Twilight Sparkle


Princess Twilight Sparkle is a fictional character who appears in the fourth incarnation of Hasbro's My Little Pony toyline and media franchise, beginning with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and later in the franchise's fifth incarnation as well. She is voiced by Tara Strong, and her singing voice is provided by Rebecca Shoichet.
Twilight Sparkle is depicted as an intelligent, studious, yet sometimes socially awkward bibliophilic anthropomorphic unicorn with exceptional magical abilities. In the first season of the show, her mentor and royal patron, Princess Celestia, guides her to learn about friendship in the town of Ponyville, where she and her dragon assistant Spike become close friends with five other ponies: Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie. The six friends collectively are referred to as the Mane Six. Twilight represents the Element of Magic in the Elements of Harmony.
Created by Lauren Faust, Twilight is based on the unicorn toy Twilight from the first incarnation of My Little Pony toyline. The creative team also incorporated Twilight's personality into her design, such as her purple color and cutie mark. Twilight garnered praise for her relatability and complexity.

Appearances

Fourth ''My Little Pony'' incarnation (2010–2021)

''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic''

At the start of the series, Twilight is a bookworm unicorn with a talent for magic and Princess Celestia's protégée. She travels to the town of Ponyville with her dragon assistant Spike due to Celestia's request for her to make friends. There, she becomes close friends with five other ponies: Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie. The six defeat a villain known as "Nightmare Moon", who is Celestia's sister Luna, and discover they represent artifacts known as the "Elements of Harmony", with Twilight representing the element of magic. Twilight decides to stay in Ponyville and sends letters to Celestia about the challenges she and her new friends overcome. In season two and three, she continues learning about friendship and travels to other parts of Equestria. Twilight also helps to defeat villains such as Discord—the spirit of chaos—Queen Chrysalis—the leader of the changelings—and King Sombra—a dark unicorn seeking to take over the Crystal Empire. In the episode "Magical Mystery Cure", she fixes a spell by famed wizard Star Swirl the Bearded, resulting in her becoming an alicorn and a princess, and graduating from her studies with Celestia. In the fourth season, she questions her role as a princess before becoming the "Princess of Friendship", with the responsibility to spread friendship across Equestria, in "Twilight's Kingdom". In the fifth season premiere, "The Cutie Map", Twilight stops Starlight Glimmer's cult, and convinces her to be friends in the season finale, becoming her teacher on friendship. Throughout the sixth season, Twilight teaches Starlight about friendship; Starlight later saves her from an attack by Chrysalis, resulting in her graduating from her studies on friendship. In the seventh season, Twilight releases Starswirl and other pony legends, referred to as "the Pillars of Old Equestria" from limbo, which accidentally releases an evil being known as "the Pony of Shadows". Together with her friends, Starlight and the Pillars, vanquishes the Pony of Shadows back to limbo.
After meeting new creatures beyond Equestria in the movie, Twilight and her friends open a private vocational school of friendship that accepts all creatures, including hippogriffs, changelings, griffins, yaks, and dragons. In the ninth season, Celestia and Luna decide to abdicate from the throne, letting Twilight take over leadership of Equestria. Though initially panicked, Twilight gains more confidence over the season, especially after defeating her past enemies. After her coronation, she starts the Council of Friendship, which consists of her and her friends, who meet once a moon.

''My Little Pony: The Movie''

While Twilight and her friends are preparing Equestria's first Friendship Festival in Canterlot, the city comes under attack by the army of an evil conqueror called the Storm King, led by his second-in-command, Tempest Shadow, a unicorn with a broken horn. Twilight and her friends journey beyond Equestria to defeat the Storm King and make new allies in the process. However, after a heated argument with her friends, Twilight is captured by Tempest and drained of her magic. Twilight's friends return to Equestria with the help of their new allies and they save her and Equestria with the help of Tempest.

