportionate Retribution
• Epic Fail
• Eye Scream
• Foil
• Freeze Frame Bonus
• Haiku
• Hidden Depths
• Hypocrite
• Image Links
• Insane Troll Logic
• Irony
• Jerkass
• Jerkass Ball
• Mythology Gag
• Near Villain Victory
• Nice Guy
• Oh Crap
• Parental Bonus
• Recursive Fanfiction
• Red Oni Blue Oni
• Role Association
• Ship Tease
• Shown Their Work
• Trademark Favorite Food
• Unexpectedly Dark Episode
• Warp That Aesop
• X Meets Y

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This series provides examples of these tropes (for more, please also visit the episode and character guides):

• Tropes A to B
• Tropes C to D
• Tropes E to K
• Tropes L to P
• Tropes Q to S
• Tropes T to Z

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Dear Princess Celestia: Today I learned that teamwork is one of the finest values of friendship, especially when it comes to gathering these tropes.

— Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle

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