My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: The first episode of the second season, The Return of Harmony: Part 1, ends with Discord breaking and brainwashing the most of the Mane (Except for Twilight) cast and winning his own maze game by having Rainbow Dash break the rules and fly away, causing the maze to sink. Discord then unleashes chaos on Equestria, resulting in possibly the biggest Downer Ending in the series.
At least until the season 2 finale, where Queen Chrysalis disguised as Princess Cadence uses evil magic to send Twilight through a flaming circle in the floor, looking for all the world like she's been banished to hell. Worse, this all happened after everyone- her friends, her brother, even Princess Celestia- turned their backs on Twilight.
Season 4 finale has Discord turned evil again, helping Tirek to steal magic, and the princesses believe that the only solution is to get rid of their magic completely.
Season 5 premiere has all of the Mane 6, Twilight included, losing their cutie marks to the villain, thus being stripped of their very identities. And as the next episode shows, they've been locked in a room and are being brainwashed. Oh, and even the second episode has the villain escaping, something that has never happened before.
Season 5 finale has Twilight trapped in a time loop and being threatened with destruction by alternate versions of her friends- including Fluttershy.
Many of these were removed from Downer Ending since they were Cliffhangers instead since it gets undone in what's effectively the second part of the episode. I question how long a villain needs to hold their win to quality as "won".
Cut the following:
- My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: The first episode of the second season, The Return of Harmony: Part 1, ends with Discord breaking and brainwashing the most of the Mane (Except for Twilight) cast and winning his own maze game by having Rainbow Dash break the rules and fly away, causing the maze to sink. Discord then unleashes chaos on Equestria, resulting in possibly the biggest Downer Ending in the series.
- At least until the season 2 finale, where Queen Chrysalis disguised as Princess Cadence uses evil magic to send Twilight through a flaming circle in the floor, looking for all the world like she's been banished to hell. Worse, this all happened after everyone- her friends, her brother, even Princess Celestia- turned their backs on Twilight.
- Season 4 finale has Discord turned evil again, helping Tirek to steal magic, and the princesses believe that the only solution is to get rid of their magic completely.
- Season 5 premiere has all of the Mane 6, Twilight included, losing their cutie marks to the villain, thus being stripped of their very identities. And as the next episode shows, they've been locked in a room and are being brainwashed. Oh, and even the second episode has the villain escaping, something that has never happened before.
- Season 5 finale has Twilight trapped in a time loop and being threatened with destruction by alternate versions of her friends- including Fluttershy.
Many of these were removed from Downer Ending since they were Cliffhangers instead since it gets undone in what's effectively the second part of the episode. I question how long a villain needs to hold their win to quality as "won".Feel free to contest.