Characters / Friendship is Betrayal

Twilight and her 'Friends'

Twilight Sparkle

Princess Celestia's faithful student, who is secretly plotting her downfall and is willing to go to any lengths necessary to ensure it. The tragic loss of her parents left her being stuck in her care, giving her considerable insight into their ruler's facade.

• Anti-Hero
• Broken Bird
• The Chosen One: Appears to fit a ancient prophecy about somepony destined to bring about harmony between day and night.
• Conspiracy Theorist
• Even Hyper-Paranoid Protagonists Have Standards: She's horrified that her choices in "The Mare in the Moon" resulted in Luna's gruesome execution, though she reassures herself that she did what had to be done.
• Hanlon's Razor: Relies heavily on this when trying to determine which of her friends might betray her, causing her to leap to conclusions quite often.
• I Did What I Had to Do
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: As she can't openly defy Celestia, she uses this when addressing her in her letters.
• Properly Paranoid
• Self-Made Orphan: Not intentionally, but reinforced by Celestia's gleeful refusal to restore her parents after their Forced Transformation into plants.
• Start of Darkness: Celestia took advantage of her accidentally turning her parents into plants to forcibly take Twilight on as her apprentice.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist

Spike

Twilight's personal servant, a baby dragon. Always tells Twilight to lighten up and stop seeing conspiracies in everything, with little success.

• Dogged Nice Guy
• Geas: Due to a magical enchantment, Spike cannot leave Twilight's service and must do as she commands.
• Hidden Depths: Is fully aware Rarity is taking advantage of his feelings, but goes along with it in hopes she'll eventually return them.
• Love at First Sight: Towards Rarity, who exploits this.
• Taking Advantage of Generosity: A victim of this, due to his crush.

Pinkie Pie

A perky, playful pink pony who finds joy in just about everything. Everything including carnage, death and destruction. Though her parents rejected her and her gifts, she's learned to always look on the bright side of life and your knife~!

• A Day in the Limelight: "Griffon the Brush-Off'".
• Abusive Parents: They called her love of laughter a sin against God and cast her out of their house, forcing her to work as a slave to survive.
• Ax-Crazy
• Breaking the Fourth Wall
• Dissonant Serenity: Usually smiling and incessantly cheerful.
• Gratuitous French: Calls Fluttershy 'mon petit fleur'.
• In Love with Your Carnage
• Made a Slave: By her own parents, no less.
• Painting the Medium: Her Thought Bubbles are bloody red and dripping, with white lettering. During her Flashback, they're the same colors, but shaped regularly until she has her knife party.
• Psycho Knife Nut: This version of Pinkie is an unhinged, incessantly cheerful murderer who uses knives.
• Self-Made Orphan
• Start of Darkness: The horrible treatment she received at the hooves of her parents nearly drove her to suicide; however, witnessing the Sonic Rainboom helped her see a bright side to everything... including murder.
• Used To Be A Sweet Filly
• Yandere

Rarity

An elegant seamstress who considers herself a truly rare jewel, and believes her dresses reflect that perfectly. Beautiful, manipulative and vain, she'll seize any opportunity to gain the respect, attention and love she knows she deserves!