''Equestria Girls''

Twilight appears as a main character in the first two My Little Pony: Equestria Girls films.
In the first film, Twilight travels through a magic mirror to the human world with Spike when Sunset Shimmer steals her crown containing the Element of Magic. There, she poses as a new student at Canterlot High School and befriends the human counterparts of her friends in Equestria. They help her win the election for Princess of the school's Fall Formal, and together they defeat and reform Sunset when she tries to use the crown to brainwash the students into becoming her personal army to invade Equestria.
In the second film, Twilight returns to the human world with Spike when Sunset uses her magic book to warn her of the emergence of the Dazzlings, creatures from Equestria who have the ability to use their singing voices to manipulate others. She is then recruited to join her Canterlot High School friends' band, the Rainbooms, as the temporary lead singer to compete in the school's Battle of the Bands. As they prepare for the contest, she works on a counter-spell to break the mind-control spell the Dazzlings placed on the students. With Sunset's help, the Rainbooms defeat the Dazzlings and leave them powerless. After she returns to Equestria with Spike, Sunset keeps in touch with her using her magic book.
In the pre-credits scene of the third film, Twilight returns to the human world after the events of "The Cutie Re-Mark" and meets her human counterpart.
Twilight occasionally makes appearances in subsequent Equestria Girls media, often for guidance on Equestrian magic.

''Best Gift Ever''

After Twilight stresses out about Hearth's Warming presents and Princess Cadance, Shining Armor, and Flurry Heart's visit, her friends decide to do a "Hearth's Warming Helper". As part of it, Twilight needs to get a gift for Pinkie Pie. Twilight finds a recipe for a legendary magic pudding that is dangerous if prepared incorrectly. She becomes stressed trying to both prepare it and entertain Shining Armor and Princess Cadence. Unbeknownst to them, Flurry Heart adds extra ingredients that cause the pudding to boil over. After the pudding floods Twilight's castle, Pinkie Pie uses her present to stabilize it.

''Rainbow Roadtrip''

Twilight and her friends travel to the town of Hope Hollow to attend their annual Rainbow Festival after Rainbow Dash had been invited as a guest of honor. When they arrive, they find that the town's color had faded away. Twilight and her friends start working to restore the town's color and bring the Rainbow Festival back.

''My Little Pony: Pony Life''

Twilight appears alongside the rest of the Mane Six in the series My Little Pony: Pony Life. The show features a different animation technique and focuses more on slice of life-style stories than Friendship Is Magic. In Pony Life, she appears as an alicorn from the beginning of the series, but is never referred to as a princess.

Fifth ''My Little Pony'' incarnation (2021–present)

''My Little Pony: A New Generation''

Twilight makes a cameo appearance at the start of the film, during an imaginary sequence depicting a playtime session between Sunny Starscout, Hitch Trailblazer, and Sprout Cloverleaf that goes awry when Sprout acts as if Rarity were an evil unicorn due to prejudices between the three pony races having resurfaced following Twilight's implied passing. Her cutie mark appears in the film as the symbol in both Sunny's diary and a window in an abandoned Zephyr Heights airport.

''My Little Pony: Make Your Mark''

Twilight makes a cameo appearance in "Growing Pains" where she appears to Sunny Starscout and her friends via a message through the Unity Crystals. She warns them about an "evil pony" that tried to steal all of Equestria's magic years ago.

''Friendship Is Magic'' comic series

The first My Little Pony IDW Comic, "The Return of Queen Chrysalis", was published in 2012, in which Twilight and her friends find the ponies in Ponyville replaced by undercover Changelings, similar to "A Canterlot Wedding". Twilight appears as a unicorn in the comics at first. She is seen as a winged unicorn from issue #13 onwards, published on November 20, 2013. The comics were set in the same world as the television show, but featured original stories about Twilight and her friends unrelated to it until issue #89, after which the TV show ended. From this issue onwards, the comics picked up where the show left off and were officially described as "Season 10". The comics ended after issue #102, published on October 13, 2021, where Twilight and her friends have to protect the Elements of Harmony from the attacks of the Knights of Harmony.
Following the end of "Season 10", a new five-issue miniseries called "My Little Pony: Generations" was announced, in which the Mane Six meet ponies from the first My Little Pony show. The first issue was published on October 20, 2021, the fifth and final issue is expected to be published in February 2022.
In the four-issue crossover comic between My Little Pony and Transformers called "My Little Pony/Transformers: Friendship in Disguise" published from July to November 2020, characters from the Transformers franchise team up with the Mane Six in Equestria to fight off villains from both franchises, who have also formed an alliance with each other. A sequel four-issue miniseries called "My Little Pony/Transformers: The Magic of Cybertron" with a similar plot was published from April to July 2021.