• A Day in the Limelight: "A Dog and Pony Show".
• Bastard Understudy: Learned her charms from visions provided by Nightmare Moon, but leapt at the chance to backstab her.
• Black Magic: Started practicing this as a filly in order to make others desire her dresses. It's different enough from regular magic that Twilight is able to tell the difference.
• Charm Pony: How she primarily applies her knowledge of Black Magic. Victims of this develop Black Eyes of Crazy.
• The Chosen One: Princess Luna sensed she would become the Element of Generosity, and dragged her away from her home in order to appear before her and reveal this, converting the filly to her cause.
• Demonic Possession: A side-effect of Twilight casting the Metamophosis spell on her: she gets possessed by Nightmare Moon, with her own Black Eyes of Crazy.
• Fairest of Them All: Out of envy, she tried to enchant the costumes she created for the school play so that everyone would pay more attention to her hoofiwork than to the ponies wearing them.
• It's All About Me
• Painting the Medium: Her Thought Bubbles are purple with black text; in her Flashback, they're used to imply she's not recalling exactly what was said so much as what she wanted to hear.
• Narcissist
• Skewed Priorities: When her magic forcibly dragged her to her destiny, she was more concerned about how filthy her hooves were getting than things like starving or losing her way back.
• Small Name, Big Ego
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: How she sees herself.
• Start of Darkness: When she didn't get to perform in the school play, she decided to make the costumes so dazzling that they'd overshadow the foals wearing them. Discovering her destiny led to her learning black magic that she tested out by turning everyone who attended the play's premire into her fawning servants.
• Taking Advantage of Generosity: When Spike helps her collect jewels.
• Vain Sorceress: Very proud of her appearance, and uses magic to make herself even more desirable.

Fluttershy

A seemingly sweet Shrinking Violet easily dismissed as too timid to do much of anything on her own. Underneath that innocent exterior, however, lurks some very dark thoughts — thoughts which have been building under the pressure of years of unpopularity and isolation. Only her tight bonds with her animal friends have kept her sense of empathy strong — for them, anyway.

• All of the Other Reindeer: Was constantly teased and mistreated due to her being a weak flyer.
• The Beastmistress: Her unique talent lets her communicate with animals, giving her considerable empathy for them.

• Mule In Sheep's Clothing: While generally seen as sweet, shy and innocent, her thoughts are much darker than others realize.
• Cruel Mercy: How she deals with the dragon.

• Et Tu, Rainbow Dash?: Her reaction to Rainbow Dash knocking her out of Cloudsdale during her race.
• Pacifist: While she's fine with nature taking its course, she isn't comfortable with ending a life herself... which fuels the main conflict of "Dragonshy", as Twilight wants her to help kill a dragon to prove her loyalty.
• Pure Is Not Good: She loves her animal friends... but has no problems with them eating each other. It's all nature at work.
• Sadistic Choice: Break her moral code and help murder a dragon, or stick to her ways and be labeled a traitor for it?
• Shrinking Violet: Which made her unpopular at school, only feeding into her shyness.
• Start of Darkness: After being treated like crap because of her shyness and difficulty flying, she met Rainbow Dash, who defended her... only to knock her right out of the sky during the resulting race. Still, this led to her discovering her talent with animals... and meant she was outside Cloudsdale when it got destroyed by the Sonic Rainboom, making her one of the only survivors. She doesn't mourn the loss.

Rainbow Dash

A cocksure pegasus who commands attention, Dash is the only pony who's ever successfully pulled off a Sonic Rainboom, a feat that's left her with a swelled head and an ego to match.

• A Day in the Limelight: "Sonic Rainboom".
• The Atoner: Aims to redeem herself from destroying Cloudsdale by using the same Sonic Rainboom to kill Celestia and Fluttershy.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: She is fully aware, however, that this will lead to the deaths of everyone present.
• Broken Pedestal: To both Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The legendary Sonic Rainboom, "forbidden" because it destroyed her home.
• Demonic Possession: Nightmare Moon doesn't intend to let her back out of her plan.
• Don't Explain the Joke: Prone to this when nervous.
• My Greatest Failure: The destruction of Cloudsdale.
• Pride
• Small Name, Big Ego
• Where I Was Born and Razed: The destruction of Cloudsdale by a Sonic Rainboom. Her thoughts at the beginning of Sonic Rainboom imply that it wasn't on purpose, though.

Applejack

After losing her parents to a tragic accident, Applejack was left in charge of the family business. Hard work and huge sacrifices must be made to survive in that cutthroat world — she learned that much very quickly, and has dedicated herself to ensuring it prospers, no matter what.

• Brutal Honesty
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Her parents were lost five years ago to an exploding rainbow.
• Greed
• Mule In Sheep's Clothing: Due to being Out of Focus, she seems like one of the nicer ponies until her little heart-to-heart with Fluttershy in "Dragonshy".
• Only Sane Mare: Or perhaps more accurately "Least Insane Mare"; Word of God refers to her personality as "realistic".

Celestia and her Servants

Princess Celestia

The eternal ruler of Equestria, a beautiful alicorn loved and feared by all. Though hailed as a benevolent and wise ruler, she hides a sadistic side beneath her constant smile. Her sister Luna saw through this facade, leading to her failed rebellion. Now her faithful student is following the same path... but just how much does she know...?

• A God Am I: Best demonstrated toward the end of "A Dog and Pony Show".
  Celestia: (about Twilight) I am not afraid of you, your friends or anypony. You are still breathing because I allow you to. Everypony in all of Equestria is alive for that very same reason as well. Your entire life, I have guided you to the right path, my dear. Your destiny as the element of Magic has been known to me all along. You have what I want. Taking it from you however is quite a lovely challenge. You are mine, Twilight Sparkle. I made you. It's only natural for me to destroy you as well.
• Anti-Magic: A power she demonstrates when helping the Diamond Dogs kidnap Rarity.
• Big Bad
• Dissonant Serenity
• Evil Gloating
• Faux Affably Evil
• God Save Us from the Queen!
• Large Ham
• Manipulative Mule
• Smug Super
• Written by the Winners: Concealed the truth about her sister's motivation for turning on her, along with who knows what else she's covered up or altered over the years...

Gilda

A griffon who attended the same flightschool as Rainbow Dash. Serves as a member of Celestia's Royal Guard.

• Just Between You and Me: Tells Pinkie that "Dash has chosen her side! There's nothing you can do about it!" before trying to kill her.
• Kick the Dog: Even though she's supposed to be a protector, she treats those she's meant to safeguard like utter crap. This includes terrorizing Granny Smith simply to amuse herself.
• Killed Off for Real
• Smug Snake

Sapphire Shores

An envoy of Princess Celestia who was sent to check on Rarity's progress after the unicorn was charged with creating their ruler's dress for the Grand Galloping Gala.

• No Sympathy: Dismisses Rarity's work as 'mere glitter'; when Rarity reveals she used all her diamonds on that dress, smirks cruelly while commenting she'll have to find more.

Other Threats

Nightmare Moon

Formerly Celestia's little sister Princess Luna, she came to realize the depths of Celestia's depravity and tried in vain to warn everypony. For her troubles, she was painted as a jealous, powerhungry brat and was ignored and scorned. Desperate, she turned to the dark arts and became Nightmare Moon in order to overthrow her, only to get sealed away in the moon for a thousand years. This didn't quell her desire for revolution at all, and upon her return, she immediately tried again.

• Black Magic: When nopony was willing to support her, she turned to the dark arts to find the strength she needed to stand against her sister.
• Cassandra Truth: Everypony thought she was Driven by Envy rather than fear and insight into Celestia's true nature.
• Demonic Possession: In the "Sonic Rainboom" arc, she's able to hijack Rarity and Rainbow Dash's bodies.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: Intended to inflict this upon Celestia by recruiting all of the Element bearers and sealing her away. Instead, she was hit by this herself.
• Killed Off for Real: After the Elements stripped her of her powers, Celestia immediately executed her.
• Mind Rape: Inflicts this upon Twilight.
• Not Helping Your Case: Becoming Nightmare Moon only made it even easier for Celestia to paint her as a would-be conquerer and tyrant.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized
• Well-Intentioned Extremist

The Diamond Dogs

Canine creatures who ambush and kidnap Rarity when she goes out looking for gems.

• Enemy Mine: Start working with Celestia simply so they have a chance to make somepony suffer, even if it's one of the tyrant's foes.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: How Rarity dispatches two of them.
• Your Head Asplode: Their leader's fate when he manages to resist Rarity's charms.